China’s Major Gen. Zhang Zhaozhong has reportedly said that China must be prepared to fight World War III if Iran is attacked by the United States. According to Zhang’s logic, China’s security is tied to Iran’s security. Zhang further suggested that China may need to fight such a war for domestic political reasons; namely, that as China’s economy cools so will the population’s enthusiasm for the ruling Communist Party. In bad economic times, a global war would redirect popular discontent against a foreign enemy.
Zhang Zhaozhong is a professor at the Chinese National Defense University, and published a book in 1999 titled Who is the Next Target? Of course, the target is America. In writing this, Zhang was not merely expressing a personal opinion. The Chinese regime is Communist, and this actually signifies something – though this signification is masked behind a façade of peaceful cooperation and economic partnership. Communists are violently committed to the overthrow of global capitalism. Therefore, capitalism in China has been built by the Communist Party for Communist ends. Those who do not know this have forgotten their political ABCs. Of course, China’s best media commentators would say General Zhang is exaggerating, and does not represent the official Chinese position. If what he said was wrong or outrageous, then why hasn’t he been fired from his post by the government?
But is Zhang’s comment serious? Could China wage a global war with the United States in support of Iran? Obviously, China could not do this alone. Russia would have to join with the Chinese, because China does not have a sufficient nuclear arsenal; that is, unless a Georgetown University research project, directed by a former Pentagon official, is correct in its estimation that China could have as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads in underground tunnels. This contention has, of course, been challenged. The FAS Strategic Security Blog says “China Does Not Have 3,000 Nuclear Weapons,” and gives the argument that China has only produced an estimated two tons of plutonium for weapons, which is only enough to make 450-650 warheads. One might ask, however, whether we actually know how much nuclear material the Chinese actually possess? The 363-page Georgetown study was partly based on a 400-page manual issued by China’s strategic rocket corps (Second Artillery), and takes into account the vast extent of China’s military tunnel system. Why would such a system exist, if not as housing for nuclear weapons?
China has been secretive about aspects of its military buildup. Recently, the Chinese managed to build a new class of submarine so that Western defense analysts didn’t know it existed until units had already been built and launched. This degree of secrecy, and the success of this secrecy, tells us something. China’s policy vis-à-vis the United States is not friendship. China’s policy is to use capitalism against the capitalists, to use peace as a means to war. China’s economic advance has a strategic dimension. China’s unfair trading practices are strategically designed. China’s policies in Africa and the Middle East have secured new allies and military positions from which China can close off key waterways. Chinese military aid invariably goes to America’s enemies around the globe, and trade with America provides money for these and other strategic operations.
On 2 December the Associated Press published a story titled, “Minister: China Wants to Invest in US Roads, Rails,” by Joes McDonald. Using its dollar assets, China wants to invest in U.S. and British infrastructure. Is such investment innocent? Or is it part of a long range plan? Arguably, such an investment could not be innocent. In fact, China’s clandestine services and the People’s Liberation Army have long been infiltrating Canada in an attempt to build a strategic highway into America’s flank. A secret study conducted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Intelligence Service (CIS) in June 1997 revealed the existence of a “multifaceted threat to Canada’s national security based on concrete facts drawn from the databanks” of law enforcement and intelligence services. Former Canadian officials with knowledge of the report have publicly warned that Canada is being inwardly corrupted by Chinese business (and criminal) syndicates. In fact, those who tried to stop the Chinese penetration of Canada failed when the Sidewinder Report was buried and ignored.
According to the Sidewinder Report, “By using [business] alliances, the Chinese government is trying to gain influence on Canadian politics by maximizing their presence over some of the country’s economic levers.” As the report further explained, Chinese money is used to gain a strategic foothold within the country’s economy: “To that end, they proceed initially to buy and/or legally set up a company in Canada that, once under their control, buys other companies and so on.” The resulting domino effect “acts like a well-spun web or network at strategic points.”
The Chinese military buildup, combined with Chinese economic penetration of Canada and the U.S., is not part of an innocent game. It is part of a strategic game, with the ultimate intention of eliminating the United States as a world economic and military power. The result of such elimination would entail unspeakable atrocity, terror and mass death. Only if one pays close attention to the growing effectiveness of anti-American agitation-propaganda can the individual obtain some idea of the proposed and Communist-inspired “sequence of events.”
Major Gen. Zhang is not alone in talking of nuclear world war. Last month Russian Admiral Victor Kravchenko told Izvestia that an attack on Russian warships protecting Syria “would be regarded as a declaration of war with all the consequences.” Iran and Syria are allied with Russia and China. The future of the Middle East is, in some respect, tied to Russian and Chinese plans. As Russia actively assists with building a nuclear weapons infrastructure for Iran, the expectation is not actually a direct nuclear war between America and Russia (or America and China). Everything is being done so that a future nuclear war will occur between the crazy Iranian Islamists and the “American imperialists.” In following this plan, Moscow is adopting a strategic model invented by Josef Stalin. It was Stalin who enabled Hitler to attack Poland in 1939, triggering a war between Germany and the West. Today Moscow enables Iran to attack Israel , triggering a war that Russia will be in a position to benefit from. After all, if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, the Russians will make enormous profits from oil exports.
China’s Major Gen. Zhang Zhaozhong is a voice among many. He is part of a chorus with Russian, Syrian, Iranian, Cuban, North Korean and Venezuelan voices. It is hard to say whether the anti-Western coalition is bluffing. These countries do not share the liberal Western concern for human life. Democracy and freedom are not values they embrace. What seems to be embraced, most of all, is a nuclear strike potential that can be used to level the playing field.
