By Tom Plate

Fresh from military triumph in Iraq (though the subsequent nation-rebuilding looks to be a much higher hurdle), the Bush White House has been hearing calls for action against Iran and North Korea. But why bother beating up on minor-league teams? If we're determined to remain the world's sole hyper-power-hitter, why not take a swing at the big one? Make a run for China?

Insane? Sure. Impossible? Let's hope so.

American neo-conservatives are all over President Bush these days for being silky soft on China. William Kristol, editor of a neo-conservative magazine with a small but noisy circulation, is leading the wolf pack. Kristol has been howling that Bush is (a) wimping out on Taiwan, (b) ignoring human rights and (c) failing to "forcefully urge the Chinese to put economic pressure on the North Korean regime to abandon its nuclear program."

These are all lies. In truth, the Bushies, who have done a good job nudging Beijing into a more active Korean role, are as frustrated as anyone over China's handling of dissidents and would be the last administration one might imagine that would ever sell Taiwan out. China, certainly, is under no illusions about that.

But Kristol, it seems, is. Illusions are to the far right (not to mention the far left) what illicit campaign contributions are to our two main political parties: oxygen.

Alas, the Bush administration harbors festering neo-conservatives who think Kristol isn't crazy and in a second Bush term could come out of the bureaucratic woodwork. For Bush policy on China is still evolving, as it does in any White House (from Nixon through Clinton I) in a direction that increasingly reflects adulthood.

Sure, someday China may prove a monster ("a 21st-century Soviet Union," in one military official's words); but that prospect, even by the Pentagon's own worst-case estimate, is at least decades off. China has not renounced the military option against offshore Taiwan but won't use it unless Taiwan were to foolishly declare formal political independence. And in the so-called war on terrorism, Beijing has cooperated far more fulsomely than, say, Paris.

Moreover, would conquering China (were that possible — and it isn't) be in the national interest?

No. Recently, Prof. David Zweig of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology described today's China as enmeshed in a spider-web world of international trade and world finance and cut-throat competitive capitalistic practices. His remarks echoed the themes of his book, "Internationalizing China" (Cornell University Press). From city to village, from bureaucracy to university, from foreign aid to domestic allocation of resources, China is changing colors faster than maple leaves in a chilly Canadian fall.

What's more, this process of "internationalization," as Zweig puts it, on balance yields hard cash for Americans. As one of the fastest-developing economies, China not only provides a large market for U.S. exports but also a fertile field for U.S. investors — not to mention shelf after shelf of lower priced goods here at home.

What would invading China accomplish? For starters, it would wipe out a market and trading partner that adds to U.S. economic security. But, while China's prosperity may be a good thing for Americans, is it necessarily the same for those totalitarians running China? After all, having created a runaway economic elephant, will those Communist Party biggies be able to stay in the saddle? Before long, the Chinese middle class alone may approach the size of the entire population of America. It will want more freedom, not less — bet on it.

Wise policy encourages Chinese stability, security and economic growth — the very direction the White House now seems to prefer.

If neo-cons like Kristol really care about Bush, they ought to relocate their common sense and get off his back. Bush has enough on his plate, trying to put Iraq back together. In the final analysis, neo-con insanity is more of a danger to the Bush presidency than China.

Tom Plate, whose column appears regularly in The Honolulu Advertiser, is a UCLA professor and director of the nonprofit Asia Pacific Media Network. Reach him at tplate@ucla.edu. He also has a spot on the Web.