Is there a totalitarian regime on the planet that the President hasn’t yet coddled, emboldened, or outright supported? How about… China? Goldfarb notes that the Obama Administration is looking to develop a partnership, if not an “alliance” with the Chinese Communist government. Step back and soak that one in for a minute — alliances are traditionally military ventures, yet the Chinese have made it clear that their ambitions for the western Pacific transcend Taiwan, instead resembling some sort of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere a la the early 1940s. Once again, we’re in the way. Japan matured into a fully capable global military power in the early 20th century with their defeat of the Russian Navy in the Russo-Japanese War. A scant few decades earlier, Japan was considered a backwards, hermit nation with an archaic military. Just like Japan, China emerged from a similar dark epoch and, just like Japan, China is now aggressively modernizing their armed forces. Both eyeballed Far East hegemony as their long term goal and both sought alliances with Western Powers to help bring their armies up to Western standards. China has made no secret of their desire to knock us out of their rightful sphere of influence. Read this outstanding article by Dan Blumenthal — China’s staggering boost in military hardware and technology isn’t gear that’s limited to a cross-channel attack on Taiwan. It’s strategic stuff, all of which has the potential to combine for a devastating surprise attack on US forces in the Pacific. Only this time, unlike Japan, technology would grant the Chinese the legs to reach the continental United States. An alliance — specifically one that forces interaction between the PLA and PACOM — benefits China and China alone. They’re still a decade behind us militarily, but that gap is shrinking quickly. It will shrink even faster if we rush into a partnership with the Chinese that allows them to peek at our superior war machines. Once China achieves military parity with the United States (thanks to Obama’s defense cuts, this is now likely a matter of “when” and not “if”), the potential for a quick and dirty Pacific War explodes. No one wants war with the Chinese, and one hopes that cooler heads on the other side of the ocean feel the same. However, an unholy alliance between two nations with completely different interests is precisely the wrong way to avoid a Far East conflict.
