9600man I think you're way too pessimistic, and also discount other country's reliance on the US. Take Pakistan for example, they may publicly disparage US activity, yet behind closed doors they appreciate the billions in AID they are given (Pakistan is a top recipient of US assistance). Most countries are quite weak, and when push comes to shove, they fall in line. The US is on a path to energy independence, and the economy is improving. Meanwhile, China has long term economic bubbles and demographic problems to deal with.
The Rise of China
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And now we have further confirmation the US doesn't think much of China's posturing;
"The planes flew out of Guam and entered the new Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone at about 7 p.m. Washington time Monday, according to a U.S. official.
The flight of the B-52s, based at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, were part of a long planned exercise called Coral Lightening. The bombers were not armed and were not accompanied by escort planes."
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 3719005178
"The planes flew out of Guam and entered the new Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone at about 7 p.m. Washington time Monday, according to a U.S. official.
The flight of the B-52s, based at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, were part of a long planned exercise called Coral Lightening. The bombers were not armed and were not accompanied by escort planes."
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 3719005178
I've no proof nor have I read anything that has mentioned anything like it, but my sense is that this is a concession to the PLA by way of Xi Jinping to have gotten some of the things he wanted. It's the only thing that makes sense for this to happen.
It's worth noting that countries will do stupid things that are not in their best interests. I'll talk about WWI for a minute here as an example.
Prior to WWI a large number of people felt that a World War ( what they were calling a "general war" ) would be economically disastrous, and therefore conflicts would be strictly in terms of economic rivalry. At most, it'd be proxy style wars. This turned out to be true. For instance, even though the UK was victorious, their economy crashed post-war and they went into a depression.
However, despite this being known (or strongly suspected) the politicians (especially Austro-Hungarian) went ahead and did it anyway.
In 1910 Brigadier-General Henry Wilson gave a lecture arguing that a European war was inevitable and Britain’s only option was to ally with France. One of the attending officers responded by suggesting that only “inconceivable stupidity on the part of statesmen” could trigger such a disaster. Wilson responded with derision, saying that “inconceivable stupidity is just what you're going to get.”
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I'm not trying to say that a war involving China is necessarily going to happen. This whole thing is most likely just going to be bluster and blow over. However, I have no faith at all in China et al., restraining themselves just because a conflict isn't in their long term (or even short term) interests. Politicians are still inconceivable stupid to this day.
Prior to WWI a large number of people felt that a World War ( what they were calling a "general war" ) would be economically disastrous, and therefore conflicts would be strictly in terms of economic rivalry. At most, it'd be proxy style wars. This turned out to be true. For instance, even though the UK was victorious, their economy crashed post-war and they went into a depression.
However, despite this being known (or strongly suspected) the politicians (especially Austro-Hungarian) went ahead and did it anyway.
In 1910 Brigadier-General Henry Wilson gave a lecture arguing that a European war was inevitable and Britain’s only option was to ally with France. One of the attending officers responded by suggesting that only “inconceivable stupidity on the part of statesmen” could trigger such a disaster. Wilson responded with derision, saying that “inconceivable stupidity is just what you're going to get.”
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I'm not trying to say that a war involving China is necessarily going to happen. This whole thing is most likely just going to be bluster and blow over. However, I have no faith at all in China et al., restraining themselves just because a conflict isn't in their long term (or even short term) interests. Politicians are still inconceivable stupid to this day.
Well at least ANA and JAL are going to try and keep their passengers safe.
If China wants help with their housing bubble, all they need do is ask our local supply side economic think tanks what to do, and then to the exact opposite.
If China wants help with their housing bubble, all they need do is ask our local supply side economic think tanks what to do, and then to the exact opposite.
YAY!!! And once again we prove why in general East Asian carriers tend to get the highest rankings as airliners. w00t! The priority is always the passenger, and they proved it with this. The politicking sucks balls, but at least ANA and JAL are doing the right thing and keeping security their top goal.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25759429#p25759429:1z6snl3n said:
You're so right. In HK there are constantly reports of what HK should do, but its done in a debate style, so you end up even more confused than before you watch the report, because neither side makes a better case. It's why I'm partly convinced the housing bubble crisis is what's causing the antagonism by China because they themselves have no clue what to do. Bets on how fast China goes nuts with the military moves when the bubble bursts. A day? A week? An hour?
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25759313#p25759313:2ln8mhkq said:
There is no one entity of 'China', so while it might be disastrous for the nation as a whole, some individual politicians or members of the military might think it in their personal interest to have an armed conflict. Part of the problem with saber rattling is that it presumes everyone involved has a good clear understanding of consequences and limits, and is honestly interested in avoiding conflict. Perhaps I am a pessimist, but rattle a little more and I fear somebody is going to do something stupid (from my perspective).
I could see some people thinking a limited conventional conflict would benefit China - a little skirmish here and there to solidify their claims to territory and force others out. Obviously there is no guarantee that China can just land a quick punch to the nose and everyone else will just back off and give them what they want without escalating, but can you say not a single general would entertain that idea? Some idiot who has spent their life immersed in the propaganda might believe all it would take is a little shoving around and the world will give in and return what rightfully belongs to China (in their mind at least). The bully shoves the nerd around to feel better and take something they want, not figuring there would be consequences.
Their demographics might even favor war - plenty of young men without wives, plenty of underemployed workers (especially in the case of economic upheaval from crashing markets or barriers to trade), and serious problems relating to that are coming up and need to be dealt with. A conventional war might solve a lot of their problems: why not give the people an external enemy to focus on? You quell internal unrest, the opportunity costs of switching to a wartime economy is considerably reduced during economic troubles,
They have plenty of foreign reserves right now to acquire material - switch from making cheap crap for foreigners to making cheap weapons for their massive population, and they can overwhelm others through sheer numbers. The problem there is just making sure they don't get into a protracted war with the US.
I suspect this is going to prompt more situations like that which caused the Hainan Island incident (where a Chinese fighter collided with an American EP-3). I anticipate planes flying into the ADIZ will get intercepted and have some Chinese pilots attempt to provoke an altercation and any such incidents the Chinese will say is the fault of the other plane (implications apparently being that a 40ish year old prop driven modified cargo plane is faster and more maneuverable than a Chinese interceptor, to put it at fault for the collision).
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25757193#p25757193:ywcaavyq said:
Over an uninhabited rock, although to be fair one that *may* have oil.
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I'm tired of fighting WWII over again. I'm sorry that China still feels butthurt, but they're begging us to play the game of dredging up history. "Butt out US, this is a dispute between China and Japan", ignoring that we took possession from the Empire of Japan and then returned the islands to Japanese control. It's all about playing up to the masses rather than letting the U.S. (or anybody else) negotiate in good faith. The stakes of the Chinese stirring up a nationalist mob are high, for the world economy if nothing else.
Someday, China is going to have to follow up on one of it's threats or it will lose face. That's when the shit will hit the fan.
Nevarre":1av3vbde said:
The world economy will be fine eventually. People want goods, and factories can move. Sure the initial pain of moving production out of China would be painful, but done gradually it would be entirely feasible. If countries and firms feel that the cost of doing business in China is too high - they simply will not use it as the factory for the entire planet. Production can be automated or moved to similarly cheap regions of the world. And that's the only 'chip' China has to play. If China stop delivery of good to the U.S. - American children won't have as many toys to play with, and adults will have fewer gadgets for Christmas. A temporary pain worst case scenario.
I think it's also interesting see the Chinese pent up anger regarding world war II still. It resembles the same sort of outrage you see in some eastern european circles about the second world war (the ultra right wing Polish 'fascists' rioting in Warsaw at the Russian embassy recently comes to mind). Yet even in Eastern Europe these views do not command the majority - as it seems is the case in China. The world has moved on from World War II and doesn't want to revisit past misdeeds. Come one china, time to have your morning coffee and join the international community that you want respect from oh. so. much. Making idiotic statements like this isn't the way to do it.
The Chinese aren't mad about WWII, though it is part of their Century of Shame. The Chinese are more pissed about Hong Kong, Macau and the Sino-Japanese wars.
It's one of the curious/stupid features of "face" - if everyone ignores a circumstance that should cause one to lose face, no face is lost. Just because someone does something catastrophically stupid, no face is lost if everyone just scratches their head and says, "what happened? I dunno..."[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25760179#p25760179:2nlqyvdg said:
Which, of course, means that's exactly what happens when everyone is more concerned with saving face than with fixing the problem.
Edit: To put it another way, the only time someone "loses face" is when someone else openly takes note of the face-losing incident. You don't lose face for forgetting to put snow chains on the tires and spinning out on the icy road, you lose face when someone else comments on it.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25760071#p25760071:3bimzyok said:
I think people tend to overstate the importance of the immediate causes of a conflict, both at the interpersonal and international level.
It reminds me of every time you see people shaking their heads over what the world has come to when you see some incident of violence that broke out over something stupid and trivial. Richard Poplawski did not kill four Pittsburgh police officers because of a fight with his mother over a dog peeing on the carpet, he had deep seated issues and antipathy towards the police that developed over many years... and that just happened to be the day that things came to a head.
Likewise I don't think it's helpful to think about this as a simple disagreement over an uninhabited rock, that no one in their right mind would initiate a global conflict over. It's not about the rock, it's about a belligerent rising power with a century's worth of emotional baggage.
It's funny how no English media would bother to mention Japan already has a air defence ID zone covering region that Japan themselve say belongs to China's EEZ - the area west of the blue dotted line, for at least a decade.
Map source.
And of course it only "dangerous" or an "act of war" when China do basically the same thing.
Map source.
And of course it only "dangerous" or an "act of war" when China do basically the same thing.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25761751#p25761751:1vjgrrgj said:
There's a small amount of overlap.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25760071#p25760071:142zyp6t said:
One would think that creating a situation where a simple miscalculation could result in war would be too high of a price just to sir up the nationalistic mob. But then again, here we are.
Here is a link that explain what ADIZ really are (TLDR: ADIZ is not a "no fly zone" or extension of sovereignty), and the view from the "other side" without the rhetoric:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-251113.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-251113.html
Don't know much about Peter Lee, but I've always found Bonnie Glaser to be quite a good source of info.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25762083#p25762083:375iph57 said:
So, the rational view is that China just so innocently wants to track aircraft? As a courtesy? Laughable.
The US rightfully called shenanigans. Perhaps setting a new precedent, the US is further stating they will not sit idly and not react to Chinese provocations.
Fuck it, lets just declare it USA property so everyone has a good reason to be pissed at us.
And, it looks like ANA and JLA reversed their policy to comply with Chinas bullying. This brings them into parity with South Korea's Air lines who are also not complying.
couple that with the US flying B-52's and whatever else we want in the area could either make for a very dangerous situation, or an empty threat that everyone ignores.
One thing I find strange is that China is requiring all aircraft to comply, but most other ADZ's (including the US's as per the U.S. Navy's Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations) only require aircraft that will enter the nations sovereign airspace to comply.
couple that with the US flying B-52's and whatever else we want in the area could either make for a very dangerous situation, or an empty threat that everyone ignores.
One thing I find strange is that China is requiring all aircraft to comply, but most other ADZ's (including the US's as per the U.S. Navy's Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations) only require aircraft that will enter the nations sovereign airspace to comply.
It wouldn't be difficult. The US used an awful lot of small Pacific islands during WWII and hydrogen bomb testing.
I don’t suppose you could argue that the US conquered the islands during WWII, and therefore had the right to give them to whomever it wanted to afterward (Japan in 1972)?
I’d be happy if someone decided they were Taiwan’s, but I can’t find much support for the argument. Imperial China turned its back on the sea in the early 1500s and never went back. Taiwan didn’t care about them until motorized fishing vessels became common and natural gas was discovered.
But if they weren’t part of Taiwan in 1895, then they weren’t part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki (which ceded “Taiwan and its islands” to Japan). Japan was stripped of anything in gained in that treaty after WWII in the Treaty of San Francisco. But again, I don’t see any indication that anyone associated the islands with Taiwan at the time. It doesn’t help that Japan claimed them (invoking terra nullis) a few months before the Treaty of Shimonoseki, seemingly independently of the first Sino-Japanese War.
Ten years ago Spain and Morocco had a similar but smaller spat over a little rock off the latter (la Isla Perejil, in Spanish). I’m sure it happens in many more places. Is there some better way to handle uninhabited islands? Do they really have to belong to someone?
I’d be happy if someone decided they were Taiwan’s, but I can’t find much support for the argument. Imperial China turned its back on the sea in the early 1500s and never went back. Taiwan didn’t care about them until motorized fishing vessels became common and natural gas was discovered.
But if they weren’t part of Taiwan in 1895, then they weren’t part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki (which ceded “Taiwan and its islands” to Japan). Japan was stripped of anything in gained in that treaty after WWII in the Treaty of San Francisco. But again, I don’t see any indication that anyone associated the islands with Taiwan at the time. It doesn’t help that Japan claimed them (invoking terra nullis) a few months before the Treaty of Shimonoseki, seemingly independently of the first Sino-Japanese War.
Ten years ago Spain and Morocco had a similar but smaller spat over a little rock off the latter (la Isla Perejil, in Spanish). I’m sure it happens in many more places. Is there some better way to handle uninhabited islands? Do they really have to belong to someone?
In this case the only reason they are uninhabited is that Japan has gone out of its way to not piss of China over them. The fishing village that was on the islands originally was removed in WW2 and never allowed to return. It is not like the residents did not want to go back, or that it was uninhabited prior to WW2.
And, yes the US conquered all of Imperial Japan. We then reformed the nation and assigned it the territory we wished them to have.
And, yes the US conquered all of Imperial Japan. We then reformed the nation and assigned it the territory we wished them to have.
I know it was commendable for ANA and JAL to comply, but I'm glad they changed their policy. I know passenger's lives are at stake and it's easy for me to say, but giving to such bullying will have disastrous long term ramifications.
And I say this as someone who travels at least twice a year to Tokyo and has taken the LAX-NRT route 17 times in the last 7 years.
And I say this as someone who travels at least twice a year to Tokyo and has taken the LAX-NRT route 17 times in the last 7 years.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25760385#p25760385:29t95rjn said:
+1
The Chinese concept of 'face' is very difficult to grasp by anyone from outside the culture. I've traveled in China extensively for 10 years and lived here for more than 2. I still have little clue about 'face'. But Nekojin's comment: "if everyone just scratches their head and says, "what happened? I dunno..." " rings true with what I have observed. Most of my run-ins with 'face' have been over shopping and asking directions.
In shopping, it seems to be forbidden for a shop to order something for you that isn't currently in stock. It seems to be a loss of face to have not stocked what the customer might want so instead, they always say that what you want does not exist.
When asking questions (especially directions), it is very rare for any Chinese person to say, "I don't know." It is considered less a loss of face to ignore the question or outright lie than to admit a lack of knowledge.
Interestingly enough, my observation is that this condition is greatly ameliorated amongst those who have made an effort to learn Western cultures. I have questioned many English speaking Chinese about this. They acknowledge the truth in the observation and also are able to express the "I don't know" as to why it is this way. Something about these people drove them to explore other ways of being in the world. Whatever the force, the result is that in so doing, they have lost some of their connection to their own native culture.
I have a few comments on about this.
1. I gave up on this Chinese shit, if shit hit the fan I am just going to try to bring as many family members to the states as I can.
2. This is now so confusing that I am just going give up and believe in the Endsieg for China.
3. Hopefully they have a reason that is just too smart for us.
4. Can China be this retarded on the world stage?
1. I gave up on this Chinese shit, if shit hit the fan I am just going to try to bring as many family members to the states as I can.
2. This is now so confusing that I am just going give up and believe in the Endsieg for China.
3. Hopefully they have a reason that is just too smart for us.
4. Can China be this retarded on the world stage?
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25762771#p25762771:26ie7jis said:
I think the true danger is if Chinese politburo start believing their own bullshit and continue to push the nationalistic impetuous. Meanwhile, Japan will leverage these developments to continue to remobilize their military, with plenty of American help. Perhaps this incident is a wake up call for the US to accelerate their China containment strategy.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25764805#p25764805:2vdths26 said:
Bring on the robot army http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iZ0WuNvHr8
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25759313#p25759313:kikk145b said:
Everyone - politicians included - has a tendency to confuse self-interest with group interest. What is good for you is presumed to be good for the whole because you considered yourself representative of that whole (or, at least, imagine your portion of the whole is more significant than it really is). So when people make decisions about how the collective should act, they tend to do so based on their own self-interest.
The explosion of international violence in the 19th and 20th century was primarily due to the rapid changes of industrialization. The politicians reacted based on their self-interest by taking the only paths they could see that didn't lead to a diminishment of their own personal power and influence. The fact that the nation's interests would have been best served by precisely that sort of diminishment didn't occur to them (or, at the very least, didn't bother them).
The problem that China is facing is much the same as faced the European nations a century ago: the power of business was diminishing the power of politicians. In the United States, politicians never were very powerful so business took over rapidly (although not without bloodshed - the Civil War was actually far more about industrialized interests vs. agrarian interests than a moralistic anti-slavery crusade). But in places like Germany and Japan, politicians subordinated business to serve the needs of the politicians and were left with few options once business became too powerful to control. Given the choice between surrendering their power to business interests or launching a risky foreign war, they viewed the choice as one between guaranteed loss and merely likely loss.
When you see China building up its military, it has little to do with the Chinese actually believing they need to defend themselves or wanting to invade surrounding countries. Rather, it has to do with politicians seeking to bring more power under their control. It's a strategy with little hope of long-term benefit, but it's a strategy that (for the politicians) is better than the no hope scenario of ceding their authority to the private sector.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25771339#p25771339:3e79kiit said:
Wow, I guess this is the libertarian version of history? The only problem is that as with many European countries pre-WWI, in China, the politicians, the state, own a majority of the businesses, they are one and the same. The private sector in China is an illusion. A majority of the politiburo are billionaires, similar to the non-democratic Mullahs in Iran who are also billionaires.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25771369#p25771369:1mf14q1c said:
Again, this is an attempt to contain business under the authority of politicians.
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