Third Short Quiz – “The Avoidable War” Chapter 10 - Epilogue

[johnkarls]

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It is respectfully suggested that you make a list of your own questions that are provoked by “The Avoidable War” – since all of us are unique and your questions are worth discussing also!!!


1. Does Chapter 10 assert that Xi’s 7th-most-important priority is securing China’s maritime periphery – the Western Pacific, the Indo-Pacific and the Quad?

2. Is the redundancy of “Western Pacific” and “Quad” pardonable since the Quad’s members (U.S., Japan, India and Australia) have begun engaging in a special dialogue with each other???

3. Why were U.S. allies – South Korea and The Philippines – excluded from the Quad??? And why was non-ally India included???

4. Are 16 of Chapter 10’s 19 pages dedicated to sections whose titles indicate they are focused on the Quad???

5. In discussing vulnerability to China (e.g., p. 207), is Rudd guilty of his seemingly-omnipresent references to “the Chinese market” without specifying whether he is referring to the market for cheap Chinese labor or the retail Chinese-consumption market??? Or, for that matter, Chinese imports of raw materials (e.g., oil & gas, coal, minerals)???

6. Does Chapter 11 finally get around to China’s famed “Belt and Road Initiative” which Rudd thinks is only Xi’s No. 8 priority???

7. As we have concluded many times in the past, is China’s famed “Belt and Road Initiative” nothing more than old-fashioned gunboat diplomacy which went out of fashion in the West with the rise in the 1970’s of the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (“OPEC”)???

8. And haven’t we also concluded that whereas the U.S. “lost its stomach” for gunboat diplomacy half-a-century ago, it should NOT squander its resources in trying to be the “policeman of the world” that tries to protect third-world undemocratic or corrupt governments from succumbing to Chinese gunboat diplomacy???

9. However, do some BRI projects make sense absent gunboat diplomacy??? Such as the first BRI project in 2013 comprising a 2,500-kilometer oil & gas pipeline from the Kazakhstan oil fields on the Caspian Sea to Chinese Turkestan (aka Sinkiang Province, now spelled Xinjiang) and its so-called Uyghurs (the Chinese term for Moslem Turks)???

10. Does Rudd think that BRI projects are increasingly viewed by Central Asian countries as “gunboat diplomacy” even though they are landlocked??? Perhaps more-appropriately described as “army diplomacy”???

11. Despite Xi-Putin “buddy buddy” behavior, does Rudd think this is a source of Russian-Chinese friction because FIVE (yes, count them FIVE) of those Central Asian Countries were among the 14 Soviet Socialist Countries that formed the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan???

12. BTW, were these 5 “stans” the result of the fragmentation of old Russian Turkestan which was arbitrarily divided from Chinese Turkestan (Sinkiang Province now spelled Xinjiang)???

13. And BTW as a reminder, didn’t U.S. intelligence report by 1959 that Russia and China were “at each other’s throats” because each had decided to test their nukes in their respective sides of Turkestan and by 1959 trying to render the other side a non-nuclear power overnight (since each had also for the sake of efficiency located there all their nuclear research and production) by uniting both Russian and Chinese Turkestan under the aegis of competing popular leaders???

14. Which, of course, is what led Kissinger who finally believed the intelligence, to realize the Vietnam War did NOT need to have been fought and changed course to the famous “Opening to China” followed by a quick winding down of the Vietnam War???

15. But back to BRI, does Rudd record (pp. 225 et seq.) that China’ single-largest BRI initiative (a three-phase, 15-year project launched in 2014) was to prevent Pakistan – “one of its only long-time-allies” – from becoming a failed state???

16. Does the BRI also include beaucoup ports (called the “string of pearls”) along the Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf to protect China’s imports of Persian Gulf oil & gas??? Is this significant now that Pres. Trump has once again halted Iranian oil & gas exports after Pres. Biden’s failed attempt to appease Ayatollah Ali Khamenei???

17. Does Rudd provide (p. 232) 2020 statistics showing substantial Chinese oil & gas imports from Saudi, Iraq, the UAE and Qatar as well as Iran???

18. Does Rudd report (also p. 232) that China in 2017 (the first year of Donald Trump’s first Presidency) “…..initiated a unique comprehensive innovation partnership with the Israeli Government…..making China the second-largest foreign investor in the country…..[which] targeted Israel’s high-technology sector, including its cutting-edge surveillance systems…..”???

19. Does Rudd’s description of China’s BRI ignore the zillions of “gunboat diplomacy” deals in which China sought/seeks to exploit minerals and other natural resources in deals with undemocratic and/or corrupt third-world governments??? Does this follow Rudd’s pattern of being a virtual propagandist and “cheer leader” for China???

20. Does Chapter 12 (Rudd’s belief that Xi’s 9th-most-important priority is “Increasing Chinese Leverage Across Europe, Africa, and Latin America and Gaining an Arctic Foothold”) contain any surprises???

21. Other than, of course, “sugar coating” his description of China’s “gunboat diplomacy” in Africa and Latin America???

22. Unless you weren’t aware of the Arctic’s oil & gas potential or the importance of an arctic shipping route cutting maritime transport between Asia and Europe by as much as 15 days???

23. Does Chapter 13 (Rudd’s belief that Xi’s 10th-most-important priority is “Changing the Global Rules-Based Order) contain anything particularly concerning OTHER THAN WHETHER THE DOLLAR REMAINS THE WORLD’S INTERNATIONAL CURRENCY???

24. After all, aren’t a lot of American sanctions based on denying countries the ability to use the dollar to settle accounts??? Doesn’t this have a much broader reach than denying countries the right to export to the U.S.???

25. Does Rudd once more claim (e.g., pp. 280-281) that China is transfixed with climate change “not least because China fears the extreme economic and environmental consequences for its national future if the emissions of global greenhouse gases are not significantly reduced”???

26. Why doesn’t Rudd admit that he has been duped by Xi’s 2020 U.N. General Assembly speech that China will achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 -- WITHOUT TAKING A SINGLE STEP BEFORE OR SUBSEQUENTLY TO REDUCE ITS RELIANCE ON COAL, IN PARTICULAR, AND ON PERSIAN GULF OIL & GAS TO THE EXTENT IT CAN’T EXPLOIT ITS OWN COAL FAST ENOUGH???

27. Does Chapter14 (“America’s Emerging Strategic Response”) exhibit deference to America’s free-world leadership, or exhibit the usual attitude of allies that it is America’s obligation to protect them???

28. Does Chapter 14’s section entitled “Act I: The Great China Reckoning” focus on the first Trump Administration’s beginning to combat trade imbalances and the ramifications of how China’s trade surpluses were employed???

29. Does Chapter 14’s “Act II: From Trade War to Tech War” focus on the first Trump Administration’s beginning to combat outright technology theft and forced technology transfers???

30. Do half of Chapter 14’s pages focus on COVID-19???

31. Is this misleading because the first Trump Administration had already been focused (Rudd’s Act I) on 30 years of exporting American jobs to take advantage of cheap Chinese labor and focused (Rudd’s Act II) on China’s outright theft of technology and forced technology transfers -- and now (Act III) Rudd is “making a mountain out of a mole hill” (Yours Truly’s reaction) that COVID-19 produced all-out hostility to China as if Acts I and II didn’t already comprise all-out hostility???

32. Does Rudd (pp. 301-303) claim that the Biden Administration (at least for its first 14 months before publication of “The Avoidable War”) kept US-China relations “in the deep freeze”???

33. Didn’t this comprise primarily leaving in place the Trump tariffs???

34. However, as we have studied in the past, weren’t these significant tariffs (which were mostly absorbed by China in order to maintain their exports to the U.S.) insufficient to finance the so-called Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which actually employed the cynical Washington-swamp game of putting 3 years of “give aways” with 10 years of “revenue raisers” feeling confident that no future Congress would permit the “give aways” to expire after the 3 years???

35. As a result of which the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” WAS HIGHTLY INFLATIONARY??? And the GIVEAWAYS WERE PRIMARILY TAX SUBSIDIES FOR CHRONICALLY-UNECONOMIC WIND AND SOLAR (rather than removing “red tape” to unleash thorium fission to combat climate change as countries such as China would adopt carbon-free nuclear energy for economic reasons!!!)???

36. Is Chapter 15 (The Politics of the Twentieth Party Congress) OBSOLETE BECAUSE “The Avoidable War” was published 3/22/2022 – long before the Twentieth Party Congress Oct 16-22, 2022 which was widely expected to elect a protégé of Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, to a 10-year term and Xi’s public arrest of Hu in the Congress itself just before the vote and having him dragged out of the Congress, cowed the delegates into re-electing Xi to another 10-year term???

37. Does Rudd continue his bizarre belief that the term of Chinese leader is only 5 years???

[Please see his erroneous p. 308 question – “Will Xi Jinping be able to secure a record third term through 2027?” – ignoring the facts that Xi was elected for 10 years as had his predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin. Didn’t Rudd remember that on p. 11, he described “the party’s controversial 2018 decision to remove the two-term limit for five-year presidential terms that was written into the 1982 Chinese State Constitution” without explaining that Chinese Presidential terms had long since been for 10 years and that Xi Jinping (and Hu Jintao’s protégé) would be seeking a 10-YEAR TERM at the 20th Party Congress in 2022???]

38. Isn’t Chapter 16 also SOMEWHAT THOUGH NOT COMPLETELY OUTDATED BECAUSE “The Avoidable War” was published 3/22/2022, only 14 months into the Biden Administration and Rudd was apparently (referring on p. 331 to “American strategy under Biden…and its political sustainability through…..2024 and 2028….”) thinking Biden would be re-elected followed in 2028 by another Democrat???

39. Nonetheless, does Chapter 16 contain numerous outcomes vis-à-vis Taiwan (the primary focus of the Chapter) --

• Scenario 1 – China succeeds in taking Taiwan by force as the US decides against military intervention – America’s Munich moment
• Scenario 2 – The United States defeats a Chinese military action – a second Midway
• Scenario 3 – China defeats US forces intervening against a Chinese military action to take Taiwan – an American Waterloo
• Scenario 4 – Chinese and American military stalemate over Taiwan – a new Korean stalemate
• Scenario 5 – Washington and Taipei (i.e. Taiwan) together succeed in deterring Beijing from the use of force against Taiwan – Washington’s best-case scenario
• Scenario 6 – China and the United States engage in a limited war in the South China Sea – another Gulf of Tonkin
• Scenario 7 – Conflicts [by China] with Japan and the United States over claims in the East China Sea
• Scenario 8 – Conflict between China and the United States over North Korea
• Scenario 9 – Xi Jinping’s regional and global strategy succeeds in the absence of military confrontation with the United States – Xi’s optimal plan
• Scenario 10 – Xi Jinping fails to achieve his national, regional and global ambitions – a defeated and humiliated Xi

40. Has Rudd never heard of Henry Kissinger or “Realpolitik” or Nuclear Diplomacy???

41. If Rudd had, why wouldn’t his No. 1 Scenario have been (as the Brits would say, “Great Minds Run In The Same FURROW”) the same as our 12/3/2023 posting in our website’s Sec. 3 (“Possible Topics for Future Meetings”) entitled “Realpolitik - Has Taiwan Been Prudent Enough To Buy/Develop Sufficient Nuclear Weapons To Deter China?”??? [Please see viewtopic.php?f=150&t=2440&sid=cac314c3 ... 97b55b72cf.]

42. Does Rudd conclude that it is impossible to predict which of HIS scenarios, or combinations thereof, will come to pass???

43. After noting four Chinese factors, does he say the “most critical of all” will be evolving American strategy???

44. Does Rudd’s final Chapter (No. 17) contain a touching (p 358) reference to his native Australia’s convict heritage???

45. In this regard, have we often noted the reason why Britain began “transportation” (i.e., banishment) of convicts to Australia in 1788 and terminated “transportation” (i.e. banishment) of convicts to Australia in 1854? What relationship does 1854 have to the NFL’s San Francisco Forty Niners???

46. Is Chapter 17’s focus on “Managed Competition” forlorn since Rudd believes Xi Jinping’s No. 2 priority (behind staying in power) is “re-unification” with Taiwan which would give Xi “a level of politically immortality in the eyes of the party and country that rivals Mao”???

47. Trick Question – Has the Republic of China recently given up its “One China” policy and its goal of “re-unification”??? [NB: The answer is “yes” and the trick is to explain why.]

48. Does Rudd’s “solution” to Xi’s No. 2 priority of “re-unification” with Taiwan (pp. 379-380) comprise really nothing more than “muddling along”??? If Rudd really thinks “re-unification” is Xi’s No. 2 priority, how can he possibly think muddling along will succeed???

49. Does Rudd’s Epilogue posit (p. 398) that “the risk of talking ourselves into a crisis is real” which is why he titled his book “The Avoidable War”???

50. But if Rudd is correct that “re-unification” with Taiwan is Xi Jinping’s No. 2 priority (right behind No. 1 of staying in power), how can Rudd claim we are “talking ourselves into a crisis” which he himself is at least implying is unavoidable???