Posted on 03/01/2011 8:14:59 AM PST by edpc
(Reuters) - With warships and missiles, Russia is flexing its muscles in the Far East in a bid to defend its position as an Asian power against China's growing might.
China's rise has forced Russia's leaders to turn their gaze eastward and reassess decades of Soviet-era planning for a land war on the European plain or the nightmare of a nuclear conflict with the United States.
The match between the world's largest energy producer, Russia, and its largest energy consumer, China, might seem ideal. But the speed at which China's military is growing presses the question: how can Moscow feed the Chinese dragon with oil and gas but still contend with its increasing power?
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
In the meantime, the current CiC is trying to counter China with military gays.
India & Russia are the answer to an aggressive, expansionist China.
That war will not happen until the US and NATO are irreverent.
Deep in the Russian national memory is this haunting fact: The Motherland has only been conquered from the east...never from the west.
Hence wikileaks to wake the US up.
The long term strategy for India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Australia and the United States should be the break up of China into several warring states. Russia should be forced to keep looking West by arming Poland with nuclear weapons until Russia pulls out of Iran’s nuclear program.
And 100 times the nukes...
What exactly will the US and NATO stop worshiping or revering? ;-)
What I am trying to say is that this may be a way for both Russia and China to cover up their military buildups that are likely are aimed in other directions (Taiwan, Japan, Australia, E. Europe, the United States).
Russia would have no gumption to use nukes on China or the Middle East if needed (and vice versa). The West, on the other hand, wouldn’t go nuclear unless their existence is directly threatened.
But even if and when China surpasses Russia in nukes, the Russians are more likely to enter into mutual destruction before the Chinese.
In the end, Russia will be the political owners of the Far East, but the Chinese will be the economic owners.
IMO, Chinese future is not clear to say the least.
They have huge and growing middle class willing for more freedom and wealth right now.
It sounds cool in terms of global liberty but not so cool in any other terms for China.
Right now, cheap labor is their main advantage but people don’t want to work for a cup of rice anymore.
Add growing price for oil to make cheap plastic crap and it is not cool again.
As for freedom demands look at ME today. I’m not sure if the protesters are to end up with any more freedom.
There are a lot of possible variants for the West and Russia, China to screw each other and get the upper hand but Chinese chances are worst. In longterm Russian chances are not good either.
The next ten years will be a pivotal decade as China will be spending trillions of dollars to transition her economy from labor intensive to information intensive economy. That is, to shift the economy from "Made in China" to "Designed in China".
I believe this transition, will very likely (but not guranteed) succeed.
As for Russia, she will continue to grow economically (with growth rates higher than the West, but slower than China). In the long term, her proximity to Europe and China will likely spur Russian development. Trade barriers between Russia and Europe will, IMHO, drop substantially. And in the East, massive pipelines and roads will lead into China to carry natural resources to "feed the dragon". Many Russian nationalists will draw Russia closer to Europe politically, but Russian pragmatist will expand trade with China.
There will be peace between the two countries because China's economic engine doesn't require the ownership of the Russian Far East. Whatever forces/build up Russia stations in the Far East, in the long term, will be nothing more than token forces compared to all of China. China will CHOOSE, not to acquisition the Russian Far East.
So, while my predictions aren't guranteed, I believe the scenarios I described are likley.
It is possible but it is a nightmare scenario for the West.
I think some people have to work hard to make it impossible.
I believe some people, within the governments in West, are already working to thwart China's rise. How effective they will be, remains to be seen. But I don't doubt that there are efforts under way to undermine China in every step along the way, albeit covertly.
If only China will manage to keep outsourcing and stay as an industrial power with all that rising oil and labor price it is about to turn into call it a negative banana republic.
Right now, the postindustrial West is a financial and thinking center consuming cheap Chinese industrial production.
As soon as a Chinese middle class is growing their products won’t be cheap anymore. And it is happening at the time the West has largely surrendered it’s industrial capability.
Add as you said that ‘designed in China’ thing which means they won’t need our thinking capability and their already stable financial shape which means they won’t need our finance.
I don’t think the West is to hold it’s values for more than a few generations in that position. Right now, no threat will force the Western liberal youths to work at factory to compete with Chinese and most are lazy to study in order to compete as an engineers while Chinese aren’t.
These libs are yet to pay the price as soon as the domestic industry is to dye off and the Chinese to charge them $100 for a roll of toilet paper $1000 for a pair of pants and $100 000 for a Chinese-made 3 cyl compact car.
Note, you won’t liberate Chinese industrial production the way it was done to Iraq for many reasons.
Nothing is good in that scenario. The West will turn into that were a native Americans trading their gold to Spanish for cheap manufactured goods with the exception that the West don’t have that much gold nowadays.
As China's middle class grows and wages rise, some of China's labor intensive manufacturing will do a combination of three things. One, is that some will move further inland. Two, some will move to countries where labor is even cheaper. And lastly, some will move back to the West. And the combination is based on the factors I mention, wage, political compromises, and economic systems.
Contrary to popular believe, the rise of China does not mean the demise of the West. Rather, the establishment of a dual global economic centers of power, one in the West and the other in the East anchored by China.
Markets are every changing and dynamic. It is not a zero sum game. A good example I will use, is shoes. During the golden age of American manufacturing dominance, i.e., the decade after WWI and again the decade right after WWII, the average American could only afford one or two or three pairs of shoes. Yet, most of the shoes today are made overseas and the average American could buy a dozen or more shoes. Many women, and not wealthy or even middle class, could afford dozens of shoes if they wanted to.
This is possible because while Americans are no longer the largest shoe producing in the world, the average American have an abundant of shoes at her disposal. And it is paid for by the production of information. Whereas many countries that produce those shoes don't produce alot of information.
So, the continued rise of China doesn't end one zero sum game to start another zero sum game. Rather as China rises, she will also produce information that can be marketed to the developing world, and to a lessor extent, the developed world.
As China's wages rise, she will have to figure out a way to produce products to export to justify those wages. Such as auto exports. And some of the lower tech stuff, like pipe manufacturing, will actually return to the US. Textiles, of course, will like go to another developing country.
Thus, the dynamics will change between China, the West and the developing world. But hardly a demise of the West. What will happen though, as Western governments struggle with austerity measures to reign in government spending, is that China will be able to leverage her surplus to her advantage to further gain Western technology thereby expediting China's parity with the West.
IMHO you are both right and wrong.
I just described you an alternative future where an average American is unable to afford several pair of shoes becouse of faulty policies towards China.
It is not a single alternative future. There are dozens other versions including yours.
Yes, no one can really determine the future. That I will agree with you. But overall, I do believe the world will be a better place several decades from now than today. Just as the world is better today than it was 50 years ago.
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