Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[tomahawk6]

CK you are correct. There are proprietary secrets unvolved in our nuclear submarines so putting them on the market wouldnt be likely. I think if a close ally like Australia or Canada expressed an interest something could be worked out. Neither country wants nuclear warships so in the end the subs will either be mothballed or scrapped.

 

[R0B]

China will eventually outgrow the symbiotic relationship it has with the United States. It’ll trade the Yuan and start selling off its US currency reserves. It will be a super-power in its own right; and conflict will arise if America does not move to accommodate it.

 

[chanman]

China will eventually outgrow the symbiotic relationship it has with the United States. It’ll trade the Yuan and start selling off its US currency reserves. It will be a super-power in its own right; and conflict will arise if America does not move to accommodate it.

The US is still China's single largest export customer for goods and the largest source of direct investment as well.  That stands regardless of what its currency reserves are denominated in.  Trade implies an exchange willingly made by all parties involved; as such freely-entered exchange is technically always symbiotic - or else you wouldn't be trading.

 

[R0B]

The US is still China's single largest export customer for goods and the largest source of direct investment as well.  That stands regardless of what its currency reserves are denominated in.  Trade implies an exchange willingly made by all parties involved; as such freely-entered exchange is technically always symbiotic - or else you wouldn't be trading.

I'm saying that the economic needs of both countries will not forever be entwined.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Edward,

Very interesting article that I enjoyed reading.  The huge trade deficit (in US terms) of US-China trade is primarily in the manufacture of consumer goods such as toys, TVs, radios, computer accessories and household appliances. 

The US may have huge trade deficits with China, but I wonder about where the profits from all this go?  US manufacturing firms may spend their wage dollars in China, but I imagine that the profits come back to the US as opposed to staying in China (to some degree).  In addition, US retailers get to make profits and US consumers get cheaper goods.  Its hard to think of an economy not based on manufacturing or natural resources.

I wonder what will happen when wages begin to rise in China?  I've read reports of 40% wage increases in some companies.  The irony of labour unrest in a "communist" country will be delicious to some and disastrous to others.  Capital is mobile, and no doubt China will have its comparative advantage of cheap labour eroded by the next "giant."  Rising wages drove manufacturing jobs out of North America, so it stands to reason that the same can happen to China.  The question will be whether China can put in place an economy that can survive the resultant loss of manufacturing jobs.  The US and the West in general have other sectors or industries to rely on (service, finance, technology for example) along with a functioning consumer economy.

Perhaps the creation of a middle class will truly transform China.  Alternatively, corruption could end up siphoning off the profits and resulting in a hollow shell that caves in when trouble comes.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I really doubt that the US govt. would be willing to sell any advanced attack subs to any ally, especially the Flight II and Flight III groups of the Los Angeles attack boats are still quite advanced with their BSY-1 systems, with the latter flight having the Tomahawk missile launch capability. The Flight I group of the class may be a possibility since they're older and less advanced, but they are still nuclear boats and I doubt they would like their nuclear propulsion technology to be shared as well to non-NATO allies like Taiwan.

The US hasn't sold any subs to any foreign ally/buyer since the 50s and 60s when a few modernized "Guppy" modified Gato/Balao class boats left over from WW2 were sold to a number of nations, including Pakistan and Taiwan (the ROC).

They sold the design of the Tridents to the British did they not, who built them under licence?
http://www.submariners.co.uk/Boats/Barrowbuilt/Vanguard/index.htm

 

[aesop081]

They sold the design of the Tridents to the British did they not, who built them under licence?
http://www.submariners.co.uk/Boats/Barrowbuilt/Vanguard/index.htm

The warheads are british-built IIRC

 

[CougarKing]

They sold the design of the Tridents to the British did they not, who built them under licence?
http://www.submariners.co.uk/Boats/Barrowbuilt/Vanguard/index.htm

Well obviously that's because Britain is a long-time close WW2 and NATO ally. Still, from this, are you suggesting that the US govt. may still sell the Flight I Los Angeles class boats to the ROC/Taiwan?

But then again, there was an article on military.com stating that Japan may be allowed to be the first foreign buyer of the F-22; previously I had assumed only the F-35 would be in reach of foreign allies aside from other older plane types. Still, one can't say the same for the Airborne Laser project on a 747 platform that would have been used to shoot down ICBMs or even the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber or even the F-117 stealth "fighter", which would not be in reach of foreign buyers. A nation's self-interest must come first when they decide their own foreign policy relative to that of their allies.

 

[chanman]

I wonder what will happen when wages begin to rise in China?  I've read reports of 40% wage increases in some companies.  The irony of labour unrest in a "communist" country will be delicious to some and disastrous to others.  Capital is mobile, and no doubt China will have its comparative advantage of cheap labour eroded by the next "giant."  Rising wages drove manufacturing jobs out of North America, so it stands to reason that the same can happen to China.  The question will be whether China can put in place an economy that can survive the resultant loss of manufacturing jobs.   The US and the West in general have other sectors or industries to rely on (service, finance, technology for example) along with a functioning consumer economy.

Well, Rising wages are already moving jobs there as well.  Some labour intensive industries that don't require much capital are moving to neighbouring countries with lower costs (Vietnam, Indonesia).  Manufacturing jobs don't disappear completely so much as the firms are forced to adapt to new competitors.  If your costs are higher, you better be making things that are worth more, or making more things.... etc.  China's advantages over India are less regulatory red tape, and perhaps more importantly, much better infrastructure (power, water, roads, ports).  Being able to move your export goods from the factory to the market is usually a good thing.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Chanman,

Agreed.  Other factors such as "stability" can play a part as well, and China looks better for foreign manufacturers than many other nations outside the West that may have cheap labour but uncertain security situations.  Still, you can only adapt so much if your products cost more than competitors.

I have read that China's workforce of "qualified" workers is not quite as inexhaustible as first thought, and that they are also growing less willing to live in company dorms and work for low wages.  The same labour dynamics that the west saw during the industrial revolution will manifest themselves in China, although they will have unique cultural and political dimensions.

The optimist in me sees great hope for China in that a middle class will rise and demand democratic reforms.  We'll see.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

My friend gets quite a bit of stuff made to order in China. the quality varies greatly from region to region. Parts of China are rapidly improving their production and other parts are not. I also shoot Norinco firearms and have watched a steady improvement in quality of the last 5 years. My latest 1911 Commander from them is quite nice.

 

[chanman]

Chanman,

Agreed.  Other factors such as "stability" can play a part as well, and China looks better for foreign manufacturers than many other nations outside the West that may have cheap labour but uncertain security situations.  Still, you can only adapt so much if your products cost more than competitors.

I have read that China's workforce of "qualified" workers is not quite as inexhaustible as first thought, and that they are also growing less willing to live in company dorms and work for low wages.  The same labour dynamics that the west saw during the industrial revolution will manifest themselves in China, although they will have unique cultural and political dimensions.

The optimist in me sees great hope for China in that a middle class will rise and demand democratic reforms.  We'll see.

Demands for reform hinge on the level of incompetance.  The big draw of reforms is the ability to hold gov't accountable - something that only really matters when they're totally screwing the pooch.  In that light, the Middle Class can pay for the services they want - better education, medical care, etc.  The skilled workers, esp. the ones you would expect to be in demand are going to be the ones seeing more of rising wages.  Disconent and drive for reform will come from trouble caused by the have-nots - farmers who don't have tenure over their land being evicted by local authorities, unregistered transient workers getting shafted by their bosses (think of the illegal immigrant situation in a US border state and the potential for mistreatment by an employer when the rule of law is less binding)

It is already driving what modest attempts at reform there are - pressure comes from those with the least less to lose.  A skilled machinist in Shenzhen or a financial analyst in Shanghai are probably less likely to cause a ruckus than a small-time farmer whose land is getting confiscated or a construction worker 500km from home who's just found out he's not getting paid after finishing a project.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, is an article from today’s Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070220.wcorussia20/BNStory/specialComment/home

Notes from underground
Don't look now, but Moscow's squaring off with the wrong 'enemy,' says Russian analyst ANDREI PIONTKOVSKY

ANDREI PIONTKOVSKY
Globe and Mail Update

The attitude of the Russian political class to Europe, and to the West in general, over the latest three to four centuries has always been contradictory, hypersensitive, and extremely emotional. The best Russian political text on the subject remains, even today, Alexander Blok's 1918 poem, The Scythians, with its famous lines about Russia and its attitude toward Europe: "She stares, she stares at you with hatred and with love," and "We will turn our Asiatic snout toward you." Just as 300 years ago, and 200, and 20, Russians know perfectly well that we cannot do without Western technology and investments, and that autarky and an Iron Curtain spell economic and geopolitical disaster for Russia. We understand that Russian culture is an integral part of European culture.

And yet, the West seems to irritate us by the very fact of its existence. We see it as a psychological, informational, spiritual challenge. We are constantly trying to convince ourselves that the West is inherently hostile and malevolent toward Russia, because this flatters our vanity and helps to excuse our shortcomings and failures.

If you take any mainstream Russian publication and read the last 100 articles dealing with foreign policy matters, 98 will be full of bitterness, complaints, irritation, poison and hostility toward the West. This despite the fact that most of the authors of those articles like to spend as much time as possible in Western capitals and Western resorts, keep their money in Western banks, and send their children to study in Western schools and universities.

As in Blok's famous poem, a passionate declaration of love for Europe turns, at the slightest doubt as to whether it is reciprocated, into a threatening "And if you won't, there's nothing we can lose, and we can answer you with treachery!"

What have "5,000 bayonets" deployed in Bulgaria (about which the Russian President has complained), three airplanes in Lithuania, Kosovo, or the Jew-baiter of Iran to do with anything? The whole lot of them are mere opportunities for the manic-depressive Russian elite to check and recheck its endless love-hate relationship with the West. That existential Russian question, "But do you respect me?" is, in reality, addressed not to our latest drinking partner, but to the starry firmament in the West.

Last week that question was asked again at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in the latest spiritual striptease show put on by the latest Russian Patient. It doesn't matter what his name is: Ivanov, Petrov, Sidorov, Yeltsin, Primakov, Putin . . .

For some reason, it is considered statesmanlike and patriotic to pout your lips and enumerate before various Western audiences the same old list of "grievances" about the unipolar world, the ABM treaty, the expansion of NATO, the creeping up of NATO, our encirclement by NATO.

Wake up, intellectual "heavyweights" of Russia. What world and what century are you living in? Where now is that mammoth aggressive military machine of NATO you have so long been warning of? It truly has lumbered up to the sacred borders of the former Soviet Union, but not from the direction you expected.


Indeed, my fear is that, there, it will meet its end, defending those borders from the advance of Islamic radicals. When to the ululating of those fighting against "a unipolar world" NATO finally departs from Afghanistan and from history, the front of the Islamic revolution will cut through the countries of Central Asia. If we look a little further to the East, there too significant events are afoot.

As Izvestia recently reported, in September, the Chinese People's Liberation Army conducted a 10-day military training exercise on an unprecedented scale in the Shenyang and Beijing Military Regions, the two most powerful of the seven Chinese MRs. These border Russia -- Shenyang confronting the Russian Federation's Far East Military District, and Beijing the Siberian Military District. In the course of the exercise, units of the Shenyang MR performed a 1,000 kilometre advance into the territory of the Beijing MR and engaged in a training battle with units of that region.

The nature of the exercise tells us that it is in preparation for war with Russia and, moreover, that what is being planned is not defence but attack. Against Taiwan this scenario makes no sense. Deep invasive operations are being worked out on dry land, in a region of steppes and mountains. The lie of the land in the region where the exercises were held is similar to that of the Transbaikal region, and 1,000 kilometres is precisely the distance from the Russo-Chinese border along the river Argun to Lake Baikal.

But who is bothered about all that in our little psychiatric hospital? It is far more fun to go on about the usual grievances: bayonets in Bulgaria, Russophobes in Courchevel, calumniators of Russia in Scotland Yard.

So, there we have it. In the not too distant future, the centuries-old, tortuous psychological relationship between this patient and the West may finally be much simplified. No longer will anybody need to attend psychoanalytical conferences in Munich or turn their special Asiatic snout toward anyone there. Russia's Asiatic streak will be only to clear for all to see.

Andrei Piontkovsky is executive director of the Strategic Studies Center in Moscow.

Fortunately, for the Chinese, the Russian intelligentsia is unlikely to be able to shift its focus away from the West.  The prize, as I have said before, is the resource treasure house which is in Siberia.  The Chinese are perfectly happy, I think to negotiate and pay for these resources but they intend that they will come to China – one way or another.

 

[enfield]

New Russia - Putin's Russia - has been squaring off with Europe for some time now, and has been working hard to re-assert its control over the former satellite states. Eastern Europe depends on Russia for energy, and Putin has used that to directly control affairs in that region. Russian energy, troops, and money are at work across the Caucuses and Central Asia.

That said the New Russian Empire remains weak, unstable, and economically unbalanced. But despite its domestic contradictions, shallow resource-based economy, and general mismanagement it's still the biggest guy on the block by far. The domestic intelligentsia seems to believe aggression = independence, and that power = respect. However, Russia can only bully weak ex-Soviet states and will fall very fast if it directly challenges the West.

I don't fear China (militarily, at least). It craves Siberian resources, yes, but they have no problem buying what they want - its still cheaper than invading, and it will be easy for China to assert a monopoly over Siberian oil. I'm not sure its even possible to invade and occupy Siberia.

Militarily, China is in a weak strategic position - Russian to the north, India to the south-west, American allies South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan to the east, plus a long coastline with a lot of major cities, a fragmented difficult border in south-east Asia, and huge amounts of territory in the west to control and police. I can't see them getting expansionist anytime soon, no matter how open and weak Russia becomes.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
Militarily, China is in a weak strategic position - Russian to the north, India to the south-west, American allies South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan to the east, plus a long coastline with a lot of major cities, a fragmented difficult border in south-east Asia, and huge amounts of territory in the west to control and police. I can't see them getting expansionist anytime soon, no matter how open and weak Russia becomes.

Good analysis, Enfield.  While the Chinese are not interested in going to war with anyone – they are confident they can achieve their goals without armed conflict – they are not terrified of the prospect, unlike so many in the West.

My sense, coloured as it is by contact with too many Chinese academics and business people and too few military people, is that the Chinese are very keen to keep building.  They recognize that they have a long, long way to go.  The ’economic miracle’ is, largely, confined to cities on the Eastern seaboard.  Most Chinese remain poor and ‘backward’ – in the sense that globalization and the consumer society have not penetrated much beyond Hebei, Henan, Hubei and Hunan provinces.  The folks with whom I have talked recognize that they face a series of hurdles and that jumping them all requires, first and foremost, sustaining the current, steady economic growth, albeit not, probably, at the current rates.  One big stumble, even a moderate recession, could provoke unrest in the provinces and could upset the (unstable) social ’harmony’ which prevails, for the moment, because the central government is selling ‘hope’ above all.  If we, in Canada, have a culture of entitlement then our Chinese friends have a culture of expectation – the central government is, relentlessly, promising everyone, everywhere, that ”every day, in every way, things are getting better and better” and ”you will all prosper if you just wait your turn.”

It is important, however, not to underestimate the power of the idea that ”The East is Red.”  The slogan resonates in Chinese, with the Chinese.  I was struck in one public school which I visited by the big (mosaic) map which made up one of the main entrance hall walls.  It was a huge world map with China in the middle.  China was formed in bright red tiles.  Neighbouring areas – including Mongolia, Indo-China, Burma, Japan, the Central Asian ‘Stans’ and Eastern Siberia were made of other varying shades of red tiles which ‘faded’ to a pale pink in Indonesia, Thailand and Siberia East of the Urals.  Europe was green, I think.  I recall that North America was blue, as were Australia and New Zealand.  India was brown, ditto, I think, Singapore and the Philippines.  I saw variations of that map again and again.  The Chinese regard Asia as being divided into: East or Sinic-Asia, South or Indo-Asia, Central Asia and West Asia.  They regard East Asia as their own and the rest as being, to some degree or another, within their ’sphere of influence’.

Of course, the Indians have a similar view – with themselves at the centre.  Last summer the Chinese were on a major ’charm offensive’ in India but I haven’t heard much about the state of improvement in relations since.  These two competing ‘visions’ of Asia – with Russia’s Asiatic pretensions and Japan’s economic wealth  thrown in – create a potential for conflict which, I believe the Chinese want and need to minimize.

The last thing the Chinese want or need is war but they are proudly nationalistic and mistakes can happen.

 

[enfield]

Your description of that map immediatley reminds me of The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, but I think it also represents a very traditional Chinese view of the region. European Russia is a relative newcomer to the region,and only solidified their power in the region because of the weakness of Imperial China. I think there's little doubt China is aiming at a future where it controls the region, and outsiders - Russia and the US - are pushed out.

I remember a East Asian Politics lecturer at university who described how Chinese notions of imperialism, power, and dominance were very different from the West's. Western concepts revolve around soldiers, governors, and direct control, where China has a more arms-length concept, based on tribute and respect rather than garrisons and gun boats. Trade, migration, and cultural osmosis were often their tools of imperialism, and we see them working again today.

Thoughts of the Co-Prosperity Sphere remind me of why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour: to safeguard their energy supply. China, which imports nearly all of its energy, may be similarly vulnerable to such fears. But militant 1930's Japan is not 21st China. Most importantly, the Chinese are patient. They will secure East Siberian resources, but I see immigration, treaties, political baragining and money as their tools - slower, but surer.

But I agree, Edward - China's energy and resources are vulnerable, their economy and political structure are dependant on that energy. Mistakes, which happen often, could upset that balance and leave the Chinese leadership with few options. I don't think they could win, but thats not much reassurance.

 

[Kirkhill]

Notes from underground

Don't look now, but Moscow's squaring off with the wrong 'enemy,' says Russian analyst ANDREI PIONTKOVSKY


By ANDREI PIONTKOVSKY 

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 – Page A19

......Indeed, my fear is that, there, it will meet its end, defending those borders from the advance of Islamic radicals. When to the ululating of those fighting against "a unipolar world" NATO finally departs from Afghanistan and from history, the front of the Islamic revolution will cut through the countries of Central Asia. If we look a little further to the East, there too significant events are afoot.

As Izvestia recently reported, in September, the Chinese People's Liberation Army conducted a 10-day military training exercise on an unprecedented scale in the Shenyang and Beijing Military Regions, the two most powerful of the seven Chinese MRs. These border Russia -- Shenyang confronting the Russian Federation's Far East Military District, and Beijing the Siberian Military District. In the course of the exercise, units of the Shenyang MR performed a 1,000 kilometre advance into the territory of the Beijing MR and engaged in a training battle with units of that region.

The nature of the exercise tells us that it is in preparation for war with Russia and, moreover, that what is being planned is not defence but attack. Against Taiwan this scenario makes no sense. Deep invasive operations are being worked out on dry land, in a region of steppes and mountains. The lie of the land in the region where the exercises were held is similar to that of the Transbaikal region, and 1,000 kilometres is precisely the distance from the Russo-Chinese border along the river Argun to Lake Baikal. ......

http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com//servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070220/CORUSSIA20/Comment/comment/comment/somnia/

Interesting take on this situation.

I am one of those that find Russia and China to be too friendly by half.  They regularly seem to be working towards a common goal of crippling the west, at least sufficiently to allow them to catch up and not enough to inflict fatal wounds.

On the other hand Molotov and von Ribbentrop were sufficiently friendly in Aug of 1939 to sign a Non-Aggression Pact.  That didn't last 2 years.  Nor did antipathy to the UK and the US prevent Stalin finding common cause for two or three years.  Things in that part of the world have a longstanding tradition of rapid and unanticipated, if not unpredictable, change.  Something like 6000 years or men on horseback with no fixed address.

So how long is China's long game?  If they were to move into Siberia is it enough to sideline the Stans as compliant neutrals - accepting both Western and Chinese investment?  Or do they need a firmer commitment on their left flank?  Do they need to dominate them and have them support a Siberian takeover militarily?

Do they need more man-power than they have? Do they need to wait for the Russians to become older and more decrepit and pickled in Vodka?

Is the purchase of Russian hardware merely a case of using Lenin's dictum that the capitalist will sell you the rope to hang himself against the Russians?

While everybody is focusing on the Straits of Taiwan, Czech radars and Afghanistan what would be the effect if the Chinese were to launch an Army, or even a Corps in the direction of Lake Baikal and the Altai?  How about the Urals as a forward line of exploitation? 

I think it might be possible for the Chinese to exploit along the northern border of the Stans as far as the Urals, keeping to the Steppes and have it accepted as a net benefit by the minor neighbours as a security enhancing move.  Better a strong state and order than a weak state and disorder. 

If they stay away from the tree line then militarily they can seize ground quickly - while still staying close to oil reserves - then wait another 10-20 years before considering infiltrating north and following up with an "invitation" to invade from the locals.

Russia wouldn't be pleased, needless to say.  But could it do anything effective beyond nuclear strikes?  India might not be pleased but would it be any worse off than it is now? Especially if the Stans maintain a buffer zone of "neutral" states and India maintains friendly relations with the west and commercial ties with Beijing.  As for the US - might it not serve the US to make loud noises and do little if it buys China a resource base and the US control over a hinterland with a demonstrated history of unpredictability?

Does China need to wait for the US to deploy a working ABM capability in Europe to counter the Russian missile threat to China?

With respect to the latter point I note that the US is likely to have had the technology available for a number of years to kill tanks in large numbers with low cost munitions.  It continued to maintain large tank forces and apparently to suppress the deployment of technologies like the Fibre Optic Guided missiles and Kinetic Energy Missiles.  (Before this goes off on tanget re tanks they still have their uses and we should but the Leo2A6s).  However it would certainly be a winning strategy to keep your enemy investing billions of dollars and man-hours, not to mention investing your entire tactical, operational and strategic structure on a technology that you know you can defeat - easily and quickly.  If you were the only person with a gun would you let everyone know or would you waot to show up at the next sword fight armed like everyone else but with the gun as well?

China's moves against the Satellite may not be so much directed against the US who has many more satellites operating in much higher orbits but against Russian capabilities.

A Russia-China confrontation would be more in keeping with some of the scenarios that Edward has posited and it is also in keeping with what I consider a flaw in Barnett's Gap. He considers China and Russia to be functioning states.  I disagree.  Neither state can control their people (the number of rebellious acts in China's hinterland appears to be growing) and Russia almost certainly can't control its territory.  Even there China's ability to control its borders seems suspect - It couldn't stop people moving to Hong Kong and it can't stop people being smuggled out of Fujian.  Even if we allow for the fact that both of those emigrations may be state-sanctioned because they offer benefits to the state - how are we to explain the fact the China can't stop North Koreans claiming refugee status in China?  And apparently one of China's major concerns in propping up North Korea is that the last thing they need is a sudden influx of more people.

I think the Chinese might be able to pull off a Sudetenland adventure in the near future:

A relatively small but well trained and motivated force with great reserves
Opposed by a small, demoralized, poorly equipped and led Russian force
Limited, non-threatening objectives
An international community with populations that are already war-weary and frightened
And "the British and French, in an effort to appease Hitler, gave into his demands rather than go to war over, in the (in)famous words of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, “a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing” " http://www.mala.bc.ca/~Johnstoi/praguepage/introlecture.htm

Add the US to the British and French, especially if the US is tied up in Iraq and Iran, and swap Czechoslovakia and Germany for Russia and China - but with less foreign empathy for Russia than Czechoslovakia could garner.

An interesting window of opportunity in the spring of 2009? After the election of Hilary or Obama and when Canada is due to withraw from Afghanistan?

I hope the US and the West hold on to command of the seas as a counter and to be able to support our friends with secure external lines of communication.  Ceding "control" over billions of people is one thing.  History shows that nobody can control 3 people for very long.  Ceding control over lines of communication in uninhabited space is another matter entirely.

 

[Kirkhill]

No sooner had I finished with the earlier blurb than I read this - in the Democrat friendly Washington Post....

Who might be the preferred "predictable" steward of Eurasian resources?

Our Strange Devotion to the Kremlin

By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; Page A13

"I have a difficult time explaining that speech. It doesn't accord with either the world as we see it nor with the character of our interactions with the Russians."

-- Condoleezza Rice, Feb. 15

Ten days have passed since the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, made a speech in Munich accusing the United States of plunging the planet into "an abyss of permanent conflicts," of deliberately encouraging the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and (this from a country that regularly blackmails and manipulates its neighbors) of having "overstepped its national borders in every way." During that time, the American secretary of state -- quoted above -- has not been alone in expressing surprise. With varying degrees of shock, commentators and politicians have speculated about the significance of Putin's "new" language, wondering whether it means Russia's road to democracy has reached a fork, whether Putin was really speaking to his domestic audience or whether the speech heralded some kind of policy change.
.........

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021901172.html

 

[3rd Herd]

Thanks Kirkhill for interrupting my pleasant day dreams about a "Vodka train" holiday. And yes historically they combine to "seem to be working towards a common goal of crippling the west." But are we not just seeing a continuation from 1628.The territorial dispute between the former Soviet Union and China in 1960's was an extension of a long existing conflict, that can be traced back to the 17th century. It broke down when in 1628 the Russians invaded the territory inhabited by the Buryats, a Mongol People living west of Lake Baikal. (author unknown)

Off and on again both the leaders of the slumbering tiger and great bear have fought a war of words, occasionally with weapons. In two countries who both firmly believe in a closed society and therefore a closed boarder area it is difficult to separate reality. Three cases in point:

"In May, 1966, foreign minister Ch'en yi reiterated the Maoist theme in an interview with a group of visiting Scandinavian journalists: the Russians, he said, were thieves who had annexed one and a half million kilometers of Chinese territory in the nineteenth century and even afterward. In October, as the Revolution swirled around the gates of the Soviet embassy in Peking, the Moscow press charged that Chinese troops had begun to fire indiscriminately at Russian ships plying the Amur, and Occidental correspondents in Moscow reported that, according to a Soviet source, organized Chinese "people's" movements in the Amur region and Sinkiang were calling for the return of "lost territories". "

"On March 2, 1969, Chinese and Soviet forces clashed on obscure Damanski (Chen Pao) Island in the Ussuri River, and the Soviets suffered thirty-four killed. Given the heavy Soviet casualties, and the circumstance that only a Soviet border patrol was involved, logic leads to the conclusion that, as charged by Moscow, China initiated the attack."

"The Sino-Soviet border dispute was particularly disturbing since both the USSR and China were now nuclear powers. However, in order to limit the danger of escalation, a tacit bargain was apparently reached that neither side would resort to air power. In the following years, annual rounds of talks were held, all without significant progress. Border provocations occasionally recurred in later years--for example, in May 1978 when Soviet troops in boats and a helicopter intruded into Chinese territory--but major armed clashes were averted."

There are also several interesting articles on Bush's role in this, ranging from Taiwan recognition to Russian bashing.

Source:

Sino-Soviet Amur Conflict: Historical Background of the Amur Conflict
http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/3sinosov.htm

 

[CougarKing]

I'm sorry to break up this exploration of the China vs. Russia scenario, which is pretty much what Tom Clancy wrote about in his "The Bear and the Dragon" novel, but...

...aren't both mainland China and Russia both members of the Shanghai Six or the Shanghai Cooperative Organization- the Alliance formed between China and a number of Soviet satelites for common security interests- such as counterterrorism?

China has purchased a great deal of Russian arms over the past two decades, including the Sorenemmy class Destroyers as well as around 100-200 Su-27s, not to mention a number of Kilo Class submarines. I doubt the Chinese would want to alienate one of their most willing equipment vendors, even if the Germans used Czech Tank designs such as the Skoda Panzer Tank acquired during the occupation of Czechslovakia in the 1938/Sudentenland example.