Soldiers are especially courageous against unarmed civilians. I think they would deal easily with the tai tais panicking about their baubles: <the boys in the barracks would not stand a chance against enraged hong kong tai tais protecting their jewelry>
A common mistake is to think soldiers are for the purpose of protecting the realm and keeping the civilians safe from the evil-doing enemies over the river and beyond the hills and across the desert and beyond the pale.
On the contrary, the purpose of the army has always been to solve INTERNAL problems.
1... Women have 10 babies each, on average, more or less, if they survive, traditionally.
2... That means there are lots of spare men who are 18 years old, full of testosterone, seething with muscles, greedy for a piece of the action, ogling the girls, eying the alpha males and wondering why they get to have the best tree to sit in, ravenous for some steak and a paw full of food.
3... It doesn't take too many centuries for even a place like North and South America, or New Zealand, to be overflowing with humans when it is newly discovered. Then what?
4... The young males start getting stroppy, challenging the elders, raping the girls who belong to the other blokes, stealing the food, and generally getting up to mischief. There just isn't enough to go around.
5... The chiefs figure that it's time to give half of them a club and tell them to patrol the street to keep the other half in line. That works for a while, but the numbers keep building.
6... So, the old geezers figure that it's time to give them a spear and a uniform and send them out to the borders to defend the fair maidens and tribe against the young blokes who are marauding over the hill from the neighbouring tribes, who are being sent by their chiefs to solve the same internal problem of over crowding.
After a suitable amount of carnage, the chiefs on each side call a truce and things go back to normal. Sometimes, one side takes over from another and there's a bigger tribe formed. If it gets too big, like the Roman Empire, the British Empire, Japan's empire, the USSR, Genghis Khan's empire, it becomes unwieldy and local yokels take over and form smaller zones of control.
China has a HUGE surplus of young males wondering what the heck to do with themselves. My grandfather was there during the Boxer rebellion when there were swarms of young males who were surplus to requirements. You denied that the preference for male children in China has led to a huge surplus of them. I guess the demographers are right and you are wrong. csmonitor.com
100 million spare males is a LOT of testosterone on the loose. Your gold is not safe in the safe if they decide it belongs to them or is needed more by them than by you.
<the boys in the barracks would not stand a chance against enraged hong kong tai tais protecting their jewelry>
The purpose of the PLA is not to regain Taiwan. It is to do what I saw them doing in Beijing around Tienanmen Square. Taiwan is a convenient external "threat" which keeps minds focused elsewhere, for now.
As you say, being light on toes, there should be sufficient delay to move some material to more equable climes. Rumblings rumble for a while if one is attuned. MANY Jews fled Europe BEFORE it was too late.
When Big Ben says he can load helicopters with money, he is NOT kidding. He is in his element right now. What a LOT of fun he is having. After training all your life to do something, now is the moment. The PLA has been training all their lives too. They will want to have their moment.
The USA keeps their troops tuned up and a bit tired out by sending them to Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, all over the place. There's always something to "defend" other than right there on Main Street.
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