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Of Course China Wants To Replace The U.S.
Submitted by Zachary Zeck via The Diplomat,
Over at The Week, Think Progress’s Zack Beauchamp has a provocative piece arguing that “China is not replacing the United States as the global hegemon. And it never will.” Specifically, Beauchamp posits that “China faces too many internal problems and regional rivals to ever make a real play for global leadership. And even if Beijing could take the global leadership mantle soon, it wouldn’t. China wants to play inside the existing global order’s rules, not change them.”
The piece is well-argued and certainly worth a read. In particular, Beauchamp does us a service in combating the myth of the inevitability of China’s rise. He usefully points out that China’s economy faces a multitude of challenges that may prevent it from reaching the potential many currently foresee. He also points out that China faces powerful neighbors that won’t stand by idly if Beijing seeks to construct a new regional order, much less a global one.
Still, on balance, I think Beauchamp’s piece does more to confuse than to inform. The first issue is that even though he discusses the regional balance of power in the piece, his overall argument is that China will not be capable of replacing the United States as the “global hegemon.” Unfortunately, there are many who would claim that America is a global hegemon. However, that argument is preposterous under any reasonable definition of hegemony. It is true that in the post-Cold War (if not earlier) the U.S. has been the only power capable of projecting military power in any region of the world. But this has not allowed it to dictate the regional order of every continent as it largely can in the Western Hemisphere.
Moreover, even if America really is a global hegemon, this would just make it more unlikely that any rising power could replace it as a global hegemon. After all, America’s primacy in the post-Cold War era was only made possible because no other great power existed. Since China’s rise won’t stop the U.S. from being a great power, unless the two go to war and China wins, Beijing’s relative power will be far less than America’s at the end of the Cold War. And of course, America’s relative power will also be far less than what it enjoyed in 1991.
There are other issues with Beauchamp’s analysis of China’s relative power. For example, he notes that “one analysis suggests China’s GDP may not surpass America’s until the 2100s.” To begin with, while possible, this view seems to be decidedly in the minority among serious economists. Even if China’s economy crashes before 2018—around the time many believe China’s absolute GDP will surpass America’s—it still seems likely that it will find a more sustainable economic model before 80 years pass. And given that China has about four times as many people as the United States, it could easily surpass the U.S. in absolute GDP terms in less than 80 years.
But even if China’s economy doesn’t surpass the United States, this hardly suggests it won’t present a major strategic challenge to Washington. Consider that, according to Paul Kennedy, in 1938 Japan’s share of world manufacturing was just 3.8 percent while America’s was 28.7 percent and the U.K.’s was 9.2 percent. A year earlier, according to the same source, the U.S. national income was $68 billion while the British Empire’s was $22 billion. Japan’s, comparison, was just $4 billion. Yet, in the initial battles of the Pacific War Japan decisively defeated the U.S., England, and the Dutch across the region.
Similarly, the Soviet Union’s GDP was only ever about half as large as the United States, and many times much less than that. This doesn’t mean that America and its allies didn’t face a real strategic threat in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The more egregious part of Beauchamp’s case, however, is his contention that China does not seek to challenge the U.S.-led order. In his own words: “Even if this economic gloom and doom is wrong, and China really is destined for a prosperous future, there’s one simple reason China will never displace America as global leader: It doesn’t want to.”
He goes on to explain: “China is content to let the United States and its allies keep the sea lanes open and free ride off of their efforts. A powerful China, in other words, would most likely to be happy to pursue its own interests inside the existing global order rather than supplanting it.”
Beauchamp isn’t alone in holding this view, which has many faithful adherents in the West. In fact, not too long ago it was the running consensus in the United States, as well as the foundation of U.S. China policy in both the George W. Bush and the early Barack Obama administrations.
One place where this view has not been very popular is in China itself. Indeed, far from being happy to allow the U.S. Navy to keep its sea lanes open, Chinese leaders have been warning about their country’s “Malacca Dilemma” for over a decade now. They have also been actively trying to reduce America’s ability to cut off China’s energy and raw material imports. As they should be—it would be irresponsible for China’s leaders to allow their country’s economy to be at the mercy of a potential competitor if they have the realistic opportunity to allow China to secure its own shipping lanes. This is doubly true in light of the fact that the U.S. has been known to impose sanctions on many countries, including China itself after Tiananmen Square.
But the issue goes much deeper than that. In fact, it goes to the heart of the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy at home. At its core, the CCP’s claim to power is based on its ability to restore China to its past glory. Again, neither China nor its leaders have ever made any secret about this. For example, the CCP has always emphasized that it saved China from its “century of humiliation” at the hands of the Western and Japanese colonial powers.
Similarly, since coming to power in 2012, Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed that, because of the CCP’s rule, the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” is now within China’s grasp. As Zheng Wang points out, the term “rejuvenation is deeply rooted in Chinese history and the national experience.”
Wang continues:
“As proud citizens of the ‘Middle Kingdom’ the Chinese feel a strong sense of chosenness and are extremely proud of their ancient and modern achievements. This pride is tempered, however, by the lasting trauma seared into the national conscious as a result of the country’s humiliating experiences at the hands of Western and Japanese imperialism. After suffering a humiliating decline in national strength and status, the Chinese people are unwavering in their commitment to return China to its natural state of glory, thereby achieving the Chinese Dream.”
Thus, the CCP would lose all its legitimacy at home if it voluntarily subordinated China to the United States despite being the more powerful country. The CCP treasures its grip on power above all else, and therefore it should come as no surprise that it has already ruled out taking this risk.
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what if the yuan is backed by gold and the u.s. coffers are empty? which one is then more poznified?
The PBoC spent /printed 2:1 usd/yen last month Kito. China can save all the P.Ms they want. There's 1.3 billion people in an land mass the size of the lower 48 contigious states.
China has roughly $3 trillion in reserves of which $1,4 trillion are in UST. I totally hear where you're coming from Kito, but China is FUBAR!
One of the main mistakes I see in the Western (quote) "analysts" (end quote) way of thinking (or just talking) is the pondering (or just discussing) of everything FROM the western "cathegories of thinking", if there are any at this point. Mostly, it's al discourse.
The US is ran by men (and women...) many of whom don't even live in the US, aren't even Americans.
The US has become a tool. A powerful one, but just a tool.
It's been rather clear specially since 9/11. Nothing is credible nor will be as long as the official (ridiculous) version of 9/11 is maintained. It has become a parameter.
Typical 'Eastern Thinking' is different nonsense.
Those in Asia have almost nothing in common with what you envision as traditional Asian, Eastern Philosophy, KongZi culture. You have a mythical image in your head, it's nonsense, it does not apply any longer, it's gone, it's fiction, it does not exist.
They work, they earn money, they only care about money and food and that is it. Their 'culture' is gone, having been replaced by greed.
Your argument, used by Chinese to deflect criticism, is the same - that the frame used by critics is invalid and we just cannot understand the deep thinking and oh-so-wise Chinese.
Total nonsense and just an excuse for irrational and nativist arguments that are circular.
We are Chinese because we do this, and we do this because it is part of being Chinese.
That's how they 'think', if you want to call it thinking.
Western Civilisation is vastly superior to Chinese civilisation. 5,000 years and they still haven't figured out that you don't let your toddlers defecate at the top of public shopping mall escalators. Oh so wise. I could list hundreds of other examples of their oh so civilised behaviours.
When the Chinese refer to 'The West', what they mean is everyone else except them, Korea and Japan (and Japan is on the outs due to heavy western influence and all the bad blood).
Chile, Latvia, Russia, Mexico, Indonesia (list most countries here) are far superior to China and compared to China, Russians and Americans are nearly identical twins. The small differences between Christian / Orthodox Religion and conquest within rather than colonisation, pale in comparison to the massive differences Americans and Russians share with the Chinese.
It's really that bad - you encounter a Russian in China and it's a breath of fresh air. 'My god, a real human being!'. You run into a Latvian couple and they may as well be from your extended family when compared to the people that live in China.
Define "civilisation", please. 'Cause I know some south american tribes very much evolved than any other so called "civilisation" I can recall.
yes china(and india) is the most shocking of culture shock for westerners but the template is not mainland china. the template for 21 century china is actually hong kong.
It isn't the most shocking of culture shock for WESTERNERS it's for ALL HUMANS NOT CHINESE. No one lives, acts or thinks like this, anywhere but Chinese society...and once the British colonise and civilise mainland China for 150 years that template would be valid...
Nothing being colonised for 300 years would not solve.
CHOSEN
Meh, MIC bullishit. How about you ask the chinese leaders where their money and children are?
"In 2009, the British Medical Journal published a study of China’s national intercensus data from a 2005 survey (the most recent detailed data available) and found a high sex ratio across all areas, with 126 baby boys born for every 100 baby girls under age 4 in rural areas. Six provinces had sex ratios greater than 130 for first births to mothers; for second births, the ratio was higher than 160 in nine provinces. (from the National Catholic Register: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-ugliest-form-of-misogyny-sex-se...)
China is also one of only two countries in the world where women are more likely to commit suicide than men (the other is Sao Tome and Principe). They have the third highest female suicide rate in the world, after Korea and Sri Lanka (http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/chinese-women-are-killing-themselves-at...)
I'm sure that China has a bright and prosperous future. /sarc
You will find this same ratio of male to female births recorded throughout nineteenth and twentieth century records in China (however incomplete) even in Hong Kong a British Crown Colony clear evidence of female infanticide. Picking up over a thousand babies left on the hill-sides, in the streets or left at religious institutions. Very sad. And evil.
great for a defensive army that only needs to be armed with pitchforks to keep the lily skinned invaders drenched in red.
-Ecological Deficit?
That's looking at the past using current values.
The Chinese understand very well that every single major economic power went through a period of environmental destruction. It's required as a nation moves up the value scale, and it keeps China from buying clean tech from other nations, spending their money elsewhere.
I remember what USA air pollution looked like in the late 1960's and early 1970's and whilst China's air pollution is worse, it's not that different in appearance. Of course if you are under 35 and came of age in a pussified America you would not know this and the younger expats in China all bitch about the air quality. They are in China for work because their countries have clean air and no jobs due to the clean air regs chasing away all industry.
-China's "chooseness"
This is true, except that the average person is greedy, lazy, wants results without effort, and is addicted to smartphone, tech, gadgets. The education system is designed to soak up every joule of excess energy for those between the ages of 10 and 23, to prevent revolution. 16 to 20 hours a day of classes and homework, constant sleep deprivation, studying late at night using an LED light, under the blanket in their un-heated, 8-person to a room, 40 sq ft, one bare cfl bulb, dorm room.
When they get time off, they never read and if they use a computer it is to zone-out on anything addictive.
They have no interests, no curiousity, they stop reading the day they graduate from university, and when they go online it is to shop or play video games or message on social networks.
The USA has hundred's of millions of sheep who work to pay taxes so that the USA can have 1250 bases in every nation, so it seems possible that a nation can be full of dullards with no intellect and still be the major global power.
The Han Chauvinism is true though - even for these dullards who burnt out in High School. They have been like this since ~225BC when the Han emperor brought China together under a common purpose and a more common language (the number of dialects then far more numerous than today, and it's a nightmare today).
It's paired with an incomprehensible arrogance, even from the degree'd. China has millions of people with college degrees who are blind idiots, clueless about almost everything. Imagine not knowing that the nation of Mexico exists, or where South America is...and having a Masters Degree!
If those of you in Europe, Australia and other Social Democracies think that Americans are clueless and Nationalistically obsessed, just wait until you encounter the Chinese.
The Chinese consider everyone else on this planet to be beneath them - don't let the smile fool you.
The coming East West standoff:
The willful malignant neglect of financial Moral Hazard --- dressed up by one of its intiators as lead Shaman of Reaganista Pax Americana, Alan Greenspan, as benign "irrational exuberance"--- has now spawned the two headed tentacular squid conundrum.
Of intertwined China world factory and creditor behemoth vs US consumer utopia and debtor unlimited Banksta cabal concoction; thanks to Zirp and Qe infinity strategy implimented as a result of reserve status cum oligarchy big stick Pax Americana mantra.
"We own that ME OIL"...is the bottom line of this global play put simply.
That this runaway train is now making the Oligarchs hot under the collar, as the heat in the financial kitchen makes them all sweat more than the skiers at Sochi, we see signs of Oligarchy thieves now suffering in uphill strain scared that their NWO Davos pack will break like the Tour de France cycle race does on an alpine stage; thus wanting to fall out and sing "to each his own and may the devil take the hindmost"...
ANd what are the signs of this systemic strain which is a pain that even the CBs maestria finds difficult to contain ?
Read all about it from the mouth of the SQUID ! :
What Goldman Clients Are Worried About - Business Insider
Honor is something western people don't understand. Pride is something they do but it is pride in themselves and not their country.
There is a cultural gap that the author is trying to point out.
hey, that is the theme of all my novels ! FROM the Crusades to the Renaissance and now on and on and on.
Since Machiavelli gave it its "nation state" raison d'être : the end justifes the means ! Bitchezz...And always paint your rival as the Bogeyman to achieve that, 'cos you be then the great REDEEMER Ronald of Reagan; aka Elmer Gantry.
"Antichrist" ! Commie...Terrorist....ha, ha, the spin machine works 24/24, 365 days of the year. Circe Sirens of MSM.
Real power can only be developed in an atmosphere of real freedom, not least of all economic freedom. As far as I can tell nobody has that so anything can happen because every country is screwed. When I see a country operating on freedom principles that are non negotiable to the free shit army I will pick that as a future power. Until then speculate away, look what happened to the great Japan.
I see the US gold, guns and God mob sticking it in to the Chinese. Might want to consider a few things first:
* A China town in every part of the world
* Most likely circumnativigated the world 100 years before everyone else
* Worlds super-power in the early middle ages
* Sophisticated culture which is several times older than the existance of the modern US.
Take it from someone who is from a country whose Magna Carta document is several times older then the age of the modern US - you need to be nice to these guys because the age of 320 million people telling everyone else on the planet is over.
No - I am not a China "Apologist"
Bankrupt Fisker is bought by Chinese, Tesla is still here and can make mass market for EV in US reality with Apple:
Lithium Catalyst: Apple Electric iCar Coming From Tesla?
It will not take much to ignite Lithium Bull again - just four words will do: China, Pollution, Tesla and Apple. We have written extensively about three of them before and now we can have the groundbreaking development with Apple thinking about joining the Electric Party.Will Steve Jobs' Apple iCar Dream finally come to reality with Tesla? Mickey Drexler was talking about his friend: "Steve's dream before he died was to design an iCar". Tesla Motors and Elon Musk have proven that Electric Cars are for real: technology is here - we just need the mass market.
We are talking here about the reality distortion field worthwhile Steve Jobs memory. Billions of Apple cash and Tesla's technology can make the miracle and take the market by storm with Tesla Model E for electric cars mass market made years ahead.
Lithium investment theme will fit very well with this conglomerate. Lithium batteries are everywhere: in every Apple mobile devise, in every Tesla electric car. It is not a coincidence that Tesla is preparing plans to build super Lithium battery plant. All these plans: Tesla Model X launch, Tesla Model E for mass market development and Lithium Battery plant will need a lot of Capital and Apple has it. Is it the match made in heaven? We will see very soon, but investors are better take notice about this trend already.
Apple's M&A chief reportedly met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk
http://sufiy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/lithium-catalyst-apple-electric-icar...
I think the theater of China's challenge to the USA could be in outer space. I don't think China's boasts about its future plans to turn the moon into a battlestation are just talk.
Right now, the USA isn't doing diddly-squat in space. Thit is probably our biggest mistake with regard to long term power relationships. The high ground is always of utmost importance in military contests. He who rules space will rule the Earth.
The content and quality of all posts here should leave no doubt that the current Tyler Durden as employed by GS in Bangalore and running this site is a retarded 10 year Indian child.
The purported 'Peoples Republic' has surpassed all the alleged 'countries' of the planet as the most bankrupt economy in the world. They have been engaging in a money printing spree that engulfs the FEDs.
The chickens are coming home.
Globalism is a wrecking force of amazing power to wreck.” – Paul Craig Roberts
How is so-called free trade working out for the peoples of the world?
It isn’t.
Free trade, without freedom and comparative advantage for the nations, in the end works out for no one save the international NWO profiteers such as George Soros.
The U.S. Congress, all bought and paid for by the multinational banker lobby, sold out the American people and millions of their middle class jobs when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, costing America’s middle class 50,000 jobs a month ever since to Red China and Mexico. The move not only devastated the United States’ industrial and patent base but the nation’s economic base, as well.
Congress earlier had collaborated with bought-off Big Labor Leftists, using its power of court-ordered labor arbitration, to destroy the ability of U.S. manufacturers to compete by enforcing out-of-bounds labor demands. In the end, both U.S. labor strength and U.S. industry fell, as was intended, under the heel of the globalists.
Now, both the US and Red China are self destructing. And more than one-third of Mexico’s population has flooded into the US to further undercut US workers' standard of living.
Thus, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, U.S. multinational corporations added 2.4 million new (low-paying) jobs overseas during the first decade of the 21st century. But during that same time frame U.S. multinational corporations cut a total of 2.9 million (well-paying) jobs inside the United States…
Japan’s former Minister of Finance for International Affairs, Toyoo Gyohten in 1992 and in charge of the Japan Desk of the IMF at the time, explained it: The real importance of ‘trade’ agreements is not trade but the building of global government.
Trade agreements without liberty and a private market economy for the people and without comparative advantage to the nations in which they live work spell tyranny and, ultimately, slavery.
G. Edward Griffin, author of The Creature from Jekyll Island lays out the intent behind the rash of treaties negotiated by the globalists:
“Applying this same perspective to the NAFTA treaty, former Secretary-of-State, Henry Kissinger (CFR), said NAFTA “’is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system…the vital first step for a new kind of community of nations.’ The newspaper article that contained this statement was appropriately entitled: ‘With NAFTA, U.S. Finally Creates a New World Order.’ David Rockefeller (CFR) was even more emphatic. He said that it would be ‘criminal’ not to pass the treaty because: ‘Everything is in place – after 500 years – to build a true “new world” in the Western Hemisphere.’
“By early 1994, the drift toward the New World Order had become a rush. On April 15, the government of Morocco placed a full-page ad in the New York Times celebrating the creation of the World Trade Organization which was formed by the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which took place in the Moroccan city of Marrakech. While Americans were still being told that GATT was merely a ‘trade’ agreement, the internationalists were celebrating a much larger concept. The ad spelled it out in unmistakable terms:
1944, Bretton Woods: The IMF and the World Bank
1945, San Francisco: The United Nations
1994, Marrakech: The World Trade Organization.
“History knows where it is going…. The World Trade Organization, the third pillar of the New World Order, along with the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.” *
*New York Times, April 15, 1994, p. A9.
All good things gotta come to an end, and that's the same with the wildwood weed.......Jim Stafford
China is a regional power, it has ordinary to poor strategic geography, it is as vulnerable as many of its neighbours to attack. Most of its huff and puff is due to the hope and desire to improve its own strategic security so that it becomes less vulnerable.
The US is about to get in its face and blow smoke in it.
If it were not for the belligerent attitude and aggressive assertiveness of its territorial claims and demands, and a sense of some sort of entitlement to demand it, and thinking and saying no one should dare object, let alone resist it, then this would not be even occuring to them.
China is basically undiplomatic, it feels it does not need to be diplomatic to the lesser beings or something.
Consequently no one can trust them and thus they can not build any of the close relationships that it needs to be an actual great power. Russia is way ahead of China in that respect, and has far more potential to influence and gain from its relationships.
China may be an old country but they have poor or ordinary relationships with almost everyone who can do them substantial damage and they apparently don't care to make a serious effort or commitment to alter that. The West tried engagement and so did Japan, but China did not reciprocate and engage with us as openly, it remained aloof and failed to build the relationships. the fact that Japan is such a powerful regional neighbor should normally have caused a country near it to build solid relations and diplomacy with it, for a better future, rather than dwelling in the other-world-like past. But instead, Beijing allowed Japanese companies to be violently run-out of town and entered into a military stand-off with it and diplomacy was nowhere to be seen.
That is simply juvenile and dangerous international behavior, an immature state that can't build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships.
So as they can, but won't, rein themselves in, the entire region will combine to remind Beijing and the PLA that they're just one country, surrounded on all sides by states that can do it great harm and damage. Beijing and China itself has much more to lose than gain, via accentuating a sense of indignance, indifference to neighbors and militancy. The Vietnamese know and warned that the Chinese have always been like this, a culture of good traders but poor neighbors.
If it were not for this most countries would have no problem at all with China. Everyone has tried engagement and Beijing apparently just took that as weakness or cowardice and thought the time had come to goad, bully, threaten and exploit. The way they threatened Australian miners and also Canberra, plus sought to seriously damage Japan's economy and prevent its recovery from the GFC during mid-2009, was utterly shameless. It really opened people's eyes to how Neanderthal was the level of thinking and aggressive attitudes within Beijing.
So now we'll all do it the hard way. It's going to be a gun to the head, if they do anything aggressive within the region. Because that's what they're most likely to understand and respond to more suitably, namely, their own strategic vulnerability. It remains, and is not going away, they have just been trying to stare everyone down, to obtain concessions through threats.
In fact, Chinese vulnerability will only increase until they accept that their fantasy of 'rising' to global superpower status (which was mostly sold to them as a myth, pedaled by idiotic western media outlets and bloviating authors of novels) will not actually be occurring after all. It was never going to. They mislead themselves, and allowed themselves to be caught up in that.
It's not that they are being stymied, per-sec, it's mostly because they can't build the core neighborly relationships and alliances they need for that to be enabled.
Plus the industrial imperial superpower era is ending.
The US will be the last and it will decay until it is also just the biggest Pacific power with the best strategic geography, potential, resources access and well established diplomatic relationships [if the series of inept political clowns in the state dept can manage to stop screwing things up all the time and doing incredibly counterproductive things, following dopey and offensive policies, and learn to shut their mouth more often ... which is a lot of 'ifs'].
But China is not going to 'rise', as a superpower 'replacement', as there is in reality no replacement process. That is a figment, because the US is not going to totally collapse. It has big problems, yes, but it had the same problems in 1932, and in 1945 ruled the international order anyway, for the most part. So that can turn around in ways you would not predict.
This is what China still has to come to terms with, namely, the US is not going to leave a 'Position Vacant' sign over the western and central pacific basin. The "Rise" of China is then rendered an artefact of misleading fictional writings and musings, of an earlier time.
China will be a big regional power, i.e. more-or-less what it is now.
It will get stronger, and will advance, and will make its way in the world, but its security will stem from its economy and diplomacy, not its military. At present China's economy and financial stability is highly questionable and doubtful, while its diplomacy is in tatters. And if its military were used it would see China hosed with ordinance from every direction and demolished.
So they need to get over the fantasy of strategic global dominance, straighten out their finances to save the economy from collapse, and simultaneously build real diplomatic relationships and actual engagement with all of its neighbors as actual partners, and realize that they can not successfully exceed their borders, or the territory of their neighbors, via any military means without calamitous consequences falling on itself.
If they fail to do that their future will not be so bright.
"China is not going to 'rise', as a superpower 'replacement', as there is in reality no replacement process. That is a figment, because the US is not going to totally collapse. It has big problems, yes, but it had the same problems in 1932, and in 1945 ruled the international order anyway, for the most part. So that can turn around in ways you would not predict."
"This is what China still has to come to terms with, namely, the US is not going to leave a 'Position Vacant' sign over the western and central pacific basin. The "Rise" of China is then rendered an artefact of misleading fictional writings and musings, of an earlier time."
Wise, but overlooks the unprededented situation all the EM countries (and Euro too) find themselves put in by the collapse of the dollar and the turn of the Empire toward mass scale terrorism and subversion to keep control.
Sometimes the best you can do looks foolish except compared to all the alternatives.
Yeah, my crystal ball doesn't really work, I just use it as a prop. I liked your comment below (greened it).
I suppose I look at the topic and I am often miffed at the views I read about it coming from the US. Many people there really believe China is this huge monolithic ogre, ready to sneak up behind them to deliver the bludgeon.
The reality is China is much weaker and has many problems and insecurities. It may have the usual belligerent elements in the military (hardly surprising), and these may become more uppity as the military modernizes further, but the truth is Taiwan has been able to hold them off from just 170km away, using a few hundred fighters and a whole lot of anti ship and cruise missiles with lost of artillery, for about 65 years. i.e. They really aren't crazy about fighting it out even over Taiwan (for some reason people in the US seem to forget that the PLA don't really want to mix it up, even on such terms).
The idea that the PLA could have a free-hand to sweep across the entire region is not at all realistic, because there's a few militaries in this region who are well equipped and ready, with a full-banana of modern weapons and are further rapidly expanding and muscling up.
So I don't think the danger is that great, just that it's subject to the usual danger of escalation, miscalculation, error and the usual false-flag provocation.
That's the real danger, the proximity of China to the US military, and I'm much more worried about the US than China in that interaction. I hope the Chinese wont give them an excuse but I know that the US is plenty capable of manufacturing them as required (to keep tensions higher for longer, and sell more weapons and seem more relevant and indispensable).
The propaganda offensives that come along with all that is perhaps the greater danger, but to everyone's sanity, deficits and tax bills.
I read "The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy", when it was first written and it was clear then that for most of the cold war, the US MIC and Pentagon was vastly over-stating the strategic capabilities of the USSR, whilst minimizing the US's clout. In the end the Soviets were terrified of the Americans striking first. Their fear lead them to build about 44,000 nukes by 1986, as they figured Reagan's SDI and a first-strike using Perishing II, F-111s and Trident just might wipe them out before they could react, so they just upped the numbers and diversified into more big fast cruise missiles and other delivery methods.
It would be very unfortunate if the ratcheted fear level leads to that sort of stupidity ever again.
china can be deciphered as a whole single entity. historically it has never been outwardly aggressive. there is no reason to believe they have changed their defensive minded perspective as it is ingrained in the chinese culture. the lessons learned from westerm imperialism is that the defense of china must be prepared on all fronts. the island disputes with japan are simply a test of usa support for japan and a warning to japan that their future lies with china and not the usa. the builduip of their navy is specifically meant as a defense of their regional trading routes in pacific asia so the west cannot cut off essential materials import from the mid east, indonesia and india. their one vulnerability is commodity sourcing in australia which they are desperately trying to replace with local and russian sources(hence the stockpiling of aussie commodities).
the key to their defense are the currency trade agreements they have negotiated with all their major trade partners with umbrella agreements with the brics nations and regional agreements with japan and asia pacific nations. they need to reduce their dependence upon the dollar in order to be "safe" from western aggression.
given their defensive posturing, china has no desire to rule the world in the traditional boots on the ground, money in the right pockets neocolonialism the west can't seem to get enough of. no, the traditional way china has ruled the world since the beginning of china time is making themselves economically indispensible to the needs of the rest of the world.
how will they do it in the 21 century when silk and ceramics aren't enough? all they need to do is replace the usa as the biggest consumer market in world. isn't taht the plan just announced a few weeks ago?
as far as the stability of the pboc monetary system two variables control the situation. the first one is the still tremendous ability to absorb the excess given the chinese still have another half billion people to bring into the 21 century and the most important variable of having the equivalent of a lincoln greenback for fiat backed by a substantial ratio of gold and other commodities. china has repeatedly said they do not want the burden of the yuan as reserve currency but would support a currency exchange system based upon the value of a basket of currencies determined by the price of a basket of commodities. as the dollar becomes less important the usa becomes less important and china's biggest existential threat becomes a eunuch.
so china will replace the usa as the most powerful nation in the world in terms of the essence of power, money, without all the crap that comes from neocolonialism.
I take it back. "Sounds wise", but not honest.
This is the sequence of events I remember - did I get it right?
* US military leaks plans for attack on China, blockade of Chinese oil imports.
* Obama first announces pivot to Asia
* Japanese company purchases island claimed by Taiwan, China and Japan
* US declares it will protect Japan in event of conflict
* China declares aircraft identification zone
* US sends nuclear-capable bombers through zone
* Us sends unprecedented naval exercise into that zone
* Chinese naval vessel shadowing exercise has near-collision with US vessel
* Obama officially declares Pivot to Asia
* China announces date for completion of its first ever Chinese-build aircraft carrier.
* Abe abandons Japanese neutrality.
* DoD-connected Analysts from Rand Corp again discuss US plans for war on China.
If this is even close, how can you claim it shows the Chines government is engaged in rampant expansionism?
Another thing, which I am surprised no one I've read has mentioned:
- the Diaiyu Islands are close to Taiwan, and sentiment in Taiwan is undoubtedly strongly against letting their former imperial power Japan have them - never mind public sentiment in China.
- China's claim to Taiwan rests on the assumption that Taiwan is a Chinese provence, an assumption shared by much of the Taiwanese ruling class and the ruling party, and China has been pursuing a policy of peaceful reunification.
- If China lets itself get punked by Japan on this and fails to defend its claim to the islands, that will be a serious, perhaps fatal blow to it's project of reunification. Abe's government undoubtedly knows this. So does Obama's.
I'm not pointing this out to argue over whether China's in the right or wrong in its claims to these islands. It's being asserted that China's challenge over the islands demonstrates a policy of pursuing regional hegemony. My point is that if the Chinese government has been deliberately pushed into a corner where they really have to take up Japan's challenge, then it proves nothing of the kind.
I hope the Chinese leadership look up "Mare Nostrum" before doing anything. If it wasn't for FDR the Chinese would still be trying to evict the Japanese from Chinese territory.
Like most posts in the "mainstream" press and many on this site, this one treats "China" as though it were a person. At times it treats China as the same as the CPC leacership and banks, lumped together. As in "China bought a bank vault in Manhattan." That might be OK for propaganda, but not for analysis.
It would be like lumping Obama, Paul Ryan, Goldman Sachs, Warren Buffet, Intel and the Fed together and calling them "The US", ignoring all the conflicting interests and actors.
Or like talking about what France wanted or was going to do in 1788 when you really meant King Louis XVI and the Aristocracy!
Careful ZH readers know better.
The real situation is that the CPC leadership, the bankers and kleptocrats are trying to keep the lid on a volcano, just as our own are. Perhaps they see themselves in a kind of Musical Chairs contest to see who can keep it under control longest, perhaps they fantasize about what they'll do with the world if they win, but probably it won't matter, because the collapse of one will so quickly trigger that of the other..
Then the real fun begins, as their largely-hidden internal dynamics (and our own) burst onto the stage.
I'm watching for clues to what happens next - with fascination and a certain amount of fear.
Typical for people in the West to make the mistake of thinking this issue only specific to China, but throw in the SCO and the BRICS and the picture changes. The East is sick of the West's hegemony, and they are moving in the right direction: world power is moving to the East while the West is in rapid decline. With all the problems in the US from the start of the Great Depression who then would have thought that the dollar (US) would replace the pound (Great Britain)? Out of the soon to come great crisis China will emerge as a great world power to eclipse the US. How can you expect a super indebted West to prevail against a growing creditor East?
Chinese believe they are the Master Race/Culture. They are far more racist than any Nazi ever was. The only people who are more racist are Koreans, "the most pure blooded people on Earth."