China and its expansionism

Heres the last china post:

Relax wrote:Yes, and the main problem being, like Germany before WWII, China is starting to make all the same noises about protecting the HAN people weather said people want said Chinese governing or not and ancient territory conquests or possessions.

At least the Russians are figuring it out with their revamping of their nuclear forces. Time for Japan to change its constitution allowing it to create offensive weapons. Since we never actively garrisoned Japan after WWII, shoving that proviso down Japan's throat was a good option as it allowed our troops for the most part to stay confined to a couple bases or stay at home. Resulting in we weren't percieved as an occupying force who were out to take their land. Okinawa doesn't count as Okinawa was officially, still is actually, its own independent, to some extent governing body. The Okinawans wanted us there after WWII. What forces were in Japan were there to make sure chaos didn't break out while Japan new fledgling governement didn't implode. (Why Iraq was such a travesty as we let the idiots write their own constitution instead of shoving one giving civil liberties and rights to all the people of Iraq instead of essentially Sharia law.)

The end result of this policy was allowing the Japanese people to move away from the Bushido code as a governing creed without creating massive hostility.

Not forcing Japan to apologize(lose face) to Korea/Philippines/China was a big mistake. One of the main reason S. Korea still doesn't like Japan much. All it would have taken were a few words and very minimal deeds to start the healing process. Instead S. Korean's can still wave the bloody flag and be justified due to Japan's colonial rule. Actually, Japan's colonial rule, short as it was, did help Korea weather they want to admit it or not as the Japanese started the reforms bringing Korea kicking and screaming into the modern age, where, there was this thing called schooling, and science for the masses instead of mumbo jumbo superstition.

prior posts:
KenL511:

As far as I can tell, China is expanding in six directions simultaneously.

Taiwan/South China Sea. Prior territorial claims and resources.

Vietnam/Annam. Prior Territorial claims, real estate, old grievances and response to anti-han ethnic cleansing by current government.

Mekong basin. Resources, real estate and geographic position (port and infrastructure access to regional rivals).

Himalya/Kashmir/possible northern Indus Valley. Resources, real estate and geopgraphic position. China already posesses 15% of Kashmir, if India and Pakistan continue fighting over it, China's percentage could easily grow.

Tarim Basin/Central Asia. Prior Territorial claim, real estate, resources and geographic position.

Russian Far East. Prior Territorial claim, real estate, resources and geographic position.

With exception of Vietnam/Annam axis Han populations have already moved into the areas in large numbers. In Russian Far East there are already more Han than Slavs in eight Oblast nearest China. In Irkutsk Oblast, Han are already the largest non-indigenous population.

China's population is growing too fast for China to hold, real estate for people to live on/farm is needed.

Prior territorial claims only require valid prior posession sometime in the last 2500 years, and the Chinese Government understands that exercising such claims depends on levels of strength sufficient to do so. They currently have that strength.

If the chinese people are to have a standard of living of that in Europe much less that of the USA they will require a consumable resource base larger than currently available on earth.

For China to have access to real estate expansion and growing resource base they need to geographically position themselves for that access and to curtail that access for potential rivals.

Of course, all of this will bring China into conflict with most of the world at one time or another....

wastedfly wrote:Isn't that already fait-acompli? From my very limited reading of the news is that neither Philippines nor Vietnam have any navy and cannot patrol those waters. After all presence is 9/10ths of the law of possession. There is no way the USA is going to step in when neither the Philippines nor the Vietnamese like us all that much, one for real reasons, the other for corruption. Though if the USA allows this blatant violation of the SEA treaty(China signed) then the entire SEA treaty goes right down the drain. Not a bad option, especially if one starts reading into said treaty and some if more nefarious implications.

Lets just hope China's expansionist new government doesn't lead to WWIII. Lets see, USA's build down of military forces(It will happen no if and's or but's about it), China's build up of forces reminds me rather starkly of pre WWII. We will see in another 10 years. China likewise as all the industrial muscle needed to bury any opponent. Don't think they will move till they China can at least prove to istelf that it can build quality naval ships. As soon as this happens, watch out as China currently and for the next 20-30 years will lead the world in Merchant Marine building. Baring a leap forward in ship building practices away from Steel that is.

Taiwan, Burma(Myanmar: Why on earth did they change the name to something longer?), S. China sea, maybe China simply decides to take over N. Korea along with these other "territories", though Taiwan will be a tough nut to crack. China already has millions of people in Africa Rift Valley region for minerals/farming. This would lead one to contemplate that China would rather swallow Burma whole allowing access to the Indian Ocean without having to run the gauntlet via Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia or via Pakistan. China has already effectively taken over the farming of Uzbekistan/Krygistan/Tazikstan. Erm, one of those stan's I have wrong. Forget which one and am too lazy too look it up on a map.

Minor flip side to Chinese expansion is China's historical tendency to break-up. North and South china have spent more of history seperate than together. North china has more of a coherent history than south china. It would not surprise me to see China expanding at the same time as the central government losing control over major areas of the exsisting country.

kenl511 wrote:Minor flip side to Chinese expansion is China's historical tendency to break-up. North and South china have spent more of history seperate than together. North china has more of a coherent history than south china. It would not surprise me to see China expanding at the same time as the central government losing control over major areas of the exsisting country.

True. Due mainly to 2 different languages. Now in our country they are going all soft and allowing Spanish to flourish. If you want to be a whole country without perceived divisions that can be used by power hungry politicians, one needs one culture and one language, otherwise ...

wastedfly wrote:

kenl511 wrote:Minor flip side to Chinese expansion is China's historical tendency to break-up. North and South china have spent more of history seperate than together. North china has more of a coherent history than south china. It would not surprise me to see China expanding at the same time as the central government losing control over major areas of the exsisting country.

True. Due mainly to 2 different languages. Now in our country they are going all soft and allowing Spanish to flourish. If you want to be a whole country without perceived divisions that can be used by power hungry politicians, one needs one culture and one language, otherwise ...

New Zealand has 3 official languages at the moment..... and 2 seperate(ish) cultures, and we arent doing too bad....

wastedfly wrote:

kenl511 wrote:Minor flip side to Chinese expansion is China's historical tendency to break-up. North and South china have spent more of history seperate than together. North china has more of a coherent history than south china. It would not surprise me to see China expanding at the same time as the central government losing control over major areas of the exsisting country.

True. Due mainly to 2 different languages. Now in our country they are going all soft and allowing Spanish to flourish. If you want to be a whole country without perceived divisions that can be used by power hungry politicians, one needs one culture and one language, otherwise ...

While there are two well known chinese languages in the west, China is actually blessed with many languages and cultures. It is as if trying to make a single nation of all the American Indian tribes within the USA without serious external pressure. Not going to happen.

Chinese Officialdom is currently trying to deny this and homogenize these cultures at the same time. The decision to use Mandarin as the official language of China goes back a ways. Shih Huangdi tried to impose it back aroud the 6th century BCE.

Corruption, logistics and local cultural history tend to be the forces that break China up. Think almost all of China having local histories of independence; anger, contempt of central government due to corruption and the central government not being able to move armies there without taking easily defensible bottlenecks.

Hi guys

I once read a story titled "East and West" written IIRC by a C Northcote Parkenson (he was from Great Britain, I believe).

I believe one of his theories, when extrapolated into our immediate future, predicted that China (or some other Eastern country) would become the next world power.

?? Has anyone else out there read the book ??

?? Comments ??

R

My understanding on coal subject is... limited shall we say, but here goes.

EDIT: Since I did a quick Yahoo search, seems my analysis below was spot on: This explains it:
[url]
http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries ... 15222.html[/url]

1) Wyoming coal isn't going to China as there is no port anywhere near Wyoming loading coal to start with. None in Washington or Oregon. They have been talking about building one in both Oregon(Portland) or in Washington at Longview(Columbia River) or Willipa Bay area. I highly doubt the one on the Columbia river will ever get off the ground as coal carriers are HUGE and while the Columbia is a big river, it would have to be dredged allowing larger gross tonnage ships(Have been fighting environmental wackos for 20 years to get it dredged again) and there is the issue of the Bridge at Astoria over the Columbia that isn't high enough.

2) Australia is closer if they were buying coal.

3) China's RR network may not be all that developed.

4) I can't believe China imports coal except way down south as N. China, where nearly ALL of their steel production is at has vast coal reserves and is FAR inland so, coal via water would then have to be transported via rail INLAND past coal mines.

5) I would have to conclude that any imported coal was due to a lack of Rail Road infrastructure from China's vast coal mines/reserves in Northern China to Southern China and its few steel mills and electricity generation facilities down south.
[url]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... al_exports [/url]

As far as point one is concerned, all that "Wyoming" coal that isn't being shipped to China goes through Billings 2 or 3 times a day on its way to Seattle. 240 to 360 coal cars a day are headed for the West Coast. 2 or 3 more trains are headed East every day. Those are just the ones from the southern Montana coal fields.

As for point 2., what is the difference in cost between US coal and Australian coal? For that matter, how does the cost of Chinese coal compare?

The coal that is actually mined in Wyoming is shipped south out of the state and I have no idea how much that is. As far as it goes, a trade delegation from China shows in Montana up a couple of times a year to negotiate for coal prices.

KNick, from the top of my head without checking, I can confirm that Australia does send large quantities of coal to China. I believe one reason is the type of coal. We have good quality coking coal which is needed for steel production. They also buy a lot of iron ore and natural gas.