China treating Uighur Muslims like Tibetans?

[The Grand Nudger]

Agreed, though I doubt that we'd have to make it all the way to nukes in a war against china to risk extinction. Anti-satellite tech, cyberwar, and biochem is the shit that would keep me up at night if I was a worrier. Is it really a certain confidence that a country that has threatened you with nuclear strikes in the past won't use them in all out war - or is it the knowledge that you have an even more destructive and difficult to mitigate option? Haven't they already armed themselves in exactly the sort of manner you described without us ever having lobbed the first bomb in any case?

[mralstoner]

Sweet sweet irony. Isn't that questioned easily answered by way of examining american history? It's far easier to trade for what you want than it is to take it. If the other guy wants to make shoes for pennies on the dollar, by god, you let him make shoes (see: China). Also, it's a bit pointless to talk about chinese military supremacy until they've gotten their boots dirty. As densely stacked as china is, our bombs are gonna give us a hell of alot more roi than theirs might(kidding - sort of). The only way that China is going to find itself on par with the US militarily is by becoming the US. That's the kind of victory that no amount of bullets or grunts can achieve. IOW, calm down, the sky isn't falling.

All this talk of a peaceful China sounds like people trying to defend moderate Islam. China has already taken Tibet and Uyghur province. Now they're stealing islands off their neighbours. Are their boots not dirty enough for you?

The sky might not fall if you're living in the USA, that's a long way away. Although China is working on asymmetric warfare to take you guys out somehow e.g. EMP, attack your satellites and power stations, cyber war etc.

But I live in Australia and this region is pooping its pants now that China is on the march. Japanese PM Abe just visited here and made a very emotional, very personal speech to form a deep alliance against China. The Chinese sent a few warships recently on a "drive by" just north of Australia. They're slowly marking their territory. And that territory is the whole of Asia.

More to the point, the whole region is spooked that the USA will do nothing, just like they did in Ukraine. Obama, Hillary, or whoever comes next might just shrug likewise.

The problem with China is that power is concentrated in the party elite and military. So with the US in decline, regional safety is now in the hands of a few. And that means anything can happen. Anything.

I'm amazed when people who generally die-in-a-ditch to promote democracy always and everywhere, will simply shrug when world power is being transferred to non-democratic hands. It's is insane to trust a non-democratic power.

[The Grand Nudger]

Do you get jumpy when our warships sail by? We mark every body of water on earth large enough to accommodate us.

[mralstoner]

Do you get jumpy when our warships sail by? We mark every body of water on earth large enough to accommodate us.

China puts oil rig in Vietnamese waters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo4oZnvo_ok

Chinese rams Vietnamese.


China claims the whole South-China Sea.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take the d'souza poster. I'm just suggesting that there's no difference between China projecting force, and the US projecting force. I assume that Australia has a navy, that your ships ply the waters of the south pacific as well? Sure, the ships are meant to intimidate, so are ours, so are yours. It's something that capable nations do. Now, being a florida boy myself, let me tell you a story about the US Coast Guard Cutter Point Glass. In 1999, just off the Hillsboro inslet, a group of refuges in a 25 foot wooden raft were rammed by the 82 foot cutter (which had snuck up on them so quietly they didn't even realize it was there). The cutter then threw it's spotlight on the wreckage and started pummeling it with a water cannon. A woman drowned. All of this within sight of land, in undisputed territory. The Coast guard claimed that the occupants of the boat waived a machete at them while attempting to evade capture. It wasn't the first incident like this, and it wouldn't be the last. That's the generous version of the story, the version that the people onboard the cutter offered in their defense. The cubans told a different tale. They'd been struck multiple times, and had put up no resistance, in fact, they claimed they were incapable of resisting the cutter in their improvised ship. It's hard to take the Coast Guards side on that, eh? Point is, shit like that happens. I don't think anyone thought that the coast guard was planning to invade Cuba, or that Cuba had reason to worry in that regard, that their actions somehow betrayed a deeper current or trend within leadership.

[Anomalocaris]

I am sure many Native American imagine what the world would be like without the most kind and genial of superpowers every day, just like the aborigines whom you've treated so much better over the centuries than the Chinese have treated the Tibetans imagines every day what the world would be like without the democratic English transplant Australians.

[mralstoner]

Holy shit, so many self-hating Westerners on this forum. You'll all still be sitting around pontificating about the evils of Western empires, while the new colonisers (Chinese) have a gun pointed at your head. Barking. Mad.

[The Grand Nudger]

Self hating? Bitch please. USA USA USA USA! Its my opinion that Australia should just get it over with and apply for statehood.

Now that I've established my american cred.....maybe we can have an adult conversation?

[Lemonvariable72]

Yes but China will soon reach a point of military supremacy over the US and then all bets are off. Why continue to trade if you can just take what you want?

Sweet sweet irony. Isn't that questioned easily answered by way of examining american history? It's far easier to trade for what you want than it is to take it. If the other guy wants to make shoes for pennies on the dollar, by god, you let him make shoes (see: China). Also, it's a bit pointless to talk about chinese military supremacy until they've gotten their boots dirty. As densely stacked as china is, our bombs are gonna give us a hell of alot more roi than theirs might(kidding - sort of). The only way that China is going to find itself on par with the US militarily is by becoming the US. That's the kind of victory that no amount of bullets or grunts can achieve. IOW, calm down, the sky isn't falling.

Jesus Christ imagine a american china. You american have the a situation with the military industrial complex where the tail is waging the dog, and that with free election and free press. Imagine what they could do in a country with no elections, no personal freedoms and no free press. Makes me cringe.

[mralstoner]

Do you get jumpy when our warships sail by? We mark every body of water on earth large enough to accommodate us.

MAP: How Asia is scared of China
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worl...-of-china/