China A silent danger?

I was watching the Discovery Special on China’s Sand Storms and the growing problem of more and more of the country is turning into desert. The country has some radical choices to make. I am worried that regardless of the current politics floating around and the US is to too busy keeping the Government of Iran from starting some stupid arms race. Let’s look at the facts:

China’s Population is about 1,338,612,968 (July 2009) from CIA facts
www.cia.gov...

Land Use
Arable land: 14.86%
Permanent crops: 1.27% ( Kind of low if you asked me)
Other: 83.87% (2005)

Water
2,829.6 cu km (1999) Not to much

Manpower available for military service:
Males age 16-49: 375,009,345
Females age 16-49: 354,314,328 (2008 est.)

Total: 410,440,783 Approx

MONEY
GDP Purchase Power

$7.992 trillion (2008 est.)

Plus $1 trillion in US Currency if not more.
Running out of resources and are buying up the world supplies.
Running out of water and habitable land.

What do you do?

Invade or purchase? Where, When, How?
China has us on debt and needs our people to purchase goods, so an invasion here is possible but slim.
Russia? Not to many people in Siberia, but there is resources.
Would Russia sell or fight?
Singapore? Trying a diplomatic aka under the gun deal there.
North Korea, and smack Kim Jung Ill around threaten the west with South Korea?

Your thoughts?

I lean towards China vs Russia. They have some history and both are right up there with the US for military strength. The natural resources in the area will become a sticking point I think.

N. Korea is a unlikely proxy due to the UN treaty that ended the Korean war. All members of the security council are required to deal with N. Korea if they get rammy.

[edit on 17-12-2009 by hangedman13]

Originally posted by hangedman13
I lean towards China vs Russia. They have some history and both are right up there with the US for military strength. The natural resources in the area will become a sticking point I think.

In a full-on war, I doubt any country is "up there" in terms of military strength. If Americans got into a situation where they no longer cried about the civilian casualties of their enemies, watch out. War with China or Russia would bring about such a circumstance imo.
With the money they spend on war, and the fact they are constantly AT war in one form or another, you have to think they've learned some tricks of the trade.

Attack them with bioweapons.
Unleash upon them Goat Flu, Swine Flu, Avian Flu, Turkey Flu, Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (Mad Cow Disease), and anything else you can think of!!!

I wouldn't worry too much about China as an invasion, but more of a resource hog that will become an increasingly important target of US aggression (cold war).

China throws big money around at the moment (not as large as the US), but the main difference, is that they do NOT care or care to interfere in other countries business.

This was once the business philosophy of the United State and it served us well. They do not use their swagger and military might to influence straight business deals, they use the best motivator...

Money.

Rest assured, outside of military action or a major overhaul in the US global policy, China will outpace us and be the business destination of the future.

Their growth must be maintained for their own well being and they are handling it fairly well all things considered.

Make enough money and they can buy their way out of most of their current problems given enough time.

IIRC, The above video regards merging inter-dependent global economies and the way it's changing borders non-violently. Mentions a bit on China's considerable mining operation in Mongolia and leasing of cheap southern Siberian land as it becomes more tolerable for development.

I guess it comes down to a question of, initially - do you subscribe to a zero-sum fight for resources, or a more trade/cooperation based non-zero sum model in which the product of our interactions provide greater gains than the value of it's base components?

Lots of talk from how big and powerful China is.

Always from people who know nothing about the country except a few numbers and factoids.

Beijing struggles to hold it all together. A billion people on the edge of famine, drought, pandemics. Vast amounts of money is spread around in the South and West just to keep people from rebelling from the central authority on the coast. Vast government subsidies are made in the form of loans to small businesses that no expects will ever be repaid.

One new toy factory has to keep thousands of people alive. And they are starting to close down. Mao tried to deal with China's insurmountable problems. Too much empty unusable and, too many mouths to feed. He made some positive steps, but 40 million people died along the way.

China seems to rise then falls about twice in every century. We'll see how far this new push to be sweatshop to the world goes.

damnt people, we haven't straighten out our business deals in the middle east and already you're looking to jump on china? this is madness!!!

Madness? No, this isn't madness..... This Is Americaaaa!!!! (kicks random person into landfill)