to address a main point of the thread, i dont see why china couldnt take oil rich central asia if push came to shove. would the russians try to stop them? indians? its interesting to speculate what would happen. id guess everyone would gang up on them, but if they could set up shop in the -stans with 100 million it may be futile. perhaps that would be the perfect excuse for the west to take the middle east.
Even if the west took the middle east , the bleeding heart types wouldn't allow what would be necessary to impose control.
That would be a war that is not our fight. The Chinese have a lot of manpower but the Russians have a lot more experience in fighting continental-size land wars, better logistics, better mobility, better airpower, and a chitload of nuclear weapons. And it would be fought on former Soviet territory. A lot of that oil and gas goes to Europe, NATO would likely back the Russians. We already get the middle east oil. We don't need the sand. Buying it is far cheaper than stealing it, under the circumstances.
Hi neighbor. We have enough oil domestically to satisfy our needs. Don't let current administrations fool you.
All I can say is that if 100 million Chinese soldiers ever invade the USA...there will be NO shortage of Chinese restaurants available to feed them suckers. And if there's not, I'm sure a lot of them will settle for Thai food. :rofl:
the point was we wouldnt be getting the middle east oil anymore if china marched all the way to libya. if they pulled off a blitzkreig to the caspian we might try some mitigation.
An alliance between the chineese and the Muslim world would be very bad for the west. This is a scenario that could happen. With all the unrest in the middle east it is possible that the whole area could fall to Islamic fundamentalist. These guys hate the west and would fear the west marching in as in the gulf wars. A NATO style agreement with all or parts of the Arab world would be a grave threat to our oil supply. Ww3 could start from this. Iran is china's #1 supplier of oil. The roots of an allience is already there. America friendly leaders are at risk all over the region and the new leaders may look to form this allegence for protection from the west interfering with their war aginst isreal. With china's protection another Arab isreal war is much more likely.
China is just posturing. They benefit zero by going to war with the USA or having an "ally" go to war with the USA. We owe them entirely too much money for it to be beneficial. They may be a Communist Govt. but they're economy is much closer to capitalism than communism and they need us to be able to pay them back. Red is right on this one.
What happens if the US economy tanks and we can't pay back the trillions we owe? Will china want territory in exchange? What would we do if we couldn't pay them back? If the dollar is removed as being the global reserve currency this is possible?
seems they also need us buying their cheap goods. if circumstances make it so we cant, they stand a lot to lose. i would think they need our economy healthy. oh, and prices of chinese made goods will slowly rise. because of the rise of the middle class in china, it is getting more difficult for factories in the south to get workers coming down from the north. in the past, workers would come down for months at a time, work, then go home for a couple of months. lather, rinse, repeat. factories would schedule production around that. but with the growth of the middle class, there are fewer workers willing to do that, and leave their families for long periods of time. factories are having to slowly pay more, or cut back production because they cannot find the workers to meet their needs.
