China's Drought: A Game Changer?

Earlier, I pointed out that the drought in China along the Yangtze River region is now becoming the worst in many years. Some people blamed the Three Gorges Dam, noting some correlation between building large dams and droughts in neighbouring regions, although it is too hard to say with absolute certainty that it is the case.

Whatever causes the drought, some people raised concerns on the China drought situation and its impact on the economy. At the moment, quite frankly, I have very little idea on how serious the problem can be, except that I suspect it is not going to help with the inflation situation, particularly the food prices inflation in near term.

The big China bull Jim Rogers said earlier that the water problem, if not properly solved, will mean the end of the China story. Bill Bishop, who described himself as in the “China can muddle through” camp, agrees that the drought is a game changer.

I don’t mind if China has civil wars, epidemics, panics, depressions, all of that. You can recover from that. The only you cannot recover from is water… China has a horrible water problem in the North… If China doesn’t solve its water problem, there is no China story. I’ve been around the world for a couple of times. I see whole societies, cities, countries, disappeared when the water disappeared.

He added that “they are hundreds of billions of dollar to solve the problem”.

Of course, he is still very optimistic on the whole even to the demographic problems,

This is truly a game-changing black swan.

“The Chinese leaders, in my view, are very intelligent. As always, I trust that they have a very good understanding of the problems, and are trying very hard to tackle the problems.”

The Three Gorges Dam was a mistake.

The Mekong River and delta system is on Chinese radar, and Siberia’s vast empty landmass, resources, and water supply. New Zealand’s water supply has been noted by them.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4977530/Eyes-on-NZ-as-China-sucks-own-water-dry

Eventually, the political instability and warfare will reach Russian Siberia, SE Asia, and perhaps the lands downunder as China expands its sphere of influence and its need to suck up resources around the world.

We live in interesting times.

The Chinese will inevitably strive to gain more ground, however I think they will be moving towards places like Africa (where they are more or less very welcome due to prodigious developmental effort there) rather than trying to squeeze Siberia out of the Russian aegis. Whatever one may think of the Russians they will not just let some a resource rich region fall into Sino hands ...and in the past, when they were much weaker and against a far stronger foe, they never gave up in the face of Napoleon and later the NAZIs. Russia, even though not as economically formidable as China, still has a military that is more and more becoming China-oriented (e.g. the PakFa, once you strip away all the hype and bombastic statements for and against it, is an anti-China solution as opposed to a Raptor-beater, which it is not). More importantly, Russia (even when its economy was in the doldrums and nigh wiped-out) invested in its rocket forces (its ICBMs in particular), and this invested has only increased since the Russian economy became strong again. Russia has a first-use policy, and even if China was to match the number of nuclear warheads Russia has (currently China is way below Russia and the US) it still would not take away from the fact that Russia (and/or the US) has more than enough warheads/delivery systems to wipe out centers of politics/economy/strategic-influence in China ....several times over. There is no way Russia would simply let the Chinese simply waltz over and snatch up Siberia unless China finds a way of magically neutralizing all of Russia's nuclear capabilities (in which case even the US would be immensely concerned). Thus, even though there is a lot of 'forecasting' of China's 'inevitable' uptake of Siberia, the chances of that happening (and Chinese cities not becoming irradiated wastelands) is nil. Not next to nil ...nil. The moment Russia's conventional forces were overrun (which may be possible, all things remaining the same, in the next decade-and-half ...hence Russia's interesting/continuing alliance with countries like India and Vietnam) then the only option left would be nuclear. It would be up to the Chinese to decide if Crazy Ivan wouldn't pull the trigger when all hope seems lost (a similar question would be faced by Arab armies were they to, somehow, defeat the Israeli defence force, where they would be faced with Israel using a 'Masada option' when all hope seems lost).

Anyways, my 'forecast' since everyone has one, is that even when the Chinese can defeat the Russians (and allied forces like India) conventionally, it will still have to worry about the likelihood of the Russians simply letting them take such a huge (and resource rich) segment of Russian territory, crippling the Russian economy and destroying any vestiges of Russian pride!? Sure, the Chinese may take a gambit that the Russians may not use nuclear weapons upon conventional defeat because the Chinese would also take out Russian cities/centers-of-gravity, however the question still remains ...is that a gamble the Chinese, after working so hard to make their economy the 2nd largest in the globe, make. Especially against the Russians?

China is mostly (with a few exceptions e.g. Zambia) loved in Africa, and has managed to forge an interesting symbiotic relationship there. That is far easier than invading a nuclear-armed adjacent nation that, even when things were as bad economically as they had ever been in the 90s, still invested the little they had in their rocket forces. The Chinese are logical and patient ...they know that in the very act of defeating Russia (which, again, they may be able to do in the next 1.5 to 2 decades) they would also be defeating themselves (in a nuclear Gehenna, with the Russians opting for it ...MAD or no MAD ...because not to do so would all the same be the end of them as a nation ...economically as their resource-driven market collapses, physically as landmass gets taken over, and spiritually as a sovereign nation). It would be like former USSR gambling that they can take over the entire West Coast (assuming they somehow could get there and defeat the US conventionally) and whatever US president ...be it Obama or Reagan ...just letting them occupy the land and call it their own.

That is not a gamble the Chinese would take, particularly as they are welcomed with open arms in most of Africa and South America.

Thanks for the link, blam. I’ll read it with my redheads here. ;-)

More links, in case you haven’t already seen ‘em.

DNA Reveals Neanderthal Redheads
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2018955/posts

London - Red hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1322006/posts

European Neanderthals had ginger hair and freckles [ and Type O blood ]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2156528/posts

Ancient DNA Reveals Neandertals With Red Hair, Fair Complexions
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1917675/posts

Neanderthal ‘make-up’ containers discovered
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2425669/posts

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