<p>He is talking about the "what if" scenario proposed in this thread of a war between China and US and how the media likes to propose these scenarios. I read it fine the first time, but after reading it again, it seemed little off. I just skimmed it though. And I've read plenty of more incoherent posts on CC.</p>
<p>China does not rule.Period.</p>
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China does not rule.Period.
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<p>That is your opinion and I completely respect it, even if I do strongly disagree with it.</p>
<p>However, all opinions stem from a balance of logic and emotion, some people think with a clear head while others let their emotions take over. I am curious mexican't, what is your reasoning that China does not rule? I can offer plenty of evidence to the contrary because I do believe that the Chinese are beneficial to the international society, even if I do not concur with all of their political actions (Personally, I don't see a point to fighting over a tiny island that would be worthless to the mainland anyway).</p>
<p>That's why I said <em>maybe</em> Russia and the EU. Because while I don't think they are against us now, I think it is heading down that path. We are starting to see clearly now that there is a huge gap between America and the EU. Obviously we know that USA and Russia were enemies before, but in the 90s we were supposedly allies. And I think Russia does want to be like the EU. They want to be accepted as European basically. But, the EU looks down upon Russia and eastern European countries. I think that by the time everything actually happens, Russia could go either way and the EU would stay out of it. But since we have considered them allies for so long, I think them staying out of it is like going at war with us in a way.</p>
<p>\China has many problems that they are trying to work through, but they are moving slowly forward. China definitely does "rule", but their government definitely has huge problems and is corrupt. They are not an entirely free people yet.</p>
<p>I agree...a country as large and as poor as China cannot go from where it was 10 years ago to becoming as free as Europe without a slow, gradual, methodical and difficult transition period. Look what happened to Russia...and Russia was not nearly as large, poor or backwards as China. It will take another 20-30 years before China can effectively open up. China is going about it the right way. But I have no doubt that in 20-30 years, China will be one of the world's top 3 regions, the US and the EU being the other two.</p>
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I think it is heading down that path. We are starting to see clearly now that there is a huge gap between America and the EU. Obviously we know that USA and Russia were enemies before, but in the 90s we were supposedly allies.
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<p>Yeah, the EU will jump into bed with terrorists WHO HAVE REPEATEDLY ATTACKED THEM RECENTLY (see Madrid and London) and communist/authoritarian governments (China, North Korea) just because they "hate" America. Where's your evidence for this sensationalist claim, of an impending war between the U.S. and the EU?</p>
<p>There seems to be a bit of misinformation here on international economics.</p>
<p>First myth: Israel is a developing nation.</p>
<p>Per capital GDP of Israel is $20,800 (figures taken from CIA world factbook). Compare that to the neighbors: Saudi Arabia's is $12,000; West Bank's is $800; Jordan's is $4,500; and Egypt's is $4,200. Israel is and economically and militarilly powerful developed nation. If it wasn't, it simply wouldn't survive. (Another random fact: only a minority of Israelis actually practice the Hebrew religion.)</p>
<p>Second myth: Russia is still a noteworthy world power.</p>
<p>Russia's economy, by GDP, is smaller that Italy's. Under the leadership of the Soviet Union, the Russians were able to project world power by redirecting resources from private consumption (the wants and needs of the people) towards causes like nuclear build-up, spy activities, foreign aid and diplomacy, etc. This is similar to what North Korea does: allow the population to starve while building a nuclear arsenal, forcing the world to pay attention to it.</p>
<p>Third myth: China is an advanced nation.</p>
<p>China's GDP per head is $5,600, over half that of Mexico's, and an eigth of the United States'. China has some economic power by soul virtue of 1.3 billion souls.</p>
<p>Now, let's take a look at how the chips fall globally. The US and the EU have nearly equal GDP, both approaching $12 trillion. This gives the two equal economic power, but the US has greater political power for the fact that it has stood as a super-power for decades, while the EU is still politically divided by it's member nations. Then we have China, whose great population gives it the economic power of a $7 trillion economy. In Europe there has been a discussion about the world future: an opinion going around is that the US and China will become the two main world powers, and the EU should become the "third leg." </p>
<p>How is President Bush responding to all this? The administration has been getting along well with the administration of Japan. And check this out: <a href="http://www.economist.com/World/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4198960%5B/url%5D">http://www.economist.com/World/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4198960</a> Mr Bush has made a strong attempt to cozy up with India. Now consider the fact that the United Nations is moving towards adding more permanent seats on the UN Security Council (this is an extremely powerful position, seeing that any permanent member can veto an action of the Security Council). Who are the two candidates leading candidates, with strong backing from the United States? India and Japan. </p>
<p>It seems to me that the Bush administration's solution to the rise of China is to build up two strong nations in the region to balance out the power of China. This makes sense: economically and politically, the United States wants democracy and capitalism to be a stronger power in East Asia than authoritism and socialism. India and Japan have nearly equal economic strength, at around $3.5 trillion GDP each. India's economy can be predicted to grow, and if the free-market reforms in Japan can be pushed through by Prime Minister Koizumi, Japan's economy can be expected to become even greater. We can expect President Bush to soon propose new free-trade agreements with India and Japan, pushing Japan into a permanent Security Council seat, and devoting more resources to relations with and development in the two countries.</p>
<p>So, here is the new model for world power: as the power of OPEC declines in the face of empty oil reserves and increased reliance on renewable energy, the US and EU will be the two greater world powers, working to stabilize volatile situations in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. India and Japan, the two lesser world powers, support this effort while containing the geopolitical influence of China. China becomes the world's "fifth wheel," a dragon contained within it's borders by the "Asian sandwich" of India and Japan.</p>
<p>And now, a quick consideration of China's nuclear power. It is believed that China has around 10 missiles capable of reaching the US. So, only the west coast has to worry about nuclear war (I live on the west coast...). China does, however, have approximately 600 short-range ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan, and are adding missiles at a rate of about 100 per year. China can literally wipe the island of Formosa off the face of the Earth. China has a massive army at hand, but the Chinese navy is insufficient to carry out an invasion. So, China's millitary might is currently limited by bottlenecks.</p>
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Where's your evidence for this sensationalist claim, of an impending war between the U.S. and the EU?
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<p>An "impending war between EU and USA"? When did I say that? Did you just read the first half my post or what?</p>
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I think that by the time everything actually happens, Russia could go either way and the EU would stay out of it. But since we have considered them allies for so long, I think them staying out of it is like going at war with us in a way.
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<p>There you go, that was the second half of my post. Notice I said the EU will stay out of any war, but as they are supposed to be our allies, it is as if they are against us.</p>
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Yeah, the EU will jump into bed with terrorists WHO HAVE REPEATEDLY ATTACKED THEM RECENTLY (see Madrid and London) and communist/authoritarian governments (China, North Korea) just because they "hate" America.
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<p>Actually, the Spanish have pretty much laid down and died for the terrorists. The British are treating their attacks as normal criminal acts and not terrorism (the BBC even banned the word "terrorist" to describe the "criminals" of 7/7 and 7/21 for a few days). But, did I ever say they would support the terrorists? No, I just said they would stay out of whatever happened. Next time you might want to read the entire post before you decide to comment on half of it ;).</p>
<p>Europe (for the most part) and America see terrorism in two entirely different aspects. You need to learn that.</p>
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<li><p>I completely agree.</p></li>
<li><p>World power is not just economic power, it is more than that. While Russia's economy is still trying to recover and switch over to capitalism, it still maintains political world power. </p></li>
<li><p>I agree with what you said for the most part, but I think you can't just look strictly at GDP for China. Western and Eastern China are entirely different... western being farms... eastern mega-cities. Western China in a way pulls down China overall in appearance. If we were to just look at the GDP of western China and eastern China we would see that eastern makes up for almost all of the overall GDP. Not to mention China's economy is growing at a staggering rate. And considering how much we have invested in China and vice versa, China (and India and Japan) certainly has more economic power to us than compared to the rest of the world.</p></li>
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<p>Will France support/ally china rather than U.S. in a war?</p>
<p>That's possible. In 1940s you see people in paris waving american flags, american troops welcomed in Champs Elycee, and huge american flag on Eiffel tower. But, that is in 1940s......</p>
<p>But things have changed now. Just earlier this year, we have an Annee Chinois En France (Chinese Year in France), and a huge chinese flag covered the Eiffel tower, and there was parades and welcomes for the chinese envoy in Champs Elycee. (sharp contrast to massive demostration when G. Bush came) While on the other hand, french people are agonized when their U.S. "ally" went to war in iraq, a war that 70% french people opposed. </p>
<p>in fact, recent poll results have shown that about 60% of the french favors China over U.S.</p>
<p>And, I doubt Japan and South Korea will alligne with teh U.S. in an event af a brutal confrontation. </p>
<p>Why? after all China, japan, korea they are all oriental asians. They all believed in the same Confusious doctrines that is in their culture for thousands of years. Even their language is almost the same (you can read chinese if you know japanese and vice versa, and korean is just an altered phonetic version of chinese, hangu is korean alphabetical writing system and hanja is just chinese characters).</p>
<p>Even in WWII, japan treated korea and chinese occupations differently from those in other regions (australia, philipines etc.). At that time japan want to built a "Greater East Asian Empire". They looted treasures and destroyed everything in other places while they built railroads, schools, and hospitals in china and korea. Indeed, many men in these places were recruited as japanese soldiers and fought & died in the pacific battles. </p>
<p>The english speaking world has not fought a single war for almost 100 years, and the same has been the case for the froncophone world. It just won't happen.</p>
<p>For the same reason. I will not believe the japanese and koreans will just sit there doing nothing watching American soldiers massacre/nuke china. </p>
<p>There may be some small tension going on between japan & china. But ask any japanese person the most tragical event in history of humanity, and he will say "nagasaki and horoshima the A bombs & americans!"</p>
<p>It is unlikely France, or any other European power, will ever enter an armed conflict of such magnitute. If the US wants to go for it, it will have to do it alone. If EWurope was unwilling to enter an armed conflict against Iraq, trust me, there is no way it will ever accept to get into an armed conflict against countries like Iran or worse yet, China.</p>
<p>To respond to the OP, the US has trouble enough consolidating its occupation of Iraq. And it lost in Vietnam. I am not particularly impressed by American military power, particularly when it confronts a highly motivated enemy defending its home ground.</p>
<p>To the OP: The mere thought of the US waging war with China is ridiculous. Putting all military comparisons to the side for a moment, China could effectively stop all its exports to the US and devastate the US economy. Also, given the "success" the US has had in Iraq, I highly doubt that even an attempt at attacking China will be likely.</p>
<p>That's because in Iraq we have to keep the infrastructure intact. A war with China wouldn't just be against a specific group in China, but the entire country. We wouldn't hold back like we have to do in Iraq. We could level Iraq in a heartbeat if we wanted to.</p>
<p>the US is probably only good in what called "no-choice war", meaning, a situation in which the country faces danger and the army has its "justification" to "save the nation", WWII is a good exapmle. the US, as a very big and massive army has a good ability to fight a counter army but as history shows, still lacks the abilities to fight an "intelligence war" against an "urban" or "civilian" opponent. The US army isn't good at tracking and locating the terrorists prior to the attack, it's good at bombing locations or capturing positions, or performing massive operations (Dday).</p>
<p>In all truth, China owns the USA, they been buying up are debt for a long time. USA is going to collapse, with all the out sourcing, corrupted politicians and so on theres no way it can last. Hell pretty soon all are weapons will be made over seas. USA doesn't make anything anymore and never will.</p>
<p>well, it's also working vice versa, the US is buying much of china's production, if the US would stop buying from china - china would collapse in a blink.</p>
<p>China has been supporting the U.S. currency- the dollar by purchasing massive quatities of U.S. public debts (while most other countries are dumping it). it is buying U.S. debt at a rate of billions $$ a year. if it stops buying U.S. dollar at some point. The dollar willl be worthless a the jap yen.</p>