China's Emergence as a Superpower (2015 onwards)

[Bob's World]

"Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" - fortunately for the US we have a great "fence" between us and China. What is really at risk is US Influence relative to China's. We need to trust more in the fence, and focus on the competition for influence. Currently China is on a global campaign to buy a great deal of influence; meanwhile the US burns influence by the bucket in our odd perspective and response to 9/11 and subsequent political evolutions in the Greater Middle East.

It is well established that "goods follow power" - or as I prefer, "Sovereignty follows power." As power shifts between parties there will be a rebalancing of goods, and sovereign rights and duties commensurate to that shift.

I suspect China does indeed overestimate what they believe their rightful share to be based upon their current power-status. Equally, I suspect the US clings doggedly to far more than is our commensurate share. But where does one hold? How does one shift positions? Where does one give? There are no "right" answers, and any answer will be powerfully attacked by those who believe it to be the wrong answer.

So yes, we have conversations, but I suspect most begin along the lines of "While keeping the division of sovereign rights and duties just as they currently are, lets figure out how to better get along." That is not going to take us anywhere but to war.

[slapout9]

I think the situation may be worse than it appears. China pursues positive goals, that is they pursue goals that make them stronger. The USA pursues negative goals, all we do is try to block, which only spends resources with no overall gain for the USA. The company I work for is moving out of China and into Cambodia because China no longer considers them a Strategic asset to the country. Not being forced more just left to whether on the vine so to speak, no direct confrontation, but a very clear indirect message. Our CEO says that is the China way. They pursue opportunities and simply starve problems of needed resources. There is a lesson there I think!

[AdamG]

They're playing chess. We're messing with checkers.

How China Is Building the Biggest Commercial-Military Empire in History

June 9, 2015
By Steve LeVine
Quartz

China’s outsized latticework of global infrastructure is said to be rooted in a fierce competitiveness learned from 19th-century America.

http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2...ref=d-dontmiss

[AdamG]

A Chinese billionaire is building one of the world’s largest engineering projects, a canal in Nicaragua that is three times the size of world’s largest, the Panama Canal, and is estimated to cost at least $50 billion. Of the many Chinese infrastructure projects spanning the globe, the new canal seems to make the least commercial sense.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/...nts/ar-AAbGonx

[davidbfpo]

The chart below features in a long NYT article, which interestingly uses Ecuador as its focus:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/bu...attached.html?

[davidbfpo]

Logistics matter and from Australia a short article reviewing what is happening. Rather oddly it concludes (in part) that:

The PLAN in 2015 has an adequate RAS force to support continuous far seas operations.

Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...pability.aspx?

[davidbfpo]

The Pentagon has confirmed the presence of five Chinese naval vessels in the Bering Sea between Russia and Alaska, which Barack Obama is currently visiting.....This is the first time we have observed PLAN ships in the Bering Sea.” The vessels are in international waters near the Aleutians, a chain of islands that fan out from the Alaskan mainland. The boats comprise three combat ships, an amphibious ship and a replenishment vessel.

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...a-alaska-coast