Herman Cain on China's nuclear ambitions
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In a recent PBS NewsHour interview, Herman Cain answered Judy Woodruff's question "Do you view China as a potential military threat to the United States?" in a way that left many people wondering whether his confessed unfamiliarity with world politics included being unaware that China has a nuclear arsenal since the 1960s:
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So yes they're a military threat.
They've indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability,
and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have.
So yes, we have to consider them a military threat.
A few others have defended his remarks as an awkward reference to China's ambitions to develop nuclear-powered surface ships such as aircraft carriers. I was hoping that Mr. Cain's intonation would clarify his intent, but I don't think it does. The obvious interpretation of his remarks presupposes that China doesn't already have a stockpile of around 400 nuclear weapons — but he's answering a long list of questions ex tempore, and it's not implausible under those circumstances to mean one thing (say, that China wants to develop nuclear-powered aircraft carriers like those the U.S. has) and to seem to say something very different.
But in my opinion, it's equally odd that Judy Woodruff didn't follow up on the "trying to develop nuclear capability" business. And no one seems to have taken the opportunity to wonder whether she knows anything about world affairs. Here's the whole China Q&A:
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JUDY WOODRUFF: China.
HERMAN CAIN: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you view China as a potential military threat to the United States?
HERMAN CAIN: I do view China as a potential military threat to the United States.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And what could you do as president to head that off?
HERMAN CAIN: My China strategy is quite simply outgrow China. It gets back to economics. China has a $6 trillion economy and they're growing at approximately 10 percent. We have a $14 trillion economy — much bigger — but we're growing at an anemic 1.5, 1.6 percent. When we get our economy growing back at the rate of 5 or 6 percent that it has the ability to do, we will outgrow China.
And secondly, we already have superiority in terms of our military capability, and I plan to get away from making cutting our defense a priority and make investing in our military capability a priority, going back to my statement: peace through strength and clarity. So yes they're a military threat. They've indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat.
At that point in the interview, Ms. Woodruff just moves along to the next question, as if Herman Cain's last answer was perfectly clear and entirely satisfactory.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Your campaign. You have shot to the top of the polls nationally. You are running ahead in the key early states —
HERMAN CAIN: Yeah.
JUDY WOODRUFF: — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. You're doing very, very well. But there was a focus group of voters this past week in the state of Ohio. All of them like you; they say what you're saying is very appealing.
HERMAN CAIN: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But when they were asked directly, could they see you as president, not a single one of them said that they could. How do you persuade them that's not right, that you could be president?
The China (mis-?) statement may or may not be an embarrassment to Herman Cain's campaign — which has its hands full with other issues right now — but the way it was handled certainly ought to be embarrassing to Judy Woodruff and to the PBS News Hour.
Rod Johnson said,
November 2, 2011 @ 5:25 pm
What I thought fascinating was that China is growing at 10% (whatever that means) and if we can just grow at 6%, we'll "outgrow" them.
(Non-US people: sorry for using "we"–I mean Herman Cain's "we," not Language Log's.)
Carl said,
November 2, 2011 @ 5:37 pm
I find that by changing the quote to "trying to develop (their) nuclear capability" it changes my interpretation to have the presumption "they have nukes but they want better ones." Maybe Woodruff just mentally inserted a "their" in the heat of the moment?
[(myl) This is a more plausible defense than the other one that I've read, which suggests that he was referring to the development of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers "like we have".]
Elliott P. said,
November 2, 2011 @ 5:50 pm
I suppose it comes down to how he means "develop." You can develop something that already exists (strengthen it, increase it, etc.) or you can develop something that does not exist (bring it into being). Unfortunately we can't discern which Cain meant here.
J. W. Brewer said,
November 2, 2011 @ 5:50 pm
Growth at 5% from a $14 trillion base = $700 billion in year one; growth at 10% from a $6 trillion base = $600 billion in year one. (The differences would be much greater on a per capita basis.) I don't think the ordinary semantics of "outgrow" require a focus on percentages rather than absolute numbers such that it is inherently wrong to say that the economy growing at $700B/year is "outgrowing" the economy growing at $600B/year. Whether $700B > $600B is a more salient fact than 10% > 5% presumably depends on context and ones beliefs about macroeconomics. Wikipedia says that Paraguayan GDP is growing at 15%+ (from a not-very-impressive starting point), but I assume there are sensible reasons why the media is not telling us to panic about the risks of being "outgrown" by Paraguay.
Nick Lamb said,
November 2, 2011 @ 6:15 pm
Rod, the smart reason would be that China's growth almost certainly can't and won't stay at that figure. It's a bit like the "I don't have to out-run the bear" thing. You don't have to grow faster than China is today, you only have to grow faster than China will when it's as big as you are.
Very large growth margins are unsustainable. With China feeding its own internal appetite for infrastructure and technology 10% might be plausible in the short term, but as China starts to catch up, it runs out of things to build. You don't buy a country-wide high speed railway network every year, or even every decade.
Agustin said,
November 2, 2011 @ 6:27 pm
All too common in journalism! Sometimes the person being interviewed doesn't even answer the question being asked, and the interviewer just moves on.
Jeff Percival said,
November 2, 2011 @ 6:45 pm
@Nick: too true. Like when someone in a TV panel says that no acts of terrorism occurred on Bush's watch, and there is no outcry from any other panelist or the host.
J Lee said,
November 2, 2011 @ 7:14 pm
i thought 'nuclear capability' itself was a standard collocation referring specifically to nuclear weapons, i guess warheads on a missile, which is not used to describe france but is for iran, to cite the most common contemporary references. it would be helpful if he elaborated on how or indeed why the chinese had 'indicated' what they were doing.
GeorgeW said,
November 2, 2011 @ 7:23 pm
Well, at least she didn't ask him about Ubeki-beki-beki-stan-stan.
Rod Johnson said,
November 2, 2011 @ 8:57 pm
Nick Lamb, J. W. Brewer–very true. Am I being cynical in thinking that you are probably considering this more carefully than Herman Cain was? (PS: Nick–thanks for the heads-up on the Paraguayan Menace.)
maidhc said,
November 3, 2011 @ 2:07 am
Another point, and again Judy Woodruff lets it go by, is "I plan to get away from making cutting our defense a priority", which implies that the defense budget is being cut, when in fact it has been increasing.
Again one can possibly cut him some slack, since some people are talking about cutting the defense budget, even though it hasn't happened.
So Herman Cain can sneak dogwhistle lies into his discourse while preserving plausible deniability. And people say he's not prepared for the big leagues in politics? He may have some unexpected talent.
Anyway PBS News Hour is hardly the place to go if you want in-depth incisive reporting, particularly when Republicans are being
fawned overinterviewed.Trimegistus said,
November 3, 2011 @ 7:52 am
During his career as a mathematician working for the Navy, part of Cain's job was analyzing the performance of Chinese nuclear missiles. He knows they have nuclear capability.
How come this 'blog doesn't microscopically parse every gaffe by Joe Biden or President Obama? Lord knows they commit enough.
[(myl) Since you've been making similar tiresome accusations of bias here for a long time, I know that you've read the posts that refute your implication, including many discussions of linguistic errors by Democrats, and many defenses of real or alleged errors by Republicans. The real bias in this conversation seems to be your own one-sided blindness and reflexive defensiveness, future examples of which will be deleted.]
Jon Weinberg said,
November 3, 2011 @ 9:44 am
Reluctant as I am to feed the trolls, Cain's campaign website says that his Navy employment was "working full-time developing fire control systems for ships and fighter planes."
Helena Constantine said,
November 3, 2011 @ 10:06 am
Perhpas the reason why somone would mis-spell Trismegistus as Trimegistus ought to be investigated.
J. W. Brewer said,
November 3, 2011 @ 10:26 am
Can we focus on the important issue here, which is that unlike certain prior politicians from Georgia the candidate doesn't say "nucular" and is thus obviously cosmopolitan/sophisticated enough for the office he seeks?
Faldone said,
November 3, 2011 @ 11:10 am
Generally, when the jouranlist tries to press the issue the candidate continues avoiding the question and nothing is gained. I agree that the occasional "If you won't answer that question I'll go on to the next," would be welcome.
Rodger C said,
November 3, 2011 @ 2:18 pm
I think the thrice-great Hermes is living on the outsquirts of hope.
Ralph Hickok said,
November 3, 2011 @ 4:10 pm
Journalists who enter an interview with a prepared list of questions are not good journalists.
Ken Brown said,
November 3, 2011 @ 6:20 pm
@Ralph, surely you mean that journalists who interview *without* a prepared list of questions are bad journalists?
Of course the good ones then go on to ask new ones based on the answers.
J Lee said,
November 3, 2011 @ 6:30 pm
according to national review the chinese have long had nuclear submarines and don't have a nuclear-powered carrier yet, so his use of "more" was also wrong. but it was a dumb question anyway, maybe intended to bait him into appearing to be a saber-rattler with our biggest creditor. and nuclear capability does refer exclusively to weapons. and yet the article is called "a gaffe?"
Craig H said,
November 3, 2011 @ 10:30 pm
It doesn't seem implausible to me to hear that "and" as "in", with an elided "that":
"they're trying to develop nuclear capability in [that] they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have"
[(myl) There are several ways to construe what he said as an awkward and misleading expression of a sensible position, rather than a straightforward expression of an unreasonably ignorant one. What I find most surprising is that Judy Woodruff didn't notice the problem, and immediately follow up with a common-sense invitation for clarification: "Could you explain further about the Chinese attempt to develop nuclear capability?" or whatever.]