People's Liberation Army Major General Zhu Chenghu's (
It is a standard tactic in both China and Taiwan to have someone make a statement about some controversial policy in a way that it remains plausibly deniable for the government yet gets the information into the public domain.
Yet it is difficult to imagine exactly why the Chinese government might want to confront the US in such a way at this moment. The "Anti-Secession" Law, with its explicit threat against an independent Taiwan, has already given impetus to a rethink of US defense policy regarding China, and has done much to resolve the murky ambiguity surrounding US reaction to China's military buildup toward strategic clarity. When US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asks just why and for what purpose China is beefing up its armed forces when it faces no external threat, we can see that the days when China was viewed through Clintonian rose-colored spectacles have clearly passed.
Taiwan apart, one of the main causes of tension between the US and China is the question of energy security. US hopes of keeping oil plentiful and cheap have not only been frustrated by the Iraq debacle but also by the soaring demand for oil in China's economy. This is why the bid for US-owned Unocal by China's CNOOC is so controversial. After Zhu's remarks, it's hard to see the US being relaxed enough to let the takeover go ahead. Add to that the fact that a major US defense review is being conducted in which China is likely to figure large, and now even larger, and there are a number or reasons why Beijing might have preferred that Zhu kept his mouth shut.
And yet whatever denials Beijing utters should be taken with a grain of salt. It is important to remember that Zhu is the dean of China's National Defense University. Beijing might say that his remarks do not represent official policy, but they certainly represent thinking at the highest levels of the People's Liberation Army. This is very worrying, because it backs up what other sources have been saying for a while about the PLA: That it is the preserve of gung-ho fantasists who think they can take on the US and win.
Readers might look askance at Zhu's remarks about "losing all cities east of Xian," which sounds more like Doctor Strangelove's General Ripper than sober strategic analysis. Let us not even speculate how people in those cities might feel about being expendable, since the views of the Chinese people are unimportant in Beijing's calculations. Let us just note that this kind of irresponsibility at this level is exactly the attitude that will lead to war. It is simply another part of the primitive psychopathology of the Chinese; they have yet to enter the modern world. Like medieval princelings, they think war is glorious, and to hell with the consequences for ordinary people.
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