Blue Team
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- This article is about a political group. For the Italian bridge team, see Blue Team (bridge).
The Blue Team is an informal group within the United States that has argued that the People's Republic of China is the largest security threat to the United States. The name comes from the color of the United States in wargames, in opposition to the red team, and was invented by the group to describe themselves. The members of the group include members of Congress and some neoconservative thinktanks and publications such as The Weekly Standard. Blue Team members tend to be absent from the United States Department of State, although this is likely due to the current Bush administration trying to avoid putting Blue Team members in official (and potentially provocative) positions. Rather, the Blue Team manifests itself closer to the Pentagon and US Intelligence services.
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[edit] Membership
Members include neoconservatives such as William Kristol, conservative Republican Congressmen such as Benjamin Gilman and Dana Rohrabacher, members of thinktanks including Robert Kagan and Ross Munro, co-author with Richard Bernstein of The Coming Conflict with China, and journalists such as Bill Gertz, a writer for The Washington Times.
[edit] Beliefs
They argue for an assertive United States policy to contain the People's Republic of China and support the Republic of China, or Taiwan, and believe that the policies of Bill Clinton and the Department of State toward China amounted to appeasement. They also point out to that China is investing extensively in modernizing its ground forces and creating a blue water navy capable of power projection. [1] [2] These developments pose a threat to American Hegemony in Asia. Other examples given include the sale of supercomputers to China (which they believed could be used for military applications). Many Blue Team members cite the lack of democracy in China as the key concern and claim that the PRC will use nationalism (painting the US and Japan as the enemies) to consolidate power and distract the people from democracy and human rights. Similarly, they claim that a lack of democracy in China gives the PRC government more political will to warmonger, enabling it to challenge US power in East Asia. Some even see the lack of China's transparency as deceptive; US officials have long complained that China was unwilling to reciprocate on military and intelligence sharing, resorting commonly to charades or "parades" in order to deceive foreign nations on its capabilities.
[edit] Influence
Although the Blue Team was relatively influential in the 1990s, their influence appeared to diminish markedly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, which convinced many Americans that China was not a large security threat. Their influence declined even further after the 2003 invasion of Iraq in which China did not actively oppose American actions, in contrast to France and Russia. The Blue Team was conspicuously silent after President George W. Bush announced a policy in December 2003 that opposes any effort by Taiwan to use a referendum to alter the status quo in Taiwan. An explanation for this might be that Blue Team strategists do not want the US to provoke a conflict with China while being embroiled in Iraq since 2003.
However, many pundits saw that the Bush administration does implicitly agree with the Blue Team and had recognized the threat that an undemocratic China could pose. As the Soviet Union collapsed and the succeeding Russia's economy and military was still in turmoil, it seemed only logical that China would seek to replace Russia as the main counterbalance to the United States. In "The National Interest", the Republican's 2000 foreign policy campaign platform, Condoleezza Rice suggested that China was a rising economic and military power that was no longer content to let the US hold the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific sphere and that Clinton's policies had been a sell-out to US security interests. The 2002 National security strategy embraces the maintenance of US hegemony and details a strategy to check China's attempts to alter the status quo, the stated main elements including promoting democracy and standing firm on the defense of Taiwan.
Recently, most Blue Team members have been alarmed by China's increased military spending and the passing of the Taiwan anti-secession law at the same session of China's national legislature. This was of major concern to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld since the Pentagon had frequently complained about the lack of transparency in China's military capabilities and intentions. Since China did not actively oppose the Iraq 2003 invasion (like France and Russia), experts in the Blue Team speculated that China secretly wanted the US invasion to occur. The Blue Team interpreted the renewed anti-secession act as China's attempt to seize the opportunity while the US has its hands tied with Iraq. A recent threat report from the Pentagon supported the Blue Team's fears, with China attempting a military build up aimed at capturing Taiwan and deterring outside help from the US and Japan. Controlling Taiwan would drastically change the balance of power in the East Asia theater, since it enables China to control key shipping routes and project military power more effectively over US interests in the region.
[edit] Criticism
Critics of the Blue Team note that most of the fears, especially of inevitable conflict, are much exaggerated. They point out that China's highly touted jet fighters and other high-tech equipment does not represent the current state of its armed forces, much of which is still using 80s-era Soviet equipment. Many are concerned that the hawkish stance of Blue Team members and the Pentagon are the cause of the military buildup and rhetoric in China. Also, an overwhelming focus on China would detract from many short-term security concerns such as terrorism, crime, and drugs. Lastly, they point out that China currently holds hundreds of thousands of millions in US Treasury bills, providing a major source of backing for the US dollar and ensuring economic stability. In addition, many have argued that military confrontation with the US is not the goal of the Chinese government at this point: a direct military conflict with the United States now would lead to the economic collapse of China and possibly the US, something neither the Chinese government nor its people want now that their economy is growing at an unprecedented rate.
Although members of the Blue Team have ties to the Republican Party, they tend to be strongly opposed by business conservatives in the same party who argue for greater interaction with China. On many issues such as Chinese membership in the World Trade Organization, the Blue Team found themselves in an alliance with liberal Democratic human rights activists. Like the liberal Democrats, both have criticized business interests for putting profits before human rights, but the similarities end there since the Blue Team is more hawkish and advocates "hard power" (military, economic force) instead of diplomatic accommodation.
