William R. Hawkins is Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and Industry Council.

The new book China: The Gathering Threat by the late Constantine Menges deserves to become a best seller.  Menges first presents a well documented history of the last half-century of U.S.-China relations, showing how Beijing has expanded its ambitions as its economy has grown, until it now plans to dominate not just Asia, but events globally.

Dr. Menges then turns his attention to the situation in Russia, where out of national weakness and anger over the collapse of the Soviet Union, President Vladimir Putin has aligned with Beijing, even though China poses a major threat to Russian interests in both Central Asia and the Far East.  Finally, Menges proposes a comprehensive strategy to contain China until internal democratic forces can change the regime into one that can be trusted.  

Constantine Menges devoted his entire life to the service of the United States.  His untimely death in 2004 left a void among that small cadre of strategic thinkers who are also experienced activists on the world stage.  Menges was born September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland to start World War II in Europe.  He was born in Turkey, to which his parents had fled because of their outspoken opposition to Adolf Hitler, and came to America at age four.  Menges would spend his career fighting against the spread of tyranny.  

As a student in Prague when the Berlin Wall was being built, he smuggled refugees out of East Germany.  Menges earned his doctorate from Columbia University, then went to the Rand Corporation where he wrote papers that anticipated the Reagan Doctrine, which brought down the Soviet Empire.  He argued that “communist regimes are very vulnerable to a democratic national revolution that is conducted with skill and determination.” He served the Nixon and Ford administrations in the field of civil rights, having worked for voting rights in Mississippi and marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Menges warned President Jimmy Carter in 1977 that the friendly government in Iran might be overthrown and replaced by a radical Islamic state.  In 1979 this happened, imposing one of the greatest strategic defeats on U.S. policy of the post-war era – one that still haunts us today as the Tehran mullahs develop nuclear weapons.  

When President Ronald Reagan took office, Menges worked for the CIA and then on the National Security Council.  He played a vital role in fighting the spread of Communism in Central America and drew up the plan for the 1983 invasion of Grenada, which toppled a pro-Castro tyrant.  Menges warned President George H. W. Bush of the rising tide of terrorism and drew up a plan to combat it (Menges never talked of a threat without providing a counter-plan), but the incoming Clinton administration had no interest in the subject.  

During the Clinton interregnum,  Menges moved from government to academia as a professor of international relations at George Washington University.  He was active as an advisor to many members of Congress, which is where I met him while working for Rep.  Duncan Hunter (R-CA).  Under the joint sponsorship of Hunter’s office and Menges’ “Transitions to Democracy” project, we hosted discussion sessions among Congressional staff members who dealt with national defense, foreign policy and international economics.  

I had read several of Menges’ books before I met him.  His memoir of the Reagan years, Inside the National Security Council, made my blood boil.  It exposed the ways in which the State Department “career” bureaucracy had tried to sabotage the president’s foreign policy.  This is a problem that plagues President George W. Bush today.  

I was thus honored to be asked to appear on a panel at the Hudson Institute to promote China: The Gathering Threat.  My role was to discuss China’s economy and Menges’ concern that U.S. trade policy was helping to give Beijing the resources needed to challenge American security interests around the world.  Menges advocates an immediate end to trade deficits with China to bolster American industry and to aid democratic allies whose economies are also being ravaged in competition with Chinese exports.  The gains from trade should be shared between countries who have compatible interests and values, not used to increase the capabilities of rivals.  

Such a change in U.S. trade policy would also dramatically slow the Chinese economy and discredit the Beijing dictatorship, opening the door for democratic reformers to make their case that China can only progress if it adopts a liberating system of popular government.   Menges does not want to fight a war with China, but to promote change in Beijing before the regime thinks it is powerful enough to risk a war.  

Rapid economic growth under a dictatorship that views the United States as its “main enemy” poses a threat even more potent than the Soviets.  The USSR eventually imploded because of the inherent flaws in the Marxist model.  China has sought to avoid the same fate by “opening” to capitalism.  Many in the West have naively hoped that this alone would bring about political reform and an eventual move towards democracy.  But what has actually transpired is the movement of Beijing from communism to fascism – the use of capitalist energy to fuel the ambitions of a tyrannical government.  

The Cold War strategy of containment was based on cutting Moscow off from outside sources of capital, technology, and trade until the system collapsed.  In stark contrast, China has benefitted from a flood of outside support.  Since 1993, the United States alone has given China some $800 billion in hard currency from its expanding trade deficit.  The 2005 deficit will likely give Beijing over $200 billion more, putting the cumulative total of wealth transferred from America to China at over a trillion dollars.  Add to that the surpluses China has run with Europe and Japan, plus foreign investment, cheap credit, and technology transfers, and it is clear that transnational corporations and banks are primarily responsible for the rise of Beijing’s power.

And here is where democracy cuts both ways.  Corporate lobbyists work very hard to prevent the U.S. government from taking action to contain or deter Beijing.  Chinese strategists assume, writes Menges, “that all private businessmen are self-interested and self-seeking and that they do not consider or care about the broader national or geopolitical consequences of their actions” and that the transnational corporations “will continue to help China accomplish its purposes in the years ahead.” It is imperative that in Washington “government officials, not businessmen, decide what is in the broader national interest of the United States.” But weaning politicians from corporate influence (and money) is not an easy task.

Exactly a week before the Hudson Institute event, the annual Fortune Global Forum opened May 16 in Beijing.  The Global Forum was an invitation-only event “limited to chairmen, CEOs, and presidents of major multinational corporations” according to its website, though Chinese government officials (including President Hu Jintao) were more than welcome.   The description of the event stated, “As the world's economic center of gravity shifts to Asia, the dynamics of the global economy are changing dramatically.  Already a dominant force in trade, China will overtake the US to become the world's largest economy by mid-century....  The focus of the 2005 Forum will be how multinationals can tap into the enormous potential of China. Among the featured speakers were presidents and CEOs from General Motors, Motorola, Wal-Mart, and Goldman-Sachs, which has put together the financing for many major Chinese projects.  
President Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, had been a co-chairman of Goldman Sachs.  He recently told the Associated Press, “China is likely to be the largest economy in the world and a tough-minded geopolitical power equal to any other geopolitical power on the globe.”  So the business execs can’t say they don’t know what they’re doing.  Menges is right, they just don’t care.  

It is the duty of those in government, however, to care about the trends that threatened to shift the balance of power in the world against the United States.  They must be willing to act against the entrenched special interests who have decided they can profit from building China into the next Great Power.  To do this in a democracy, U.S. government leaders need the active support of the American people.  The work of patriots like Constantine Menges are vital to inform the views of both officials and voters.  That is why the appearance of China: The Gathering Threat is so timely and important; and why Menges poured his last energies into completing this book before his death.  Everyone should be concerned about the rise of a China still ruled by a communist-fascist dictatorship; and anyone so concerned should read Menges’ book, which lays out the situation in encyclopedic detail (the book runs 565 pages) while providing bold, but realistic, scenarios for meeting the threat.

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