Paging Thomas Barnett

I’ve never been less persuaded that “connectivity” has defanged China, particularly given a Chinese general’s crude nuclear threat against the United States yesterday. Make no mistake: the statement was no gaffe. It represents the opinion of at least a substantial sector of China’s military. And they are watching how we respond.

China has reinvented itself as a nationalist empire with socialist vestiges (credit me for not saying “national socialist empire”). They see us as an enemy. We are in an ideological war with them, but we are far too distracted by our profit motives to respond; hence, we are losing battles that we should be winning.

If so, why not bring the battle of ideas directly to the minds of the Chinese people, too? Why not redouble our efforts to talk directly to the farmers whose land has been confiscated by corrupt authorities, or those who’ve lost their savings and pensions in corrupt state-owned enterprises, the families who can’t mourn their children who were imprisoned or killed for dissenting, or the students who wonder what forbidden truths are hiding behind the Internet firewalls? If we reach directly out to the Chinese people and engage them in discussions about democracy and prosperity–and their relationship to one another–then we will know whether the Chinese government is serious about reform, or whether we are really just abetting their Bismarckian buildup for a new war over the Pacific.

Another discussion we need to have is about our relationship with Taiwan. If we’re not prepared to defend Taiwan ourselves–and the cost continues to grow as China rearms itself with money from American consumers–why not simply arm Taiwan with a highly advanced submarine fleet, swarms of cruise missiles, a first-rate missile defense system, and nuclear weapons? In other words, instead of putting Taiwan’s defense at the mercy of American domestic politics, why not make Taiwan an Asian Israel instead? There are numerous careful arrangements about arming Taiwan. These are based on the presumption that there should be some sort of military parity that creates a balance of power on either side of the Taiwan Strait. China’s own military buildup has destroyed that parity and freed us of our own obligations to limit our own supplies of weapons to China.

Letting Taiwan into the nuclear club may now be the best way to avoid a fratricidal war over Taiwan.