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yea I haven't been reading the rest of the thread, but I do think most reasonable people would discount a war between us and China that was deliberately sought after by the Chinese. It may still be possible that a confrontation over Tawian may escalate to dangerous proportions, but even this I think is unprobable.

However, what China will probably continue to do is proliferate weapons all over the world to rouge nations and use it's superior military as a negotiating point to get trade concessions and territorial concessions. The United States needs to have the strongest possible military to thwart these efforts and have leverage with China.

Once China is completely under the spell of capitalism (and it is close now) I think that China will become more and more similar to us - in that our best interests (selfishly) are seeing other countries prosper and remain peaceful in order to enrich ourselves from the increased trade.

The more capitalist China becomes the more it will be in it's interest to keep the world safe to keep the prosperity of the it's citizens at what they are used to. Businessmen are already proliferating throughout the Communist party structure and they will (again, selfishly) try to leverage the party to gain profit for themselves, which requires the country remain at peace.

With Freedom, everyone pursues their own self interst to the benefit of all. Pretty neat if you ask me!

Obviously China still has a ways to go in this - terrible human rights violation are still a problem. It remains unclear whether this economic freedom will lead to social freedom (such as expression, press etc...). Previous theorists may have thought so, but with Russia and China growing so rapidly... doubt is being cast on this.

A little discussed possibility is that right wing type dictatorships, which are able to supress leftism and therefore encourage economic growth more than democracies (which fall prey to leftism), may become the 'new' world powers.

How this might play out I don't know... If we keep up the rightward shift in this country we don't need to worry about it. :)

.....what China will probably continue to do is proliferate weapons all over the world to rouge nations and use it's superior military as a negotiating point to get trade concessions and territorial concessions. The United States needs to have the strongest possible military to thwart these efforts and have leverage with China.
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Yes, this is certainly true as others have noted- they are going to "incrementally" increase their political, economic, and military pressure and influence everwhere they can- just like us. But I'm not buying the many assertions on this thread they are either stoopid or suicidal. Folks who assert this do not know the Chinese M.O. and are basing their fears on, possibly, our experience with Soviet style communism. Again, China has NO history of foreign aggression. None. It's all talk, bluff and incremental increase of pressure. They are NEGOTIATING the new geo-political world order- and if we are not smart they will screw us royally and continue to get what they want without a fight. Think Klinton.....

>Once China is completely under the spell of capitalism (and it is close now) I think that China will become more and more similar to us - in that our best interests (selfishly) are seeing other countries prosper and remain peaceful in order to enrich ourselves from the increased trade.

The more capitalist China becomes the more it will be in it's interest to keep the world safe to keep the prosperity of the it's citizens at what they are used to. Businessmen are already proliferating throughout the Communist party structure and they will (again, selfishly) try to leverage the party to gain profit for themselves, which requires the country remain at peace.
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Again, I agree with this. Chinese only start war with their weaker neighbors. At the moment we have ALL SEVEN OF OUR CARRIER BATTLEGROUPS OFF TAIWAN. Message to China: Hands off Taiwan or else suckers. Will they gamble now or later that we are bluffing? They do not like gambling.