Hi all!

The following is only the HEADLINES from my 2 hour internet world news search...

LA TIMES: The KGB Rises Again in Russia

STRATFOR: CIS headed for Confrontation Summit

STRATFOR: Georgia Intercepts Russian Arms Bound for Chechnya

STRATFOR: How Russia's Future Is in the West's Hands

STRATFOR: Ministry Mistake Creates Rift in Russian Forces

BBC NEWS: Putin: Russia must be great again

WORLDNETDAILY: China Canal threat real, says Barr

QUOTE: (from the Washington Times) Chinese Defence Minister Chi Haotian:

"Seen from the changes in the world situation and the United States' hegemonic strategy for creating monopolarity, war is inevitable...We cannot avoid it...The issue is that the Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in this war..."

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), January 13, 2000

Answers

Kurt, what is your take on what China wants to achieve? How great is their need for additional geological assets (I know they need oil real bad and certain metals right now)?

Above all, do you think that the Chinese would risk a nuclear exchange in order to gain those assets? (Yes, I realize that you are a peon like me but I'd still like to have your opinion).

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), January 13, 2000.

Lobo:

I'm not Chinese, so I cannot claim in-depth knowledge. What I have learned to date leads me to think they would not be willing to toss nukes around for the sake of natural resources they could get through other means...

North Korea is not above nuclear extortion.

Russia is eyeing N.Korea's "foreign policy" for consideration--future use to get American $ aid. (keep economy afloat, build new weapons systems, ad nauseum...)

If Russia and China are working with any real amount of co-operation, and evidence so far shows it so, then China will possibly use the Panama Canal as a lever to gain monetary assistance/investment, trade favour status continuation and concessions, or access to needed resources.

I can only see so much and learn so fast--but that's my best guess, Lobo. I hope it's useful.

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), January 13, 2000.

Sorry Lobo, I only gave you 1/2 an answer:

What does China want to achieve?

I don't know for sure, but I THINK they want to be a regional power-- with global influence. They cannot impose their will on the world-at- large yet, and I'm not sure they ultimately want to... BUT they DO wish to impose their will on the Western Pacific and Eastern Asia "back to back" with Russia.

With control of strategic real estate around the world, they may not have to impose their will directly (force projection), thus giving them leverage beyond their current means.

Cute eh?

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), January 13, 2000.

Lobo, sometimes arrogance transcends logic.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 13, 2000.

(my take on China)

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 13, 2000.

I wonder about the demographics of today's China. It's widely published that infanticide and abortion are used as a population control and that females are especially targeted. Does this mean that a mostly male generation is coming of age in China? If true, such a generation could be very, very angry.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), January 13, 2000.

Lars:

It could. My sister has a degree major in Pacific Rim studies (oriental cultures) and she tells me that this, among other nasty things, is historically a cultural--non communist--norm.

For some strange reason some cultures value males over females, and it's not just oriental cultures--look at the middle east...

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), January 13, 2000.

China's cultural emphasis on male children has combined with its ZPG policy of limiting couples to one or two children to create a massive imbalance in the male-female ratio in the emerging generation. I don't have the exact stats at hand, but 60-40 or 65-35 come to mind. Chinese urban couples are using amniocentesis to determine the sex of fetuses, then aborting females. (India couples are doing the same thing.) In the rural areas, there's a long history of female infanticide that has been reinforced by the one couple-one child policy. The sociopolitical impacts over the next several decades should be interesting. There has already been a trickle of new brides flowing into the country from Taiwan, with lesser but still significant numbers from Korea and Thailand. The bottom line will be the biggest nation in the world overflowing with testosterone.

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), January 13, 2000.

Their new policy will be "Asia for the Asians" and will be by intimidation of neighboring countries and force were necessary. They seek to be THE POWER in Asia, note not one of two powers. The US is the only potential roadblock to their control of all of Asia. They are normally quite patient but the clock is ticking. That clock has been wound by the need to control a population that is getting used to a higher standard of living and the growing population's need for food (which fights against the land needed for modernization).

Their rallying cry will be a complaint that the US is denying China of natural resources and food that they need and are entitled too.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

-- Squid (ItsDark@down.here), January 13, 2000.