And if they do threaten war, they don’t have the logistics capability to do anything outside their own borders.
CNN would be reduced to using vidoes made from Battlefield 2 to show the mighty Chinese army victorious in battle over evil running dog Americans.
“And if they do threaten war, they don’t have the logistics capability to do anything outside their own borders.”
Probably so, but they do have nuclear weapons. Besides, we’d have one hellofa time stopping a billion Chinese from doing anything. What could the western States muster, 100 millon, maybe?
My view is that China has zero interest in war. Some old guards do, but the country is run by many who could care less about war. They want commerce. They didn’t go to college to fight a war.
China is not interested in war outside their own hemisphere. They are very interested in conquests around their border and we would be hard pressed to do anything about it militarily - they would have the advantage.
The main deterrent for China is that they need us (and the West) economically - they cannot survive without their customers financially.
There is another deterrent that is growing in strength. China is increasingly viewing itself as a player on the world stage - a major citizen of the world. This represents a dramatic shift for an isolationist culture so being viewed as a bully would make some of them uncomfortable.
The factions in the Chinese government are battling for control and they have different worldviews - will be interesting and important to see who emerges on top and much of that will be decided by the health of their economy. China will be the toughest negotiation of Trump’s life and it comes with major risks because the hardliners still instill fear in the more moderate Chinese.