Why is no one in this Forum paying attention to the threat from China?

The very political structure that you praise for its ability to focus is the exact problem. They only decided as recently as the 90s after the first Gulf War to start modernizing their military instead of just relying on numbers, something that virtually every other military on Earth figured out long before. Change comes agonizingly slow in China and everything comes from the top down. Military history has shown one thing clearly and that is that militaries that give very little discretion to the subordinates are inferior to militaries that let their various units take more unilateral action. This was born out in WW2 and in virtually all the Middle East conflicts between Israel and the Arab countries in recent decades. China's military is highly rigid and unresponsive and until that changes China will always play back fiddle to everyone else.

Japan's "Defense Force" surpasses China's military in projection ability in some key areas because they are far more advanced than China since they have been allies with the US. They have less naval and air power in numbers but are almost equal to China in capability and Japan isn't even trying hard.

This isn't jingoism this is fact. Japan only need to step up their efforts a couple of notches and the US can bolster both Japan and Korea's forces quite easily with hardware and some funding with a very good cost benefit ratio and China is left surrounded by allies of the US who also happen to be equipped with far more sophisticated equipment. WIth very little effort the US can easily multiply its force projection capabilities. China has to exert far more effort to keep up. China is just now taking baby steps towards developing stealth technology (the current fighters are not true stealth fighters despite their propaganda) and we did that back in the 1980s.........over 30 years ago.

What is absurd are people that think that because China is the next biggest power to the US that A) means that we are automatically going to be enemies and B) That China is some invincible power that always makes the right choices.

The first one is absurd because China and the US both benefit from one another far to much for either side to seriously want a war with the other and the second assumption is based on idiotic America bashing where America can do nothing right and some creepy fetish where they worship anything Chinese. Hey, I get it, I think Asian chicks are hot as hell but that doesn't mean they have laser beam eyes and bullet proof diamond coated skin.

 

What can I say? Your overconfidence is standard, for Americans; and it is the root of our future defeat v. China.

The Chinese do not have to have our same quality military, in order to be able to prevail in a battle of attrition against us. They are juiced up on 19th century-style nationalistic fervor, have got a chip on their shoulder the size of Mt. Everest, and are doubtless willing to absorb more causalities than we are - by an order of magnitude.

Future naval contests are not going to be replays of WWII in the Pacific. They're going to be dominated by subsurface operations, if for no other reason than the surface of the ocean is going to become a no-man's land. Thinking that Japan is going to be a major player in any future Great-Power war is really kind of quaint. They are much less prepared to fight China than even we are.

China's behavior, in this decade, points unequivocally to their rising belligerence and intent to drive the U.S. out of the Western Pacific. The CCP has made the Faustian bargain of wrapping themselves in the mantle of nationalistic chauvinism, as a replacement for Communism as the legitimating ideology facilitating their monopoly on power. Just last year they made the anniversary of the attack on Nanking into a national holiday. One of their top naval commanders recently spoke of the U.S. as a "paper tiger." They are clearly ginning themselves up for a fight, and all indications are that they have the national will to persist in fighting one. Would we?

Of course whenever anyone hears the murmurs of war-talk, there's always the wise soul who scoffs and dismisses it with "No Way... that'd be bad for business!" I am constrained to say, tell it to the British and the Germans circa WWI. Willful ignorance of the power of nationalism to sway states to fight no matter the cost (particularly when one of those states is no democracy), and to make people believe that they can win major military victories quickly, is prerequisite to crossing a point-of-no-return threshold.

 

I agree with most of what you said but my question to you is how much stuff you have laying around your home that is made in China. Are you willing to put money where your mouth is and buy American goods first and then friends of America?

I see lots of blowhards talking about the threat China is but yet they are the first ones that advocate free trade......never mind trading with China isn't free and fair.

And libs.....you're no better. You talk about carrying for our environment but yet your home is full of Chinese made crap that doesn't have our environmental safeguards. Hypocrites of worst kind IMO.

 

Some say Taiwan gave up their nuclear program back in 60's when they signed a secret agreement with US that brought them into America nuclear umbrella.

 

Libs? Try the poor, a rather large segment of our society. Many Americans are unable to afford to avoid Chinese-made goods, and for many kinds of goods there really are few if any alternatives at this point besides.

 

And once again you bring up yet another area where the US dominates. No one, not a single country on earth has as sophisticated a submarine force as the US does. With the new generation of silent nuclear subs on the horizon they will be practically untouchable. The Soviet era submarines were loud and shockingly unreliable and that is precisely the technology that China is procuring at this time.

What the hell does the UK and Germany circa WW1 have to do with any of this. The UK and Germany did not have extensive or even significant trade relations with each other at the time in fact they were competitors which lead to a large blockade during the war.

People like you are the ones that are deluding themselves because whether a country is democratic or not and whether a country is trading with another country are the two single biggest determinants of whether countries will war with each other.

This segues into a huge point that is also overlooked by doomsayers such as yourself. China sends almost 200,000 students to the US each year to attend the universities and Chinese students overwhelmingly have a positive attitude regarding the US albeit they think American students tend to be lazy. They don't think Americans are some sort of evil threat that is planning on wiping them out. Many of them want to work for US companies like GE and they will be running China in the not so distant future as these are the elite students that are being sent over.

The fact is that China and the US are tied at the hip economically and that isn't going anywhere soon.

Regarding Japan, all Japan has to do is put a modicum of effort and they could easily build up an armed force that could repel ANY Chinese invasion. What the hell good are 10 million troops if you don't have any vehicles or boats to move them around. Add to that the fact that with larger numbers you end up spending vast amounts of resources feeding, clothing and housing them all. This is precisely why the US has opted for smaller numbers of troops with increased lethality. The US just has to supplement Korea's and Japan's forces and the multiplicative effect tilts heavily in the US favor.

All you are doing is regurgitating idiotic nonsense that you read on some blogs.

The only countries I am worried about now are Canada and pretty much the entire Middle East/North Africa region.

 

As far as I see the situation, China is our main competitor in Africa now. Just look at Sudan and who controls the southern and northern parts of the country.
The same is true for many other countries in the region. China is advancing its presens, our country is trying to expand its presens. Just look at the regions that suffered from Ebola.
Remember my words, soon we will have more problems in the region, and another pain in the arse.
As for China itself... Well, our industry is a hostage in China. And that is a very powerful leverage that would be used against us, sooner or later.

 

What would you have us do with China? It's already too late. The have nuclear weapons, and a 2 million man active army with another million in reserves. They will be top dog or billion people will die trying to stop them.

 

Why are you so convinced of this 'threat' from China? They're building a bigger navy; and so what, just about every major player is doing the same.

 

Chinese culture concentrates on internal issues and not external issues.
Therefore the China is not threatening most people.
Sure, they are growing and they grow their influence, but they don't fight for world dominance, they gain it by commerce.
While not liking very much the way they treat their citizens, I do not think they pose a threat to the world.
Ask yourself why you are afraid by them, is it them, or are you afraid to loose your world dominance fantasy.

 

There is no doubt that the South China Sea islands (Paracel Islands) belong to China and have as proven by maps going back to the 1300's and the Ming Dynasty. Even National Geographic outlines these islands deep history and who owned them. The Cham Civilization.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...outh-china-sea-vietnam-china-cambodia-champa/

 

This is why washington hates them.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-08/40-central-banks-are-betting-will-be-next-reserve-currency
washingtons whole excuse for being there is NK. If Kim would make nice with his neighbors then what would washingtons excuse to remain in the east be then.
Thus all the invites for Kim to visit Russia and China over the last 6 months.
http://www.ibtimes.com/kim-jong-un-moscow-visit-russia-extends-invite-north-korea-leader-1790360

 

It works both ways. Without the Chinese imports America so heavily relies upon, your economy would be in trouble.

 

Nothing in it for the Russians? Last year the Russians successfully concluded an immense energy deal with the Chinese. Last year the Russians conducted even more large-scale military exercises.

"By every metric, (Russia) are a declining power"...? Compare the Russian ratio of GDP to national debt versus that of the United States and then decide which country is floating merrily along on a fraud-balloon of delusion. Hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

And then there's the interesting matter of how far Russia has come in the last 15 years in the development and production of advanced, modern weaponry, which is certainly, uh, worthy of attention.... Check it out... tanks, submarines, fighter-bombers, missiles -- oh, and they have more nuclear weapons in their arsenal today than we do....

I never suggested that we should police the world. But that is a course our idiot "leaders" took after the end of World War II, and we've been hard at it ever since. What an abject failure!

A Korean War that gave us a dangerous, rogue nuclear-armed country like North Korea in its aftermath. A Vietnam War that got 60,000 American military killed -- for what? Cheap clothes, along with cheap clothes from Bangladesh? A Balkans War, which settled nothing? An Iraq War, which has assured the breakup of a country with the 4th-largest oil reserves in the world, and virtually assuring that it will fall into the hands of Shi'a Iran? An Afghanistan war that WILL go on with American money and participation through the year 2024 (remember Obama's "midnight deal" with Karzai in 2012?). No, I do not advocate that America should be a world policeman... far from it.

BUT! Since the end of WWII, the U. S. filled a vacuum with its power and its prerogatives, and, its U. S. Dollar -- forced on the rest of the planet in the role of "the world's reserve-currency". So now Obama would simply have us shrink and slither away in a confused, half-assed retreat, like we have in Libya? Hint: after deliberately breaking the War Powers Act, Obama leveraged the overthrow of the government of Libya, with which we had been completely at PEACE for many years. The Islamo-Nazis took over, and now the United States cannot even operate an embassy in Tripoli because it's too dangerous there now.

In short, I'd like it much better if we were to mind our own damned business, and do what is in the best national interest of the United States. And doing that has been dead-last on the list of our larger-scale activities since the end of World War II....

 

I am not anxious about China out of jingoism. And I hardly think that some kind of trade war with them is a good idea. Of the various points that I'm raising, three of the most important are: 1) They are a non status-quo power and want to replace our light hegemony in the region, with a more oppressive one 2) They are right now building up the military capacity to do just that 3) This is all trending in the direction of a hot war, and it doesn't matter much how dumb an idea that would be economically; the Chinese are the in grip of a 19th century-style nationalistic fervor, and emotions can boil over and honor and pride can lead to the willingness to risk a conflagration, no matter now economically nonsensical this would be. There is certainly precedent for this, with WWI. The situation in the Western Pacific right now, as many informed commentators have argued, eerily resembles the run-up to WWI.

 

...If this is true, this only one more way (secret treaties) in which the current situation resembles that of Europe a century ago.

 

I'm not suggesting that they could prevail against us, in a war fought today. But you evidently are in the grip of the established-power conceit that the current balance-of-forces configuration can be perpetually sustained.

And an essential point which you are neglecting, is the will to fight of the adversary. It is not enough to be able to inflict enough damage on your opponent to dissuade him from fighting; you have to display a credible willingness to actually take the damage he'll mete out, and for as long as it takes. Today the Chinese political-military leadership very much doubts that, of the U.S. And symptomatic of their reasons for doubting it, is the almost total lack of focus on this issue by the general public in the U.S. Just look at this forum. All the handwringing over Middle East crap that is of almost zero geostrategic significance.

Um, hate to break it to you, but market competitors trade with each other regularly. Trade is precisely how big markets are built up in the first place. Fin-de-siècle Europe was the richest part of the world (in the history of the world up to that time), because they traded with one another. And yet they still fell into a cataclysmic war. Dismissing the lesson of that for our current situation is the height of folly.

Needless to say, China is not a democracy; and in fact they are more and more identifying democracy as an ideological enemy, as "non-Chinese." What people like you need to do, is get more historical awareness and realize what a tinderbox the Western Pacific has become. I'm not saying that war is the strategic or logical choice; but nationalism tends to fuel emotions like pride, honor, and resentment, and can lead countries into acting stupidly in the short term.

This is how Americans think; and it is just naïve. I've spent time with the Chinese, they are pleasant enough folk; but their culture is collectivist, and there is an deep seam of national triumphalism to their culture. If a crisis erupts - and one easily could, given all the potential flashpoints I outlined in the OP - the more tribalistic mentality of the Chinese will set in. They are led by an authoritarian government, which studiously inculcates in them nationalism and resentment of other countries (including the U.S.) No, the Chinese are not mere drones blindly following the leadership; but in a crisis they will be swept up in fervor and they will nonetheless act with unanimity.

Who said anything about an invasion of Japan? That's not going to happen (if one discounts a Chinese attack on the Senkakus). This is about hegemony over the region - which means, maritime hegemony. Will Japan have the power to prevent China from blockading them, at some point in the future? Again, the will of the adversaries is of crucial importance, here. China is chomping at the bit for payback against Japan. Japan could not have more favorable circumstances, right at this moment, for a rallying nationalism and for a surge in armaments and preparations for war - but they continue to dither. They don't look to be making any fundamental changes to their constitution anytime soon, even while the country is under the leadership of the most ardent nationalist they could produce. And the Japanese, in the bigger picture, are in the grip of a pronounced demographic decline. Even to a worse degree than us, they are not making the changes now that they need to make, to be able to deal with the China of tomorrow.

Typical American hubris, as well as strategic blindness. This is where the roots of our future defeat lay.

 

I put it all in the OP. Go back and have a look.

 

Yes, they have nuclear weapons, same as the U.S.S.R. The size of their army is not really the issue, since the potential clash I've outlined is a maritime one. No one is ever going to contemplate a land attack against China. This is about who dictates the terms of sovereignty and trade as it is conducted in the most important parts of the world's oceans. Right now, with the world's most powerful navy, we set these terms. But the Chinese are building a navy and a area-capacity to push us out of the Western Pacific (and potentially also the Indian Ocean and the sea-lanes leading to the Middle East). Their gain would necessarily mean our loss. You are right, the Chinese are without doubt a strong adversary, and they are only going to get more powerful. Do we push back against their military rise, or do we withdraw (leaving allies like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan in the lurch) and leave them to boss the region around?

 

Let's look at it this way. The US has been the boss for quite a while, and we can measure it in the amount of chaos and wars we caused and the amount of deaths. Could any nation be worse?

 

Why do you assume that our own naval technology is not also advancing at an even greater pace?

I have stated before that this isn't the 1990's. This isn't even the 2000's. Anything that the public has any significant knowledge about is at least 10 years behind their actual capability.

 

That's a fair point, but there are three important considerations that we are left to factor: 1) Our actual willingness to fight the Chinese; unless we are a credible threat, they are going to test us 2) A point I haven't raised at all yet, is their aptitude with cyberwarfare. In the event of a conflict with them, they will engage in an all out cyberattack on us. Yes, we have significant cyberwarfare abilities, but they have one more operationally geared to offense (I believe) - and a much deeper talent pool (for obvious reasons) 3) The hard-scale advantages of good ol' fashioned geography. The Western Pacific is their backyard; we have to project power all the way to the opposite side of the planet, before we can even begin to engage them. The most we can do is suppress them, they're not going anywhere. We, on the other hand, can always cut our losses and decide to leave the region.

 

As much as I dislike America sometimes, the Chinese governments' ideology is dangerous to human freedoms and the right of human beings everywhere. As it rises as a superpower, indeed it's economy has surpassed us recently according to some experts, it will come into conflict with us. It's already started acting aggressively towards Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam. It will increase it's military to rival us, which it already has, but more so in the future. It lies about it's funding amount already according to the CIA. The pentagon predicts serious, well escalating conflict with China beginning 2020's and will indeed be a serious threat towards continued US dominance. We are upping our Naval presence in the pacific, to balance China. Yet, their economy's booming, and are's growing slowly. We owe them billions ontop of our trillions in debt. We will be in serious rivalry with them economically in the future. They do cyber attacks on US government websites daily and the pentagon occasionally, according to my friend in the US military who was a computer specialist. It is the Chinese government doing this. It's disturbing where this will lead and reason behind it. On top of this we made a Russia an enemy.

Gorbachev has said this is particularly dangerous because this increases proxy conflicts around the world as it polarizes the worlds powers. Russia has now made client states like Syria (who where before hand), Hezbollah, Iran, Nova Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and North Korea slightly. Now whenever there's a conflict with these states, Russia helps them. Russia was the intermediate country in the world, and had a very special place in global politics. They had good relations with our enemies, and our friends. The "middle man". Now this polarizes the world more. They will ally themselves more with China for economic and Geo-strategic reasons. They already are. They signed a 200 billion dollar deal with China having to do with oil and pipelines- Russia has a lot of oil and China desperately needs more. China is our frenemy, and will be become more of an enemy in the future and Russia has a lot to gain in allying itself with this superpower in the long run. I see it as not lasting a while or not being a good one as China will become more left I see and too radical for a good relationship with Russia. With Russia and China allying, and Russia's very good relations with India (which we do too), we will see more polarization in the world, more conflict in the middle-east and everywhere in supporting their clients and indeed countries that are split between being with the west and the Chinese-Russian-North Korean juggernaut.

They're dangerous towards the worlds stability, and freedom.

 

We have not always been the most responsible custodian of the International System, that's obvious enough. We have (repeatedly) failed to meet our own idealistic standards. But we're a damn sight better than previous imperial powers, including the British; and I don't think that an authoritarian China would be a better or more responsible hegemon than us (and if it's not us, it's going to be them). I would advise you to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, here; just because you disdain much about the U.S., that isn't grounds for a moral equivalence between us and China.

 

You are right in that we have to project our power across the globe but I think you are underestimating our capacity to do that, even 10 years ago.

A single American Carrier Fleet is as powerful as most nations not named the United States of America...including China in their ability to wage war. China is just now undertaking the task of building a credible navy.

The U.S. has been at this since WWII. You may think that most members of this forum are not paying attention to China and you may be right.

I don't think the same can be said of the American Intelligence Services. I believe that they probably have a pretty good idea of what China is up to and where.

They just aren't talking about it.