Week 2: Klare and Zhang

I was frustrated with the Klare reading, because I fond many of the points made to be almost hypocritical when speaking about China's military and economic progress. Whether this was coming from Klare himself of from his analysis of references, I am unsure, but his wording troubled me in some places. For instance, his talk of building up the military to counter China's seems to be to be both presumptuous and unduly aggressive. Later he quotes Fallon as saying, "It's certainly cause for concern to see this continuing buildup [by China]...It seems to me to be more than might e required for their defense. We're certainly watching it very closely, [and] we're looking at how we match up against these capabilities." Obviously the US matches up, because the US itself has unnecessary military buildup that could easily - and often does - appear as a threat to other nations. I find this argument to be dripping in ethnocentric ideas of superiority, which bothers me. Further, Klare states in the middle that China has moved into the number two spot - behind the US - for use of oil, and speaks as though this is preposterous. What I find preposterous, however, is that the US is still ahead of China in energy usage, and that any American could have the audacity to argue that CHINA is using too much energy for its 1.5 Billion people, while 300 Million Americans use more than most of the rest of the world combined. It is that kind of arrogance that makes the US appear a threat to the rest of the world. Not to mention, the US is often a threat to the rest of the world, and not even China wouldl be presumptuous enough to imagine that it could currently compete militarily with US technology, so the enitre issue of China as a threat seems to me to be a non-issue promoted by the conservative right to avoid focus on areas where their positions have garnered criticism. China as a threat is a thinly veiled scare tactic in my opinion, and Klare's article only strengthened my feelings on this.