If China gets more assertive, what can anyone do?

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~Ragerancher May 12, 2012

Some of you may have heard how China has been taking a stronger stance on it's territorial claims in the South China seas. Looking at a map, one can see these claims are clearly ridiculous. However, China is a massive power with the potential to beat the combination of every nation in the area it disagrees with.

If China were to decide to enforce it's claims through force, exactly what could anyone do? The individual nations have nowhere near the power to defeat a Chinese army, the US has too little presence in the area to stand up to China, economically most of the word relies on China for manufacturing so China could keep producing what they need whilst we couldn't. Finally there's the lack of will. Is anybody really going to confront China and risk a full-out war for some small countries? It seems unlikely.

So what are your thoughts? Is a more aggressive China pretty much free to stop across the far East with impunity? Is it something to worry about?

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Devious Comments

~Coffe-Kanon May 12, 2012

What good will a gun do you when you can't even afford the ammunition to fire it? (my analogy should explain my reasoning quite adequate here)

~AnataraKentara May 12, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

We only owe. That does not mean we do not have the money nor equipment to make bullets, which we already have. Your analogy fails.

~Coffe-Kanon May 12, 2012

No it doesn't. You see the sole reason why the U.S has reached it's prominent position is hardly through sheer independent and self-sustaining industry, it's primarily through trade.

The U.S is dependant on trade to survive, as is the "almighty" dollar. If trade with the outside world stops, the dollar collapses and so does the U.S as a sovreign nation. Likewise if the dollar collapses (as it would if the U.S went to war with China due to it's massive debts to China, making the rest of the world think that as soon as the U.S owes too much they simply try to "kill" the ones they owe too much money too and thus ultimately lowering the value of the "almighty" dollar globally speaking) then trade with the outside world would collapse as well.

Had the U.S been less of a busy-body nation interfering with everyone elses business, and actually focused it's efforts on making it's own industrial output more self-sustaining and less dependant on foreign contractors and trade relations it might've been a different story. But that anti-isolationist asshole president Roosevelt made sure that that wouldn't happen back during WWII.

Or to put it in simpler terms: There's a reason why most of everything in America has "made in China" or "made in Taiwan" written all over it.

~AnataraKentara May 12, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Them smilies. Makes you look like a jackass. Taiwan is China, but not the PRC. Hell Taiwan might be our most strongest ally in any war versus the damn PRC.

The same thing that will kill America, by your terms, makes it valuable for the world as well. America is not empty and resourceless. Our grain feeds hundreds of millions. Our technology and ore makes a fair chunk of the worlds. Even in the depression, when the dollar was at it's worst, America still had trade. "Oh no the dollar is gone!" So? Export the valuable. Fix the damn dollar.

And maybe America would attack china, just for the debt. Doubtless many will die and it'll be a stupid casus belli. But more likely, China will ease off when it realizes that not only can America blockade China, it is also it's partner, not it's slave. One falls, the other most grab it, fall with it, or painfully divide from it, things that take years. Who would suffer - Millions of Chinese without jobs. Americans without Ipods and plastics. We can transplant our industry to other nations, who would lap it up like it's gold, and we'll let them, because we need manufacturing, not the place were the factories are now.

~Coffe-Kanon May 12, 2012

Keep telling yourself that if it makes you sleep better at night.

The facts don't agree with you however. China's economy is on the rise, while the U.S is going dooown. The U.S won't go out with a bang, but with an economic whimper as it's financial debts crushes it.

And you know what the irony of it all is? Modern China has it's roots in Communism. The same ideology that the U.S desperatly tried to fight for several years and spoke out against on several occasions as being "dysfunctional".

(2 Replies)

~TheRedSnifit May 12, 2012

I don't think that the US has quite enough valuable exports to instantly rebound after a war with China.

(1 Reply)

~TheRedSnifit May 12, 2012

We should cap wages and rethink our views of money so we don't have to pay our deficit - after all, gold is simply an element, on the periodic table no less. Sure, it'll upset and ruin most economies and put thousands out of work, but what matters is being fair and keeping the money away from those fucking conservatards.

I'm certain this will help solve all of our problems. Although I can't quite figure it out yet, it'll work, so I don't have to do much beyond make shallow platitudes and dismiss your solutions out of hand, later claiming I addressed them thoroughly.

This will make China so jealous, that they'll throw up their arms in goodwill, let us run their country, and we'll live in peace and harmony for thousands of years.