www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... China.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... China.html

Try linking to some optimistic topics.

There’s worrying times ahead because we’re at the start of a new century. Just look at when the last world wars occurred in the previous century. A majority of the current ruling class in America and especially China are not scarred by big wars on the scale that we’re debating about in this thread. If any of this lot in power experienced the horrors of the previous world wars then they wouldn’t go ahead with a third world war.

Ahh, the memories!

World War 3 will not happen as no-one will win.

World War III was won the second the west went to China and asked for money to bail out the mess left by the bankers.

.....Dally's obsession with impending global doom rears its head again....

plus ça change ...

If there is a war between the US and China it will be because the US starts it.

The Chinese have a different attitude to war than we do, their attitudes are still based on the classic text "The Art of War" which is thousands of years old and is still taught in mainstream universities in China today as a way of strategic thinking in life and business as well as war. The Chinese mentality is to never get involved in a war unless they are certain of the outcome and are certain that it will leave them better off than before. They would never have done what we did and gone into Afghanistan / Iraq and then found out we didn't have an exit strategy. China will want to build up its military power to maintain its own security (but that is also driven by security concerns of their neighbours like India, its not just a message against the West) but the Chinese would always rather keep their heads down and live peacefully with other countries rather than have to divert resources into fighting. They also know that Chinese development depends on their advantage in being able to export to their huge markets of the USA and Europe, and they cannot afford these markets to be damaged.

I expect there will be frosty relations between the US and China but I don't see China aggressively asserting itself militarily, China will however extend its influence over the world but this will be by increasingly owning more and more assets in foreign countries, but each time they increase their assets abroad they give themselves a disincentive to damage that country's economy.

Bad human rights yes. Polluters yes. War mongers no.

Thats the main point right there.

Why would they want to destroy economies who owe them so much money and in doing so destroy their own economy and world status ?

That's also why they have been cautiously offering financial help to Europe, because China does not want a break up of the Eurozone.

China has been running large trade surpluses over the past decade and a half and it has been saving these surpluses abroad through stocking up on American and European assets. To go to war on them would be like spending 15 years building up savings in a bank and then blowing your bank up.

All anyone had to do was look who posted the original and then who penned the article he linked to.

Dally & Max Hastings is surely a match made in hell

Or to quote my Geordie fatha-in-lor, "Shittin in yer own cree"

The Chinese governmemt are pragmatic but when it comes to shortage of resouces and its people start to rise up it will do anything to retain power. With the global downturn, China may also see a downturn which will make its people get twitchy. So far as the US is concerned, if its economy doesn't improve then China will be seen as the cause - with the great trade imbalance.