South China Sea and China (2011-2017)

[carl]

That's a negative, sir. Quoting Carl once again (sorry, Carl):

Carl posits a war scenario in the above passage. Did you conclude that he has a special insight into CCP behaviour owing to any inherent Chineseness. The passage was indirectly referred to once and directly quoted in a response to you a second time.

My impression is that more than a few Americans view war with China as inevitable as they see it as an evil, expansionist state uninterested in co-existence. Do you infer anything Chinese about their views? Perhaps that is better left unanswered.

Wow! I'm being quoted as an authority. This is great. My mother won't be surprised but will my brother ever be impressed! Are my views really being used as representative of "more a few Americans"? On the off chance that they are, maybe I should explain something.

The passage you quoted, twice, could be viewed as a prediction of war I guess, if you are not a careful reader. That is my fault since I should write with the expectation that uncareful readers abound. What I should have written was "could" instead of "will", as in "J-20s could be flying around picking off American jets" rather than "J-20s will be flying around picking off American jets". That would be more clear and would more accurately reflect my opinion. After all us opinion leaders and makers bear a weighty responsibility. But in my defense, you could have J-20s picking off F-18Fs in situations well short of wars. American aircraft, mainly recce planes, used to get picked off regularly in the Cold War by many countries we weren't at war with, Russia and North Korea being two. Red China got three in 1967 or 1968 I believe.

But since my opinion carries such weight nowadays, I'll state what it is concerning chances of war with Red China in 10 years. I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Things could run the gamut from an all out destroy both countries exchange of nukes to something like the navel (I used that word just for you BA) war we fought with France around the turn of the 18th to 19th centuries to Operation Praying Mantis to amity on the order of that we have with the Aussies.

One of the big reasons for the uncertainty is we don't have a clue what is going on in the upper reaches of the Chinese regime. So we have to try to divine things from actions. The actions of late have been a big naval buildup in the face of no threat, continuing aggressive and provocative actions at sea and a lot of very belligerent talk. Those things worry me.

There, the sage has spoken.