"China Eyes Its Next Prize – the Mekong" Topic

"Beijing's islands-building in the South China Sea and their militarisation, replete with surface-to-air missiles, is near complete. With guile, threat, and coercion, China can now seize control of one of the main transport arteries of Southeast Asia, making a mockery of international laws and norms.

But there is another prize in Beijing's sights, an artery that runs straight through mainland Southeast Asia. The mighty Mekong River, which starts in China (known there as Lancang), and connects Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, is a crucial lifeline that nourishes some 60 million people along its Banks…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Didn't work out so well the last time China tried to re-take Vietnam…

Seems they have evolved…. (smile)… try to pick up one of their new Islands and see…. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

And yet so many in the West seem to find all kinds of ways to excuse Communist China's obvious imperialism.

And the rest are still saying that China's expansionist plans will never become a reality, perhaps because the West had very limited success holding on to other parts of Asia.

Denial all around. :)

Dan

Its call REALISM, Dan….

So, are you suggesting we start a nuclear war over some miserable rocks in the SCS that have ZERO military value? (And little other value if everybody ignores them. Which everybody is).

And you think China is so special that they're going to wildly succeed where just about everyone else (including themselves) has failed? I don't see it.

Your Chinaphobia has clouded all commonsense…

Charlie 12: "So, are you suggesting we start a nuclear war over some miserable rocks in the SCS that have ZERO military value? (And little other value if everybody ignores them. Which everybody is)."

Of course I'm not suggesting a nuclear war. Who is saying that?

But at least I'm not sitting there justifying everything Communist China does, and then minimizing the importance of those international waters (and, in doing so, minimizing the aggressive appropriation of those waters). They give China, the one with the flimsiest claim, a foothold on waters that for centuries have been of immense economic importance to other countries (Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines and even Taiwan, Republic of China) who cannot stand up on their own militarily to Communist China, not even to dislodge any artificial islands it decides to build within the Nine Dash. Those waters are vital to feeding those populations, who don't have alternate means of feeding themselves like Communist China does.

And I'm not even going to discuss the threat it poses to international shipping lanes, seeing as how the People's Republic of China now thinks it can challenge any ship that enters those international waters. That one should have been an obvious one.

Dan
PS. "Your Chinaphobia has clouded all commonsense…"
Oh, and it's not "Chinaphobia", by the way. Not even Sinophobia either, really, seeing as how so many other ethnic Chinese living in Taiwan and elsewhere are being threatened by Communist China's (Beijing's) expansionism. So, if you need to give it a label at all, give it the right one and call it something like "Beijingophobia". And then, just to be fair, I'll call your affliction "Beijingophilia".

Dan,

Some peoples grasp of international geo-politics is, well…….interesting. Everything in that area is long-game.

Dave

As I recall, delusional talking is all they did back in the 30s, when Germany was doing this exact same thing. They got really good at doing nothing else to oppose his expansionism.

This time around it's Asia, with Xi Who Must Be Obeyed (XWMBO?) looking to take over all the "Sudetenland" he can grab without a fight, or even a serious protest (from anyone who could back their ultimatum with any real strength).

Dan

For some every situation always seems to resolve itself into a repeat of 1930s Europe and Hitler. Saddam, Putin, Milosevic, Ahmadieajad, Kim (various generations), and other villains de jour. Now it's Xi. It's like a bad Star Trek episode: the story is caught in a never ending time loop. Is this realism or delusion?

I know, right? It's usually the Left who is CONSTANTLY claiming everyone is a fascist, a Nazi or a Hitler. I'm so tired of it, day after day after freaking day, for every little thing, that now I largely just tune it out.

But when someone else suddenly uses it, and not used frivolously or as a cheap insult like the ones above, well … everyone* just loses their mind! :)

Dan
* The Beijingophiles right now, it seems.

We should act, and act now, while all they can throw at us is $39.99 USD endless supplies of giant inflatable Christmas decorations they can no longer sell at Big lots or Wall mart?
Imagine the poor U.S Marine when the giant plastic Rudolph the red nosed reindeer falls from the plane and lands on him??? 😉🤔

Regards
Russ Dunaway

Russ – I like your post.

LOL. We do get a lot of useless plastic junk, stuff we don't think we need until we see millions of them on the shelves. And then we get blamed for putting so much plastic in landfills.

But maybe we'll have to surrender and sue for peace when our young people can no longer get their regular fix of the very latest electronic toys and gadgets.

Dan

Yes, but imagine paying $35.00 USD for your next toothbrush without those guys?

Regards
Russ Dunaway

Yeah, we'll end up having to make our own stuff again, and it will get done under much better working and environmental conditions. And we'll have more jobs, even in automation.

And maybe we'll diversify our international producers instead of putting all our eggs in one addictive basket.

Who knows?

Dan
PS. Now I better stock up on cheap toothbrushes, just in case. Thanks a lot! :)

I agree, however the truth of the matter is the very people that things like NAFTA effected the worse are the very ones that brought it on to begin with, unless you have someone like Ronald Reagan who was willing to play hardball with em ?

Regards
Russ Dunaway

We've definitely departed from Jefferson's idea of friendly to all nations and no entanglement of alliances.

But putting so many eggs in one manufacturing basket was going to end up being economic suicide for us at some point, and end up undermining our objectivity on so many levels. But it was too enticing an opportunity to pass up, and now we are absolutely hooked on their crack.

Dan

No doubt, although I must be careful as all my tendencies are isolationist leaning.

Regards
Russ Dunaway

I'm headed more and more in that direction too. A complete about face from when I was a naive little pup.

Dan

Viva la Pat Buchanan!!!

Regards
Russ Dunaway

Lol.

As for the Mekong, the more dams on that river, the less natural silt nutrients flow down downstream, and then the more chemicals people will end up using and running off.

Dan

China and the US are "friennemies" with a rarher complicated relationship. Sometimes cordial, other times adversarial, this reality is unlikely to change because the economic and trade ties between the two countries are mutually beneficial. Would we have preferred China to be more liberally democratic like Japan, South Korea and Singapore? Certainly, but we can live with China as a frienemy as long as China doesn't push things too far and cross some red line, whatever that may be. And China thinks she knows exactly how far she can push the boundaries short of starting a war with the US she clearly has every intention of avoiding because she has no hopes of winning.

As for going back to Isolationism, even an isolationist like our current POTUS realizes it's a pipe dream. It may sound good as rhetoric to the masses, but no nation is an island and anyone who thinks that a country can be fully sufficient and be a "Jack of all trades" rather than specializing in its strengths and advantages lacks a fundamental understanding of economics. We can start manufacturing our own iPhones instead of letting China make them, but American labor costs more and, boy, if you think iPhones cost too much as they do now wait til they're "Made in America."

It's not that we can't do everything ourselves like we used to in the good old days. It's that it would be massively costly and inefficient to do so.

If "isolation" in and of itself poses a problem, does not the entire planet as an isolated land mass, sooner or later face the same dilemma?

Regards
Russ Dunaway

Bite your tongue! :)

You're doing too much thinking. Go back to sleep like the rest of the masses. They prefer us that way. Clueless, compliant consumers.

Dan

The Vietnamese citizens don't look very happy right now with their shrinking EEZ …

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It would be interesting if this escalated and lead somehow to a regime change there, and they became more open and friendlier to the capitalist world. And it would be very ironic, seeing as how Communist China would have brought that about. :)

Dan
PS. I guess that, contrary to what Beijingophiles claim, China's Nine Dash Line (and the appropriation of the Paracels, the Spratlys, Scarborough Shoal, and all the international waters in between all the way up to Taiwan) does actually matter after all, and might be worth fighting against. Imagine that!