>>China's war machine: unfortunately, China is building a huge war machine which means the rest of the world will need to follow. And that takes a lot fometal, so we not only have massive worldwide infrastructure building going on, but it looks like we are going to have a new arms race :(.
Koan, did you read the following article from 321energy.com? ( 321energy.com ). If you believe the authour, the Bush administration has prepared itself to apply a strangehold on China, if and whenever necessary, by labelling several of its stragically located neighbours as "tyrannies" (not unlike the "axis of evil" speech), and as such having a ready pretext to install by whatever means necessary governments that are in line with US interests. Controlling China's neighbours allows the US to control the flow of oil, making sure it goes to the US and not China, especially in the event of hostilities. Myanmar, Indonesia, and Malaysia have all been warned, while other ominous references have been directed at the Philippines. Don't forget that the WW II Pacific War was largely about securing oil reserves, and Japan's loss was hugely aggravated by insufficient supplies of oil.
No doubt you are right that China will be stepping up production of warships, tanks, etc. At the same time, they must realize that under current circumstances they are no match for the US, and at best they can only avoid overt bullying. The same for Russia, which is also being squeezed rather aggressively in a geopolitical sense. China's most serious weapons against the US are economic. They can dump treasury bills, confiscate the growing investments of western companies, and perhaps influence their neighbours to act in similar ways... if it ever comes to this, they will probably fulfill their longtime ambition of seizing Taiwan as well. No matter what happens, we will likely see countries like China and Russia working behind the scenes, in cooperation with whoever is willing, against the US at its Achilles heel -- the economy and the US dollar. This is their only recourse and only hope against a Bush administration determined to enforce its will on the world. That is also one of the main reasons I think that the US dollar will continue to go down, and gold will more and more be a substitute for storing wealth. |
