How a Chinese superpower may be different

[boomerangutang]

86% of school children in Beijing have flawed vision (a statistic from US's NPR) and need glasses. Yet another result of bad air and spoonfuls of MSG?

I run an outdoor adventure park in northern Thailand. We get about 80% farang backpackers, 10% other farang, and about 9% Thai and hilltribers and other Asian (most of whom are brought along by their farang friends). Considering Chinese comprise the lion's share of tourist visitors to Thailand, one would expect at least some Chinese would visit the park. In reality, very few. Besides sticking in groups with pre-packaged tours arranged from their home cities, Chinese aren't in to outdoor sporty things. Plus, because the activities are challenging and a bit scary, those factors also serve to dissuade Asian participation.

It's ironic, because Thais and other Asian routinely go speeding through red lights (a dangerous habit), yet they're spooked about putting on a safety harness and climbing a few meters on some rock wall. The odds of dying on the hwy (particularly during Songkran) compared to dying while rock climbing or zip lining, are about 10 million to one.

Then there are those in odd category, like yesterday, four Australians came to the park, two of whom were born in China from Chinese parents, yet grew up in Australia. However, the two Chinese descent climbers were experienced and had a great time at the park. Proof that, if Chinese are brought up in a farang country, they're likely to think/act like a farang. If those two climbers had spent their lives only in China, they would have probably just smiled and shied away when asked if they wanted to participate in the adventuresome activities - as most other Asians are prone to do.

[Johpa]

Reading the Western diatribes and flames, it is obvious the Chinese scare the hell out of everyone.

Damn straight! But China also scares the hell out of some of us who avoid diatribes and flames.

[Thongkorn]

Within twenty years India will have a bigger population than China, China has problems with it one child policy, just as Britain has a problem with older people.China will have its own Big problem without trying to rule the world.

[Publicus]

Within twenty years India will have a bigger population than China, China has problems with it one child policy, just as Britain has a problem with older people.China will have its own Big problem without trying to rule the world.

Indeed, the one child policy was recently modified but remains fundamentally in force. It's never been absolute however as people in the countryside always have been able to have several children no problem.

The consequence is that the one child policy is a failure because the actual population is now 1.8 bn rather than the reported stable 1.4 bn.

The working age population of the PRChina already is much too small to support the oversize and ever growing older population either formally, through still promised state pension programs, or informally via the three generation family. There aren't enough offspring to support either system.

This is but one crunch among many many squeezes of many different kind confronting the CCP Boyz in Beijing.

Superbust.

[Johpa]

I run an outdoor adventure park in northern Thailand. We get about 80% farang backpackers, 10% other farang, and about 9% Thai and hilltribers and other Asian (most of whom are brought along by their farang friends). Considering Chinese comprise the lion's share of tourist visitors to Thailand, one would expect at least some Chinese would visit the park.

I have an association with one of the zip line parks up north and nearly half of the visitors are now Chinese, so mileage can vary.

[NeverSure]

China has another huge problem. USD denominated debt threatens a major real estate crash. (As if massive overbuilding didn't already.)

How a Rising Dollar Is Creating Trouble for Emerging Economies

"In China, it is one of the country’s largest real estate developers, the Kaisa Group, threatening to pay only 2.4 cents on the dollar to its creditors in the face of corruption investigations and a mass resignation of executives, leaving countless would-be Chinese home buyers stuck in the middle of a multibillion dollar standoff.

And in Brazil, a wave of bankruptcies among sugar producers has been driven not just by falling sugar prices, but also by debts that they owe in United States dollars, which are becoming more expensive practically by the day compared with the Brazilian currency.

These are all parts of the same story: The soaring value of the American dollar is rippling across the globe. As it rises, it is threatening emerging economies where companies have taken on trillions’ worth of dollar-based debt in recent years. The dollar rally has been driven by decisions by the Federal Reserve, which begins a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday. In fact, anticipation of the Fed meeting, where officials are expected to signal that interest rate increases could be near, has driven the dollar even higher in the last couple of weeks."

New York Times

[NeverSure]

"Years of low-interest-rate policies from the Fed have encouraged companies in these fast-growing economies to borrow dollars because they could do it more cheaply than if they took out loans in their local currencies, like the Indian rupee or Brazilian real. So they did: By September 2014 there were $9.2 trillion of such dollar loans outside the United States, up 50 percent since 2009, according to the Bank for International Settlements." NYT

[copa8]

Within twenty years India will have a bigger population than China, China has problems with it one child policy, just as Britain has a problem with older people.China will have its own Big problem without trying to rule the world.

Bigger population does not necessarily mean better. It's how productive they are that matters. Otherwise, it's just a liability.

I find it ironic that people bitch & moan about China's large population, but give praise to India's large and growing one.

[Xircal]

China a superpower? What, with only one aircraft carrier? And even that's a piece of ex-Soviet junk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Liaoning

They've only just managed to adapt the Shenyang J-15 fighter to land on it. So far just two landings were successful (no mention of what happened to the others - probably at the bottom of the drink).

Compare China's ambitions with the US current aircraft carrier fleet which are all nuclear powered and capable of remaining at sea indefinitely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_C._Stennis

China a superpower in 2030 maybe, but definitely not now.

[Johpa]

Compare China's ambitions with the US current aircraft carrier fleet which are all nuclear powered and capable of remaining at sea indefinitely

You are a tad out of date. The PRC has both anti-ship ballistic missiles (DF-21D) as well as anti-ship cruise missiles (YJ-12) that have the ability to penetrate a carrier's task force defense shield. In another decade that type of technology will only be improved upon and become more common around the globe. The era of projecting power with manned carrier based aircraft is over and the US will have to pull a new rabbit out of the hat to maintain that type of military muscle. Given the failure and waste on the F-35 program, I doubt that is going to happen soon. President Eisenhower warned of the corruptive influence of the military-industrial complex, and one result is the loss of technological supremacy as profits and greed supplanted innovation and competence. Don't blame the Chinese. Fortunately for the US, the PRC has its own issues.

[NeverSure]

Compare China's ambitions with the US current aircraft carrier fleet which are all nuclear powered and capable of remaining at sea indefinitely

You are a tad out of date. The PRC has both anti-ship ballistic missiles (DF-21D) as well as anti-ship cruise missiles (YJ-12) that have the ability to penetrate a carrier's task force defense shield. In another decade that type of technology will only be improved upon and become more common around the globe. The era of projecting power with manned carrier based aircraft is over and the US will have to pull a new rabbit out of the hat to maintain that type of military muscle. Given the failure and waste on the F-35 program, I doubt that is going to happen soon. President Eisenhower warned of the corruptive influence of the military-industrial complex, and one result is the loss of technological supremacy as profits and greed supplanted innovation and competence. Don't blame the Chinese. Fortunately for the US, the PRC has its own issues.

Wishful thinking.

The US has the ability to shoot down ballistic and cruise missiles. It also has the ability to jam the electronics.

A ship is a moving target. The missile will be in the air about 15 minutes and the US will see the launch.

China's missile system is multi-faceted and can be attacked in several places. It's not just the missiles but the land base guidance system and the people operating them. It takes a lot of support to operate the missile while it's enroute.

BIG. If someone launches an ICBM at the US he may find himself nuked because no one will know what the purpose or warhead is.

BIG. China has limited nukes and doesn't have second strike capabilities. It doesn't have first strike capabilities if hit first.

BIG. If China did manage to knock out a US carrier it would get what Japan got when it bombed Pearl Harbor. The US would go "all in."

China survives on global trade especially with the US and could starve itself out attacking the US.

I could go on, but China isn't going to sink a carrier. It knows what happened to Japan.

Edited March 18, 2015 by NeverSure

[Publicus]

Compare China's ambitions with the US current aircraft carrier fleet which are all nuclear powered and capable of remaining at sea indefinitely

You are a tad out of date. The PRC has both anti-ship ballistic missiles (DF-21D) as well as anti-ship cruise missiles (YJ-12) that have the ability to penetrate a carrier's task force defense shield. In another decade that type of technology will only be improved upon and become more common around the globe. The era of projecting power with manned carrier based aircraft is over and the US will have to pull a new rabbit out of the hat to maintain that type of military muscle. Given the failure and waste on the F-35 program, I doubt that is going to happen soon. President Eisenhower warned of the corruptive influence of the military-industrial complex, and one result is the loss of technological supremacy as profits and greed supplanted innovation and competence. Don't blame the Chinese. Fortunately for the US, the PRC has its own issues.

Indeed, those who tend to dismiss the China military also ignore the old adage to never underestimate the enemy. While the PRChinese military overall remains eons behind the US and Nato countries, and is overall corrupt, incompetent, fragmented, disorganized, run by regional warlords in their PLA military districts, it has focused its military buildup of the past decade and longer on an elite technological vanguard of combined forces to attack the US military strengths to try to turn them into our greatest vulnerabilities.

The Pentagon, White House, Congress know this and have been taking the necessary actions to neutralize the CCP focus to itself neutralize and overcome US military and overall high tech, cyber warfare, satellite warfare, missile capabilities and the like. The sophisticated DF-21D "carrier killer" ballistic missile is one such CCP focus, to destroy in motion US aircraft carrier Attack Groups. This focus is a part of the new 21st century warfare strategy of Anti-Access, Area Denial, aka, A2/AD. It is to provide defensive technologies that would deny the US military the ability strike the CCP military forces and the mainland of China itself. Consequently, of the three Pacific strategic island chains of US forward operations, the innermost to China is already obsolete, to include Taiwan.

The US therefore officially adopted in 2010 the military doctrine of Air-Sea Battle (ASB) as the primary means to defeat A2/AD, not only in China, but in Russia and Iran.....no one else thus far has A2/AD, although Turkey has begun halting work on it. The War Plan of the United States is to absorb the A2/AD initial onslaught of electromagnetic barrages and cyber and missile assaults and the like to emerge with a swift, penetrating and devastating "Star Wars" assault blitz of laser, cyber, satellite, missile, sea and undersea, stealth air forces, naval missile ships and other integrated offensive systems to settle matters decisively.

Since 2010 the US priority developed and presently has in large scale deployment air and sea launch missiles that travel at 7.5 times the speed of sound which no nation's A2/AD defense systems can deal with in even the most remote terms...the proverbial hot knife through A2/AD butter. And on the remote possibility some A2/AD system could catch up with them, their guidance systems are virtually impenetrable besides.

It's also the case that one would reliably expect the US Strategic Command, which has actionable custody of all nuclear weapons land, air, sea, and the PLA elite Second Artillery Division, which has all the CCP nuclear weapons, almost all of which are land based, not to engage as the US has a catastrophic superiority in nuclear armaments and delivery system modalities of which each side is fully aware. The CCP has a strange, fatalistic attitude in these respects, i.e., if they lose the conventional battle, and the PRChina is demolished, then they are China and the Chinese so they will simply start their civilization over again in the ways Germany and Japan did post 1945. Very eccentric stuff and, as has been noted elsewhere, fatalistic.

A brief word is required concerning the severe limits of the CCP's military structure, organization, systems, scope. The PRC has no military or service academies. Their officer corps are educated and trained in Marx, Engels, Sun Tzu, Mao. Naval officers come out of the Army, as to Air Force officers. The names of the CCP armed forces say it: the PLA, the PLA Navy, the PLA Air Force. There are some military colleges for existing PLA officers to make something of a transition. The PLA and its whatevers have no global presence or frame of mind, no global experience or history, no blue sky or blue ocean heritage. China hasn't won a major war since....since....and if Sun Tzu was such a genius how come the Mongols, the Brits and others have ruled or trampled over China repeatedly throughout history. The woebegotten Boyz in Beijing are realists about all of this so their modest hold over the PRChinese people is somehow to "regain' territories supposedly "lost" from regional neighbors.

A small inexperienced Marine Corps has only recently been organized. Special operations forces are in their infancy and nowhere near integrated.

While the US military is moving away from the thousands year historical focus on army forces, the CCP continues to emphasize land and ground forces (as does India...Russia still does but less and less; Iran yes but less and less also; Israel still very much so). Beijing is putting its eggs into the basket of an elite of A2/AD forces and strategy, which, frankly, while an intelligent 21st century approach, is inadequate as it is and as it has been developing.

[boomerangutang]

Compare China's ambitions with the US current aircraft carrier fleet which are all nuclear powered and capable of remaining at sea indefinitely

You are a tad out of date. The PRC has both anti-ship ballistic missiles (DF-21D) as well as anti-ship cruise missiles (YJ-12) that have the ability to penetrate a carrier's task force defense shield. In another decade that type of technology will only be improved upon and become more common around the globe. The era of projecting power with manned carrier based aircraft is over and the US will have to pull a new rabbit out of the hat to maintain that type of military muscle. Given the failure and waste on the F-35 program, I doubt that is going to happen soon. President Eisenhower warned of the corruptive influence of the military-industrial complex, and one result is the loss of technological supremacy as profits and greed supplanted innovation and competence. Don't blame the Chinese. Fortunately for the US, the PRC has its own issues.

I can't mentally divorce the fact that mechanical things on the lowest levels, made in China, are crap - with the idea of them building a top echelon military. Maybe I'd be guilty of 'under-estimating the enemy.' Yet, there are not two completely separate entities: The manufacturing and raw materials which contribute to military hardware - compared to the same which contribute to all other manufacturing in China.

The same sorts of people who design, render raw materials, and manufacture components - work for both military and all other customers, don't they? Or do they have a separate elite corps of designers/manufacturers who work in a vacuum, completely separate from all other manufacturers?

From what I've seen from hundreds of consumer items I've bought, the Chinese-made are inferior every time (that's compared to farang or Japanese/Korean items, ...not compared to items made in India or Thailand).

Partly for that reason, and also the Chinese coming late to the military party (nearly 100 years behind the US and Britain re; aircraft carriers, for example), I don't see China as being an overwhelming military threat to the US for at least a few decades. Even Vietnam bloodied the Chinese in recent skirmishes.

As for Chinese buddies, the N.Koreans, they're rather like Saddam Hussein's Iraq were, militarily. They've got a million soldiers and huff and puff daily about their military prowess, but if push comes to shove (vs a western military confrontation), the N.Koreans fold like a paper accordion on fire.

Edited March 19, 2015 by boomerangutang

[Publicus]

Compare China's ambitions with the US current aircraft carrier fleet which are all nuclear powered and capable of remaining at sea indefinitely

You are a tad out of date. The PRC has both anti-ship ballistic missiles (DF-21D) as well as anti-ship cruise missiles (YJ-12) that have the ability to penetrate a carrier's task force defense shield. In another decade that type of technology will only be improved upon and become more common around the globe. The era of projecting power with manned carrier based aircraft is over and the US will have to pull a new rabbit out of the hat to maintain that type of military muscle. Given the failure and waste on the F-35 program, I doubt that is going to happen soon. President Eisenhower warned of the corruptive influence of the military-industrial complex, and one result is the loss of technological supremacy as profits and greed supplanted innovation and competence. Don't blame the Chinese. Fortunately for the US, the PRC has its own issues.

Wishful thinking.

The US has the ability to shoot down ballistic and cruise missiles. It also has the ability to jam the electronics.

A ship is a moving target. The missile will be in the air about 15 minutes and the US will see the launch.

China's missile system is multi-faceted and can be attacked in several places. It's not just the missiles but the land base guidance system and the people operating them. It takes a lot of support to operate the missile while it's enroute.

BIG. If someone launches an ICBM at the US he may find himself nuked because no one will know what the purpose or warhead is.

BIG. China has limited nukes and doesn't have second strike capabilities. It doesn't have first strike capabilities if hit first.

BIG. If China did manage to knock out a US carrier it would get what Japan got when it bombed Pearl Harbor. The US would go "all in."

China survives on global trade especially with the US and could starve itself out attacking the US.

I could go on, but China isn't going to sink a carrier. It knows what happened to Japan.

The one single PLA Navy aircraft carrier junk purchased from Ukraine where they're still laughing is about Taiwan and seriously so. It's not about the United States per se, nor is it about Japan or the South China Sea, although all three have seen the thing floating around with its empty deck.

It's about Taiwan and it goes back to 1996.

Indeed, and you'd also remember 1996 when the Boyz in Beijing started reigning a continuous barrage of missiles into the Taiwan Strait 24/7, a number of 'em landing a few kilometers off Taiwan.

After several daze and nights of it and a near panic on Taiwan, Bill Clinton sent two aircraft carrier strike groups through the Taiwan Strait, back and forth, a total of 13 warships to include their attack submarines stationed at either end of the Strait,

The Boyz had to stand down and retreat to Beijing tails between their legs. Believe you me, the Boyz and the PLA et al got severely and furiously burned and they remain in a constant and severe state of acid indigestion and unstable mind about it to this moment. Furious from then through to the present is an understatement.

As most of us know, the Boyz have 800 missiles pointed at Taiwan from the mainland across the Strait, ready for the next go around, whenever that may be as it's the 100% intention of the Boyz bite back on this one and to make it a high profile bite.

The Boyz want their own carrier in the Strait for the next time, whenever that may be, which is why they went out and bought it and this is how they intend to use it.

Both sides are preparing for some sort of Taiwan Strait and missile ruckus after the 2016 national election on Taiwan because everyone to include Beijing is expecting the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party to sweep into office from top to bottom as a statement of the current government's completely rejected past six years of trying to cozy up to the Boyz.

Beijing wants its own carrier in the Taiwan mix and now Beijing and Washington are gaming the naval implications and probabilities of such a meeting, which is sooner or later virtually assured.

[Thongkorn]

Within twenty years India will have a bigger population than China, China has problems with it one child policy, just as Britain has a problem with older people.China will have its own Big problem without trying to rule the world.

Bigger population does not necessarily mean better. It's how productive they are that matters. Otherwise, it's just a liability.

I find it ironic that people bitch & moan about China's large population, but give praise to India's large and growing one.

No body said bigger is better, i was stating a fact, China will have problems with its population , I don't give any praise to India , a Country that worships cows and treats women like animals. They are sending rockets out into space costing billions, yet most children in India cannot get clean fresh drinking water.

[Howitzer]

I wonder why people always say china being a superpower would be worse than the US being one. In the history of the world europeans and now the US have been the ones meddling in the business of other countries either by military force or by episonage in essence trying to get a leg up by everyone else through illegtimate means. Then later they claim they are the beacons of human rights and democracy yada yada.

[Howitzer]

Compare China's ambitions with the US current aircraft carrier fleet which are all nuclear powered and capable of remaining at sea indefinitely

You are a tad out of date. The PRC has both anti-ship ballistic missiles (DF-21D) as well as anti-ship cruise missiles (YJ-12) that have the ability to penetrate a carrier's task force defense shield. In another decade that type of technology will only be improved upon and become more common around the globe. The era of projecting power with manned carrier based aircraft is over and the US will have to pull a new rabbit out of the hat to maintain that type of military muscle. Given the failure and waste on the F-35 program, I doubt that is going to happen soon. President Eisenhower warned of the corruptive influence of the military-industrial complex, and one result is the loss of technological supremacy as profits and greed supplanted innovation and competence. Don't blame the Chinese. Fortunately for the US, the PRC has its own issues.

I can't mentally divorce the fact that mechanical things on the lowest levels, made in China, are crap - with the idea of them building a top echelon military. Maybe I'd be guilty of 'under-estimating the enemy.' Yet, there are not two completely separate entities: The manufacturing and raw materials which contribute to military hardware - compared to the same which contribute to all other manufacturing in China.

The same sorts of people who design, render raw materials, and manufacture components - work for both military and all other customers, don't they? Or do they have a separate elite corps of designers/manufacturers who work in a vacuum, completely separate from all other manufacturers?

From what I've seen from hundreds of consumer items I've bought, the Chinese-made are inferior every time (that's compared to farang or Japanese/Korean items, ...not compared to items made in India or Thailand).

Partly for that reason, and also the Chinese coming late to the military party (nearly 100 years behind the US and Britain re; aircraft carriers, for example), I don't see China as being an overwhelming military threat to the US for at least a few decades. Even Vietnam bloodied the Chinese in recent skirmishes.

As for Chinese buddies, the N.Koreans, they're rather like Saddam Hussein's Iraq were, militarily. They've got a million soldiers and huff and puff daily about their military prowess, but if push comes to shove (vs a western military confrontation), the N.Koreans fold like a paper accordion on fire.

You're really a joke are you?

You're comparing the made in china consumer items with military hardware?

FYI many brands of electronic goods are made in china including iphones and they work pretty fine. That's right apple products are made in china too.

It's truly a joke because this post of yours is just based on assumptions. Mind telling me which items are actually manufactured in korea/japan or farang countries given that korean/japanese/farang brand products are manufactured in china. Is that samsung phone made in korea all because samsung is a korean brand?

Vietnam bloodying the chinese in recent skrimishes how recent were they? In the last 10 years or do you mean in the early 20th century?

[EyesWideOpen]

If/when China is a real superpower, the USA haters here will really have something to complain about.

No doubt their venom will still be directed at the USA for allowing it to happen.

Haha, I have said that many times. If/when China becomes the dominant

superpower in the world, people will speak wistfully of the good old times

when America was the dominant superpower. There are some seriously

wrong things with China, really do not want them foisted upon the rest of

the world. Its actions in attempting to claim the entire South China Sea

should be a harbinger of the future for any thinking person. And its

economic domination of Africa should have other small countries quaking in

their boots.......

[Scott]

An off-topic post has been removed. The topic is about China. Stay on topic.

[simple1]

<snip>

Vietnam bloodying the chinese in recent skrimishes how recent were they? In the last 10 years or do you mean in the early 20th century?

Sino - Vietnamese War 17/02/79 to 16/03/79

http://sinovietnamesewar.com/

[Publicus]

Indeed, as the link indicates.....

"There were many reasons why it could be argued that the war was a disaster for the Chinese armed forces. First....Second....Third....Fourth....Fifth....Further....Finally, the Chinese struck back at an enemy that was highly trained, experienced, and confident due to successive victories in wars with France, the U.S., and Cambodia."

The Chinese in their thousands of years have never approached any successes of this nature, or of any military success even approximating the successes of the military forces of Vietnam. The Chinese have all the military competence of the Arabs throughout history and can actually make the French armed forces look not so bad.

Further, as other sources have recorded, the fumbling and bumbling PLA commanders had to organize attacks on the northern strategic city of Lang Son 17 times before finally staggering into it, only to be confronted by RVA forces positioned in the surrounding hills and their at will bombardment of the PLA in the deserted Lang Son ghost town.

No amount of strategic propaganda can cover the PLA's tactical failures of the Sino-Vietnam War.

Hanoi's post-incursion depiction of the border war was that Beijing had sustained a military setback if not an outright defeat. Most observers doubted that China would risk another war with Vietnam in the near future.

Gerald Segal, in his 1985 book Defending China, concluded that China's 1979 war against Vietnam was a complete failure: "China failed to force a Vietnamese withdrawal from [Cambodia], failed to end border clashes, failed to cast doubt on the strength of the Soviet power, failed to dispel the image of China as a paper tiger, and failed to draw the United States into an anti-Soviet coalition."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/prc-vietnam.htm

When Deng Xiao Peng during his 1979 official visit to Washington was surprise confronted with CIA satellite photos and other evidence of a PLA buildup along the Vietnam border, he replied, "Ahh, yes, it is time to give our Vietnamese neighbors a little spanking." It was in fact a rout of the PLA by the Vietnam Regular Army despite the fact the Vietnamese RA high command held the mass of its units in reserve in and around Hanoi, which the PLA never got even close to approaching.

A main problem was that the PLA attacked Vietnam at 26 points along the border, resulting in the corrupt and incompetent PLA commanders immediately losing control of the battle front and the management of the entire operation. PLA forces went without water, ammunition, transportation and fuel, leadership. They had to revert to wave attacks which the VRA forces cut down. After 60,000 casualties, the PLA was ordered out.

The PLA today remains a collection of regional war lords in each military district throughout the PRChina, all of which are corrupt, incompetent, consistently beyond the control of the emperor CCP Boyz in Beijing and their pompous and pretentious Central Military Committee.

PLA superbust.

[EyesWideOpen]

I wonder why people always say china being a superpower would be worse than the US being one. In the history of the world europeans and now the US have been the ones meddling in the business of other countries either by military force or by episonage in essence trying to get a leg up by everyone else through illegtimate means. Then later they claim they are the beacons of human rights and democracy yada yada.

Well , generally current behavior is an excellent predictor of future

behavior. Now when you look at this map, does the claimed area by

China look ok to you ?? Just curious......

Edited April 4, 2015 by EyesWideOpen

[Publicus]

Philippines are currently in a case the government has brought before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea against the CCP Boyz in Beijing over Beijing encroachment of the Phils' EEZ which includes the Spratley Islands, which are also 400 km closer to the Phils than to Hainan Island of the PRChina (it's the PRC mainland that anyway matters, and that's even further away).

The Phils were encouraged by Washington to bring the case and are also represented by the Boston-Washington super llegal eagle firm Foley and Hoag, which specializes in the ILOS and other international claims.

Actually a rookie lawyer out of Ramkanhang Law could win this case cause Beijing hasn't showed up since the case wuz filed two years ago, says it diesn't recognize the Tribunal or the LOS, so the decision expected later this year is a foregone conclusion. Beijing will take the deep six on this one even though the Boyz signed the ILOS treaty years ago. In other words, to Beijing it is a treaty until they don't like it any more. Trouble for the Boyz is, it is still a treaty whether they like it or not.

The Center for Strategic Studies in Washington analysis is that there are four possible outcomes to the SCS grab by the thugs Boyz who want to turn the global commons waterway into a Chinese lake, despite the fact $8 Trillion of shipping commerce moves through the Sea, to include ME oil to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, not to mention the Phils and Asean::

All parties agree to undertake judicial arbitration. (Edit: so far, not so good...rule of law and all of that.)

All parties agree to freeze in place, tabling the issue of ultimate sovereignty in favor of a cooperative regime for resource exploitation and management. (Pray harder on this one too.)

Individual claimants reach an understanding with China, renouncing their sovereignty claims in return for economic preference. (Ahh, the old triburary states approach.)

The most powerful party uses force to expel rival claimants.

The Boyz early last year said they would declare an Air Defense Identification Zone over the SCS, same as they surprise did the year before over disputed islands with Japan in the East Sea.

Back then, in 2014, two daze after the Boyz declared the ADIZ over the disputed East Sea area, the US flew B-52 nuclear capable but unarmed bombers through the Zone. This wuz despite Beijing's strict warning that "appropriate measures" would be taken against any violation of the ADIZ. Since then the Zone has become Swiss cheese as the US, South Korea, Japan fly unarmed warplanes through it regularly, sometimes jointly, sometimes separately.

The Pentagon, the State Department, the White House have said regularly and repeatedly, the SCS is, under the International Law of the Sea, a global commons and that is writ large for everyone to know and to observe without any exception whatsoever, for any reason or supposed justification, period.

Last year the Boyz plunked their massive drilling behemoth in the EEZ of Vietnam, then withdrew it a couple of daze after the US Senate voted unanimously for the big sucker to be gone. India and Vietnam recently signed a strategic agreement over the ILOS and the SCS despite Beijing's loud demands fellow Bric India stay out of it. No ADIZ over the SCS yet either.

The Boyz are getting squeezed where they don't like it.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Publicus

[arjunadawn]

The key lever of this opinion piece is fraudulent, thus rendering his conclusion void. One has to do mental gymnastics to conclude that China did not colonize locally, but instead had a "tribute" system and by this mechanism vassal states were required to offer tribute- but this is not empire building, this was symbiotic. The rationale that those forced to pay tribute received recompense is nonsense. It remains partially true that China has less foreign adventure but this is only in relation to other Western superpowers. China continues to have those in SE Asia that do not want to be part of its modern "tribute" symbiosis and certainly peoples on the periphery who were previously independent.

China may indeed be a different kind of superpower from others some day, but the writer of this article did not achieve that conclusion.

I am personally unphased by China being a superpower; its culture is fairly agreeable to me- its the damned communism that is my problem. China is a communist nation. A communist nation as a superpower will be very different, but not in a pleasant manner.

[Thai at Heart]

Nothing China does economically comes with any moral or societal value. I am not saying that the West is blameless with this, but the rest of the world has little understanding of modern Chinese values, whereas many can readily identify with USA or European values. You may not like them but at least people know what it stands for.

Everyone thinks everything Chinese comes with a red stamp of communism and authoritarianism . Funny thing is they have the many things that are good in Chinese society but don't market them at all to the world. The Chinese don't even know what they have in their midst to market to the world.

[Thai at Heart]

China is polluted, corrupt, and its leaders terrified that its population will eventually take to the streets. Long before it becomes a "superpower," it will crumble.

another wet dream. keep masturbating son.

It will not survive in its current state. It reforms constantly or it crumbles. People like money and they like freedom. Once the CCP can't deliver more money, it must deliver more freedom, or, twang...

[Thai at Heart]

Compare China's ambitions with the US current aircraft carrier fleet which are all nuclear powered and capable of remaining at sea indefinitely

You are a tad out of date. The PRC has both anti-ship ballistic missiles (DF-21D) as well as anti-ship cruise missiles (YJ-12) that have the ability to penetrate a carrier's task force defense shield. In another decade that type of technology will only be improved upon and become more common around the globe. The era of projecting power with manned carrier based aircraft is over and the US will have to pull a new rabbit out of the hat to maintain that type of military muscle. Given the failure and waste on the F-35 program, I doubt that is going to happen soon. President Eisenhower warned of the corruptive influence of the military-industrial complex, and one result is the loss of technological supremacy as profits and greed supplanted innovation and competence. Don't blame the Chinese. Fortunately for the US, the PRC has its own issues.

I can't mentally divorce the fact that mechanical things on the lowest levels, made in China, are crap - with the idea of them building a top echelon military. Maybe I'd be guilty of 'under-estimating the enemy.' Yet, there are not two completely separate entities: The manufacturing and raw materials which contribute to military hardware - compared to the same which contribute to all other manufacturing in China.

The same sorts of people who design, render raw materials, and manufacture components - work for both military and all other customers, don't they? Or do they have a separate elite corps of designers/manufacturers who work in a vacuum, completely separate from all other manufacturers?

From what I've seen from hundreds of consumer items I've bought, the Chinese-made are inferior every time (that's compared to farang or Japanese/Korean items, ...not compared to items made in India or Thailand).

Partly for that reason, and also the Chinese coming late to the military party (nearly 100 years behind the US and Britain re; aircraft carriers, for example), I don't see China as being an overwhelming military threat to the US for at least a few decades. Even Vietnam bloodied the Chinese in recent skirmishes.

As for Chinese buddies, the N.Koreans, they're rather like Saddam Hussein's Iraq were, militarily. They've got a million soldiers and huff and puff daily about their military prowess, but if push comes to shove (vs a western military confrontation), the N.Koreans fold like a paper accordion on fire.

That's because China makes plenty of stuff that isn't chap too, maybe.

Their military probably isn't a match for the USA, but the reason isn't down to quality control.

[Publicus]

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Nothing China does economically comes with any moral or societal value. I am not saying that the West is blameless with this, but the rest of the world has little understanding of modern Chinese values, whereas many can readily identify with USA or European values. You may not like them but at least people know what it stands for.

Everyone thinks everything Chinese comes with a red stamp of communism and authoritarianism . Funny thing is they have the many things that are good in Chinese society but don't market them at all to the world. The Chinese don't even know what they have in their midst to market to the world.

Ancient Chinese values were systematicly destroyed during the cultural revolution, Confucius himself having been resilient enough to have survived as a Chinese icon, but nothing more of him or his beliefs remain to be openly praised although much of his philosophical propagations continue to be observed, such as the three generation family.

China is long dead, succeeded instead by the People's Republic of China, which since 1949 has been the wholly owned and operated venture of the Chinese Communist Party. The concerns of the CCP and their PRChinese are economic, not cultural, not of social ingenuities, not of personal liberties or freedoms, latitude.

There is no CCP soft power because the CCP notion of soft power is that it must come from the central authority in Beijing, i.e., the CCP. It therefore is necessarily a huge flop, which the CCP Boyz can't understand or comprehend.

So Xi Jinping is instead busily trying to create his "China Dream" as his answer to the American Dream, however, only CCP members pay much mind to this rhetoric, but still not much mind at all. Xi most recently has made only few references to the Dream as the economy continues to falter.

In the meantime, the PRChinese are indeed as bland as is their sterilized culture, society, national identity made by the CCP to be bland.

The operative and single overriding word in the PRChina the past 30 years is "patience", to be "patient." It is not to develop the self, it is not reform of the society or the culture; it is not to invent nor is it to create. It is to submit and to self-subdue, to remain stable and staid; to wait until their time comes. The immediate and direct consequence is that the culture is a bore, the people are boring and, despite all the rapid (and overstated) economic development, the place is stagnant and stagnated.

The CCP culture is a culture of passivity, sublimation, stagnation, in all things.

China is polluted, corrupt, and its leaders terrified that its population will eventually take to the streets. Long before it becomes a "superpower," it will crumble.

another wet dream. keep masturbating son.

It will not survive in its current state. It reforms constantly or it crumbles. People like money and they like freedom. Once the CCP can't deliver more money, it must deliver more freedom, or, twang...

Modern Chinese values are predicated in four systems, which are Marx, Lenin, Mao, Deng.

CCP Chiarman Xi Jinping and PM Li Keqiang are hell bent on contradiction. The two are at the wheel of state, one spinning it in one direction, the other spinning it in the opposite direction. The consequence is a standoff.

At the core of the conflict is that Xi and Li are working at cross purposes because they are at the head respectively of the two different factions of the CCP.

One, Xi, is a Princeling, the son of party officials and regulars whose father was a general in Mao's Red Army. The princeling are offspring of CCP regulars dating back to Mao. The princelings are the drivers of the past 30 years of economic development, predicated in infrastructure expansion. Their base is and has always been Shanghai, the single richest and largest place in the PRC.

Li is Tuanpai, the opposite of the princelings.

Tuanpai are outsiders from the Party history and present structure, organization. They access the Party via the Youth League, to include Tsinghua University in contrast to the princelings and their academic vehicle, Peking University.

Xi's hapless predecessor Hu Jintao is tuanpai and his son remains head of Tsinghua. Li's agile predecessor Wen Jiabao is tuanpai, whose son heads the PRC Communications networks and systems.

Tuanpai focus on the half of the PRC population excluded from the past 30 years of economic expansion. The tension between the princelings and the tuanpai is accelerated by the fact the tuanpai are more democratic in their aspirations, as in constitutional parliamentary systems. The princelings continue to admire Mao's strong dictatorship.

While Xi and his princeling fellow travellers remain rooted in Mao, Marxism, Leninism, the tuanpai are the principal force behind reform. Xi however, under cover of an nati-corruption campaign popular among the masses, has rooted out the tuanpai. They have been swept from the central authority in Beijing, the provincial, the county and the local party and governments.

The consequence is the status quo rules.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Publicus

[boomerangutang]

I can't mentally divorce the fact that mechanical things on the lowest levels, made in China, are crap - with the idea of them building a top echelon military. Maybe I'd be guilty of 'under-estimating the enemy.' Yet, there are not two completely separate entities: The manufacturing and raw materials which contribute to military hardware - compared to the same which contribute to all other manufacturing in China.

The same sorts of people who design, render raw materials, and manufacture components - work for both military and all other customers, don't they? Or do they have a separate elite corps of designers/manufacturers who work in a vacuum, completely separate from all other manufacturers?

From what I've seen from hundreds of consumer items I've bought, the Chinese-made are inferior every time (that's compared to farang or Japanese/Korean items, ...not compared to items made in India or Thailand).

Partly for that reason, and also the Chinese coming late to the military party (nearly 100 years behind the US and Britain re; aircraft carriers, for example), I don't see China as being an overwhelming military threat to the US for at least a few decades. Even Vietnam bloodied the Chinese in recent skirmishes.

As for Chinese buddies, the N.Koreans, they're rather like Saddam Hussein's Iraq were, militarily. They've got a million soldiers and huff and puff daily about their military prowess, but if push comes to shove (vs a western military confrontation), the N.Koreans fold like a paper accordion on fire.

That's because China makes plenty of stuff that isn't chap too, maybe.

Their military probably isn't a match for the USA, but the reason isn't down to quality control.

Why do you think poor quality products only apply to consumer items and not to military items? If a military manufacturer needs a 1,000 meter spool of wire, they're probably going to buy it from the same wire manufacturers that supply consumer products - yes? no?

Since WWII, Russia has been considered top manufacturer of tanks, and Russian tanks are head and shoulders better than Chinese tanks. Yet, during the first Gulf War, American tanks ran roughshod over the best Russian tanks Saddam could buy. It was like a doberman vs a Chiwawa.

[Publicus]

I can't mentally divorce the fact that mechanical things on the lowest levels, made in China, are crap - with the idea of them building a top echelon military. Maybe I'd be guilty of 'under-estimating the enemy.' Yet, there are not two completely separate entities: The manufacturing and raw materials which contribute to military hardware - compared to the same which contribute to all other manufacturing in China.

The same sorts of people who design, render raw materials, and manufacture components - work for both military and all other customers, don't they? Or do they have a separate elite corps of designers/manufacturers who work in a vacuum, completely separate from all other manufacturers?

From what I've seen from hundreds of consumer items I've bought, the Chinese-made are inferior every time (that's compared to farang or Japanese/Korean items, ...not compared to items made in India or Thailand).

Partly for that reason, and also the Chinese coming late to the military party (nearly 100 years behind the US and Britain re; aircraft carriers, for example), I don't see China as being an overwhelming military threat to the US for at least a few decades. Even Vietnam bloodied the Chinese in recent skirmishes.

As for Chinese buddies, the N.Koreans, they're rather like Saddam Hussein's Iraq were, militarily. They've got a million soldiers and huff and puff daily about their military prowess, but if push comes to shove (vs a western military confrontation), the N.Koreans fold like a paper accordion on fire.

That's because China makes plenty of stuff that isn't chap too, maybe.

Their military probably isn't a match for the USA, but the reason isn't down to quality control.

Why do you think poor quality products only apply to consumer items and not to military items? If a military manufacturer needs a 1,000 meter spool of wire, they're probably going to buy it from the same wire manufacturers that supply consumer products - yes? no?

Since WWII, Russia has been considered top manufacturer of tanks, and Russian tanks are head and shoulders better than Chinese tanks. Yet, during the first Gulf War, American tanks ran roughshod over the best Russian tanks Saddam could buy. It was like a doberman vs a Chiwawa.

Indeed, it was because of the first Gulf War in 1991 the Boyz in Beijing went into stupified shock at the integrated high tech military capabilities of the United States and have since been scrambling to steal all the military technology they possibly can from US defense contractors.

The Pentagon has since beefed up cyber security at all US defense contractors. The few and limited improvements that have been made in CCP military technology have come almost exclusively from cyber theft, to include their space program which is planning to send taikonauts on a one way trip to Mars in the middle third of this century.

The Jade Rabbit moon surface probe jalopy the CCP Boyz in Beijing put down on the surface up there has had more breakdowns than Madam Mao. If Jade Rabbit is an assemblage of junk for all the world to see, what about Beijing's A2/AD (anti-access, area denial) land, air, sea missile defenses, especially when the new US missiles travel at 7.5 times the speed of sound. By the time the Boyz hear 'em they'll be in the Heavenly Celestial Kingdom Come.

There's a joke been going around the the UN Tribunal on the International Law of the Sea where the Phils are suing the absent Boyz that we can expect any day now Jade Rabbit will find a map giving China exclusive claim to the South China Sea, because that's the only possible document among the dozens they've shat out that could get anyone's attention.

Iraq in 1991 btw had the top of the line Soviet Union military technology of not only tanks, artillery, infantry arms, but Moscow's high tech best air defense systems which were usless as US B-1 stealth bombers suddenly appeared over Baghdad....we recall the CNN live broadcast of Iraqi anti-aircraft fire going up wildly into the night as their systems had been, shall we say, compromised, by US counter technology that went directly into Iraqi air defense systems of command and control to screw them up totally. The Iraqis were firing off not knowing up from down.

A lot of people say the Soviet Union threw in the towel after that which led to the hammer and sycle flag over the Kremlin coming down for good.