China Denies U.S. Report on Its Nuclear Ambitions

-chom21: January 10, 2002

The Reuters news agency is reporting that China is denying the recent intelligence reports on it's nuclear buildup, calling it "baseless speculation". When talking nuclear weaponry, our intelligence services are particularly careful, considering the danger. This particular report, which was apparently the product of the research of several agencies, that said "Beijing could increase its arsenal of nuclear warheads capable of reaching the United States from about 20 now to 100 over the next 15 years."

However, I'm not given to blindly trusting them any more than I am to blindly trusting the Chinese. For me, this report and it's implications bring two questions to mind.

Firstly, would intel, or more specifically those in intel bent on kissing Bush's bumpy white ass, create a false sense of a threat just to get a damn fool, utterly useless missile defense system through a weak-minded Congress? Regrettably, it's not that much of a stretch to think that they might. One would hope they have more honor than that, but you never know. And more importantly, the American public can never know, thanks to the overreaching secrecy that can hide the good from the bad, but can just as easily hide the bad from the good.

For the average citizen, there is no way of independently verifying that those in intel are acting ethically and truthfully. We instead are forced to rely on Congressional oversight which says to us, "your congressional representatives are watching them, we'll make sure they behave." Here again, this is not in the least comforting, because, unlike Enron, I can't donate $1 million dollars to their campaigns, so in truth, I don't actually have any representation in Congress anyways. Plus, in general the words "congressional ethics" is  itself an oxymoron to begin with. Congress and the President's loyalties aren't to me, but rather, to big businesses who are drooling over the contract potential for new profits made though fear and death. Therefore we have a situation wherein thieves are watching other potential thieves and telling me to trust both of them. Not bloody likely.

Of course Mr. Bush's unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty has precipitated or at the very least exacerbated this entire sequence of events anyways. If the Chinese were in fact building up their arms, that idiot has now given them an excuse to justify starting a brand new idiotic arms race. Another brilliant move by the Bush Team!

What is more annoying, and brings me to my second question, is that in spite of such nuclear aggression, not to mention China's continual horrific abuse of it's own citizens, and the peaceful Tibetans, it doesn't stop Mr. Bush from affording those communist pricks Most Favored Nation trading status, or allowing them to join the WTO. Yet Cuba, who is ruled by a man older than dirt, and barely in possession of food, much less nukes, is continually bitch-slapped at the expense of her people. I'm sorry, but double standards like this really chap my ass. Why are we continually kissing China's butt? We never humored the Russians in such a manner. We bankrupted them and then fed their people McDonald's. That was all it took. Insta-collapse. Just add McNuggets.

But the answer to this double standard returns us to something in the first question. Corporate money. Corporate money is why I have no representation in Congress, and corporate money is why we continue to allow China to act like a butcher and turn a blind eye. We ignored the Taliban because Afghanistan offered no profit potential to business. No oil? No concern. We ignore the Chinese government's abuses because China offers too much profit potential to business. Turning a blind eye to humanitarian abuses in Afghanistan had awful consequences, and it will here too. And no technically unfeasible missile system is going to solve this one either. Corporate money is threatening my national security more than any other single factor, and I strenuously object to it.