China #2

An interesting article that makes a lot of good points. I don't accept some of those points, The main one being the contention that a sea conflict would be largely victimless. In fact I suspect that victims may be measured quite differently.

A point it makes about the so-called new empire where states basically run themselves and take into consideration the leading empire state's interests is interesting but omits the fact that this was the MO of old imperial China and hardly a modern or US invention. I have argued that this is part of the problem with the Tibet-China argument: Tibet was long a part of China but a China that was not centralized as the Communists decided to make it.

The article downplays the seriousness, in my view, of the fact that this is not only a question of a fight over resources but in the context that there will not be enough to go around.I don't expect the conflict to remain on the water as open conflict would return to land as a means to take a power off the water.

The main reason the Chinese may not want open conflict even in a context of diminishing resources is also to do with China's outlook and history. Most Western countries have found their greatest successes to be military. That is not the case for China and has really never been. China's greatest disasters were military. It's successes were usually economic and through domination of trade. This is important to recognize especially as this form of success is better suited to the modern era. While Western nations may at least pretend to recognize some of the rules of war, they look at military power as a way to achieve great things, to assert their power. China's military interest is more likely being built up to avoid further military disasters and protect its other dominations. China, I think, wants to continue exactly what it is doing economically, creating dependencies and leaving those who disagree with it no option to stop it. Military might more than anything else is designed to ensure that others will think twice about going to war. Interestingly, China's economic expansion makes this very clear, as the holder of debt China is staking everything it would seem on the avoidance of full-on conflict where its economic interests would be battered. The US is staking everything on trying to keep a domination that is impossible to retain. The US is the greater threat in this regard since the US has a lot of power and its gamble looks impossible while the Chinese approach looks realistic. On this I agree with the article.

I find the article must be written by someone excited with the military conflicts of the last century but not one with a balanced view of it. The main war of the last century that defines the current situation is not the second world war but the cold war that the author appears to believe is passing away with little to influence the current time. That in fact is the US view and it is a mistake. The Chinese apparently understand the Cold War more than the US do. The Cold War was in some respects also a total war. The US and the Soviets engaged in a gigantic conflict that was as much a direct economic and political war as it was an indirect series of military engagements mostly by proxy. The Chinese learned the lesson the US seems to have forgotten: the Cold War was won in the field of economics. The the new Cold War with China the Chinese look like the US did and the Americans like the Soviets: The economic domination this time will come from China and the US risks blowing itself and its empire apart from within due to economic collapse. On sentimentality on behalf of the US seems to keep them blinded to that reality.

This is also where the article is thin. The Chinese are not likely to try to keep their domination to the Seas. They will go in to the markets and buy the resources they wish to control or invest in their development.

You have to look at China's objectives here: as the article states they are not land expansion. They are stability and room for continued economic growth. China's greatest threat comes from within given its size. China has more poverty than is healthy for stability in the long term and it wants the strong growth it has been experiencing to continue in order to keep the country together and provide national purpose. This means increasingly China will need a greater share of resources to accomplish that.

The article is right about the nationalism. This is the newest aspect to China's history. Nationalism is also seen as a tool in holding the nation together and it has a dynamic that is quite independent of the ruling party. The lack of strong nationalism at moments has been seen to be a partial cause of China's losses in the previous few centuries.

Still there is a lot of interesting ideas in the article although the main concern I have is that there is an attempt to see the emergence of China more as a Western type empire following a US model than what it is. The Chinese influence is much closer to a reclaiming of the role China had previously, and it is based on a Chinese history. In that context the South China Seas is important but it is not the main event. China's main struggle is to increase its influence across the globe in economic areas so that it cannot be ignored and so that its interests remain wherever it faces a need. That struggle is close to ending as China has for the most part won this struggle.  You can see it manifested in the interest in building a pipeline to sell it oil. China does not consider that its empire has to be built on another's surrender so you may not notice its strongest initiatives. China is fine with other countries benefiting from the relationship so long as it has a central position-- in fact I think China sees mutually beneficial relationships as more sustainable. Arguably that is the more mature position.

Anyway lots of food for thought.

Taiwan monitors Chinese naval moves

Chinese navy increasingly provocative, training and gathering intelligence ahead of anticipated completion of PLA navy's new aircraft carriers around 2015-2020.

This recent exercise involved 5 warships that sailed north through the Taiwan Strait, passed between Okinawa and the disputed Diaoyutai/Senkaku islands, to hold exercises in international waters northeast of Luzon. Drawing some fairly clear lines in the water.

Seems the PRC is making a statement on the heels of: Japan naming islands in the Diaoyutai/Senkaku chain; Obama's pivot towards East Asia; and disputes in the South China Sea, most recently over the rocks known as Scarborough Shoal.

All of this relates to resource depletion as it applies to national interest. If you want more security in the world, rather than build war machines whose use makes us less secure, countries need to invest in renewable resources and replacements for what is running out.

Sadly, China is also ahead of the west on this one.

If you want peace you need to lobby your governments to put more in to these new technologies.

There is nothing China or the US are doing that is not predictable. However, the west is too used to relying on old sources and are slow to change direction. The culture of imperialism that pervades western foreign policy is also in the way of progress. China increasingly is responding in kind seeking to develop its own off-shore empire. Rather than criticize them for doing what we are doing and have been doing, we should try something else. A global summit on resources designed to figure out how we are going to share what we have and develop alternatives is necessary as well as global environmental treaties.

If humans do not develop an alternative to war for resolving these things we shall continue to use that means. This problem is global not restricted to one or a few countries.

I wouldn't consider it so... but that's just me.

If we do it to other nations we can't very well bitch about them doing the same thing near our waters now can we? It's perfectly within the legal rights of the Chinese navy to do so in international water and it's their money to burn on fuel and supplies. That and I'm sure the US Navy would rather enjoy the opportunity to shadow the Chinese navy (also perfectly legal) so far from its home. They would learn much from the experience.

Sure. And while China and Russia talk peace with America, they could be arming right wing militia groups for insurrection in the US, and shipping heavy duty weaponry to rebel gangs in Central America.

No country actually wants any of that, though, Bec. No country wants to be seen as the idiots who started WW III. No country wants to win at the game of nuclear chicken except for maybe Uncle Sam. And I think other countries fear that Uncle Sam may actually not win the great game and go down the tubes trying. A nuclear armed rogue superpower falling apart at the seams economically and socially is not a pretty sight for the rest of the world to behold.

The Washington Post is so insightful.

China's naval show of strength raises stakes in island dispute with Japan

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/chinas-naval-show-of-strength-...

1733

Japan is US Pawn in Campaign to Encircle China

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/japan-is-u-s-pawn-in-campaign...

"Behind the farce of 'buying' the Diaoyu Islands, Japan has a much bigger plan. Since the US announced its strategy of returning to Asia, Japan has been acting as 'a pawn of the US' to encircle China.."

That article NDPP like all Western media articles about China does not acknowledge a single whiff of the Chinese people having any agency.  The style of writing totally ignores the actual process of elections that led up to the Congress and the main issues involved in those often policy driven elections and instead boils it down to one old man controlling everything. 

It seems that the "conservatives" might actually be conservationists who want to put the brakes on unbridled and poorly regulated capitalism.  If that were the case it would hardly be a disaster for the people or the planet.

All That Pivots is Gold   -  by Pepe Escobar

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/OB01Ad01.html

"What Beijing actually wants is to get rid of the US dollar peg. For that to happen it needs vast gold reserves..."