RE: Capt. James Fanell warns about the rise of China
December 15, 2014 at 5:51 pm
(This post was last modified: December 15, 2014 at 5:52 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
(December 15, 2014 at 2:22 pm)The_greatest_river Wrote: Yes but as displayed in Ukraine, how dependable are we with signed treaties?
We didn't have a treaty signed with Ukraine, unless you're counting the 1994 treaty that got them to surrender their nukes.
That treaty did not obligate us to go to their defense. That is not the case with Japan; we have a positive guarantee that we will fight alongside them if they are attacked.
(December 15, 2014 at 2:22 pm)The_greatest_river Wrote: Plus China is a huge market that if it were to crash, the United States would be negatively affected and possibly crippled due to China being the only country to buy our bounds for the prices we ask for and they buy a lot of our products as we do with theirs. We are almost co-dependent on them, it's hard to say we would choose Japan over China.
Of course; that's almost exactly the point that Fidel was making upthread.
However, the same line of reasoning, essentially was made by the writer Norman Angell back in 1910 ... about four years before WWI. The reason is that not all statecraft is a rational process. I don't think the Chinese are looking for a fight; I think they're what every other country has done when it sees its power waxing -- they're taking what they want and challenging another power to do something.
The big difference with China is that they seem to practice diplomacy on a timescale the we here don't. They think more about long-term plans in order to achieve long-term goals, I think, and they're wedded to the idea of doing a cost-benefits analysis regarding each possible line of action they are considering.
