Re: China to buy Eurofighters?

On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 16:27:31 GMT, Chad Irby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "Adrian" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> "Scott Ferrin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>
>> > In my opinion selling them top of the line stuff is the height of
>> > stupidity.  It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what the
>> > situation is going to be with China and the West in ten to fifteen
>> > years.
>> 
>> Please explain. I see no conflict coming.
>
>China has a lot of "issues" of the type that usually leads to war in one 
>way or another. 
>
>They're on the edge of running out of oil, and don't have a strong 
>enough economy in most other respects to let them buy enough for their 
>near-future needs.  There are, however, areas in their vicinity (Siberia 
>and Malaysia for example) that have oil.

And Russia is a declining power; many have speculated on an eventual 
Chinese takeover of Siberia.

>The Chinese government, despite the perceptions of some, is fairly 
>nasty, 

Indeed, they have a far-from-perfect human rights record.

>and the Taiwan situation alone could make things go very bad, 
>very fast.

That's true.

>It wouldn't take much for a single event to push China over the edge.  A 
>major earthquake at the Three Gorges Dam after it's filled up, for 
>example.  In one stroke, they would lose much of their future electrical 
>generation *and* a lot of their crops and industrial production for a 
>year or two.

I imagine the Chinese have thought about this.

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