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Good points, Tequila but if I were a senior military man in China, I would be looking at Appalachia, the inner cities and the depressed rural areas of the South and saying the same thing about America. I think after their roads are built, we will see Chinese carrier forces deployed - 2 for the home waters, 2 for foreign waters and one to roam.
Note that they don't even have one, carrier or even realistic plans for getting one. As comparison, India has 2 already I believe.
Also their Appalachia consists of 75% of their population and 85% of their landmass. A bit of a difference, and one the Chinese are well aware of.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...esItRight.aspx
According to this article (Jim Jubak), China is in the lead with this concept/application. 50 years ago, China was essentially an agrarian economy. Their 3 Gorge Dam when fully functional will produce 9x the output of Hoover Dam and they are soon implimenting some massive road construction projects and they're into outer space and nuclear active.
In 50 years, I think the industrialization and economic rise of China will be looked back on as the world-historical event of our lifetime - far surpassing the Iraq War or 9/11 or the GWOT - on par with the industrial rise of continental Europe and the United States from 1865-1912.
Food for thought on China's rise:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/c...?story_id=3719
I'm not completely convinced that China is the same threat as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan was at one time. I'm not saying we shouldn't be prepared, I just don't think the sky is falling.
I agree that they are not a genuine military threat as those other powers were.
I hope you guys are right but if you were the bosses over there, what in the he** would you do with 1.3+ billion people? Our DNA that makes us tribal pretty much dictates expansion and control of land/resources. I still say they are going to start building carriers and projecting force into the sea lanes and no amount of intelligent, researched reasoning and analysis is going to make me think to the contrary. They remind me of Wal-Mart heavily armed and I'm not yet conditioning my grandchildren to liking chop sooey, but we as a nation better be on our toes and get some things turned around. China doesn't have the immigration problem we have nor the Islamic fundamentalist problem we have. When the latter flares up on them and there are rumblings to that affect already, they have a proven model and recourse of action, Tibet, that they will employ without any compunction and they won't spend a cent on grooming perceptions, images and spin over their actions . World opinion be damned. Blowing up mosques and shooting any and all curfew violators will do wonders in convincing the ummah in any pocket of unrest to follow the Chinese party line. Nor will they ever be burdened with the Entitlement mind-set the West has and the counter productive burden it imposes. An old Circuit Court Judge once told me, " everyone has so much freedom, nobody has any freedom any more". Their criminals don't live better than their victims and that mind set is most conducive to economic, political and military dominance IMO.
SSI, Sep 07: Right Sizing the People's Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China's Military
Complete 588 page pdf report at the link.Quote:
....This volume—harvesting the fruit of research and discussion from the 2006 PLA Conference—considers the force structure of the PLA and China’s latest training, doctrinal, and procurement efforts across the arms and services of its military forces. Organized on a service-by-service basis, this assessment provides new insights into the drivers behind the size, posture, and arming of the Chinese military. Though China’s military intentions have long been shrouded in a veil of secrecy, the chapters herein draw vital information from a diverse assortment of Chinese and American sources to illuminate these hidden contours, offering perspectives and conclusions with far-reaching implications for policymakers and defense leaders in the United States and worldwide.
One key theme emerging from this volume is that, as far as modernization is concerned, the PLA is by no means monolithic. A service-by-service analysis reveals that while doctrines may be aligned under the rubric of a broad national military strategy, some service programs have larger handicaps—that is, are further behind national requirements—than others. In these instances, “surprise” modernization programs may be likely to emerge.
A second critical theme, and one that cuts across all service programs, is the growing importance of the human dimensions of the PLA. As modernization continues and systems become more complex, the human elements—education, training, personnel management, etc.—will be increasingly critical to the development of the armed forces. The might of a military, after all, is only as strong as the people comprising it and the strategies they undertake....
.....or order a hard copy here.
Guardian Unlimited, 14 Sep 07: Demobilized Soldiers Riot in China
Quote:
Demobilized soldiers rioted at a retraining center in northeastern China overnight, the latest in a series of apparently coordinated protests against living conditions, a teacher and a human rights monitoring group said Friday.
About 1,000 ex-soldiers began smashing up classrooms and dormitories at the Qiqihar Railway Institute late Thursday night using beer bottles, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said....
....The violence comes just over one week after about 2,000 demobilized Chinese soldiers rioted at training centers in at least three cities.
The reported protests, which authorities refused to confirm, were notable for their level of coordination, something not seen on a nationwide scale since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing and several other cities.....
I don't know how many of the posters here subscribe to John McCreary's NightWatch newsletter, but as a free resource I find its contents preferable to most of the more mainstream outlets. Here's the relevant bit:
As a visual aid, McCreary includes a map displaying the growth of the two railroad lines, and when you add that to the existing transportation hubs that tie into Moscow, you can clearly see the potential for a game-changing shift of power from the Western hemisphere to the Far East, driven by the rapid technological development of a nation that contains 20% of the world's population.Quote:
China-Central Asia: Yesterday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summarized the results of Premier Wen Jiabao's swing through central Asia and Russia between 2 and 6 November. Wen paid official visits to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belarus and Russia; attended the sixth meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tashkent; and led the Chinese delegation to the 12th China-Russia Prime Ministers’ regular meeting, where he attended the closing ceremony for the “China Year “in Moscow.
It is no accident that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization members were the first to be visited after the 17th National Congress approved the latest leadership lineup. China’s turn to the countries in the Asian landmass is historic and strategic because these are the barbarian lands in antiquity and more recently they were hostile as members of the Soviet Union. After years of meetings that achieved little, they are now becoming the centerpiece of a non-western strategic economic center. High oil and natural gas prices are reshaping trade and development patterns faster.
The level of interaction seems to be gathering momentum as patterns of trade shift. For example, in Uzbekistan, China promised to buy more cotton, as part of the ten cooperation agreements signed last week in Tashkent. To ensure the cotton reaches China, China has agreed to accelerate transit road construction across Kyrgyzstan. China also intends to continue to expand the railroads that will link to the Chinese system. The Chinese quest for resources is accelerating the development of the continent.
Older maps show China’s railroad west of Urumqi ending at the Chinese border so that invaders from the Soviet Union could not use it. Now it is a 32 hour train trip from Urumqi to Almaty, Kazakhstan and costs $63. Many readers will not know there are two rail systems from Moscow to the Far East: the well-known Trans-Siberian Railway and the newer Silk Road route that links all the central Asian states and terminates in Beijing.
I just wrote an analysis entitled "Divine Manipulation of the Threads: China's Certain Rise to World Dominance in the 21st Century" that's available for download at IntelFusion. I'd love to hear any comments on it.
Hey Jeff !
Well Done...An excellent read !Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffC
I've been asked this boring question a gazillion times as a Harley driver: Why did/does China hold the USA's most-favored-nation trade status ? What in creation was Bill thinking about in 94 :confused:
Great job, Stan
Thanks, Stan. I appreciate it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stan
Regarding MFN status, it was a vastly different China back in '94. I doubt if anyone could have predicted the way things shifted in only 10 years. And today, the answer for MFN continuing is simple. They own a huge portion of our debt. If we squeeze, they squeeze harder. And American consumers have a low pain tolerance, if you know what I mean.
Good article! I never did verify this but read on slashdot how one of their subs recently popped up close to one of our carrier groups without being spotted. It wouldn't surprise me with how the U.S. has been neglecting funding in it's ASW capabilities.
Jeff,
First - my thanks and congratulations for it being 5 pages of concise witting - the stuff coming out of the think tanks always seems to be at least 100 pages. Second - thanks for a very thought provoking piece - lots of questions out there like - Do we work with, or against Chinese goals (where they seem to align with ours) - and how do they view the same question with regards to us? I suspect there is allot of grey depending on who, when and where you are asking.
Best regards, Rob
I read that it surfaced really REALLY close. Kinda like, tag, you're it. Which, if memory serves, is the kind of game that PLAAF pilots like to play with U.S. spy planes near the Chinese border.Quote:
Originally Posted by bismark17
Thanks, Rob. I think concise writing is a lost art. And unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be one that very many people want to resurrect, at least not in my experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Thornton
Regarding some of the questions that you mentioned, my view is that the U.S. should learn a few lessons from what the Chinese have done, particularly in the Education component. I'd like to see a nation-wide reinvigoration around teaching science and math, and requiring students and teachers to hit basic competency goals or the student doesn't graduate, and the teacher's performance is reviewed with possible repercussions.
I found this 5 page essay to be very simplistic since it came to a certain conclusion (China's superpower status) after only reviewing three unrelated aspects of the entire PRC society (special ops emulation, academic exchanges, and cyber intrusion).
I felt that you gleamed only the very best aspects of the PRC (such as accumulation of US treasury bonds) while completely ignoring any of the massive challenges that they face (such as environmental degradation, widening wealth gap, brain drain, political unrest, government corruption, intellectual property rights, freedom of the press ect.)
You also made a reference to the 2008 Olympics in your conclusion which you had not referred to anywhere else in your analysis. You gave no evidence to back up your opinion that this was going to be the tipping point for superpower status.
A more convincing argument could be made if you had attempted to link the 3 aspects together somehow and provide more strategic depth (what does it mean for us?) to your analysis rather than repeating an event that already happened. For example, by not explaining the context behind the Chinese cyber intrusion (it was into an unclassified military network), you weaken your argument by omitting key facts.
Unfortunately, when analyzing total power of a state, you must analyze all aspects of that state and its civil/military society. I felt your analysis lacked comprehensiveness and also depth/context to make such a sweeping generalization.
... others jump in - hypo, your comments are appreciated when commenting on a Council member's post, they are, but in such cases (first time poster) we always ask for the new member to introduce himself here. Thanks - House Rules.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Thornton
The art of concise writing is why I post on my blog and web forums. It helps me practice though I'm still long winded. It seems my academic writing has been growing in length as I try and handle every little nuance and objection I think somebody will come up with.