| | http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/chinese-weapons-head-to-zimbabwe/2008/04/18/1208025479295.html?s_cid=rss_world
Why on earth would Hugo Chavez declare Robert Mugabe his great friend? Why would China make nice with Mugabe and ship him a huge bunch of free weapons? What does all this have to do with Tibet?
It has to do with POWER. It's been quite a while since I read "The Art of War," and a book of selections from the "Thirty-Six (meaning 'many') Strategems," but the basic principles are clear and I get a reinforcement of them virtually every day where I work, at a Chinese company.
If you are doing something nasty to someone else, then you generally don't want attention drawn to it - unless, of course, your point is something like, "look at how powerful I am. I can literally get away with murder." The world is only capable of paying attention to just so many things at a time, however, so, if you don't want attention, you create a diversion. For decades, North Korea and Taiwan have served in that role. North Korea starts rattling sabers, then China steps in and mediates and everything is smoothed over. Oops, better be China's friend! Or, China starts making threatening noises about Taiwan. Oh, goodness, what can we offer them to prove that we're their buddy?
China today has the largest military in the world even though noone has any apparent plans or desire to attack or invade them. Not only is it the largest, but it is rapidly overtaking the U.S. and other Western forces in terms of modernization and sophisticated weaponry. China has no military threat to fear. The Tibet protests are an embarrasment, however, and could easily - if not stamped out with vigor - lead to the implicit legitimization of dissent, and possible splits in the PLA ruling class itself, as opportunists ally with different factions. The Chinese are very, very good at thinking through these eventualities and preparing for them well in advance.
So, they need raw materiale and especially oil, anyway, and thus a new China power complex appears to be emerging, with support of the nastiest dictators in the 3rd world, such as Burma and Zimbabwe, and deals with Hugo to destabilize Western interests in Central and South America. Who will be able to pay attention to Dafur, Zimbabwe, Burma AND Tibet AND Venezuela AND Columbia, and however many other brush fires that China finds advantage in pouring gasoline on? It costs them so little to send arms to the bad guys and to bribe or kill the leaders of many destitute 3rd world countries in order to loot them or use them as a pawn in a game of terror. This is a game that China has played for two or three thousand years.
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