China has taken notice it would seem
T3
as well as surveillance and targeting not to mention what else we are not
aware of (black ops), it would seem that the Chinese have robust projects to
deny the USA space at a time of its choosing. Recent reports indicate they
(Chicoms) are hiding a major part their defense spending, it would appear
they have plan. Is it Taiwan or maybe "something" larger?
T3
http://www.space.com/news/china_dod_030801.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/chinadefense000306.html
Mike Keown
"T3" <T...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:2rCYa.20277$K4.11...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
> Given the USA's dependence on space based assets for communication,
control
> as well as surveillance and targeting not to mention what else we are not
> aware of (black ops), it would seem that the Chinese have robust projects
to
> deny the USA space at a time of its choosing. Recent reports indicate they
> (Chicoms) are hiding a major part their defense spending, it would appear
> they have plan. Is it Taiwan or maybe "something" larger?
>
>
> T3
China needs us and we need China. Neither can afford
a stand off at this time, but yet the game must go on.
Mike
>
> http://www.space.com/news/china_dod_030801.html
> http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/chinadefense000306.html
>
>
>
The Enlightenment
> "T3" <T...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:2rCYa.20277$K4.11...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
> > Given the USA's dependence on space based assets for communication,
> control
> > as well as surveillance and targeting not to mention what else we are not
> > aware of (black ops), it would seem that the Chinese have robust projects
> to
> > deny the USA space at a time of its choosing. Recent reports indicate they
> > (Chicoms) are hiding a major part their defense spending, it would appear
> > they have plan. Is it Taiwan or maybe "something" larger?
> >
> >
> > T3
> > Its paranoia, on both sides, nothing more-nothing less.
> China needs us and we need China. Neither can afford
> a stand off at this time, but yet the game must go on.
> Mike
Demographic 'changes' in the US will eventually lead to the ascendence
of Chinese supremacy. They have the patience to wait while their
technological and manufacturing prowess perfects itself and watch
while the US implodes in problems of its own making Ala California.
Yep, China needs the US... for now.
Chris Mark
>Demographic 'changes' in the US will eventually lead to the ascendence
>of Chinese supremacy.
China faces a demographic bottleneck because of its one child policy, not the
US. If you mean to say ethnic or racial changes in US population, that has
been going on since before the Revolution and the society has long had
effective mechanisms in place to integrate newcomers.
As far as air power goes, China has a very weak manned air power system,
relying on missles to a curiously large extent and neglecting bombers. Pilots
average only 80 to 90 hours yearly, less than a third of what US pilots
average.
One reason for keeping its manned air force weak is fear by Chinese leadership
of a military coup. The PLAAF is considered particularly untrustworthy.
The Falun Gong religious sect, identified by China’s leaders as a threat to
be eliminated, has won a significant air force following. In 2000, Yu Changxin,
a retired PLAAF general, was arrested and sentenced to 17 years in prison after
being accused of masterminding a Falun Gong demonstration in Beijing. Yu’s
incarceration, which made him the highest ranking official yet to be punished
for affiliation with Falun Gong, provoked an outcry from his former colleagues.
They were further aggrieved by the death in captivity of Wang Yu, a 49-year air
force officer and Falun Gong adherent suspected of disloyalty to the regime.
The US policy towards China is very much like that toward the fSU--hold 'em off
and wait--with the addition of the ability to tie Chinese prosperity to trade
with the US, all the while the insidious and highly effective virus of US
culture infects China. As one USIA officer remarked at a luncheon recently,
"American culture is the new opium of the people. That's why ruling elites the
world over hate and fear America; it's revolutionizing their societies in ways
that are totally out of their control. That's also why they vehemently deny
that is happening. But we know, and we work with it every day."
Although it's beginning to be a bit dated, Zheng Shenxia and Zhang Changzhi's,
“The Military Revolution and Air Power,” in Michael Pillsbury, ed., Chinese
Views of Future Warfare (National Defense University Press, 1998) remains
informative on the subject of Chinese air power.
Chris Mark
Cub Driver
> If you mean to say ethnic or racial changes in US population, that has
>been going on since before the Revolution and the society has long had
>effective mechanisms in place to integrate newcomers.
True, but we seem to be taking the stance now that we *don't*
integrate newcomers, but instead do our best to elevate them (if
that's the right verb) to the status of a specially-aggrieved
minority. This is a huge change over my childhood, when the teacher
made fun of me in class because I pronounced "pen" as if it were
spelled "pin". "You sound like you just came over from the Old Sod."
(That's Ireland, in case your knowledge of ethnic jibes has been
weakened in the current wash of racial gentility.) I became a Yankee
as fast as I could, which was pretty fast.
Being an American is like riding a unicycle. You are always on the
cusp of a remarkable journey, the outcome of which you can't possibly
know. Just because you haven't fallen off yet doesn't mean that it
can't happen. But if you get off the unicycle you stop being an
American.
all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9
see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com
Vaughn
"The Enlightenment" <bern...@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:39556695.03081...@posting.google.com...
> while the US implodes in problems of its own making Ala California.
China has no problems?
> Yep, China needs the US... for now.
Just as we need China...for now.
Vaughn
Chris Mark
>we seem to be taking the stance now that we *don't*
>integrate newcomers, but instead do our best to elevate them (if
>that's the right verb) to the status of a specially-aggrieved
>minority.
True, if you define "we" as certain segments of the educational/political
class. But in the great teeming mass of the population, it doesn't seem to
have much significant effect, "significant effect" being defined as, among
other things, exogamy rates (marrying outside your ethnic group) which have
continuously been on the rise through the century. What is particularly
interesting is how smoothly--and frequently-- "Hispanic" immigrants' children
engage in exogamy. There is no evidence of permanent ethnic blocs forming,
other than the standard types we have had all along. The big exception is
blacks, which still have low (but increasing) exogamy rates an order of
magnitude below other ethnic group exogamy rates.
What's interesting in this is that it points to how little influence official
policies have on the evolution of the "real" American civilization erupting ad
hoc from the population.
> This is a huge change over my childhood, when the teacher
>made fun of me in class because I pronounced "pen" as if it were
>spelled "pin". "You sound like you just came over from the Old Sod."
I really don't see it as a negative if today's teachers don't ridicule their
students for their ethnicity.
>(That's Ireland, in case your knowledge of ethnic jibes has been
>weakened in the current wash of racial gentility.)
Well, I grew up in Montana, where the only "ethnics" I was aware of were
Indians and Mormons. We got along, although our grandparents had killed each
other with skill and enthusiasm.
> I became a Yankee
>as fast as I could, which was pretty fast.
Did you become a yankee because you were ridiculed by your teacher or because
the greater society opened up to you? No matter how much your teacher
ridiculed you, had society closed its doors to you, with "No Irish Need Apply"
codified into law, might you not have retreated into your ethnic identity and
made no effort to assimilate?
>Being an American is like riding a unicycle.
So you are saying Americans are circus clowns? :) (couldn't resist)
>You are always on the
>cusp of a remarkable journey, the outcome of which you can't possibly
>know. Just because you haven't fallen off yet doesn't mean that it
>can't happen. But if you get off the unicycle you stop being an
>American.
I just don't see American identity as being that fragile. It appears to me to
be enormously powerful and attractive. Ben Wattenberg, examining statistical
population data from the century has remarked that the clearest fact these data
make clear is the "de-otherization" of America. Wattenberg is, of course, a
real Democrat from the days when Democrats were optimistic progressives rather
than today's anxiety ridden Luddites. See such works of his as "The Good News
is the Bad News is Wrong," "The First Universal Nation," and "The Real
Majority" among others.
Chris Mark
Chris Mark
writing in spring, 2002:
"Many leading thinkers tell us we are now in a culture clash that will
determine the course of history, that today’s war is for Western civilization
itself. There is a demographic dimension to this “clash of civilizations.”
While certain of today’s demographic signals bode well for America, some look
very bad. If we are to assess America’s future prospects, we must start by
asking, “Who are we?” “Who will we be?” and “How will we relate to
the rest of the world?” The answers all involve immigration.
As data from the 2000 census trickled out, one item hit the headline jackpot.
By the year 2050, we were told, America would be “majority non-white.” The
census count showed more Hispanics in America than had been expected, making
them “America’s largest minority.” When blacks, Asians, and Native
Americans are added to the Hispanic total, the “non-white” population
emerges as a large minority, on the way to becoming a small majority around the
middle of this century.
The first thing worth noting is that these rigid racial definitions are absurd.
The whole concept of race as a biological category is becoming ever-more
dubious in America. Consider:
Under the Clinton administration’s census rules, any American who checks both
the black and white boxes on the form inquiring about “race” is counted as
black, even if his heritage is, say, one eighth black and seven eighths white.
In effect, this enshrines the infamous segregationist view that one drop of
black blood makes a person black.
Although most Americans of Hispanic heritage declare themselves “white,”
they are often inferentially counted as non-white, as in the erroneous New York
Times headline which recently declared: “Census Confirms Whites Now a
Minority” in California.
If those of Hispanic descent, hailing originally from about 40 nations, are
counted as a minority, why aren’t those of Eastern European descent, coming
from about 10 nations, also counted as a minority? (In which case the Eastern
European “minority” would be larger than the Hispanic minority.)
But within this jumble of numbers there lies a central truth: America is
becoming a universal nation, with significant representation of nearly all
human hues, creeds, ethnicities, and national ancestries. Continued moderate
immigration will make us an even more universal nation as time goes on. And
this process may well play a serious role in determining the outcome of the
contest of civilizations taking place across the globe.
And current immigration rates are moderate, even though America admitted more
legal immigrants from 1991 to 2000 than in any previous decade—between 10 and
11 million. The highest previous decade was 1901-1910, when 8.8 million people
arrived. In addition, each decade now, several million illegal immigrants enter
the U.S., thanks partly to ease of transportation.
Critics like Pat Buchanan say that absorbing all those immigrants will
“swamp” the American culture and bring Third World chaos inside our
borders. I disagree. Keep in mind: Those 8.8 million immigrants who arrived in
the U.S. between 1901 and 1910 increased the total American population by 1
percent per year. (Our numbers grew from 76 million to 92 million during that
decade.) In our most recent decade, on the other hand, the 10 million legal
immigrants represented annual growth of only 0.36 percent (as the U.S. went
from 249 million to 281 million).
Overall, nearly 15 percent of Americans were foreign-born in 1910. In 1999, our
foreign-born were about 10 percent of our total. (In 1970, the foreign-born
portion of our population was down to about 5 percent. Most of the rebound
resulted from a more liberal immigration law enacted in 1965.) Or look at the
“foreign stock” data. These figures combine Americans born in foreign lands
and their offspring, even if those children have only one foreign-born parent.
Today, America’s “foreign stock” amounts to 21 percent of the population
and heading up. But in 1910, the comparable figure was 34 percent—one third
of the entire country—and the heavens did not collapse.
We can take in more immigrants, if we want to. Should we?
Return to the idea that immigrants could swamp American culture. If that is
true, we clearly should not increase our intake. But what if, instead of
swamping us, immigration helps us become a stronger nation and a swamper of
others in the global competition of civilizations?
Immigration is now what keeps America growing. According to the U.N., the
typical American woman today bears an average of 1.93 children over the course
of her childbearing years. That is mildly below the 2.1 “replacement” rate
required to keep a population stable over time, absent immigration. The
“medium variant” of the most recent Census Bureau projections posits that
the U.S. population will grow from 281 million in 2000 to 397 million in 2050
with expected immigration, but only to 328 million should we choose a path of
zero immigration. That is a difference of a population growth of 47 million
versus 116 million. (The 47 million rise is due mostly to demographic momentum
from previous higher birthrates.) If we have zero immigration with today’s
low birthrates indefinitely, the American population would eventually begin to
shrink, albeit slowly.
Is more population good for America? When it comes to potential global power
and influence, numbers can matter a great deal. Taxpayers, many of them, pay
for a fleet of aircraft carriers. And on the economic side it is better to have
a customer boom than a customer bust. (It may well be that Japan’s stagnant
demography is one cause of its decade-long slump.) The environmental case could
be debated all day long, but remember that an immigrant does not add to the
global population—he merely moves from one spot on the planet to another.
But will the current crop of immigrants acculturate? Immigrants to America
always have. Some critics, like Mr. Buchanan, claim that this time, it’s
different. Mexicans seem to draw his particular ire, probably because they are
currently our largest single source of immigration.
Yet only about a fifth (22 percent) of legal immigrants to America currently
come from Mexico. Adding illegal immigrants might boost the figure to 30
percent, but the proportion of Mexican immigrants will almost surely shrink
over time. Mexican fertility has diminished from 6.5 children per woman 30
years ago to 2.5 children now, and continues to fall. If high immigration
continues under such circumstances, Mexico will run out of Mexicans.
California hosts a wide variety of immigrant groups in addition to Mexicans.
And the children and grandchildren of Koreans, Chinese, Khmer, Russian Jews,
Iranians, and Thai (to name a few) will speak English, not Spanish. Even among
Mexican-Americans, many second- and third-generation offspring speak no Spanish
at all, often to the dismay of their elders (a familiar American story).
Michael Barone’s book The New Americans theorizes that Mexican immigrants are
following roughly the same course of earlier Italian and Irish immigrants. Noel
Ignatiev’s book How the Irish Became White notes that it took a hundred years
until Irish-Americans (who were routinely characterized as drunken
“gorillas”) reached full income parity with the rest of America.
California recently repealed its bilingual education programs. Nearly half of
Latino voters supported the proposition, even though it was demonized by
opponents as being anti-Hispanic. Latina mothers reportedly tell their
children, with no intent to disparage the Spanish language, that “Spanish is
the language of busboys”—stressing that in America you have to speak
English to get ahead.
The huge immigration wave at the dawn of the twentieth century undeniably
brought tumult to America. Many early social scientists promoted theories of
what is now called “scientific racism,” which “proved” that persons
from Northwest Europe were biologically superior. The new immigrants—Jews,
Poles, and Italians—were considered racially apart and far down the totem
pole of human character and intelligence. Blacks and Asians were hardly worth
measuring. The immigration wave sparked a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan,
peaking in the early 1920s. At that time, the biggest KKK state was not in the
South; it was Indiana, where Catholics, Jews, and immigrants, as well as
blacks, were targets.
Francis Walker, superintendent of the U.S. Bureau of the Census in the late
1890s, and later president of MIT, wrote in 1896 that “The entrance of such
vast masses of peasantry degraded below our utmost conceptions is a matter
which no intelligent patriot can look upon without the gravest apprehension and
alarm. They are beaten men from beaten races. They have none of the ideas and
aptitudes such as belong to those who were descended from the tribes that met
under the oak trees of old Germany to make laws and choose chiefs.” (Sorry,
Francis, but Germany did not have a good twentieth century.)
Fast-forward to the present. By high margins, Americans now tell pollsters it
was a very good thing that Poles, Italians, and Jews emigrated to America. Once
again, it’s the newcomers who are viewed with suspicion. This time, it’s
the Mexicans, Filipinos, and people from the Caribbean who make Americans
nervous. But such views change over time. The newer immigrant groups are
typically more popular now than they were even a decade ago.
Look at the high rates of intermarriage. Most Americans have long since lost
their qualms about marriage between people of different European ethnicities.
That is spreading across new boundaries. In 1990, 64 percent of Asian Americans
married outside their heritage, as did 37 percent of Hispanics. Black-white
intermarriage is much lower, but it climbed from 3 percent in 1980 to 9 percent
in 1998. (One reason to do away with the race question on the census is that
within a few decades we won’t be able to know who’s what.)
Can the West, led by America, prevail in a world full of sometimes unfriendly
neighbors? Substantial numbers of people are necessary (though not sufficient)
for a country, or a civilization, to be globally influential. Will America and
its Western allies have enough people to keep their ideas and principles alive?
On the surface, it doesn’t look good. In 1986, I wrote a book called The
Birth Dearth. My thesis was that birth rates in developed parts of the
world—Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan, nations where liberal
Western values are rooted—had sunk so low that there was danger ahead. At
that time, women in those modern countries were bearing a lifetime average of
1.83 children, the lowest rate ever absent war, famine, economic depression, or
epidemic illness. It was, in fact, 15 percent below the long-term population
replacement level.
Those trendlines have now plummeted even further. Today, the fertility rate in
the modern countries averages 1.5 children per woman, 28 percent below the
replacement level. The European rate, astonishingly, is 1.34 children per
woman—radically below replacement level. The Japanese rate is similar. The
United States is the exceptional country in the current demographic scene.
As a whole, the nations of the Western world will soon be less populous, and a
substantially smaller fraction of the world population. Demographer Samuel
Preston estimates that even if European fertility rates jump back to
replacement level immediately (which won’t happen) the continent would still
lose 100 million people by 2060. Should the rate not level off fairly soon, the
ramifications are incalculable, or, as the Italian demographer Antonio Golini
likes to mutter at demograph-ic meetings, “unsustainable…unsustainable.”
(Shockingly, the current Italian fertility rate is 1.2 children per woman, and
it has been at or below 1.5 for 20 years—a full generation.)
The modern countries of the world, the bearers of Western civilization, made up
one third of the global population in 1950, and one fifth in 2000, and are
projected to represent one eighth by 2050. If we end up in a world with nine
competing civilizations, as
Samuel Huntington maintains, this will make it that much harder for Western
values to prevail in the cultural and political arenas.
The good news is that fertility rates have also plunged in the less developed
countries—from 6 children in 1970 to 2.9 today. By the middle to end of this
century, there should be a rough global convergence of fertility rates and
population growth.
Since September 11, immigration has gotten bad press in America. The terrorist
villains, indeed, were foreigners. Not only in the U.S. but in many other
nations as well, governments are suddenly cracking down on illegal entry. This
is understandable for the moment. But an enduring turn away from legal
immigration would be foolhardy for America and its allies.
If America doesn’t continue to take in immigrants, it won’t continue to
grow in the long run. If the Europeans and Japanese don’t start to accept
more immigrants they will evaporate. Who will empty the bedpans in Italy’s
retirement homes? The only major pool of immigrants available to Western
countries hails from the less developed world, i.e. non-white, and non-Western
countries.
The West as a whole is in a deep demographic ditch. Accordingly, Western
countries should try to make it easier for couples who want to have children.
In America, the advent of tax credits for children (which went from zero to
$1,000 per child per year over the last decade) is a small step in the
direction of fertility reflation. Some European nations are enacting similar
pro-natal policies. Bur their fertility rates are so low, and their economies
so constrained, that any such actions can only be of limited help.
That leaves immigration. I suggest America should make immigration safer (by
more carefully investigating new entrants), but not cut it back. It may even be
wise to make a small increase in our current immigration rate. America needs to
keep growing, and we can fruitfully use both high- and low-skill immigrants.
Pluralism works here, as it does in Canada and Australia.
Can pluralism work in Europe? I don’t know, and neither do the Europeans.
They hate the idea, but they will depopulate if they don’t embrace pluralism,
via immigration. Perhaps our example can help Europeans see that pluralism
might work in the admittedly more complex European context. Japan is probably a
hopeless case; perhaps the Japanese should just change the name of their
country to Dwindle.
Our non-pluralist Western allies will likely diminish in population, relative
power, and influence during this century. They will become much grayer.
Nevertheless, by 2050 there will still be 750 million of them left, so the U.S.
needs to keep the Western alliance strong. For all our bickering, let us not
forget that the European story in the second half of the twentieth century was
a wonderful one; Western Europeans stopped killing each other. Now they are
joining hands politically. The next big prize may be Russia. If the Russians
choose our path, we will see what Tocqueville saw: that America and Russia are
natural allies.
We must enlist other allies as well. America and India, for instance, are
logical partners—pluralist, large, English-speaking, and democratic. We must
tell our story. And our immigrants, who come to our land by choice, are our
best salesmen. We should extend our radio services to the Islamic world, as we
have to the unliberated nations of Asia through Radio Free Asia. The people at
the microphones will be U.S. immigrants.
We can lose the contest of civilizations if the developing countries don’t
evolve toward Western values. One of the best forms of “public diplomacy”
is immigration. New immigrants send money home, bypassing corrupt
governments—the best kind of foreign aid there is. They go back home to visit
and tell their families and friends in the motherland that American modernism,
while not perfect, ain’t half-bad. Some return home permanently, but they
bring with them Western expectations of open government, economic efficiency,
and personal liberty. They know that Westernism need not be restricted to the
West, and they often have an influence on local politics when they return to
their home countries.
Still, because of Europe and Japan, the demographic slide of Western
civilization will continue. And so, America must be prepared to go it alone. If
we keep admitting immigrants at our current levels there will be almost 400
million Americans by 2050. That can keep us strong enough to defend and perhaps
extend our views and values. And the civilization we will be advancing may not
just be Western, but even more universal: American."
Chris Mark
Jim Dauven
apart in China.
If anyone really looked, China has a greater poverty problem than
they did when Mao took over. There are something like 250 million
illegal migrant workers wandering around China working day labor jobs.
They are illegal because in China you cannot leave your village with out
government permission. In the really rural areas the only people who can
leave are volunteers for the Army ( Which is cutting its manpower, because
even China realizes that technology as made quality more important
than quanity). The illegal day laborers who just walk away from the rural
villages can get neither schooling for their children, hospitals for the sick
and injured or housing. It is not uncommon for the day laborers on
construction to live in the very buildings they are constructing.
This year, 66-75% of the recent college graduates can't find jobs, Labor
Strikes, (Yes I said strikes) have severely impacted their oil. gas and coal
industries in the delivering of energy.
Farmers in the villages are living on the edge of starvation because
China (as Part of WTO ) can buy rice cheaper from the Mississippi
Delta and California than they can raise it themselves. Remember SARS??
This was caused by the small farmers trying to maximize their income
by raising chickens, ducks and pigs on to small of plots where diseases
can be passed from birds to pigs and then on to humans. ( How do you
explain all the various flu strains (which are basically avian diseases) come
from china.
There is a lot of pressure for the development of a multi party government
as a lot of people in the rural areas the more economic developed south
are finding that the communist party does not represent their interests any
more.
The communist party is holding on to power by a thread, ( A heavily armed
thread but a thread just the same) The only organization the communists
can rely on is the army. They have lost control of the banking and the labor
markets. With the integration of their banking system with the world financial
systems It is doubtful that they could even seize the banks any more. Right
now some of the provincial governors are telling the big bosses in Beijing to
pound sand and are getting away with it.
Some knowledgeable people are saying China will probably implode in the
next 20 years.
J.D.
patrick mitchel
Jim Dauven <jam...@web-ster.com> wrote in message
news:3F4EAA39...@web-ster.com...
Furthwer, didn't they have to put down a riot or 2 in the predominately
muslim regions? Pat
PirateJohn
>China (as Part of WTO ) can buy rice cheaper from the Mississippi
>Delta and California than they can raise it themselves.
'splain this one to me. How can a farmer farming rice starve?
And, honestly ... I guess it's not impossible, but with shipping costs and all
I find it hard to believe that US rice is cheaper than locally produced rice.
It's possible, but ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pirat...@aol.com
Keeper of the Humour List at http://members.aol.com/PirateJohn/pirate1.html
"Mother, mother ocean... I have heard your call" - Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate
Looks At Forty.
Tarver Engineering
"PirateJohn" <pirat...@aol.comNOSPAM> wrote in message
news:20030829124716...@mb-m14.aol.com...
> >Farmers in the villages are living on the edge of starvation because
> >China (as Part of WTO ) can buy rice cheaper from the Mississippi
> >Delta and California than they can raise it themselves.
>
>
> 'splain this one to me. How can a farmer farming rice starve?
>
> And, honestly ... I guess it's not impossible, but with shipping costs and
all
> I find it hard to believe that US rice is cheaper than locally produced
rice.
> It's possible, but ...
It is a quality issue.