Big Trouble In Big China
The Chicomms are getting entirely too big for their boots. They begin to look too much like the Imperial Japan of the 1930’s, and they are just as sensitive about their Achilles heel (lack of natural energy resources) as Tojo’s crowd was.
And, like Tojo’s crowd, they will not be above stealing what they cannot buy. This issue bears close watch.
When my youngest son visited his uncle who was engaged to a Chinese woman, he came home saying he was going to marry a Chinese woman someday. That’s because she would take off my brother’s socks and wait on him hand and foot. She is changing and so are all the Chinese people. 100 million Chinese are an the internet. Sure Google is blocking words like “Freedom” but it’s hard to block the concept.
If this site keeps growing at 15% more, new visitors per month, this site will be crawling with Chinese in a couple of years. After a while the math gets out of hand. If 10% of the new Chinese “middle class” of 300 million start driving cars, gas will go to $20 a gallon. We need to figure out a way to stop these Chinese from wanting automobles as long as we can. But not my little nephews. These little Chinamen will have wheels on their 16th birthdays, they’re Americans.
Posted by Z Woof
07/05/2005 at 08:31 AM
Nuke the bastards.
I remember speaking to some American friends regarding the long term threat of China some ten years back. I had read an article that China planned to rival the US fleet in size by 2040 which would give them serious leverage. However, before that happens I can see them imploding. They think they can run a modern economy and still be true to Marx’s views. I think it likely that China will break up into a number of smaller territories. Hopefully they will be more interested in fighting amongst themselves than against the rest of the world but who knows?
course I was kidding about nuke the bastards…
BUT, I am not kidding about maintaining a STRONG deterrent nuclear capability.
LyndonB, you’re right. I have always wondered what kind of end-game it’s gonna be with China, because you got a supposedly communist country which is, at the same time, a capitalist country par excellence. They don’t jibe.
Hopefully, there will be some internal strife like with the military revolting against the party elites or something. The people will never be able to “rise up” b/c they’re not armed.
The people in China are, compared to the average middle class American, still relatively poor. They are not enjoying the benefits of capitalism in proportion to their success at it. I believe that lots of them are aware of this too.
I should have known that Tann would beat me to the punch with the same thought about the way WW2 got started in the Pacific. The parallels are remarkable and make me very uneasy. “Deja vu all over again” as the great philosopher said.
There are those who will tell us that trade is the way to discourage their military buildup and bring them to a peaceful attitude and it will, to a point. It will soon, however, degenerate into appeasement and we know what happens after appeasement begins.
Stin, you should stand more morning watches, that’s all.
LyndonB has a good point. China was nothing but fragmented, and torn by quarreling warlords, from the fall of the Manchus up to World War II. Something of the sort could happen again if the central authority falls apart or loses its clout. And there is nothing immortal about a doddering old clique of Marxist gunslingers (or their toadies).
what skin color migh that be OCM? I never heard that. You guys got Manchurian restaurants where you live. They’re all jus’ boring ol’ Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese here in DC. The Vietnam restaurants are the best round here.
I assure you, OCM, that those Chinese restaurants are owned and operated by Capitalists. While I can’t claim to personally know any Chinese immigrants, I do have experience with immigrants from other Communist countries and there is nobody more anti-Communist than those who have lived under that system. I’m guessing the Chinese who have gotten this far aren’t interested in living under that yoke again.
ztucka,
It would be interesting to find out how many governments were brought down by peasants with no weapons. A country/government/civilization can definately implode from within. There are usually two reasons for this: Giving the people too much; not giving the people enough. The situation in China is obviously the latter.
“CNOOC remains under majority control of the Communist Party-led state,” - how did that happen in the first place? Were we sleeping at the pump? It does make congressional legislation at this point a bit of an afterthought. Did we abnegate our interests until the take-over made news? As well, if CNOOC supplies almost solely Asia, what is our beef about losing energy reserves? If we never gleaned benefits from this company, why now other than an hysterical concern generating a panic that should have been addressed seriously years ago. They want to buy up other energy companies? Yeah. Why aren’t we buying those companies?
I’m not for this, but at the same time, if we are all about free trade and capitalism, keep politics out of last-minute ‘threats’. Let politics, geopolitics, get to work and stay potential threats before they become real threats. We are seeing big-time capitalism at work outside our borders, and it seems we don’t much like it as it has entered the realm of the geo-political balance. Quite a conundrum. It also smacks of ‘reap what you sow’.
Posted by Phoenix
07/05/2005 at 04:50 PM
Oh, yes, More morning watches. I caught the midwatch last night and would have had late sleepers, had I been able to sleep. Between the heat and the squealing and moaning from the Skipper’s cabin I got no sleep. Such is life “before the mast”, I suppose.
Unfortunately the Communists show a tendency towards building dynasties, much like those they supplanted in Europe and Asia. I had hopes for “creeping Capitalism” in China and it may yet pan out, but it could become very ugly because those doddering old Marxists don’t care how much blood they shed to keep control and I’ll bet that their heirs won’t feel any qualms either. They are especially hard on their own when any perceived weakness is shown.
Their internal affairs are their own, but it disturbs me when I see their military and technological buildup. Submarines, particularly ballistic missile subs, are of no use in putting down a revolt at home.
They’re also having adventures in Africa due to their increasing appetite for oil and other resources. Their partnership with the French is one of the factors behind the situation in Darfur (it’s about the OIL) and they’re trading arms for food with Mugabe in Zimbabwe which will surely make that situation worse.
Stin, do you ever wonder about the capital the Chicomms would use to buy Unocal? Ten bucks says that most of it came to them by way of Wal-mart....
07/05/2005 at 09:54 AM
