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China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

bbc.co.uk

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Re: China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

#101

Post by tlear »

veidr wrote: post #25
sdrothrock wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because none of the countries whose territories China is going after -- not even Japan -- would do well in a straight up military conflict. I'm curious about why you don't think Japan would do well in a straight-up military conflict.

Japan's self-defense force is better-equipped, I will grant, but there are a few reasons. One is that there is always a higher level China could escalate to. I mean, in the end game they have nukes and Japan doesn't. But even if it didn't get to that level, China is a totalitarian regime with a history of brutally suppressing dissent, and I also assume that China would be willing to lose a lot more lives to make gain…

I think you seriously underestimate Japanese willingness to fight.

Lets say China decides to call US bluff and lands Marines on Senkakus tomorrow. To do that they would need to sink multiple Japanese coast guard vessels and kill a lot of Japanese sailors. What next? Obama says something about how he is unhappy. Japan is now probably incapable of direct landing on Senkaku right now IF it is opposed. It is however more then capable to sweeping Chinese planes out of the sky in the area. In the air war tech and training >> numbers. The other aspect of the war will be naval and Japan operates the best submarine fleet in Asia, given freedom they would inflict horrendous losses on Chinese surface fleet.

Chillingly at the same time PM of Japan knowing that he was betrayed by US would give an order to weaponize Japanese stockpile of weapon grade material and in a matter of weeks? month? Japan will test multiple fusion devices. Now the real game begins.

In reality I do not think that China will play this game now, their leaders are not Putin and Japan is not Ukraine. I think confrontation or war between China and India and/or Japan will happen but not yet. 10-15 years from now?

Re: China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

#102

Post by tlear »

veidr wrote: post #60
lisptime wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a democracy, that public support really matters. Indeed. Since the end of World War II, there have been 248 armed conflicts in 153 locations around the world. The United States launched 201 overseas military operations between the end of World War II and 2001, and since then, others, including Afghanistan and Iraq. http://scientistsascitizens.org/2014/05/15/academics-and-sci...

Yeah, my point wasn't that democracies don't wage wars -- just that they can't ignore the will of the citizenry (unless they don't actually have a democracy). As an American, the USA's bottomless well of rah-rah nationalism any time they trot out the troops has always been a mystery. But it's definitely there, and I don't think any other country since the USSR has come close to the USA in terms of attacking other cou…

Huge support would be a massive understatement. Half the congress would be for an all out ICBM strike and other half would be for levelling the country and sending it back to stone age.

Re: China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

#103

Post by kourt »

Dolimiter wrote: post #29

When did this type of website design become acceptable? I'm starting to see it more and more. It reminds me of when "Multimedia CD-ROMs" first appeared circa mid-1990s, where flashy interfaces were ranked much higher than useability. Please stop it. Give me a webpage with text, and images that I can enlarge when clicked. Thank you.

I see your point. But I love that it's one feature at a time, rather than being placed between two columns of links to other stories, other photos, automatically-playing videos, and ads.

Re: China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

#105

Post by Symmetry »

mchouza wrote: post #88
Symmetry wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're underestimating how long it takes to separate U238 from U235 or breed plutonium.

Japan has more than 1000 kg of HEU: http://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/civilian-heu-japan/

Ok then. With that and since they've almost certainly designed a device and worked out the logistics just in case I'm quite willing to believe they could get a number of boosted fission devices assembled in less than a month.

Re: China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

#106

Post by joelrunyon »

Dolimiter wrote: post #29

When did this type of website design become acceptable? I'm starting to see it more and more. It reminds me of when "Multimedia CD-ROMs" first appeared circa mid-1990s, where flashy interfaces were ranked much higher than useability. Please stop it. Give me a webpage with text, and images that I can enlarge when clicked. Thank you.

See medium.

Re: China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

#107

Post by dragonwriter »

krapp wrote: post #99
mikeash wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be a stupid comment, but could we stop using "treasure" outside the context of forgetful pirates and sunken ships and such? When talking about Iraq and Afghanistan it's just an overly fancy way to say "money".

I generally agree with you, but it (likely) refers the the archaic (and somewhat romantic) phrase "blood and treasure"[0] commonly used to describe the cost of war for a nation or state. [0] http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/02/blood-and-treasure...

It certainly refers to that phrase, but of the two elements of that phrase, "treasure" is used pretty literally ("blood" for "lives" is, I supposed, slightly figurative, since the issue isn't the blood itself.)

Re: China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

#108

Post by dragonwriter »

mikeash wrote: post #98
dragonwriter wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This may be a stupid comment Indeed. > but could we stop using "treasure" outside the context of forgetful pirates and sunken ships and such? When talking about Iraq and Afghanistan it's just an overly fancy way to say "money". No, its an accurate way to say "treasure" -- or, if you have some need to avoid pirate-related associations in your head, "wealth". Money is, of course, one form that treasure takes, and als…

Then how about "wealth" or "stuff"? I wouldn't call a tank "treasure".

> Then how about "wealth"

I explicitly stated that as an alternative, so I'm not sure why you would ask that in response.

> I wouldn't call a tank "treasure".

Since treasure refers to a collection of valuable objects, and a tank, as such, is generally a valuable object, that's true -- one wouldn't usually refer to a tank (or a gold coin, etc.) as "treasure", though one might validly refer to a collection of things that included, among other things, one or more tanks that way.

Re: China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

#109

Post by GigabyteCoin »

akfanta wrote: post #75
Jack000 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the claims on the South China sea are patently ridiculous, but I don't think it can be compared with the senkaku islands. From what I've read China actually did have better claim over those islands prior to 1884 and immediately after WWII, but didn't assert those claims because well.. the islands were worthless. Now that they've found oil they want to roll back the clock. I think there is a fundamental cultural diffe…

> To the west if you found a piece of land and lived there for 100 years, it's yours - that's how the US was founded after all Some say the genocide of the natives also helped a lot. These kind of logic just can't be applied to the problems in Asia, where the territory disputes trace back to hundreds of years ago. It's not a west vs east thing.

I believe the parent comment was talking about squatters rights[0], not how the US was conquered.

[0] http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/2013/12/13/...

Re: China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

#110

Post by josefresco »

melling wrote: post #13
anigbrowl wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote a Chinese official from a few years ago 'Vietnam is a small country and China is a big country and that is just a fact.'

So, what you are saying is that every time we buy something that's "Made in China", we are fueling the next major military power, which in turn will lead to a major conflict in the area?

Or... you could say that every time you buy something "Made in China" you're solidifying the co-dependent relationship between the US and China, thereby reducing the chance of conflict in the future.
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