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CHINA HAS THE BOMB

by Dr. David B. Axelrod 

            Well, obviously, you say. They have had it effectively since their first test, 16 October, 1964 .  Their last atmospheric test, also on 16 October in 1980, sent a radioactive cloud  drifting across the United States so potent parents were told not to let their children drink fresh milk for fear of the strontium 90 the cows absorbed eating grass after the cloud drifted by. But it isn’t China ’s nuclear bombs that now endanger the world and it won’t help to build a shelter under the back yard and hide there. China is waging capitalism like nuclear war and they are going to win.

            There is absolutely no question that China has discovered and already deployed a new and powerful “secret” weapon. They have taken over the world economy with the most aggressive and headless proliferation of products that the world has ever seen. The goods that altered the Western world flowing over the Silk Road were a mere trickle. The ports of call opened through British, Portuguese, American aggression—humorous adventures. China is now a master of  capitalism. They have gone beyond sheer imitation of those who “trained” them. Truly they are waging capitalism as a war.

            It was duly ironic when President Richard Nixon, on an errand for his boss David Rockefeller, went to China and in February of 1972, shook hands with Mao Tsetung. This was particularly strange given Nixon’s own rise to power destroying people accused of being Communists. It is also increasingly suspect since the founding of the Trilateral Commission in 1973, soon after Nixon’s trip, essentially sought to crown the dollar emperor above all else. Now, China has muscled its way to the top—by chance or by choice?

            When Deng Xiaoping declared it glorious grow rich, he demonstrated a flash of genius which his successors seized and magnified. Consider that China is, to begin with, the world’s most populous country with 1,299 billion out-sizing India in 2004 by nearly 230 million people. China has nearly five times more people than the United States which has a mere 293 million. None of this is news to any observant world citizen.

            Clearly China is now the largest and fastest growing economy in the world. The major media present it as a great boon to America as China ’s population seeks out our goods and services, American companies are rushing there. The U.S. may still be, by far, the richest economy but China has leverage we dare not talk about. What seems to escape notice is that China , through its ruthless pursuit of profits, is about to win a world war.

            The proof is in at least two significant indicators. First, the rumblings surrounding the imminent revaluation of China ’s currency ignore the fact that the Bank of China has amassed such a reserve or wealth, held in so many currencies, that should it chose to stop supporting the U.S. dollar, America ’s currency would simply collapse.

Imagine a scenario in which the yuan (renminbi), China ’s currency, was not simply allowed to float and find a level against the dollar, but that China ’s banks began to sell dollars. The flood of un-supported dollars into the currency markets would cause a total collapse of  the world’s banks and financial markets. So great is China ’s cash reserves that it now has a threat far more powerful than nuclear weapons which it could unleash at any moment. The “fallout” would be catastrophic but the winner in such a war would be China which is far more prepared to tolerate the consequences of such a war than the U.S. .

But not only is the United States no longer in charge of its own fate because of China ’s potential to bring down the dollar. In a famous election slogan coined during the U.S. presidential race, it was pointed out that “it’s the economy, stupid.” Here “it’s the balance of payments deficit, stupid.” According to the New York Times, “last year, the Chinese government bought more than $200 billion dollars in Treasury notes and its total foreign reserves ballooned to $650 billion.” Imagine if they chose not to make such a reciprocal investment.          The second major indicator that China is about to win a world war is in the balance of payment deficits between China and America . In any given month now, China drains $13 billion of wealth from the United States ’ pockets. There is no way that the Chinese Government hasn’t noticed that they now own the U.S. . By holding upwards of at least $500 billion  in dollar reserves, not to mention $650 billion in Treasuries, the Chinese central bank has a death ray aimed at not just the American but the world economy.

Growing up in the United States in the Fifties and Sixties, children were taught to fear the “Red Menace.” Somehow we knew that  China could never really overwhelm us with its hordes of soldiers but somehow we imagined them transported to California ’s shores to work their way like locusts across the land. Nuclear war, however, was more fearsome. It meant  unfathomable losses from radiation which could last thousands of years. Who would have thought destruction could come in the form of children’s toys, cheap clothing, endless products swelling on the docks of American ports.

When I lived in China for a year in the mid-90’s, one of the most popular books for sale everywhere was entitled “Thick Face, Dark Heart.” Written, rather interestingly, by a Taiwanese woman, Chin-Ning Chu, the book set out the rules of economic conquest in terms that blended the Sun Tzu’s famous Chinese text, The Art of War, with every capitalist evil. The book, for instance, counseled that one should invite one’s competition in, draw them up to a higher floor, then take away the ladder. The U.S. has indeed been drawn in; the levels of trade have been upped, and there is no way out now.

Trapped! Out-flanked! Ambushed by an enemy so populous, so persistent, so pervasive they will surely own us, the U.S. , openly in a very short time. No matter that the U.S. is still the largest economy in the world. We are working for China now. Our wealth is filling their reserves and reshaping their world. No one, not even India , which threatens to overtake China with its population in a matter a few decades, can ever stop the Chinese hordes. They’ve finally broken out beyond their own walls and without so much as fallout, have conquered the world.