Chinas/USA on the move towards conflict?

[Scrat]

Just read this. Obama is moving to set up a coalition and acting to try to stem Chinas policies. They also cut us off in the trade of rare earth minerals used in high tech consumer electronics and weapons systems.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/world ... ?th&emc=th



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/busin ... 0rare.html

[Ahso!]

It looks like they're trying to monopolize the electronics market. Its their natural resource, they can do as they like with it, but I doubt this will cause any conflict beyond some complaining.

Are you worried we would go to war with China over televisions?

[yaaarrrgg]

I think we are pretty safe as far as war with China goes.

For one, they are about the only thing that's kept us afloat. If they wanted to destroy us, they could have not bailed us out when our entire economy went off a cliff. And secondly, we are their best customer.

[Bryn Mawr]

yaaarrrgg;1341008 wrote: I think we are pretty safe as far as war with China goes.

For one, they are about the only thing that's kept us afloat. If they wanted to destroy us, they could have not bailed us out when our entire economy went off a cliff. And secondly, we are their best customer.


They would not need to go to war - just sell off half the dollars they hold and break the US economy.

[Ahso!]

Bryn Mawr;1341043 wrote: They would not need to go to war - just sell off half the dollars they hold and break the US economy.Ones gotta wonder though if America would indeed pull a Tony Soprano and just nuke them without warning if it came to that. After all, it would mean survival to America and I don't think she'd take that laying down.

[Scrat]

I think we are pretty safe as far as war with China goes.

For one, they are about the only thing that's kept us afloat. If they wanted to destroy us, they could have not bailed us out when our entire economy went off a cliff. And secondly, we are their best customer.


China has indeed kept us afloat so far but there is a price for that, our consumer driven society. We make very little here anymore. Yes we make cars for example but the Chinese are developing their own automotive industry. I wouldn't say that they're not going to succeed, remember Hyundai? They weren't highly thought of 20 years ago. Now they make products comparable to Toyota.

We have neglected our manufacturing sector here so badly it will take decades to catch up - if we ever do. This makes us vulnerable.

Currently we are their best customer BUT what about the large population in China itself who currently live in the third world? China is investing 100s of billions into infrastructure .This will be used to bring those 100s of millions of rural Chinese into the first world, take into account the populations of the rest of Asia and Africa as a market also. What relevance will we have in that market? Not a lot I think. Just think about it, if and when we lose our relevance/importance to them and it seems we won't be able to pay them back they just may take it out of our hide.

Are you worried we would go to war with China over televisions?


We went to war with Iraq over Saudis Wahabists flying planes into WTC on 9/11. We have nothing against executing the pigs because they saw the fox kill the chicken. If we let this go too far we may go to war (as an act of desperation) over Guatemalan pineapples. I also think that currently we have a Naval superiority that is fast eroding. Once again as we see we are losing the edge the imperatives to act will become more forceful. I think there is a definite possibility we will find some reason to start a war.

[Ahso!]

Scrat;1341095 wrote: We have neglected our manufacturing sector here so badly it will take decades to catch up - if we ever do. This makes us vulnerable. Please explain the meaning behind this sentence. Who is 'we'? Corporations have made business decisions that you and I may disagree with, but 'we' didn't force them to make those decisions. The corporate lobbyists that we've elected which corporate America has offered us to to put into public office have helped create a landscape that may have facilitated those decisions, but in the end its corporate mentality thats behind it and I know I am not one of those people.

[yaaarrrgg]

Scrat;1341095 wrote: China has indeed kept us afloat so far but there is a price for that, our consumer driven society. We make very little here anymore.




I think that would protect the Chinese from the U.S. attacking them, as well. It's the same reason we won't attack Saudi Arabia,. They'd just turn off our gas spicket. It's difficult to ask a country for resources which will be used to attack the same country.

[Ahso!]

Thats sad but true, television is about as important to American society as energy.

[gmc]

Look on the bright side, it would appear those right wing nutters that argued America should use it's military supremacy to maintain global leadership and act to protect american economic interests around the world have lost their credibility a bit.

[Clodhopper]

According to the copy of the Economist floating about the house (I don't subscribe, but my lodger brings back some good reads!) China is changing leader at the moment and is rather more fragile than she may seem since both politically and socially the road ahead is not clear and economic growth is bringing change whether the Party wants it or not.

Personally I wonder if the perspective of History will show that the change from Emperor and Bureacracy to Leader and Party was not that great. China doesn't seem to like Change. I wonder if massive economic growth, which has (I think) wrought huge change wherever it has occurred, will change that?

[Scrat]

If it does change Clodhopper it won't be to the good. As western economies have grown throughout history their militaries have not beaten their swords into plows and joined in the prosperity. They became a tool of the corporate elite, China was once a victim of this corporate militarism. To this day the great game in central Asia continues as does the game in Oceania. Economic empires seek to expand business and protect their vitals. The peace of capitalism you seem to desire is illusory at best. When peoples are dirt poor they cannot take conflict abroad, when they're rich it can be done. It will never change.





http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/world ... l=&emc=a22

[gmc]

In theory an educated populace with access to different news sources should be more difficult to fool into going to war and also a lot harder to control, especially when the consequences of industrial warfare can be so devastating - it's hard to imagine a major war in europe for instance or japan wanting to go to war unless they can't avoid it. But you never know. The great game continues true enough but this time the players are those countries that were the victims but it's made worse by the old players still acting as if they have a hand when they should perhaps have moved on. You can't have democracy without a politically aware populace, they are then ones that stop the elites in their tracks.

[Clodhopper]

If it does change Clodhopper it won't be to the good. As western economies have grown throughout history their militaries have not beaten their swords into plows and joined in the prosperity. They became a tool of the corporate elite, China was once a victim of this corporate militarism. To this day the great game in central Asia continues as does the game in Oceania. Economic empires seek to expand business and protect their vitals. The peace of capitalism you seem to desire is illusory at best. When peoples are dirt poor they cannot take conflict abroad, when they're rich it can be done. It will never change.


In general, I agree change in China is nerve-wracking for the rest of us. But China is as vulnerable to a nuclear strike as we are. Has the cold comfort of MAD been removed?

Also, the peace of capitalism has existed here in the West for 75 years now, if you mean the peace of free nations trading and talking. I see no likelihood of military conflict between Europe and the Americas and the ex-Soviet bloc in the West seems to be settling down pretty well so far (touch wood). There are issues, no doubt, but nothing that seems likely to trigger WW3.

But how on Earth can a Communist Party justify its postion controlling a capitalist economy? They are encouraging something which they are ideologically committed to destroy, and as a consequence, are they not destroying their credibility in the eyes of their own people?

And how long can the Great Firewall of China last? What happens when the Chinese people have free access to the Western Press?

Perhaps my greatest fear with China is that the leadership, faced with increasing internal pressure for social and political change, will try the classic distraction technique of foreign adventure. I don't know how or where, but that would be the really dangerous thing to happen.

But the one thing China cannot do is stay the same.

gmc: If you control the information, you control the population. Isn't that what the Great Firewall is intended to achieve? (And indeed, is one of my many dark suspicions of Murdoch!)

edit: chuckle. Have just noticed this month's Economist in the lavatory. Will report back later.

[gmc]

posted by clodhopper

But how on Earth can a Communist Party justify its postion controlling a capitalist economy? They are encouraging something which they are ideologically committed to destroy, and as a consequence, are they not destroying their credibility in the eyes of their own people?


Politics and political parties move on, chinese communism parted from Russian communism a long time ago taking it's own form. It's not a religion although the insistence on having the correct doctrine made it appear that way sometimes. The dictatorship of the proletariat was supposed to lead on to pure communism and it was dictatorship in the sense of political control (government) by a social class, not by a man, stalin was not a communist but a dictator in the classical sense of having absolute power except he hung on to it instead of giving it back. If the people are allowed to generate wealth but that it is utilised for the good of all why would it be so far away a stretch for a communist? It was inherited wealth and the taking and keeping of resources for the benefit of a ruling elite that incensed so many including marx, it was the sequestration of common land by the wealthy that led to the famous all property is theft quotation so loved by the far right when they want ton change the subject.

Try asking what most scots think about donald trump and golf courses if you want a modern UK take on it, it looks as if they are going to use compulsory purchase orders to evict people from the land.

posted by clodhopper

gmc: If you control the information, you control the population. Isn't that what the Great Firewall is intended to achieve? (And indeed, is one of my many dark suspicions of Murdoch!)




When you look at those who want to end the bbc you have to ask - why are we even listening to these bastards?

In general, I agree change in China is nerve-wracking for the rest of us. But China is as vulnerable to a nuclear strike as we are. Has the cold comfort of MAD been removed?


Mai tse tung called nuclear weapons the paper tiger, but that was before china had them as well.