Padhttp://www.blogger.com/dyWopI am sitting in the Hard Bean Cafe in Annapolis harbor thinking about the slaves that used to come ashore here. I remembered Paddy railing about Roots the last time I was here with him. It makes me think of all of the billions of chinese who have just as much cause to dislike us. We are going to fight them before this century is over. It might not be a classic battlefield battle but it will be a war none the less.
I saw so much wealth today in Annapolis harbor. This is what places like Hogwarthe are organized to protect. If there was ever a chance for a country to rid itself of that class distinction in was the United States of America. But we didn't. Our commercial culture has dehumanized us all. We are just pretenders Paddy. History will give us a good try.
You are on a stool with a Catholic guy looking at the world through ethnic eyes.
4 comments:
Mr. C, I beg to differ about the inevitability of fighting with China. The Chinese are fundamentally a get-along type of people. As long as everyone is makin a buck, they're not going to harm anyone. My prediction: World War III will start in Asia, and it will be started by the Japanese, those dour, hyper-militaristic samurai across the East China Sea (or the Sea of Japan, depending on who you are). We do not have to fight China. I'll come to Nanny's sometime and explain my whole position.
Doesn't fit the psychological profiles of the respective peoples. Your basic assumption that India and China will ally is simply erroneous. The Chinese, first of all, will not allow someone else to take the hegemony of Asia. It's always been China, and it will always be China. Furthermore, India doesn't have the military capacity to invade all those countries, even if they use nukes. Nuking a country before you invade is a pretty damn sure way to spawn a hearty insurgency. Also, all those South Asian countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, etc.) are run behind the scenes by overseas Chinese who left the Mainland: a fact unrecognized by most who are not familiar with Asia. China still very much considers them part of the Han Hometeam. They will not suffer Indian intrusion into those places.
Finally, you underestimate both the technological primacy and the instrinsic grit of the Japanese. How can you say that the country that fought a several-front war less than eighty years ago will "stay out of the big boy's play?" Japan is still the world's second-largest economy, and they've never been content with just defending their own small island. Just read a little bit more about Japanese society from the 1860s through the 1940s and then tell me how they don't matter.
Which is exactly why I tell people not to discount Japan as a major aggressor in Asia in the coming years.
I'm not trying to say China is the Sleeping Lamb of Asia, but it's definitely going to start a war. It'll fight one, but not start one. It's got too many problems at home to deal with.
China has just as many border disputes with India, if not more, than with Pakistan. The Sino-Indian land border is completely closed except to a few pilgrims (though that may change, and foreigners who know how can still bribe their way through). Pakistan is insignificant compared with the issue of hegemony in Asia. Though a military alliance against Pakistan could happen for a very brief period of time if it was in China's economic interest, a permanent Sino-Indian agreement would be untenable to the Chinese. Regarding economic enmeshment, China's biggest trading partner is none other than Japan. And if a war were to break out (which will become more likely as Koizumi exits this fall and is replaced by the hardliners he's promoted to prominent positions recently), China would not hesitate to fuck Japan up. Same goes for India.
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