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I agree in concept since thats just an obvious operational reality like how china got H100s through alternative sources, but ultimately it still means its a critical bottleneck that was neither defended against nor avoided in advance.
I think its fair to say that this forum accepts the disadvantages of immigration as prima facie but the cultural overhang of the 2010s is casting a shadow too long and comprehensive to be avoided. I sincerely think the Chinese century will be worse for the world, mainly because the global efficiency subsidy of the pax americana has benefitted many smaller nations that would have fought unnecessary kinetic conflicts without uncle sams threat Implication. China is more likely to revert to a neo-Ming semi tributary system to focus on its internal population and if the rest of the world burns in unnecessary conflict what impact could it have on the heavenly kingdom.
The Chinese certainly have naturally isolationist tendencies but I think even they know that in the era of engineered global pandemics, nuclear weapons (whose proliferation is an inevitable consequence of the end of Pax Americana) and A(G)I, they will have no choice but to be involved, especially given their location at the edge of ongoing potential conflict zones between India and Pakistan, the Koreas etc.
The British and Dutch also started with purely mercantile aspirations, but the trouble with that is that eventually tribe #2 decides it wants to destroy tribe #1, and all your valuable ports and factories and mines are in tribe #1’s territory, so before you know it you’re a colonial power.
China doesn't care which tribe runs the ports, only that the trade flows. Balochis could exterminate every Pakistani but as long Gwardar port remains open for COSCO it doesn't matter. Similarly, choking down chinese cock doesn't matter if you have something they want like the Filipinos are experiencing.
Chinese supplies both rebels and Junta in the Myanmar Civil War and Thais as well as Cambodians in that war. It aided North Vietnam and then slapped it to stop the Soviet pivot. China is friend to all and none, uninterested in eschatological ideological alignment. I'm not even convinced Taiwan is a real desired conflict as much as it is an internal justification for taking the fight against the USN outside Chinese territory.
Rogue state proliferation is a major concern and that may force expeditionary interventions but for the moment the USA is keen to take that burden for itself. Ironically the most likely rogue state China is concerned about is North Korea, and that damocles hanging over South Korea and Japan is equally aimable at China. Pakistan falling would see India or Israel get nuked by jihadis, Russia falling would probably see Israel or USA get the brunt of it. In the cascading list of great satans the dispossessed third world wants dead, China ranks relatively distantly.
Neither did the British at first, but eventually you have no choice but to care, because the other side might ally with someone else or extort you for more.
Sure, but in a regional total war a key revenue-generating asset like that is getting bombed to nothing on day one, so the practical outcome is that they are invested in that kind of conflict. Comparative trifles in Burma (which are a little more complex than ‘supporting both sides’ I’d say, though my understanding is far from comprehensive) don’t suggest otherwise. Agree mostly on Taiwan, though one can’t discount face.
I think the chance that China emerges unscathed from nuclear war involving all the largest powers on its border is very, very low. Involvement in several forms would be inevitable, and at that point the likelihood of getting nuked increases significantly. As for the Islamist threat, ‘rogue nuke’ is very 1990s; it is possible but I suspect the next major attack will have another format. China is less safe than you think; vigorous imprisonment and surveillance of the kind unimaginable in the West have reduced the number of domestic attacks, but I wouldn’t discount the very substantial number of jihadists now in Central Asia and elsewhere with a very strong grudge to bear. Russian collapse doesn’t mean that nukes will fall into the hands of Islamists who want to nuke the USA or Israel either, in fact given the locations of key sites and the personnel and staffing structure of the relevant agencies that is relatively unlikely.
More specifically, state failure doesn’t happen overnight and the respective officials with knowledge of all devices and sites will gladly trade that information to the Americans and/or Chinese in exchange for money and safe passage to a life in Gulf exile a week before the storming of the presidential palace.
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