On 2 Apr 2003 at 7:06, John D. Giorgis wrote: > >> >The idea is absurd even 50 or 40 years from now. At the rate > >> >China is growing, we should be ready for trouble in 15. > >> > >> I don;t know what economic projections you are using, but even > >> assuming that China's official growth figures are accurate and > >> sustainable over the course of the next century, China will not be > >> able to rival the US for a good 100 years or so. > > > >There's one problem. It doesn't assume China turns expansionist. And > >China's internal problems seem to me all to be pointing to that being > > a neat soloution for China. Pretty tough on everyone ELSE, but with > >Taiwan, well... > > China turning expansionist should have no effect. China will > definitely not be able to conquer the Republic of Korea nor Japan nor > India nor Taiwan > in the next 20 years. China simply has no amphibious capabilities to > speak of, and the US is strongly committed to the defense of those > nations.
They can build it, and I don't count on the US Naby being able to stop them. Kursk. Shkval supercavitating torpedo. > They might be able to handle Mongolia or some of the Central Asia > countries, but those areas are so resource poor as to have little > effect in the 20-year time frame. The same is true for Southeast > Asia. The greatest worry would be a Chinese-Russian conflict, where > China could grab a sizable slice of Siberia. Even so China is just > too big and way too poor to truly emerge from poverty in only 20 > years. If you want to remind me in a couple weeks, I can run some > numers on US and Chinese GDP per head and how long it would take China > to get within the US's ballpark at various possible growth rates. As I said, they can take Taiwan. Unless and until the Americans come up with the supercav machine gun they're working on, the Shkval is basically unstopable. And while it's possible the Chinese only have the first generation and not the second generation Shkval, even the first has no American answer. Taiwan...would be an immense boost for the Chinese. Add in all the infrastructure companies are building in China now... They don't need to match the USA 1:1 for GDP either...just production where it counts (military, etc.) - they'll be prefectly willing to sacrifice civilian standards of life for tactical advantage. Andy Dawn Falcon _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
