CV-17 Shandong (002 carrier) Thread I ...News, Views and operations

[vesicles]

Why the complicated explanations? China is an independent country and thus has every right to develop the most advanced military to protect the Chinese people.

Just like everyone has the right to bare arms to protect themselves. Just because I have guns at home, it doesn't mean I'm going to shoot everyone in the neighborhood. My guns are for protection and for fun (not shooting people, of course... well, unless they trespass...).

Similarly, Chinese military is for protecting the Chinese people and Chinese interests. Simple as that. nothing to explain. Nothing needs to be explained.

 

[Richard Santos]

Why the complicated explanations? China is an independent country and thus has every right to develop the most advanced military to protect the Chinese people.

Just like everyone has the right to bare arms to protect themselves. Just because I have guns at home, it doesn't mean I'm going to shoot everyone in the neighborhood. My guns are for protection and for fun (not shooting people, of course... well, unless they trespass...).

Similarly, Chinese military is for protecting the Chinese people and Chinese interests. Simple as that. nothing to explain. Nothing needs to be explained.

"Right" is a simple minded justification to satisfy simple minded inqueries. Intelligent players in geopolitics don't do things because they have the right to, they do things out of very carefully considered cost and benefit analysis. "Right" is then offered to satisfy those who can't keep up with those considerations.

 

[vesicles]

"Right" is a simple minded justification to satisfy simple minded inqueries. Intelligent players in geopolitics don't do things because they have the right to, they do things out of very carefully considered cost and benefit analysis. "Right" is then offered to satisfy those who can't keep up with those considerations.

"Right" is a legal justification and the foundation for any argument on such subject.

Intelligent players in geopolitics won't ask questions like "why does China need to develop its military?". It should be a mutually accepted concept. No chess masters would ask dumb questions, such as "why do you want to play (or even win) a chess game?" They strategize moves and counter-moves and aim to defeat their opponents. Hence, intelligent geopolitical players are more interested in the "how", but not the "why", in any situation.

As such, simple minded questions require simple minded answers. And that's why I asked "why all the complicated answers". We are indeed dealing with a simple minded inquiry.

 

[Richard Santos]

That there ought to such a thing as legal right is the total and complete extent of the mutual agreement. Mutural agreement does not systematically extend a millimeter further. Legal justification for tailored right is dime a dozen, and freely produced in bulk by every Tom, Dick and Harry, and wantonly tailored to suit every interest. For every legal right you think you have there can easily be found fifty legal justifications, just as earnestly believed, for why there is no such right for you in this particular case.

When chess players play, they don't make moves because they have the right to. They make moves only because they think it will bring them closer to winning or further from losing. In so far as they follow rules, that's because it is a GAME. International relationships are not games. The only rules are not artificial concepts of right, but possibilities and impossibilities imposed by reality.

 

[kwaigonegin]

I've been curious for a while as to how China benefits from building aircraft carriers. If you look at the economic growth China has sustained over the past 30 or so years, the majority has been done under the security provided by the United States Navy. Given that the United States has been so granting to Chinese economic growth over this time period, why has China rushed to establish themselves as the military power in the Pacific. It seems to me that it would have been easier to let the US maintain that position, while reaping all the economic benefits that stable shipping lanes entailed.

.... because China is a sovereign country with a huge yet to be realized potential and China's economic rise while no doubt was attributed in large by a relatively peaceful western pacific due to US hegemon and power, makes no guarantee of future results. We could have a mad man running the country tomorrow (let's hope not) and change the rules entirely.

Also it's a symbiotic relationship especially when it comes to economy. The US has benefited tremendously as well from this relationship. Let's not pretend that we did this out of the goodness of our hearts and I say this a loyal American. To think otherwise is naively gullible.

While I personally like the US Navy to be the SOLE power in the entire world, and be the ONLY policeman on the block ..lol ... I also realize that is not necessarily a good thing not realistic. As the saying goes.. absolute power corrupts absolutely. At the end of the day the US protects US interest and US interest only as we should. Not Chinese interest, not Japan interest etc.

China cannot bank on the fact that both our country's interest will always align 100% of the time all of the time and they shouldn't.

 

[AndrewS]

Because the security the US has hitherto provided to china is incidental to the US protecting a global system where its own position as the hegemon in the west pacific is secure and it uniquely benefiting economically from its post WWII position as the lone superpower in the system of world trade and finances. This position is sustainable so long as the US remain by far the largest developed economy.

China's ambition is to become a fully developed nation so that its citizens on average enjoy a fully industrialized standard of living. Because China's population is 4.5 times that of the US, in order for china to become fully developed its economy per force will become much larger than those of the US. The US can not remain a credible hegemon in west pacific, or the lone superpower, or even the leading superpower, should Chinese economy become comparable to the US economy in technological and industrial sophistication and percapita productivity.

Therefore by default if china were to become fully developed, the system which had benefited American since the end of WWII and which America had defended and only incidentally facilitated China's initial rise from 1979 to,circa 2008, would be overthrown.

Since 1989, the singular characteristic of American relationship with china had been that even as American seeks to maximize the economic benefit of trade relation with china, America could not reconcile itself to the form of society and government china has adopted. It is not what china and the chinese government does, but what the china and the Chinese government is, that America can not reconcile itself to. Therefore, china does not believe there is any hope that through its actions it can mollify American concerns about Chinese rise. China believe American will be inflexibly hostile to any china whose average citizens threaten to approach American standard of living and hence whose country, by virtue of its larger population, must surpass America in total economic power.

This is why china feels it is not plausible for china to to attain the level of development comparable to America's without first attaining a level of military power sufficient to deter America from committing itself to forstalling that development by subverting China's government or territorial and resource interests.

The optimistic view is that in the event of a China which is 4x bigger than the USA in every category, the USA will have no choice but to reconcile itself to that reality.

Like when the British Empire passed over leadership of a liberal trade/investment order to the USA.

 

[Richard Santos]

The optimistic view is that in the event of a China which is 4x bigger than the USA in every category, the USA will have no choice but to reconcile itself to that reality.

Like when the British Empire passed over leadership of a liberal trade/investment order to the USA.

Implausible. When Britain contemplated a rising United States in the late 19th and early 20th century it was through the lens of a heavily inbred Anglo Saxon moneyed class that is shared between Britain and the United States. So Britain was reconciled to not only what the United States does, but also what it is, where the interests of its monied and political classes lie.

In afdition, Britain is also not only increasingly weak relative to the US, Britain was increasingly weak relative to Germany, Russia, and if geographic vulnerability is factored in, Japan. Not only is Britain unable to match American potential, Britain's chances of being able to independently oppose the other rising powers were also becoming increasingly tenuous. So for Britain, it was not a matter of whether to yield its leadership position, but to whom. Obviously the US, being closest to British. In culture and convergence of upper class interests, is the inevitable choice,

Neither of these factors applies to the relationship between the US and China. The US sees the Chinese ruling class with ideological hostility. There is no other true threat to American preeminence than china. For the US it is not a matter of to whom to relinquish leadership but whether it can leverage its current position to forestall the rise of its only serious potential challenger.

 

[delft]

Implausible. When Britain contemplated a rising United States in the late 19th and early 20th century it was through the lens of a heavily inbred Anglo Saxon moneyed class that is shared between Britain and the United States. So Britain was reconciled to not only what the United States does, but also what it is, where the interests of its monied and political classes lie.

In afdition, Britain is also not only increasingly weak relative to the US, Britain was increasingly weak relative to Germany, Russia, and if geographic vulnerability is factored in, Japan. Not only is Britain unable to match American potential, Britain's chances of being able to independently oppose the other rising powers were also becoming increasingly tenuous. So for Britain, it was not a matter of whether to yield its leadership position, but to whom. Obviously the US, being closest to British. In culture and convergence of upper class interests, is the inevitable choice,

Neither of these factors applies to the relationship between the US and China. The US sees the Chinese ruling class with ideological hostility. There is no other true threat to American preeminence than china. For the US it is not a matter of to whom to relinquish leadership but whether it can leverage its current position to forestall the rise of its only serious potential challenger.

OT
Something like that happened more than three centuries ago. Already in 1689, the year after the Glorious Revolution and with the Holland Stadhouder becoming King William III of England the Amsterdam town council recognized that England would soon become economically and militarily stronger than the Dutch republic and peace between them continued until the Dutch chose the side of the American rebels and established diplomatic and trading relations with them.

 

[Richard Santos]

England and Holland first fought three wars, and Holland and England both feared Louis XIV's France, which at that time surpassed the combined war waging potential of Britain and Holland. Holland in particular being vulnerable to a land attack from France which it could not possibly fend off by itself.

The key to existing hegemon gracefully ceding its hegemonic position to a rising power lies in the existence of other mortal threats to the existing hegemon that it can not fend off, and must rely on the rising power to help secure its own position.

The US has no other serious challenger than China. Holland faced the overwhelming land power of France across a few irrigation canals. Britain relied on a vulnerable global trade network without which its industrial homeland will starve. In addtition it is also vulnerable to cross channel invasion.

The US, on the other hand, is uniquely difficult to depose from its hegemonic position both for its geographic isolation, and its large size and relative self-sufficiency. The US can defend its hegemonic position more easily than china can seize it, hence there will be no graceful bowing out of the US.

The notion china will have as easy a rise to global hegemony as past hegemons since the 16th century is unrealistic.

 

[vesicles]

That there ought to such a thing as legal right is the total and complete extent of the mutual agreement. Mutural agreement does not systematically extend a millimeter further. Legal justification for tailored right is dime a dozen, and freely produced in bulk by every Tom, Dick and Harry, and wantonly tailored to suit every interest. For every legal right you think you have there can easily be found fifty legal justifications, just as earnestly believed, for why there is no such right for you in this particular case.

When chess players play, they don't make moves because they have the right to. They make moves only because they think it will bring them closer to winning or further from losing. In so far as they follow rules, that's because it is a GAME. International relationships are not games. The only rules are not artificial concepts of right, but possibilities and impossibilities imposed by reality.

You sound like you are teaching a lesson to a naive 10-year kid... I hope you don't actually think of me as a simpleton as you imply in your lecture...

I don't understand why you are arguing with me on this... I believe we are talking about the same thing. And we all agree that geopolitical strategies are made to extend a nation's own interests.

When chess players play, they don't make moves because they have the right to. They make moves only because they think it will bring them closer to winning or further from losing.

This is exactly what I meant. That's why I said:

No chess masters would ask dumb questions, such as "why do you want to play (or even win) a chess game?" They strategize moves and counter-moves and aim to defeat their opponents.

This is also why I said:

Hence, intelligent geopolitical players are more interested in the "how", but not the "why", in any situation.

I like to stress that I used "right" as a "simple minded response" to a simple minded question. I consider the question unworthy of spending time to come up with sophisticated answers. hence I said:

As such, simple minded questions require simple minded answers. And that's why I asked "why all the complicated answers". We are indeed dealing with a simple minded inquiry.

I believe this is what you were referring to as well. We have no disagreement.

Again, I don't consider "having the right to doing something" is an answer to anything, as I have stressed numerous times in past posts. I decided to invoke the "right" because I thought the question of "why China needs to develop its own military" was so naive that it didn't deserve our effort to come up with a sophisticated answer, similar to the follow example:

I am walking in a park. A police comes to me and asks: "what are you doing here?" My answer: "this is a public place and I have the right to be here." Of course, you should know that I don't simply go to the park because I have the "right" to go. I go there because I am burned out and need a little break. Plus, I need a little exercise to maintain health. But I don't want to waste my time explaining all my reasons to someone who just asked a stupid question. Hence, invoking the "right".