[Mr. Jeeves]

And China is hardly a Soviet-style monolith. It's a wild and wooly capitalist new frontier that today's Mandarins (formerly known as Communists) are barely holding on to with their fingernails. This saber-rattling is for domestic consumption, an attempt by the ruling class to appeal to nationalist impulses and yell "Look at meeeee! I'm still important!" For there is so much money sloshing around China right now that even the nine old men with a huge military and security state apparatus at their fingertips can't control much of what is happening, aside from publicly picking on unpopular groups like Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, and human rights activists. We aren't too many years away from the day that the Chinese moneyed class tells the Old Guard to shut the hell up - we are running things, now.

China's biggest economic problem is that its products are getting quite expensive. Not USA expensive, yet, but they are losing market share in some product categories to poorer countries like Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and soon Myanmar. Consider the changes in Japan between 1950 and 1989 - China is most of the way through that same evolution.

[1010RD]

The Chinese economy would die a quick death if they went to war against America and her allies over these islands/economic zone. They’d lose a war, plus lose Korea, Japan, Vietnam and the entire area as trading partners.

The history of SE Asia isn’t one of trust in China as a fair dealer. They fear a Chinese hegemony. China’s on the cusp of becoming an also-ran. You’ve got the equivalent of Cook County (Obama Country) trying to maintain control on a population that wants to be Hong Kong. They’re going to lose, but it can be smooth or bloody.