Posted on 02/08/2013 11:59:35 AM PST by blam
Two Chilling Developments Suggest Asia May Be One Step Away From War
Robert Johnson
February 8, 2013, 9:38 AM
China and Japan, along with North and South Korean troops at the DMZ, appear one step away from armed combat and tensions don't look likely to ease any time soon.
New developments within both regions illustrate how close to open combat the four countries are, and how quickly one incident could expand to war among very powerful nations.
Tokyo reported two January events where Chinese naval vessels targeted its East China Sea forces with fire-control radar. This specific type of radar is used almost exclusively to assist guided weapons systems in their flight toward a target. It's an unmistakable action that can be the first step to open combat, and was taken seriously enough by the Japanese captain to prompt a combat alert aboard his vessel.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to the allegations by saying it hadn't heard about the engagements until news of the events appeared on international news. It has since said that the event didn't happen and is a total Japanese fabrication. Whether it's true or not China is using Japan's claim to prove Tokyo is preparing for war.
If Chinese ships did engage their fire-control radar, it may be in Beijing's interest to deny it because either it approved the maneuver, or the ship's captains acted independently. Both scenarios offer a long list of concerns that would be easiest for China to address if avoided entirely.
Japan continues pressing the issue and yesterday announced that the use of fire-control radar against its ships is an "act of force" and a direct UN charter violation."
U.S. Secretary of Defense Panetta is pleading for caution and says, "the situation could ultimately get out of hand."
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Panetta is such a wuss. I’m glad he’s gone as of today. The best response to China’s ridiculous claims in the Senkaku Islands is to send in a carrier battle group to do some ‘exercises’ with a Japanese allies. Instead the Obama minions are acting as if they’re on China’s side in this.
Maybe they’re not acting.
So will we have “business as usual’ if there is a shooting war between China, North Korea vs Japan South Korea? Or does Free Trade trump all? I’ll bet the Free Republic Free Traders would deal with the Chinese similar to the deals made with the Nazi’s as depicted in book catch 22.
So will we have “business as usual’ if there is a shooting war between China, North Korea vs Japan South Korea? Or does Free Trade trump all? I’ll bet the Free Republic Free Traders would deal with the Chinese similar to the deals made with the Nazi’s as depicted in book catch 22.
There is a clear crisis trajectory, and I think eventually a limited Japan/China naval engagement is in the cards:
The Senkaku Islands feature a good deal of oil, and if China takes them, they can also exert control over the 200 km economic exclusion zone that that would bring.
The long-term Chinese objective is to eject the US Navy from the South and East China Seas. If China is 2b happy, then our guys will be tooling and zooming around seas a bit west of Guam, and then no more.
China wants to control the sea lanes that feature most of her trade, and that’s why Hainan Island features a submarine base carved into the island rock, with long-term capacity to harbor 20 nuclear submarines (which would guard the approaches to the Straits of Malacca).
Yes, I’d say that in a year or so there’s going to be some shooting.
This market is so overbought on almost every time frame, something like this would be the trigger to begin a corretion in earnest.
It can’t come soon enough (the correction, not the shooting in Asia).
It’s simple.
War happens in Asia = the whole economy collapses here. Since we get all of our stuff from Japan, Taiwan, S. Korea and China, we are sunk when the shooting starts.
Complete opposite from WW1 and WW2 when we made everything we needed and it was the combatants that needed to buy from us. We got rich off of their slug match.
The post Pax Americana “peace dividend” power vacuum reaps its bitter harvest.
Under a Republican administration, this would be called “uncertainty” and “instability in the world” and the market would drop 300-400 points and the Republicans would be blamed. Meanwhile, society is going nuts, the Chinese are itching to wipe Japan, the Middle East is still boiling and the stock market is going up and we are seeing an “improving economy” and basically “good times” according to the media.
The entirety of Asia is not worth the blood of a single American.
However small the engagement, we can be sure Obama will find some reason to prominently chicken-out.
If he does that, you know WHAT WILL happen, hmmm...?
We will see a very huge and serious arms-race kick-off in Asia —ALL former APAC allies of the USA will see that lo and behold they are really ON THEIR OWN, in spite of the fancy US rhetoric.
Asia is a place where manners are important, and therefore A LOT of words are just gestures —you watch actions.
A lot of Asia’s leaders were watching when DC didn’t lift a FINGER as their guys were killed in Bengazi, so how could they expect that DC fan of MAO TSE TUNG would help THEM, all the way across the Pacific against a power he said the USA should emulate...???
I’d say right now SK and Japan missile projects are on over-drive, and after a little shooting starts that will only increase.
And we are still making some money. Well, at least our corporations are. A lot of factories in China were built with western knowhow and our experts. If a war started, the Chinese would lose access to a lot of that knowhow and spare parts. The problems go both ways if a war happened. Back in the 1930's, Japan was getting a lot of expertise and assistance from western nations. Mitsubishi planes (think Zeroes) had French experts in Japan working with the Japanese. That stopped with war, but the Japanese carried on okay. In a war, the Chinese will struggle and may falter.
1. War between China and Japan would last a day, assuming no US involvment. The JSDF is not the VPA. A study in the 80s said that the Russian army could take the Japanese Northern Islands in an afternoon.
2. China is owed money by the US.
3. Taiwan is not interested in war with China. If China tried to take the Island, the Island would be destroyed before the PLA would be able to take it.
4. War in the Middle East is almost a mathematical certainty, if not around the corner - The Romans named the third month March for a reason.
5. Politically, I do not think Kim Jeong Eun could start a war.
bookmark
um.. war is usually good for the markets.
Just the opposite - “the broken window” parable, you have to pay for war and we have no money.
Too bad we don’t have a Presdient at the moment.
I am sure Kerry can fix this, and maybe get another medal or two out of it.
What "stuff"? Food? Yes, the stores are full of Chinese garlic and mushrooms. I seek out North American garlic and there is a mushroom farm 30 miles from me. Energy? Nope, not a watt, not a barrel.
So, what kind of "stuff" do we get from them? Weapons, nope, not yet. Cheap consumer electronics and other consumer goods. Do you mean to tell me we can't make that "stuff" here in North America?
The only "stuff" they have a monopoly on, and would hurt us is "rare earths". The government should be stockpiling rare earths right now, forget the SPI. Also, there is a mine in California that is used to produce rare earths. The deposits are still in the ground.
You can't tell me the country that built and deployed an atomic bomb FROM SCRATCH in 3 1/2 years couldn't reopen that mine and produce the required rare earth minerals in 30 days. The mine closed because of "environmental concerns". Faced with an existential threat, I think the US could bury the envirowackos in the tailing pit and get production going in 30 days.
Nothing personal, I just don't think they make anything we can't do without or make ourselves in jig time.
“um.. war is usually good for the markets.”
I didn’t state otherwise.
A correction simply gets the ‘fluff’ out of the market; the excesses so to speak, before pushing higher once again.
I indicated the market was severly overbought and overdue for a correction, not poised for a bear market - big difference.
Perhaps Obama could bring all sides together in the White House for a beer (or Saki).
I’d swap ten of a certin ilk of Americans for one Asian any day.
Gobs of our military hardware has been sent to the Pacific Rim near China. Why waste the fuel? Git ‘em, boys!
Be my guest. Go long Nikkei futures when the Tokyo air raid sirens sound. . I'll take the counter trade.
On the positive side, a thermonuclear war in Asia would likely bring some manufacturing jobs back to Ohio.
Even if war isn’t really good for the economy, huge fuel and maintenance spending is going on to move the good stuff around in a really heavy way now. Might as well use it.
I call this a race to the 20th century moment.
China attacks, secretly Israel provokes Iran to go to war and close the Strait, Iran complies, China has no oil to fight a war.
South Korea launches a pre-emptive strike on North Koreas C&C and nuke capabilities.
The US and Russia go to the UN and blame the Norks and the Iranians for causing war.
In the name of global peace, the Koreas are reunified under the south, Iranian secularists take over Iran, the Islamist movement is pushed back and.........
Coincidentally, according to the NY Times, that was Obamas plan all along.
How courageous.
And I'll bet that if "we" stopped hating on each other we just might win an election.
Read where N. Korea wasn’t listening to China. Set up for N Korea to hit Japan at our Marine and Navy Bases, knowing full well that we aren’t going to do anything against China?
PAC Rim bump for later......
“So, what kind of “stuff” do we get from them? Weapons, nope, not yet. Cheap consumer electronics and other consumer goods. Do you mean to tell me we can’t make that “stuff” here in North America?”
Go to any store. Look at almost everything. 90% isnt made in this hemisphere.
Sure, we CAN make this stuff, but it wont be for months AT BEST. The economy isnt going to tread water while factories are set up to accommodate all of these items.
I think you're absolutely right. War there might actually be good for our economy. Get us working again. We certainly have an edge in medical goods and supplies; that would be the first thing we would sell to them both during and after a war. (Obama would probably just give it away for free.) The rest that we would have gotten there, we can produce ourselves here.
I have noticed that countries that have NOT been friendly to us in the past are being treated as if they were long-time allies; and, long-time allies are being treated badly.
BO has a very different world view than America has had in the past. I suppose this is part and parcel of his "transformation" of America.
Chinese production has a dominant supplier position in basically two things: cheap household goods and toys, and consumer electronics.
For the former, the gear-up time for domestic and Mexican replacement production is maybe four weeks longer than the present inventory. Prices will probably have to go up about 30% for that stuff, to ration out the remaining Chinese inventory and then to finance local costs (higher labor and environmental compliance costs, less reduced shipping expense). Not the end of the world.
For the latter, it’ll be more of a challenge. The supply chain for electronics in the US is limited to defense and aerospace applications which legally can’t be off-shored, but it’s a very different set of scaling and cost structures. The capital investments to be able to manufacture 55” LCD panel TVs soup to nuts are mammoth, and no one will make those investments without a long-term earn-out protection. My guess is that we’ll need a 5- or even 10-year tariff law before Dell or Apple will put the billions into the ground needed to scale up for full domestic production. Figure on a doubling or tripling of cost as the remaining inventory is bid up (iPads at $2,000), and at least a 50% premium thereafter.
You mean like the ones he threw away in public some years ago! People have short memories.
He could wear them to impress the natives on his next big foreign trip.
That really did make me laugh out loud. Rich.
I’d bet my money on the Japanese vs China. The ChiComm apes nearly sunk their carrier when they practiced landings below the waterline. Blub. Blub.
Remember, the hero for the ChiComms is super-pilot Wang Wei who crashed his F-8 (Mig-21) when bozo the clown Wang Wei intercepted the American EP-3E Aries II surveillance aircraft.
Oops. Downed by a wing clip.
The military tigers in Asia, in my opinion, are the Japanese and the South Koreans.
From my experience, the ChiComm apes still haven’t discovered how to a anneal a bolt. The ChiComm manufacturing tolerance on sockets is plus or minus a quarter-inch. Don’t get me started on their crappy socket wrenches that fall apart. And don’t dare ask me about their cheap-ass chop saws unless you want to hear me bitch for two hours. Fourty-five degree angle cuts my butt.
Been buying stuff at Harbor Freight?
I guess I'm getting too old. If a real existential threat arises, which I thought we were talking about, priorities change quickly. They have to. Do people really need the next Iphone? I mean NEED IT, as in they will die if they don't have it?
Maybe 90% of cheap consumer goods aren't made here. I think people, and yes even the economy, can do without cheap Chinese crap while production transitions. Necessity is the mother of invention.
“Been buying stuff at Harbor Freight? “
LOL! Good comeback.
Actually, it goes beyond Harbor Freight and Wal-Mart.
I prowl flea markets markets, looking for 1950s American-made steel bolts and screws. It gets frustrating as hell torquing down a bolt on a 400 hp motor and the bloody head of a ChiComm bolt snaps off. Grrrr!
I appreciate your measured humor.
There are two vital inputs that a 21st century industrial society cannot do without. Food and energy. North America is absolutely awash in both. By rights the US and Canada should become the number 1 and 2 oil exporting nations on earth. Let business build the pipelines and the ports and the refineries. Let people drill and produce the energy that lies at our feet. Given enough food and energy, and we have enough of both, North America can weather any storm, and win any war.
We should not fear the Chinese. They should fear us.
With John Kerry as Sec. of State I feel much safer. I am sure the Un can keep the peace between the two. The war could get messy if it should get going. What did Hitler say? Going to war is like walking into a dark room, one never knows what you will bump into—or words to that effect in German. If war comes—it will not last long—and Obama will have the USA neutral as China has Neutered us with debt.
You can bet the same Free Trade Communists who support Free Trade w Communist China will try to suck up to the Communist China....and try to make Japan the bad guy
Also, this would be a good time to boost tariffs on Communist Chinese products....we need to encourage and motivate companies to manufacture in the US again. It would be stupid to continue a Free Trade policy with a country that will have its production slowed and altered if they are in any protracted war
And, for US National Security reasons, too, we need the production back in the USA, not Communist China
But, I am sure the usual Free Trader Communists who support Free Trade with Communist China will have some spin on this
:)
Maybe this is why Washington is claiming they can't afford to refuel the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72). "Gee, sorry Japan, we just don't have enough carriers on-line to help you right now." I wonder how many more obama will take out of service.
I wish that were true but we have closed down so many factories, we are not allowed to extract natural resources, we don't have many steel mills anymore, obama is keeping us dependent on foreign oil, we have raised a generation of uneducated idiots that never did grasp American excptionalizm. We are soooo screwed.
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