China throws down gauntlet to USA Inc



Chinese dragon awakens



Questions for Debate:
1) Are we on the verge of another Cold War with China?

2) If China attacks Taiwan, what should the US's response be?

3) What policies should the US adopt to counter (or perhaps cooperate with) that of the Chinese?

No. We are so used to being a sole superpower in the world that the emergence of another superpower sends shivers through our spine? Vibrant economy, growing military and nationalism do not make "fascist state"; as a matter of fact, these three components could be attributed to many other Western countries, United States included (of course, we don't have centralized economy and we chose to call nationalism "patriotism", but otherwise...).



No response. We can supply weapons and intelligence to Taiwan if this suits our fancy, but otherwise we should sit quietly. Taiwan is officially part of China and is not recognized as a sovereign country. The whole Taiwan independence is quite murky; the fact that we approve of it doesn't make it "legal". Participating in this conflict would be meddling in China's internal affairs.
Can we afford a war with China? Judge for yourself; we lost 1700 servicemen in war in Iraq; at some point we were running low on munitions and bulletproof wests; our Army recruitment goals are off by 42% for the year. Now compare Iraq and China and decide whether it's worth to go to war with arguably second most powerful nation on Earth over an island which officially belongs to that nation anyway.



Cooperate is a key word. We were buying European companies left and right; Japanese own half of real estate in Manhattan. What's so different about Chinese buying Unocal? We should be applauding their conversion to Capitalism from Communism, not countering it.

Obviously not if we are allowing such engagement. She bought Maytag and IBM's personal computer division already. It has been long speculated that eventually China would come on over and do a little shopping..the Chinese govt has been on a campaign to convince Chinese companies to do just that.


You know your presentation of the debate is really confusing to me. I think we already have a thread on this proposed scenario. I don't wish to edit your debate questions but I think in regards to the CNOOC acquisition it would have been better to ask ...should we go through with such a sale and is it a National security risk to allow China ownership of one of our oil companies?

The timing of this CNOOC bid couldn't have been worse or better..depends which side of the debate you are on. Congress was already gearing up for a debate on trade with China and if we should apply more pressure through economic means for more Gov. progress. So this bid for Unocal timing is just uncanny. From what I have seen in the financial reports they are giving this deal a 70% success rate..but analysts have downgraded CNOOC to fully valued because after all is said and done and all the agreements are met China will pay a touch over 20 BILLION for this company..the claim is this is waaaaay overpriced. But then China is the tourist in town and she did buy IBMs personal computer which is way past it's prime I had an IBM (I nicknamed it IBMightyslow) on my desk like over 12 yrs ago. And she did buy Maytag which is a company that hasn't been performing well for sometime. Yet I think what China is wanting from these purchases is knowledge not profitability.

I think it should be noted that 57% of Unocal oil reserves are in Asia..so how is our claim or ownership more righteous or unthreatening?

I read this ridiculous article in the IHT that was titled..China's power and America's weakness pointing to this bid as evidence. The only thing this is evident of is that China has very very little ownership or control of energy. That is not only a weakness but I personally view it as something dangerous. I think the lack of energy and any control over needed resources makes China far more unstable than having a few billion barrels to get buy with.


Again I am only going to address this question in regards to CNOOC.
The US already has in place CFIUS The Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. The CNOOC bid for Unocal will be reviewed and CNOOC has said it will fully cooperate.