Interesting ideas... 'low-population part of Russia' = Manchuria?
***Russia's natural resources are the SINGLE THING THAT COULD SAVE CHINA in a Trade War with the USA***
I have some doubt to this; China is mostly dependent upon the US $$ to maintain its role as super power... yes, they are getting closer and closer - ready to confront us here and there: but not militarily! Even now their economy has the flu.
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I have some doubt to this; China is mostly dependent upon the US $$ to maintain its role as super power... yes, they are getting closer and closer - ready to confront us here and there: but not militarily! Even now their economy has the flu.
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You make a good point. Perhaps I should place the interdiction of China's natural resources a little later in the struggle ... after conventional Trade War tactics have been exhausted. But the threat is always there.
Keep in mind that ultimately world power, including the US Dollar, is based upon the flows of energy. China has almost NONE, and the U.S. Navy has the power to shut down their imports. GAME OVER if that happens (or it gets Very, Very HOT, very fast)
Everything China is doing in the South China Sea, as well as their space program, is focused on breaking free of the potential encirclement/strangulation by the USA.
We are NOT an empire; but, I still love the analogy of the longest surviving empire in world history, the Egyptian Pharaohs. Their power was military control of the waters of the Nile.. They added a priesthood around that and lasted for thousands of years.
America's control of MidEast oil (along with North Sea routes and our own) not only supports our US Dollar, but is tantamount to the Pharaohs' control of the Nile.
The global dollar-based financial system is part of this control, but ultimately the U.S. Navy is the real power (backed by Space assets, as POTUS has become fond of pointing out).