With allies like the neocons, Bush scarcely needs enemies

Tom Plate, Founder, Asia Pacific Media Network, Los Angeles

Fresh from military triumph in Iraq (though the subsequent nation-rebuilding looks to be a much higher hurdle), the Bush White House has been hearing calls for action against Iran and North Korea. But why bother beating up on minor-league teams? If we're determined to remain the world's sole hyper-power-hitter, why not take a swing at the big one? Make a run for China?

Insane? Sure. Impossible? Let's hope so.

American neo-conservatives are all over President George W. Bush these days for being silky soft on China. William Kristol, editor of a neo-conservative magazine with a small but noisy circulation, is leading the wolf pack. Kristol has been howling that Bush is (a) wimping out on Taiwan, (b) ignoring human rights and (c) failing to "forcefully urge the Chinese to put economic pressure on the North Korean regime to abandon its nuclear program."

These are all lies. In truth, the Bushies have done a good job nudging Beijing into a more active Korean role, are as frustrated as anyone over China's handling of dissidents and would be the last administration one might imagine that would ever sell Taiwan out. China, certainly, is under no illusions about that.

But Kristol, it seems, is. Illusions are to the far right (not to mention the far left) what illicit campaign contributions are to our two main political parties: Oxygen.

Alas, the Bush administration harbors festering neo- conservatives who think Kristol isn't crazy and in a second Bush term could come out of the bureaucratic woodwork. For Bush policy on China is still evolving, as it does in any White House (from Nixon through Clinton I) in a direction that increasingly reflects adulthood.

Sure, someday China may prove a monster ("a 21st-century Soviet Union," in one military official's words); but that prospect, even by the Pentagon's own worst-case estimate, is at least decades off. China has not renounced the military option against offshore Taiwan but won't use it unless Taiwan were to foolishly declare formal political independence. And in the so- called war on terrorism, Beijing has cooperated far more fulsomely than, say, Paris.

Moreover, would conquering China (were that possible -- and it isn't) be in the national interest?

No. Recently, Prof. David Zweig of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, in an engrossing briefing before members of the elitist Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, described today's China as enmeshed in a spider-web world of international trade and world finance and cut-throat competitive capitalistic practices. His remarks echoed the themes of his book, Internationalizing China (Cornell University Press). From city to village, from bureaucracy to university, from foreign aid to domestic allocation of resources, China is changing colors faster than maple leaves in a chilly Canadian fall.

What's more, this process of "internationalization," as Zweig's well-researched book puts it, on balance yields hard cash for Americans. As one of the fastest-developing economies, China not only provides a large market for U.S. exports but also a fertile field for U.S. investors -- not to mention shelf after shelf of lower priced goods here at home.

What would invading China accomplish? For starters, it would wipe out a market and trading partner that adds to U.S. economic security. But, while China's prosperity may be a good thing for Americans, is it necessarily the same for those totalitarians running China? After all, having created a runaway economic elephant, will those Communist Party biggies be able to stay in the saddle? Before long, the Chinese middle class alone may approach the size of the entire population of America. It will want more freedom, not less -- bet on it.

But imagine a China disintegrating -- on its own, without neo- con or CIA prompting, much less outright military invasion -- because the economy (against all predictions) suddenly collapses. That would knock Asia into chaos. Refugees by the gazillions would head for Indonesia and other poorly border-patrolled places, which don't want them and can't handle them; some in Japan might lick their chops for World War II Redux and look to annex a slice of China. That would send small but successful Singapore and Malaysia -- once Japanese colonies -- into absolute nervous breakdowns. India might make a grab for Tibet, and while it does, Pakistan for Kashmir.

Say hello to World War III Asia-style!

That's why wise policy encourages Chinese stability, security and economic growth -- the very direction the White House now seems to prefer.

If neo-cons like Kristol really care about Bush, they ought to relocate their common sense and get off his back. Bush has enough on his plate, trying to put Iraq back together. In the final analysis, neo-con insanity is more of a danger to the Bush presidency than China.