Had an unpleasant debate with my roommate RB today about Bush's decision to sell Taiwan weapon.
RB is an very interesting American and has been my landlord/roommate for three months. He has practiced many interesting jobs: flight trainer, gymnastic dancer, and now part-time Coastal Guard, part-time TaiChi teacher. He tried to live an interesting life, and never bother to work for any company/gov', and he also like to research/discuss many subjects, including art, politics (he talked to FBI and made them change the reason of death of junior Kennedy, son of JFK), science(like moon exploration, he spent tons of time studying the pictures of moon). The day I moved in, we agreed that we should both be open-minded in discussing issues. But soon I found it is difficult to have peaceful discussion on many issues. As much as we had 'brainwashed' (they call it) in China, he is also kind of brainwashed by the media/internet research he had access to. Once he is talking about GCD executed an 'infant-cide' in China in the late 50' (the three years right after Great Leap, in which 80 million people died) in order to keep population in control. I was speechless right after hearing these. Apparently, GCD has a monster kind of image in his mind, but such thing as massacre of thousands of baby purposely by a Chinese leading party is simply beyond imagination (we Chinese are kind people!) I had to tell him that though Mao did wrong/bad things, but it is out of his seeking of poetic/Utopian Communism ideology, and such big 'unnatural death toll', though is a tragedy, was not planned/conspired by anyone. I knew he is not convinced. Quite often debates are useless,since both parties have their deep-rooted ideas, that is why you should never marry a foreigner (don't look around, yes, I mean you). After that talk, I lost a lot of confidence about his lifetime research/experience on political subjects. (though I gained many interesting insights about things/life from him. Like never use Cell phone, Microwave, you are killing yourself without realizing it).
Apparently, RB can never concur that Tibet and Taiwan are part of China. "You invaded Tibet". I didn't try to convince him that Tibet is always part of China with no doubt, since that's difficult to prove, I just say it's to China's National Interest to take care of Tibet, and Tibetan people's life has greatly improved over the years under such 'control' (much better than the days when they are under DaLi ruling). Then he could not agree about such "National Interest" thing, then "unwillingly" I had to point out that out of exactly the such token, US took California from Mexico, isn't it also "invasion"? Then he quieted, haha.
Li Ao said "Taiwan is China's ball", whenever US want China to compromise on sth., he will do something about TW. I have longly forfeit discussing such issues from the viewpoint of "justice". As it is plainly clear, there is not much justice around the world throughout history. It is all about strength: Economics and Military. China is weak on both at the moment, so have to be manipulated by US. Deng cut PLA size by half in the 80s, and that is just a way of "Tao Guang Yang Hui": give up any kind of military competition first, instead try to grow economic strength as quickly as possible.
What I don't understand is that US apparently need China's help on the fire on his HOUSE right now. The congress barely passed the $700 bill to save the greedy bankers' ass, which split the country into two major camps. Apparently no one can agree that taxpayers should use their hard-earned money to pay the debt created by banker's gambling, but the country is hijacked by these bankers. (Though I cannot agree the extreme viewpoint in "Currency War", but it has some very good points.) If US don't save these banks, she will sink together with the boat.
But is this really US tax-payer's money? Together passed with the bailout bill is the tax-cutting bill (the sweetener so it will not fail in congress again), so it's unlikely the gov' is gonna finance a major part of budget of this bailout with any increased tax. So don't worry, American tax-payers, you should be fine, your gov' is gonna find some "less sophisticated investors" to pay for it. And apparently China is such a target. If you watch CNN"s interview with Chinese Premier Wen, you will know that China will NOT let the BIG BOAT sink and will be a big buyer of new-issued US debt, no matter she like it or not. The banks not only hijack the US people, but also the whole world, including the hardworking Chinese.
You see, that's how nice the control of the economics/financial system can be. You can arrange things in an unreasonable way. China is basically sending billions of cheap merchants, produced by many over-worked cheap labor and at the cost of environment in a reckless way, to US in exchange for the green-bills, whose value is not supported by Gold since 1971 and questionable in the future. By investing them in US Treasury debt, China is hoping to get the little 5 percent interest. But smart people should know that the principal of such debt may never be paid back, when the debt becomes too huge. US gov's is jsut rolling over the interest payment, use new-financed debt to pay old interest. After this big bailout bill passed, the gov' debt probably will soar to 70 percent of its GDP. Now China is 'forced' to buy more such debt, with the expectation(well, she has been reminded) that such debt may not be repaid, simply because she worry that US will collapse, thus cannot sustain its luxurious living style and no longer be able to buy the cheap merchants from her. Control of Economics/Finance is beautiful and powerful, isn't it? I wish I can understand it better.
Now to add the insults, US is trying to make more money from Taiwan(though tiny compared to its bailout budget) and wish China will take it easily. How (999 sanction words skipped) it is! Will China take it as calmly as US wanted? We will see.
The day US default on its debt (when its debt grows so huge and cannot pay just the interest), is the day US gov' lost its credit and its 'Big Brother' status in international community. Will that day come soon? With US's shaky situation and no indication of change(Obama has what kind of 'the change we need'?), probably I can see it in my lifetime.
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