japan to deploy missles on island could spark WW#3 Nov 1st with china

Taxcutter says:
Invading Japan involves crossing water and China just cannot do that right now or anytime in the 7-10 year time frame. China cannot invade Taiwan which is just a few miles offshore.

Japan has a not inconsiderable navy and air force. Their economy is formidable and they have access to high-quality US defense technology. An attempted invasion of Japan would lead to an awful lot of Chinese in the water.

I would see a war between China and Japan as a very expensive (for both parties) stalemate. Neither can deliver the knockout blow, unless China delivered a multi-nuke attack. Once the mushrooms start growing all bets are off.

Neither can deliver a successful land attack on the other. Japan can wreck China's export-driven economy with a naval blockade and by mining/wrecking China's container ports. Conversely China would pound Japan with missiles.

At some point both sides run out of ammunition and will to carry on. My guess is 4-6 months.

 

Taxcutter says:
You mean de jure. Hussein Obama dissolved it de facto by neutering the US forces which were 95% of the punch of NATO.

Faced with an isolationist US and an aggressive Russia, one would think prudent Europeans would be frantically striving to arm themselves before the bear comes a-growling at their door.

 

China is much more powerful than you think. I believe that Americans think China is weak and backwards, just because it makes Americans feel superior to believe that. If people want to feel superior, well that is human so it doesn't mean very much in many ways. In fact, it is better for even someone's physical health to feel superior rather than inferior. Feeling inferior causes stress. So this is a real problem. If Americans were to see China accurately, those Americans would be stressed. However, if feeling superior gets in the way of looking at another nation's real strength, then it is best to forgo feeling superior and try to understand what is really happening.

What we need is a world situation where this problem wasn't forced on people. However, we will probably have to do a lot of research in the social sciences in order to discover how to do that.

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Actually, prudent Europeans would ally themselves with Russia and China.

 

According to all the reports I have seen, China did not respond to the incursion.

What would induce Brazil to ally itself with Russia against the US, and vice versa? As for China and India, they have fought a number of skirmishes along their common border and are long standing rivals for regional leadership. Either is more likely to ally with us against the other than to ally with the other against us.

 

Taxcutter says:
It is hard to have much respect for a navy whose ships spend about five days a year at sea.
It is hard to have much respect for an air force armed with Russian knock-off aircraft that have a high incidence of engine failures.
Poorly trained forces armed with cheap Chinese junk.
The Japanese have a respectable maritime tradition and a reputation for high quality.

Taxcutter says:
Give up their sovereignty without a fight? What do the Russians offer beyond overpriced natural gas?

 

What would induce Brazil to ally itself with Russia against the US, and vice versa? As for China and India, they have fought a number of skirmishes along their common border and are long standing rivals for regional leadership. Either is more likely to ally with us against the other than to ally with the other against us.[/QUOTE]

I saw BBC reports on both the military aircraft and warship confrontations. A lot of news is reported in foreign media that isn't reported in the United States. We have a blackout on foreign news in the United States with only small bits ever reported. I don't think there is a conspiracy or anything. I think that this is a long habit from decades of Americans not being interested in foreign news nor in serious ideas and analysis. The American media is quite profit oriented and gives the public what the public wants.

On what would induce Brazil and so forth:

First, Brazil and India have been allied with China and Russia for some time in the BRIC alliance. The BRIC alliance is economic, though, and I don't know whether or not there is a secret military treaty. In terms of context, the EU started as an economic alliance which turned into a political confederation. So the idea of economic alliances turning into something political is in the air internationally. So in part, the question is "why did Brazil and India ally themselves with Russia and China?", not "why would".

Over some decades, India was allied with USSR while the United States was allied with Pakistan. So there has been a relationship there. China has been trying to mend fences with India the last few years. Interestingly, the American government caused the Indian public to become outraged at America a few months ago. America arrested an Indian woman working in the Indian diplomatic service for not reporting the income she paid her maid, and for helping Indian immigrants to the United States. Normally, if the United States is unhappy with someone in another nation's diplomatic service, that person is simply expelled from the country. Also, her "crimes" were very minor and things that most Americans aren't arrested for. So you can understand how outraged the Indian public was against the United States.

Another factor was America spying on foreign government leaders, and then President Obama didn't apologize, but simply said the United States would stop doing it unless there were a reason to spy on a foreign head of state. Brazil was so upset by that that she is breaking away from the world Internet to form her own national Internet that wouldn't be open to American spying.

Then, a large percent of the world's people are very frightened by the American corporations. They are afraid that the American corporations will lock them into a low standard of living for hundreds of years into the future and take away what independence in government they now have. They see what is happening in the United States with corporations working politically to end all welfare programs, to end social security, to end any government medical care program, to end unemployment insurance, to end the minimum wage, to end any protections for employees and customers. They don't want to become like serfs of the American corporations. Most of the rest of the world is deeply frightened of the United States. That people in other nations are afraid of the United States isn't something Americans don't want to hear nor take notice of, so that reality isn't in the American public discussion.

 

Russia would offer to not invade the EU if they became allies. Remember that a couple of weeks ago, the United Kingdom made a major move against the United States by making an agreement with China to set up a currency exchange market for the Yuan in London. China has been campaigning to replace the dollar as the world's trade currency, the world's reserve currency, and in doing that, the UK moved away from its alliance with America and towards an alliance with the BRIC nations. Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

 

Taxcutter says:
And that will be the end of China's price advantage. Their exports to the US will become too expensive and their sales will drop off. So much for China's export-driven economy.

 

That is what most Americans think. However, about two years ago, the Chinese government said that China no longer needs the America market because Chinese citizens could buy the products instead. Since then, China has been increasing spending by her own population. Further, for the past decade, China has been going around to a large percentage of nations in the world and locking up their natural resources in long term contracts with China. About a year ago, China began restricting the amount of rare earths American corporations are allowed to buy. Rare earths are important in high tech electronics.

Further, when America starts to default on our growing loans from world lenders, China can seize all American assets in China to pay the creditors, including herself because China is a massive creditor to the debt ridden United States. There might be some bumps in the Chinese economy, but with American economy hurt so badly that the United States could no longer afford to be a superpower, it would be worth it for China, which wants to replace America as the world's only superpower and replace America as leader of the new world order.

 

I think it's a calculated stance
by the Japanese.

The Chinese economy increased its dependence on the United States last year according to recently released trade figures from Beijing and Washington.

China’s overall trade surplus in 2011 was $155.1 billion, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

And how much of that surplus is related to America? Commerce Department figures show that, through the first 11 months of last year, China’s trade surplus against the United States was $272.3 billion. That’s up from $252.4 billion for the same period in 2010, a 7.9% increase.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2012/01/22/china-is-175-6-dependent-on-the-u-s/

 

Taxcutter says:
It's easy to find out. When China repudiates the dollar and seizes US assets in China, that's trade war and retaliation is called for.

First retaliation is withdrawal of Most Favored nation status. Everything coming from China is subject to a 250% tariff. No exceptions.
Second retaliation is seizure of Chinese assets in the US.
Repudiation of the dollar will make the yuan hyper-strong and the dollar nearly worthless in buy Chinese goods. Chinese goods would go from having a big price advantage to a huge price disadvantage. nearly nothing Chinese would be bought in the US.

China would lose its $272 billion trade surplus and their overall world trade surplus would go from $155 billion to $117 deficit.

Can the Chinese consumer make up that big a hit to their economy? Let's just see. Maybe the Chinese government better put up or shut up.

 

Not to mention China would lose US taxpayer subsidized cheap coal that is mined from federal lands.

 

So did I, and there was no mention of any Chinese reaction.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-25144465

'According to a department official, China did not issue any warnings or scramble fighter jets in response to the bombers' entry into the zone.'

http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Eco...-US-bombers-enter-Chinas-new-air-defense-zone

There is no 'BRIC alliance'. BRIC is simply an acronym the media coined. The four nations it refers to are vastly different with very different foreign policies and security concerns. If you expect anyone to take this 'BRIC alliance' story seriously, you're going to have come up with some actual, independent references that show it even exists, not just expect everyone to take your word for it.

 

I

. I never expect people to take my word for anything. What I hope for is that people will investigate. I'm not trying to do a debate with points gained or lost. I'm trying to figure out what is going on. So if there is even a one percent chance that the BRIC alliance is real, then what a mistake it would be if you didn't investigate and discover that.

The BRIC alliance holds meetings and makes decisions, so it is more than just an acronym. However, I can't say at this time how much more it is than an acronym.



If the BRIC alliance in fact turns out not to be relevant, it will have done no harm to have investigated it. However, if the BRIC alliance is important but people refuse to take it seriously, then that lack knowledge could do great harm to the United States. There is more information about the BRIC alliance in the English language versions of the main Chinese newspaper web sites. Having seen the ability of China to even hack into the Pentagon computers, I don't dare access the sites with my new computer. However, if you have a computer you wouldn't mind being hacked by the Chinese, you can find out all kinds of things from those Chinese websites.

Let me note that I think that an adequate international minimum wage would make people safe from being abused by the American corporations. If the problem is that most of the world is afraid of the corporations, then we need to do something instantly to make the corporations safe for everyone in the world. You might have a better idea, but we may only have weeks to act, or we might have a few years. It depends on developments. Again, if there is even a 1 percent chance that my worry is correct and my solution would work, and nobody takes up this idea, then that will be an end of the United States as a developed nation and major power. Do you dare take that 1% (or perhaps more) risk when you could investigate so easily?

 

You are probably an excellent person. However, your extreme effort to cover the situation up means that I can't trust clicking on a website you present. After all, the future of the United States is in question. But still, I think I am being too cautious and you really are a reliable person who just has seen different information than I have.

 

However, again, the Chinese government did say that China no longer needs the United States, which of course means that China doesn't need Most Favored nation status, The seized assets would be more valuable than the export loss.

Most important, when a currency drops, that triggers inflation, and the very large drop we are talking about would lead to hyper inflation. Hyper inflation ruins an economy. So China would have the benefit, from a Chinese point of view, of reducing the United States to a second tier nation.

Of course, I hope I'm not right and China isn't trying to replace the United States as the leader of the new world order, as some China esperts are sayng. Hopefully, the China experts are wrong about China and China is really an altruistic nation that would never harm another nation. For example, when the Chinese government a few weeks ago demanded that the United States withdraw all military forces from the eastern Pacific, such as from Japan, Guam, and so forth, China didn't really mean it.

On the other hand, I have had good experiences with individual Chinese people, so I think it would be fairly easy to work out a good freiendlship between the United States and China.

We don't have to have a war.

 

Then they would issue statements and hold press conferences just like every other economic/political group which the media, at least some of it, would cover. But there is not a mention of any such thing anywhere.

Where to begin?

1 BBC. com is the homepage of the British Broadcasting Corp. (a source you cited yourself). It is not based in China. Nikkei.com is Japanese.

2. If you don't dare go to these 'main Chinese newspaper' websites, how do you know what is there?

3. If you believe the 'main Chinese newspaper' websites are that dangerous, why do you believe what they say?

 

Taxcutter says:
How many trillions in seized assets will it take to offset the loss of a $272 billion trade surplus? Loss of MFN and a relative change in monetary values will pretty much zero out Chinese sales to the US.

Taxcutter says:
Hussein Obama has already done that.

Taxcutter says:
History says otherwise.

Taxcutter says:
If the guys making the statements have been disciplined for saying that, then they are rogues and China didn't really mean it. If they were not disciplined and denounced as rogues, then they are elucidating Chinese government policy. BTW, Guam and the Marianas are US territory

I entirely think China would like to get the US out of the WesPac, giving them a free hand to dominate Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Malayasia, and Indonesia, and to annex Taiwan and the PI. It has to be a bitter pill for the Chinese to swallow to know that if a Chinese official looks eastward from the waterfront at Shanghai, he has to know that a US submarine skipper could be looking back at him.

If I were the Japanese, having taken the measure of Hussein Obama, I'd be undertaking to re-arm Japan as fast as their powerhouse economy could do so. Doubly so Taiwan.

 

I did go to the Chinese websites until about a year ago, when my computer became infected by something. It is only now that I'm not daring, but for computer reasons. The Chinese websites had a number of articles about BRIC.

I never fully believe what any news program or website says, which is not to say they are trying to be dishonest. Often a news organization doesn't know everything Generally, what I do is remember what they report, and then notice if future events are as the news site expected, or if future events have some aspect that they didn't seem to know.

Of course, the Chinese websites have government propaganda. Sometimes this is subtle and is revealed by the connotations of the words they use. Sometimes, he Chinese websites are only reporting events, and in fact, those reports say about the same things that the news reports from other nations say. The propaganda I handle by asking myself who the propaganda is meant to convince of what. Looking at the propaganda in terms of what it is trying to do is sometimes very informative.

If I were certain about my interpretations, I wouldn't be as tentative as I am now. So I can think that some piece of Chinese propaganda is meant to convince people of X, but I am usually not certain.

I also apply past history to interpretations, but that is also tentative. You may have noticed that I don't know whether or not the BRIC nations have a secret military treaty. Secret treaties have been common in history. Given what China wants, it would be logical that China would make secret military treaties if she could. So it is a possibility that can't just be ignored. Even though it is a logical possibility, I haven't seen anything which would lead me to think that there is a secret treaty in fact. I haven't for example seen anyone involved make a mistake and say something he or she shouldn't have said, which would point towards a secret treaty.

My bottom line however is that the United States should make efforts to improve friendship with all nations, regardless of what is happening. If there is something like a secret treaty, the United States might be able to alter that by becoming more friendly. If there isn't a secret treaty, well inproved friendship is always a good idea.

 

You are agreeing with me about China's motivations.

Now. how China intends to act to meet her goals is very much up in the air.

Nations don't always act like one would expect them to from their past history, but often they do. Now over the past several thousand years, China has preferred to manipulate the barbarians rather than fighting with them. We of course are considered to be barbarians. So if China were to continue her past actions, she would not start a war.

But then, China might do something different than in the past..

There is a lot of information I don't have that I need in order to do a good analysis.

 

Taxcutter says:
Like Putin's Russia, China has an historic opportunity. Hussein Obama has drastically weakened the US both militarily and economically. The Peacekeeper of WesPac has gone effectively isolationist.

Japan is still in their post-World War Two hangover but is beginning to re-arm. Taiwan can defend itself in a short war, and ROK is tied down dealing with NorK. Vietnam and the PI are wrecks. Indonesia is wildly divided. Malaysia is small.

China could run wild.

All China has to do is talk Hussein Obama into withdrawing from Japan (including Okinawa) and the ROK (there's only a token force in Korea anyway) and pull back to the Marianas. Whether you view this as foolishness or perfidy doesn't matter. Hussein Obama is eminently capable of both foolishness and perfidy. He is clueless about foreign affairs.

As soon as the US is over the horizon, China puts the "Pearl Harbor treatment" on Japan. A surprise attack. A bolt from the blue.

The main attack is a massive missile volley and an all-out air attack on Japan's navy. All-out cyber attack and maybe even an EMP nuke detonate high in the atmosphere off Japan's east coast. An amphibious assault on (now undefended) Okinawa.

Follow-on attacks on Japan's energy infrastructure and commercial ports will slow Japanese counter-attacks. Japan's economy is as export-driven as China's. Stop the exports and imports and its 1945 all over again. Try to make Japan miserable enough to accept the loss of Okinawa.

If Japan folds, IMMEDIATELY invade (not Taiwan but) Luzon in the PI. Luzon is the only island worth having in the PI. Luzon has a large Cantonese Chinese minority. China could annex Luzon and ignore the rest of the PI. With Luzon and Okinawa in hand, and the US no nearer than Anderson AFB, Taiwan is outflanked and isolated. Annexation is just a matter of time. China also nabs those little islands from the rump of the PI and Vietnam.

The WesPac is a Chinese lake.

With Taiwan a Chinese province, and with Japan and ROK furiously arming against another round, China can reinforce its economic dominance.

 

You are blaming Obama for political reasons, which is understandable. However, you are distorting your analysis by doing so. By blaming Obama for everything, you are leaving out the long term causes.

I think that even now, the United States could turn this around by:

1: Regulations which would require American corporations everywhere in the world to steadily increase the real wages of their employees, rather than decreasing them, as now.

2: A partnership with all other nations to increase research to meet physical threats to everyone, such as global warming, asteroids hits, the increasing number of emerging diseases and drug resistance developing in older diseases, and so forth.

3. A partnership with all other nations to raise humanity to the level of a truly advanced civiluzation.

 

Japan will be a tough nut for China to crack. Not only do they have a better navy, they have a maritime tradition the Chinese lack. They easily find sailors and officers who know what they are doing and can stand the long watches. Also, Japan is hip to the value of surprise attack and will be vigilant ("the long watches") against such attacks. Further the Japanese air and naval forces have trained with the US for years. A Japanese pilot who has been to Red Flag may be worth fifty green Chinese pilots. The Japanese have experience in using, maintaining and even making highly effective US weapons systems. The Chinese knock-off of inferior Russian stuff will be a problem.

Still, the size of the Chinese economy will have a big effect even if it cannot export. They can make thousands of missiles and will eventually flatten Japanese cities without nukes, although I would not put chemical or biological attack past the Chinese.

The Japanese and Chinese despise each other with a passion few westerners can match - maybe Serbs and Croats. They will wage ruthless war with not the first concern over enemy civilian casualties. Given the power of modern conventional weapons ten million civilian deaths are possible in a three month war.

Whether they can defeat the Japanese or not in an all-out bloodbath is a question the Chinese government must ponder.

 

I think China would only attack Japan if Russia opens a second front in Europe by attacking the EU and NATO. In that way, America would be fighting on two fronts, while China and Russia would only be fighting on one front each.

In any case, for China to do that would be for China to violate the deepest ethics of Chinese culture by being unfilial. America is after all the father of China's modern economy. After the opiom wars, when China was required to pay reparations to Western nations, America used her reparations money to give college scholarships to Chinese students. Then, even though China doesn't need America economically now, it was Chinese exports to America and transfers of American technology to China which created China's modern economy to begin with. China is now independent, but still, America is the old father. So it is unfilial for China to try to seriously harm America.

A relationship between China and America more like family members working together would be much better.

 

Taxcutter says:
America won't be fighting on either front. Hussein Obama, in addition to being too much of a coward to do anything. has neutered the US armed forces too much to allow intervention.

Japan and Europe are on their own. They'd better drop their welfare states and arm themselves against aggression.