[marktwain]

I doubt that China is happy about the West’s military buildup, new weapons factories, larger budgets, more cooperation, expanded alliance, and all the movement to get the same thing together with the allies in the Pacific, with the same manufacturing increases, cooperation, and new military readiness with larger budgets, and they really can’t be happy that NATO is warming up to helping us in the Pacific.

You may be correct. Those may be unexpected consequences, and why China has not invaded Taiwan during this period of weakness in the USA while their compromised candidate has been in the White House.

[ansel12]

I know that there are gains and losses in most things and that every country looks at this situation in that light and that China is seeing both good and bad in it, because all nations have to measure everything constantly, and constantly reevaluate their positioning in that regard.

I wonder if China might be shifting their focus of 3 or 4 years ago from moving in the Pacific, instead to more seeking what it can gain from Russia’s situation of today, they may see exploiting Russia for a few years while the getting is good, and there are a lot of ways they can do that, and it seems they are already doing some of the easy ones with so much more yet remaining.