Suffer the Little Children

As the War on an Abstract Noun winds down with a crack down on cub scouts with suspicious names, and begins a small mop up procedure in Yemen, the world waits with trepidation to see whose next on America’s shit list.

For all the laowai who bought knockoff bullshit detectors in a shopper’s paradise, I would like to offer my prognostications as a China expert and collateral damage analyst for Lost Laowai.

If Google’s flaccid penetration into the Chinese market, Clinton — the warrior-princess — waving around her Vorpal Sword of Humane Righteousness +5, and America’s latest shipment of Implements of Pre-hostilities (IPHs) to Taiwan are any indications, then the timetable for the start of Cold War 2.0 may commence sooner than expected.

If it does, which it will because I got a second opinion from my psychic soul adviser, here’s how it’ll go down.  Actually, it’s kinda like dominoes or mahjong.

Bolstered by United States’ commitment to find new scapegoats for citizenry too poor to afford tar and feathers and a one-way bus ticket to Wall Street, the Taiwan Autonomous Region will finally declare its secession from China.

How will China respond to these challenges?

China is still developing and has yet to create an innovative Overseas Contingency Operation policy of its own.  It will be forced to emulate its American rival to win the PR war.  Since the world has already been made safe for freedom and democracy, China will have to come up with something more original.  Make no mistake; this is the Middle Kingdom’s greatest call to adventure since it became the steel producing capital of the world during the Great Leap Forward.  Furthermore, there is the added challenge of selling hot political intercourse to traditional-minded people unused to letting their children go farther than the village limits.

What’s at stake here is more than just a Chinese game of placing a guess.

This is a battle for the hearts and minds of the children of men.  China’s 23^rd province currently has the world’s richest deposits of video games and cadmium-free toys.  Lost access to resource rich Taiwan would be a clear and present danger to China’s stability.  Therefore, China will manufacture consent by branding Taiwan’s rebellion as a “The War to Make Children Safe from Boredom.”

Such a war would represent a paradigm shift from Friedman’s Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention which states that no two nations with an obese population will have the energy to get off the couch, much less launch a new Children’s Crusade.

The only wild card here is America’s war torn PR capability.  Will Uncle Sam wipe the dead bugs and mud off His bumper sticker, “The War to Make the World Safe for Democracy?”

Or will He stay true to his maverick Marlboro Man roots and produce a game changer that links the War on Terror to a greater struggle?

It would have to be something snappy like, “The War on Atheists Poisoning Our Children.”

Bottom line:  Now is a good time to consult with your favorite Wall Street stockbroker to see about investing in Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and the Hanso Foundation.  Unfortunately, General Atomics, the creator of the first killer robots designed to seek and destroy evil doers, is a privately owned business and cannot be traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Matt M is a visiting professor of literature and semiotics at a prestigious university in southern Hunan province.  He earns his beer money as a Sinologist and collateral damage analyst for Lost Laowai while struggling to master Rosetta Stone Level 1 Mandarin.  His ravings have appeared and disappeared in the The New York Times, National Public Radio, Burlington Free Press, and A China Journal.  This is his second appearance in Lost Laowai.  He is currently preparing for an expedition to Indochina in search of the Ancient Temple City of Dum Bo, the Elder God of Flying Elephants.