National Security Online Resource Center

Chairman Mao Zedong, the founder and first President of the People’s Republic of China, is still a celebrated icon in the present Chinese state. This article highlights the recent 60th anniversary celebration of the Communist Revolution, documents a state-sponsored video of Mao’s life, but also features the commercialization of Chairman Mao’s image. The article notes that a number of Mao-related souvenirs are flying off shelves, including “T-shirts, matches, even a revolutionary Mao alarm clock.” Thanks to the “Mao alarm clock,” citizens can wake up every morning to China’s favorite hero! Unfortunately, we cannot ascertain whether the alarm clock plays the Chinese national anthem, a selection from a famous Chinese opera, or a recitation of Chairman Mao’s famous poetry.

This article also mentions the great irony that despite Chairman Mao’s fervent opposition to capitalism, his image has been used on souvenirs to generate profit. The same has been done with the image of Comrade Ernesto “Che” Guevara, whose likeness has been seen on as many t-shirts and souvenirs as that of Chairman Mao.

I picked up on this irony when I was seventeen, so I purchased this t-shirt. My protest was worth it. After I wore the shirt to my school, a member of my class informed me that he had stopped wearing his “Che” shirt for the very irony on which my t-shirt shed light.

Hopefully the sale of Chairman Mao’s likeness is a prerequisite to free-market capitalism in China, which would follow with democracy. But this is probably wishful thinking on my part.

WSJ has an excellent editorial on why the People’s Revolution has a long ways to go.

The United States and its European allies have threatened Iran with additional sanctions if it does not comply with international inspection agreements. The stand comes after the revelation that Iran is constructing a secret nuclear facility near the holy city of Qum. The six party talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program are expected to begin on Thursday in Geneva. Meanwhile, Jalal Talibani, the Iraqi President, said that sanctions against Iran won’t work and Iraq will not allow any country to use its airspace for aggressive actions on Iran. Without Iraqi cooperation, any sanction on Iran is bound to fail.

All of these recent developments require a reconsideration of Obama’s Iran strategy. The belief that extending a hand forward and sending greetings to the people of Iran will soften the regime’s stance now seems naive. If there is no threat to the regime’s survival, then there is little incentive for Iranians to comply and they would benefit from waiting to get concessions from the West. Sanctions are unlikely to have a desired effect without Iraqi cooperation and given Russian and Chinese stance, they are unlikely to be strong enough.

The President recently approved tariffs on rubber products from China. The Chinese are expected to impose their own tariffs on Chicken and automotive products. However, the broader implications of U.S. – China trade fight are critical as China continues to rise in its influence and stature. China is part of the six party talks with Iran and North Korea and if the President is expecting the Chinese to pressure the two countries into giving up their rogue nuclear programs, he is going to have to do much to reconcile.

It is unfortunate that Obama is jeopardizing two key items on his foreign policy agenda so he can cater to a tiny special interest group. Furthermore, the President’s calls for keeping the global economy open are going to sound hypocritical as we approach the G-20 Summit in Pittsburg later this month.

It has been noted on more than one occasion that the United States is an island.  A big one, but an island nonetheless.  Our isolation from Europe and Asia has kept us out the direct contact and prevented invasion for most of our history, but has also made us extremely dependent on naval dominance.  Without a powerful navy, the US is largely unable to project force to combat zones around the world and the strength of our ground forces are moot.  It is therefore rather alarming to read this article from the US Naval Institute, indicating that there is now a consensus belief in the upper-echelons of the Navy that the Chinese have developed an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) capable of killing aircraft carrers with a single hit from up to 2000 miles away. 

Ever since WWII, the US Navy has focused on the development of aircraft carrier battlegroups.  Simply put, the core strength of the fleet lies in our massive aircraft carriers, each of which is over 300 yards long with an on-board wing of 90 aircraft.  These carriers are able to project US force anywhere in the world very rapidly and very effectively, by launching both strike (ground attack) and air-superiority missions on a very large scale.  The carriers are by an assortment of cruisers, destoyers, frigates, and supply ships, which compose the rest of the battlegroup.  These ships are highly effective on their own, but the lynchpin to the whole concept is the strength of the carriers.  A Chinese program that can knock out carriers with virtual inpunity is therefore something of a problem.

The chief, current threat to the modern US supercarrier is the guided missile, which emerged as a major threat to vessels of all types during the Cold War.  In respose to this threat, the Navy developed the Aegis Combat System, which is a phased array and guidance system that directs surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to multiple, simultaneous targets.  Basically, the gist of the whole system is that ships with Aegis can track and engage multiple targets simultaneously, including incoming aircraft and missiles.  This, coupled with close in defense systems, like the Phalanx CIWS, do a very good job or protecting our carrier battlegroups from incoming missiles and aircraft. 

Unfortunately, the Chinese missile in question, however, is not an ordinary anti-ship missile, but rather is a ballistic missile.  This means that instead of flying directly at a target, like an ordinary missile, the Chinese missile’s trajectory looks like a parabola; it flies up into the atmosphere (and possibly into space), then drops back down at extremely high velocity towards a target.  Neither Aegis nor CIWS can target the missile, due to its extremely high speed and its extremely high angle of attack, rendering our carriers extremely vulnerable.

By the sound of things, the US Navy (USN) is rather worried about the threat posed by these ASBM and is working on possible counter-measures.  At the moment, however, if the missiles really are already operational, our fleets are extremely vulnerable.  Few weapons systems perform to their full-potential on their first use, but if the capabilities of the Chinese ASBM approach what the USN appears to suspect, a near-future naval conflict may be over before it begins.

This isn’t the kind of security breach that is likely to cause an immediate disaster, but it does beg the question: how the hell do we manage to lose Marine One’s blueprints to the Iranians?  Iran is not renowned as our most tech-savvy enemy, and it does beg the question of how much an adversary that focuses on it’s data-warfare assets (I’m looking at you, China) could do. 

Granted, in this particular instance, the breach occurs to have been thanks to carelessness and leaving the data accessible on a semi-public server, but what is true of one piece of secret information can be true of another.  That is, while the data compromised in this instance is probably not absolutely essential to national security, it is not hard to conceive of much more important information being lost in a similar manner.

I’m not an expert in the field of data war, but the problem is that few in the Pentagon are either.  As we move back toward HUMINT in order to fight terrorism, we can’t neglect the defense of our computer and data systems.  It’s expensive and difficult, but superpower status requires full-spectrum dominance, and at the moment, our computer networks appear to remain vulnerable.

Reports from China indicate that the Chinese government has forbidden activists to leave their homes while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Beijing. The wife of a jailed AIDS activist told CNN that the government said, “I can’t leave home at all, even to buy baby supplies. I have to rely on my relatives…”

This revelation is not the only example of Chinese human rights abuses to which Clinton has drawn attention. While on her visit, Clinton will attend a “state-approved church.” The Chinese are very generous toward those who practice Christianity, so long as they “worship in churches registered with the government.”

China is the world’s largest totalitarian regime. It has progressed since the days of Chairman Mao, but still remains a one-party communist state that denies the people basic human rights. While the economy is a more pressing issue for Secretary Clinton to address at the moment, she should not place human rights on the back burner. The United States may not be in the best position to pressure China to liberalize at the moment, but continuing to do so would remind the world that the United States is ready to champion the cause of liberty under any and all circumstances.