Solon_Mega said:
Ok from the joke comes seriousness. Like how that works.
I personaly dont think that china is a threat as you say. Of course it is becoming more and more like a resouce devouring Leviatan. But a war only makes this worse. If China already has problems in getting resources, and distribuig those resources evenly (not much communist in this department) a full scale war might raise that resource need treshold even higher, to a point where they might succomb in a lenghy conflict.
Strategicly, taking a region for resources means to take down any resistance, holding the ground against constant foreing counter-attacks, while at the same time rebuilding all the destroyed infra-estructure to even BE able to harness the natural resources. Not an easy task even if we only think locally. All the worse in a gloval war cenario. And lets face it, besides North Korea (Witch, without WMDs is just a sitting duck) China does not has many friends in his facebook acount. Unless you think Russia will step up for the job? Nah.
Altogh we tend to fantasy, China cannot, and I repeat: CHINA CANNOT ZERG RUSH THE WORLD.
We're pretty far off topic, however the point I think your missing is that there are finite resources on the planet, and they also aren't everlasting either. We're already depleting the supply of things like oil, wood, and metal at the rate of current usage as it is. In demanding a higher standard of living every bit of resources China claims effectively comes from what someone else is taking right now. Their standard of living increases, the standard of living of people in other countries goes down. In the end, letting China simply gain whatever resources it wants for it's own people destroys the socieities losing those resources. China of course isn't going to stop acting for it's own benefit and standard of living. That makes war inevitable. It's more of an "us or them" type conflict though, not some great battle between good and evil. I think one of the big problems is that a lot of people who think morally tend to think there is enough in the way of resources for everyone to enjoy a high standard of living on the planet, and everyone can just be tolerant, that's hardly the case. There are also other issues involved such as vengeance, and of course living space.
You are correct that China can't "Zerg Rush" the world, nobody has even claimed that. Right now the matter is one of China building up the infrastructure needed to project it's power. It's a relatively slow process, which is why a pre-emptive strike is possible. In RTS terms your dealing with more of a "tank rush" strategy where China is pretty much playing the defense game, building up the anti-satellite laser technologies, maintaining careful internal controls and trying to blind the world with their own version of the Iron Curtain. Once they feel they have the edge, that's when they are liable to go on the offensive. The big question is whether we continue to let them build that power up or not.
The manpower China can bring to bear is a factor not only because numbers tell, but because when it comes to taking over countries the bottom line is that you need to put boots on the ground. China represents roughly 1/3rd of the global population right now, which means that it's not likely to have any real problem holding territory if things come down to a conventional war. What's more it can literally attack with armies as large as the entire population of certain nations, not just their military.
China's attitude is not to be "zerg like" and absorb the losses, but to equalize the tech discrepency as much as possible, which is why things like that Yuan class sub, and what they are doing with ground based lasers is notable.
At any rate, it's not worth debating about, the bottom like is I tend to be a militant, you apparently do not. This has nothing to do with the thread on the whole, and ultimatly we're going to have to agree to disagree.
I kid, I kid)