scot47

I am not an American. A citizen of the world, continuing our struggle against English Colonialism and Imperialism !

uk_grenada

Sorry, which form of privilege passport is that? Giving you access to which parts of this planet?

Living in the past then re colonialism.

Suggest you look at the current oppressive colonialists and stop worrying about any people who died before you were born.

carcajou

The breadth and depth of the American involvement in Asia is often massively underestimated, by those who don't live there. The US has longstanding treaty defence alliances with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia - all are classed as "Major non-NATO allies," one step below NATO - plus growing comprehensive strategic partnerships with India, Malaysia and Vietnam. The alliances with the Philippines and Thailand, specifically, have been retooled and actually expanded in the past six months after a few years of rockiness (and even some threats) from Duterte and the aftermath of the Thai coup. Malaysia and Vietnam joined the Japan- and Australia-led TPP11. Widespread diaspora communities across the US also serve as a cultural anchor.

In sum - the Americans are not going anywhere, whether China is happy about it or not.

uk_grenada

You are confused, its old treaties mean nothing in the current climate. The americans are not interested, and are looking inward and not looking to support or colonise asia. I assume you are aware that the us recently lost their nuclear force from asia [guam?] with the withdrawal and mothballing of their b52 and other bombers.. America actually doesnt have the capacity technically any more, doesnt want to afford big military support and politically doesnt seem interested, out of that region look how they were humiliated by the russians over their annexation of the crimea. Sure america is keen to use drones to attack weaker countries terrorists but they keep well away from bears and pandas because they might bite. China now owns so much american debt and supplychain that it could easily destroy the us dollar overnight, but the chinese are pragmatic, think long term [their business plan for china is 200 years!] and are businesslike, america will be destroyed without weapons, it simply slowly implodes economically China is on the other hand openly expansionist, gaining support and allies, moving their people en-masse to other countries establishing colonies, building bridges [sometimes literally] with the silk road project and doing so diplomatically.

The danger is that as america implodes, it will one day reach a point where its only response to an action is inuclear and then im glad i live on a small relatively self sufficient island far enough away from them.

carcajou

This sounds like crazy talk . . . and frankly a bit unhinged.

uk_grenada

Well we are all entitled to publish our opinions, after all we dont live in china [i never said they were liberal] but i really dont see the americans as ever being aggressors again with anyone capable of fighting back, unless it was backs to the wall, which its opponents would avoid i think.

How would you characterise the american / chinese relationship from each sides view? Bearing in mind the american one has a 5? Year horizon and the chinese one more than a lifetime?

carcajou

China's foreign policy is based on the idea of Han exceptionalism, not an interlocking series of alliances as the American one is. Asian neighbours are under no illusions, do not want perpetual submission under a bullying state and are trying to keep the Americans in, same as the Western/Central Europeans did in the Cold War. There is no Asian "band of brothers" and "China" is not "Asia." As long as the countries involved want the Americans there, the American presence can continue indefinitely. The United States only spends 3% of its GDP on defence and only a small amount of that 3% is in Asia.

Several of the points you mentioned are irrelevant. The treaties are not "old," they get regularly updated, changed and extended. The American bombers did not "leave" Guam, they just ended a continuous presence as part of a switch to Dynamic Force Deployment which is designed to add greater unpredictability to operations, which includes sending planes back periodically to unused and under-utilised areas. They just put a plane on Wake Island for the first time, for instance. Two aircraft carriers just returned to the Philippines.

I am fully aware China just built an aircraft carrier, which they will put against seven American fleets.

As for "debt" - it is not debt like a person, it means China has bought bonds - they have been dumping them for years. Mass dumping of them at once means China takes an enormous loss, other Western countries buy them up at a discount (or the Americans buy them up) and then China takes a further loss trying to maintain its currency peg. Why do you think China does not float the Yuan?

uk_grenada

Ships are completely obsolete, didnt you get the memo?

Look up stealth technology for missiles, the major powers all have them, and they are unstoppable, makes any ship easy prey to a cheap drone plane or boat, or a trad plane hundreds of miles away. The world of war is changing and with it, its the makers of cheap smart munitions who get the upper hand. Only space based satellite platforms like chevaline trident are still fairly safe but even there killer satellite tech exists.

In a shooting war I would put more faith in an economy that can make a million drones that work over 12 was it? B2’s, or one [russia] that will raise a middle finger to the us and make a specific treaty banned cobalt weapon and put it in a drone sub as its anti us doomsday device, then ‘accidentally’ tell the world about it.

I find the us bonds scenario is actually heartening, it proves the chinese to be businessmen over pure communist, or they would trash the us dollar and its economy and not care about the dollar cost. Dont discount it completely though, it may be that the resulting power given to the yuan/remimbe woukd make it commercially desirable when american consumers become less relevant as they will at some point.

carcajou

Of course shipping is still very important. That is why the South China Sea is a flashpoint and why China built all of those islands. Ship uplift absolutely dwarfs any capacity from airplanes. Boats are far from sitting ducks. China cannot get an invasion force anywhere without surface control of the seas.

You think the Americans don't have secret weapons, and can't make a million drones? Ones that, unlike the Chinese ones, actually work?

uk_grenada

Secret weapons are pointless unless their use is of a cladnestine nature also, or while in development to try to keep ahead. The problem is its difficult to keep them secret after a point. Look at the toshiba scandal where the anericans gave their quiet sub info to the russians by clerical error, or when it emerged phosphorescence had been giving away nuclear sub locations to satellites for years.

When i say ships are obsolete i mean as weapons, they are now outclassed by weapons costing 1% of the ship.

Shipping during war is now dead so you had better be self sufficient where it matters, dont import technology for sure lol.

BUT the chinese dont need to invade, they dont do that, not needed to control, after all they wrote the book - to go to war admits your previous efforts to control failed, its the russians and americans that do that.

Im sure there is one, but i actually cant think of an american mass manufacturered product that is globally acknowledged as a winner? Plentry of one offs and super exclusive manufactured jewels of products, but high value high quality trouble free by the million? The big mac ?

carcajou

The Taiwanese are treated differently by the CCP because they are Mandarin-speaking Han and therefore are viewed as familial cousins who have just been led astray by a few bad apples (probably under foreign influence). The Cantonese-speaking Hong Kongers, different language and ethnic group, therefore viewed with suspicion and distrust by the CCP and different story altogether. This may be a surprise to sheltered Westerners (not speaking about you) who think China is a kind of homogeneous culture, it isn't, it is a quilt with Han the biggest central patch and 7 major language groups that are not mutually intelligible. So the CCP tries to enforce Mandarin on everyone to increase their power.

Still the Chinese will invade if they think they will win and the costs will justify it. I told someone in another thread who was thinking about whether to leave Hong Kong for New York, to leave, because the CCP is probably at a point where they've concluded that relations with the West are so low right now that ending one country, two systems won't make them much worse, and the Western countries will huff and puff but won't really do much. Thatcher conceded as much in the 1980s when the Chinese threatened to invade HK and Thatcher told them she couldn't stop them. Taiwan is very different. An invasion of Taiwan will start a war and suck in the entire alliance system. And, yes, the Chinese need "shipping" to get across the strait, how are they going to get their invasion fleet across? With dozens of American bases taking target practise at their airplanes? Transport aircraft are big slow sitting ducks with low capacities that you don't take across contested air space in an active conflict. By the way, the Americans have historically controlled airspace in conflict theatres with ease, which is another reason for the Chinese emphasis on sea lanes. The lesson the CCP took from the Cold War was that they wouldn't be able to compete army-to-army and so they needed to focus on asymmetric tactics, like access denial (use of artificial islands etc).

And yes plenty of American "winning" products though in the name of transnational corporations it is hard to see where one starts and stops. If you are going to play that game then you could say Airbus is an example because of their stations in the US. Otherwise Amazon, Microsoft, etc? Why do you think the industrial espionage is only going one way and intellectual property from the US side was the biggest sticking point in the US-China trade negotiations? If it was such crap that the Chinese could do themselves, no need to fight on that point right? Tell the Americans they can have all the IP protections they want, make it look like a grand concession on your part and use that as leverage later on. But that's never what happens.

uk_grenada

Mostly i agree, but i still think, if it came to a proper shooting war, while the global economic etc fallout would be terrible for a while, the chinese would show more resilience than the american public and warmongers. The americans have never in the current world taken on another equal. If the russians wade in too, which they would locally while nobody was looking, washington really is stuffed.

America is hooked on tech and big corporate projects/profits - not the end goal of being able to win. I go back to the discovery that the russian foxbat [made to take-on the blackbird] used valve based ekectronics. The americans laughed but british aerospace proved they were reliable and resistant to EMP in a way american planes have never been since ww2. The foxbat also had a steel frame, it was outset designed to be made in car factories...

Its not about how clever your munitions are, its about how fast you can make rhem, and if they are half as good as your opponent but you can deliver 10 times as much, you win... Most american hardware is dire in extended use, the humv has to go to the states for an oil change and service, i have a bro in law in the us army, when in germany they had to ship them back all the time. An apache helicopter spends 1 day being fixed for every 50 hours in service? These are not designed for abuse.

theres an area of offense tech that isnt talked of much as i think it violates treaties, lethal drones and their swarms. All those pretty drone patterns in the sky - thats not funded for fun... They would quickly emerge from places like apple contracted factories in china - in iphone numbers in ways american factories couldnt match...

Im sure european and american software is better, but i doubt it would give enough advantage, there is a vast infrastructure of chinese software never seen in the west, they may have strict censorship, but their breed of facebook is actually much more capable than us software, actually because politics isnt involved. It handles for example 70% of all financial transactions in china from interbank to paying for street food - vast..