China has a foot in the door of NATO's internal defence market

[Skybird]

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67556

Cheaper, tech transfer, co-constructed in Turkey. These three arguments counter the idea that Ankara maybe just wanted to mount pressure on the Russian, American and European competitors to drop their prices.

However, if you google for the story, you find also reports that may add another, militarily decisive argument. During the field testings it seems to have shown that the Chinese system outperformed its competitors and hit all targets, where as the American, Russian and Italian-French systems all missed some targets.

Brussel now fears that China may get easier access to NATO tech secrets and the opportunity to infest the infrastructure with malware. However, the pressing demands to Turkey to reconsider the deal with China must also be seen as an attempt to bully Turkey into giving its money to a Western producer instead.

I'm interested to find out over time whether or not Turkey sticks to its decision.

---

In a wider perspective:

Some days ago, the Taiwanese defence ministry warns of China having reached full capability to keep the US out and away from any war over Taiwan. While this also must be seen as an attempt to get more money for the military, it nevertheless is a warning as well. That the Chinese systematically close the gap to the US is nothing new, and warnings of US submarines no longer being able to operate freely at will in the disputed territories is a warning the Navy has released already several years ago. The Chinese put tremendous priority on refusing carrier groups entrance to their operation areas close enough to Taiwan to make a difference. Without heavy support by the US, China already dominates the Taiwanese defence on sea and in the air, and has a every part of the island in the crosshairs of one of its missiles. The only thing they now must solve is how to bring tens and hundreds of thousands of troops to Taiwan in a short amount of time. I think they will get that one solved, too, within ten years.

Add to this the financial madness of Washington, and the totally hopeless situation regarding cutting its spendings and reducing its debts, not to mention to ever pay them back in value. The Chinese have so far bought over one thousand tons of gold this year alone, and their reserves are estimated to be at 7K tons minimum now, with maybe even 10K tons and thus probably already exceeding the US reserves with some 8 thousand tons. And there is no end in sight for the Chinese hunger for gold. It is louder and louder rumored that they prepare to dramatically reduce their losses and vulnerabilities by preparing their currency to get a gold-standard again, which would mean heaven falling for the US and its deeply rotten fiscal status (and Europe as well). If they do so, and disconnect the Yuan from the Dollar and for example ban trading in dollars and Euros, but insist on being payed in real values instead of worthless debt bonds and leaves of paper, the change in the global financial regime would have been established and the Chinese Yuan would be the new world's reserve currency, a regime change coming at great relief for China and great turmoil for all others. But the turmoil costs the Chinese probably less than to endlessly loosing their wealth in endless American fiscal insanity. Mind you, you only need to have enough quantity of a currency to allow the market being saturated so that business transactions can be negotiated and carried out - how high in total quantities the number of coins and banknotes is, is not important, because if it is a gold-covered currency, market prices will adapt automatically to reflect the relative value. You do not need millions and millions of tons in gold - not at all (that is one of the desperate illusions the West and especially America cling to).

Many dramatic change sin history have come surprisingly fast and did not move as slow as forseen and expected. The change from the American to the Chinese era could come much earlier and take place much faster, than most people expect. I strongly disagree with the often voiced idea that the ties between China and America are economical such that China cannot afford to let the US fall. America simply has no alternative than to just put its faith in this one desperate hope. And only a hope that is indeed, an objective sitrep it is not, imo. Such a change will come at costs for China, yes. Nevertheless it could be reasonable from their perspective - if they calculate the costs to stick with the status quo and continuing to finance America and to live with the Euro crisis would cost them more.

And tolerating that situation indeed opens a bill of disastrous costs, so nobody should be surprised if the Chinese decide against staying with that. We do not talk about solving the debt crisis, do we. We just talk about delaying the final breakdown, the day which Keynes referred to when saying that in the end we are all dead. He knew very well that in the end his system must collapse. That's is the part about Keynes that people desperately ignore nowadays.

We have a saying in Germany. Wer nicht hören will, muß fühlen. Nothing needs to be added to that. It's a form of Karma.