China not looking too good

[Harvs]

Article in todays news about China, things are not looking too rosy in the next ten years, people need to chill out a bit, too much war going on as it is without this happening.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/in...-1227398946930

[Betonov]

China is walking on a thin rope. It developed too fast and one small prod can burst the bubble.
War is not that likely from their side since they know it would cost them too much.

The exercises are standard saber rattling, showing of their toys and giving the population the feeling they're a global superpower so their internal problems are overlooked by the hyped up nation.

I shouldn't worry too much.

[Onkel Neal]

War is not that likely from their side since they know it would cost them too much.

Since when has that ever worked?

I would worry, a lot. China is mirroring the path taken by Japan in the 1930s. Rapid military growth of a totalitarian state, at some point there's going to be friction. Until these islands, I was optimistic, but you know they are not going to all the trouble to engineer new territory in the S China Sea just to be told no by the US and Japan. At some point, we will have to let China have its way or ....


Being discussed here as well http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...=214616&page=2

[Oberon]

I agree with both of you.
Honestly right now, I'm not too concerned about Chinas immediate threat. They're still in a fairly vulnerable state, their economy is still geared heavily towards export, the gap between the coastal cities and inland is still vast, and the central government is still clearing house and resettling itself after Xi took over.
However, in about a decade, the PRC will be in a position to start using hard power in the Pacific if it chooses to do so. Now I don't think it'll be quite like Japan since the PRC, whilst a dictatorship, is not a primarily military based one, it's more focused around business and economic growth, and war harms both of those. However, war is also a good distraction from internal problems (ask Argentina) particularly if it is a war against an old enemy, ie Japan.

Japan itself is in a very awkward position, it needs to drop Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution and rearm itself to counter Chinese military expansion, but it's still got the shadow of the 1940s hanging over it, and if Japan starts to rearm, Chinas military expansion will go into overdrive, and South Korea will join the arms race and tensions will rocket. So Japan is forced to rely on America, who is also currently facing tensions in the Middle East and Eastern Europe and so has to spread its forces thin, forces that the US can't really afford to field, but it has to because no-one else can afford to field such firepower either. Europe probably could but its too busy politically fighting itself to actually do anything unified, and whilst the Middle East Coalition has put forward a fairly good show, it's still vastly below what is needed to tackle Daesh, not to mention the groups in Somalia, the resurgent Taliban and Al'Qaeda sitting in the shadows licking its wounds.
There's a hundred bush fires going on, and the US is the only one who has firefighting equipment and the co-ordination to use it.

It's little wonder that Obama has aged so much in ten years...

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Since when has that ever worked?

Since the world got more connected information and economy wise. Wars today are either small banana republics having a fit or supewpowers thinking the world is a sandbox.
In the 1930's the Japaneese didn't depend on the US market for export* (or NATO market for that matter), Germany did not depend on Poland for exports and Serbia was not loaning Austria-Hungary a great deal of money.
Countries wealth was at home and wars were fought to bring some more wealth in. Today is different.

China is going to push it. Try to get the upper edge at the table but will fold if the west gives them some economic resistance that will shut down their sweatshops and bring an armada of unemployed people to Beijing where even tanks won't be enough to settle things down.

War is no longer a gentlemans game, it's a businesmans game. And because war between developed nations is not profitable, we haven't seen one since 1945.


*Japan was dependant from US imports though and war began after they were blockaded. Gray area here really but it shows wars have an economic reason behind them.



EDIT for Oberons reply: Agree with the Japaneese needing to rearm themselves. Germany didn't revert to their Reich building after 1945, the Japaneese shouldn't either. The only threat the Japaneese pose today is someone loosing their mind figuring out what the hell is going on in their animes

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Betonov

EDIT for Oberons reply: Agree with the Japaneese needing to rearm themselves. Germany didn't revert to their Reich building after 1945, the Japaneese shouldn't either. The only threat the Japaneese pose today is someone loosing their mind figuring out what the hell is going on in their animes

Greece would probably disagree with you there.

But in all seriousness there's a lot of difference between the end of the war in Japan and the end of the war in Germany. In Germany a vast process of denazification took place, although it varied in East and West Germany the process was fairly similar in a constant reminder to Germans what happened and how they should never forget. It still goes on in some manners today, but now it seems to be having the opposite effect as people get fed up with the events of 70 years ago being dragged up whenever Germany does something vaguely authoritarian.
In Japan, on the other hand, the process was much different, for two reasons. One because the Soviets were sitting up in the Kurils, trying to figure out how to launch a naval invasion or to exploit the situation in Japan in some way to their favour ala Korea, and Two because there was a fear that if the Americans pushed too hard on Japan they would rise up and become fanatical in the manner in which had been seen on the advance through the Pacific to the Home islands. In particular the Emperor had to be left alone, despite calls by many in the US to bring him to trial for war crimes, likewise many of the Royal family and some other prominent Japanese politicians of the era, heck, the Japanese even retained a native government throughout the occupation, unlike Germany.
When you compare the two, Japan got off very likely, even though it behaved just as brutally as Germany during the war, even more so at times.

As such, the post-war mentality of Japan and Germany developed very very differently. You can see this in their media, and portrayal of the war through it. Germany produces very brutal, matter of fact, war films, the German soldiers are generally shown as ordinary men mislead by their leaders, look at Das Boot, there's only one guy on the whole boat who is an actual Nazi, the rest are just following orders from their high command.
In Japan, it's quite different, the men are loyal, disciplined, they have unshaken faith in their leaders, and when disasters happen it's the result of dasterly American plotting. The Americans are brash, loud, arrogant, whereas the Japanese are calm, brave and feverant.
The Russians tend to come under the same kind of treatment when shown in Japanese media, but Britain is seen with a bit more favour, I think because we were allied with Japan up until the 1930s, whereas Russia and Japan had clashed before WWII. Which brings me to this example, take a look at this video, it's had the soundtrack altered a bit, but it's not the music and sound effects I want you to pay attention to:

Saka no ue no kumo - Episode 13, Battle of Tsushima:


(the original version is , but I prefer the Das Boot version)

Aside from being pure, beautiful, pre-WWI warship porn, there's some nuances to see in this clip.
Now compare the commanders of the two fleets. The Japanese captain is calm, determined, unexcited, doesn't flinch even when shell splash rains water down on his ship. The Russian captain is dishevelled, emotional, dirtied from the explosions on his ship, he runs across the bridge, whereas the Japanese captain just stands still, watching through his binoculars.

Now, this is also a fairly accurate representation of differences of culture, Japanese culture does encourage greatly an essence of rigidity and composure in the face of battle. It's another reason the British are looked upon favourably by Japan, they see a sort of similarity in the 'stiff upper lip' culture to their own. However, there are plenty of examples in every culture of people with that kind of attitude, as well as examples of people in Japanese culture who are quite the opposite to the calm and composed Japanese commanders we always seem to see in Japanese war films.

Of course, such a phenomenon is hardly a purely Japanese affair, how many times have people inside and outside of America rolled their eyes at Hollywood war films? U-571 comes to mind almost immediately. It is, deep down, an effort by the film industry to play towards the peoples expectations of what their nations were like in that time in history. The only exception to this is Germany, which downplays heavily any particular excellence undertaken by its commanders in the war. After all, while there is a post-WWII Japanese film about Admiral Yamamoto, there is no German post-WWII film about Guderian, only one film (that I know of) which is more to do with the July 20th plot to kill Hitler.
Admittedly, and in Japans defence, they do tend to, like Germany, focus on the average Japanese soldier rather than their commanders, and when they do focus on a commander, he is usually one who is more acceptable to a post-WWII world audience, a more sympathetic character like Yamamoto or Gendou, people who didn't necessarily agree with the military government of Japan but followed orders anyway. There were plenty of commanders like this in the German military, but you rarely see a German made film depicting this (Von Paulus would be a good example of the sort of Japanese general you see in their films, he knows that his superiors orders are going to doom him in the long run, but he follows them anyway. The main difference is that in a Japanese film, Von Paulus would have fought to the death rather than surrendering but that's a cultural difference rather than a post-war experience difference).

My...I've waffled, haven't I? And gone completely off-topic too...but then again it wouldn't be GT if we stayed on topic, would it?
Consider it something that has been on my mind for a while, as someone who watches a fair bit of Japanese media, and has watched a few German war films and is a fan of both.

[Aktungbby]

^

My...I've waffled, haven't I? And gone completely off-topic too...but then again it wouldn't be GT if we stayed on topic, would it?
Consider it something that has been on my mind for a while, as someone who watches a fair bit of Japanese media, and has watched a few German war films and is a fan of both.

That's ok! with Dr Skybird absent of late, you're the only good game in town nice movie clip with blipped-in battle diagram: DAS TULN But then I'm a little biased myself sitting in my wife's kimono with the morning's French roast, Oikos yogurt

Greece would probably disagree with you there.

...and checking my Katana for nicks for the day's frays ahead.

[Jimbuna]

Dr Skybird eh?

I should imagine a lot of people around these parts have a nickname or two for quite a few people who frequent these parts eh?

Such is life as it will be in GT.

[Oberon]

He was a bright bloke, Skybird, no matter how we clashed, he was not a stupid person, but just very troubled. I hope that wherever he's gone he's able to find some peace and not gone further into the destructive cycle he'd found himself trapped in.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Dr Skybird eh?

I should imagine a lot of people around these parts have a nickname or two for quite a few people who frequent these parts eh?

Such is life as it will be in GT.

I meant it as a compliment! His knowledge of chess and insight into affairs generally surpassed my own...and his loquacious rants made me appear taciturn by comparison, for which I was grateful. I wish he'd return.

[Platapus]

Perhaps the US government needs to read the writings of Plato in which he wrote "do not forbid that which you lack the power to prohibit".