Miscellaneous News

Due to the mistrust by Burma military towards the Chinese government, the CMEC was never smooth process. Except for the gas and oil pipeline, other big investment and projects were either delayed or outright cancelled.

The Myitsone Dam cancellation which cost China billions of dollars have dampened any aspiration from China. It is not until Aung San Suu Kyi multiple attempts to win over Chinese investment that China began to invest more heavily into Burma. However, big projects such as the railroad is still under feasibility study, the sea port investment was scaled back 80%, the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, the Cross-Border Economic Cooperation Zones, and the Yangon New City Development have not been materialized. So at the moment, the only investment from China are those factories. I would think China should just focus upon the Cross-Border Economic Cooperation Zones as Burma is a lost cause at the moment.

I agree it is never a good idea to invest in the Burma in the first place. However, it isn't easy to impose collateral for countries such as Burma when they just don't have much rule of law.

voyager1 said:

Thank you for clearing up some wrong information I had.

But why the whataboutism, nobody is talking about the western countries now, i am clearly refering to Myanmar which is in all intents and purposes a shithole. In addition, China also holds many similar sized investments in very political unstable African countries. Has China secured any collateral?

What will happen when CIA (yes it will happen) starts going after the unstable countries China has investments? I assume you saw how fast the Myanmar situation deteriorated and how fast the protesters organised themselves, i am sure they had good "leaders". And you saw how easily they directed anger toward China and then they burnt the factories.

I understand that Xi was.not in power when they signed this deal but now he is and he does not have any excuses if something similar happens now. As I said, withing the bloated BRI, he better select the core countries where China has interests and start requesting to shift a portion of their assets into China.

And lol on threatening chance of remaining in one chance of Myanmar. If any kind of civil war starts happening on Myanmar, CIA will be celebrating and throwing parties all day long. Can you imagine US and India funding different rebels in Myanmar....

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I am generally against naming any country as "failed state" or "shitholes". That are pretty much a western habit which I am strongly against.

Regarding the "collaterals", China may or may not have. But there is the saying "no risk no gain, big risk big gain". If you wait for all these countries to stabilize, you will never get BRI done. In an inappropriate analog, have you seen the Europeans avoided risks in their world dominance struggles? Some of them as UK and US were lucky winners, many were losers. But one thing is certain, China was the loser because China began to avoid risks long ago. Note, making this analog does not mean I agree with the western colonial acts back then.

CIA aside, who is the strongest rebel force and survive today? I don't need to imagine, I know which rebel is being funded by whom, and I know if they are still around and kicking. If the Myanmar leadership take care of China's interest, no need for the threat. If it doesn't that means it is siding with US or India, then the threat becomes real. In this case who cares if US and India get in the civil war? They are already in.

KYli said:

Due to the mistrust by Burma military towards the Chinese government, the CMEC was never smooth process. Except for the gas and oil pipeline, other big investment and projects were either delayed or outright cancelled.

The Myitsone Dam cancellation which cost China billions of dollars have dampened any aspiration from China. It is not until Aung San Suu Kyi multiple attempts to win over Chinese investment that China began to invest more heavily into Burma. However, big projects such as the railroad is still under feasibility study, the sea port investment was scaled back 80%, the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, the Cross-Border Economic Cooperation Zones, and the Yangon New City Development have not been materialized. So at the moment, the only investment from China are those factories. I would think China should just focus upon the Cross-Border Economic Cooperation Zones as Burma is a lost cause at the moment.

I agree it is never a good idea to invest in the Burma in the first place. However, it isn't easy to impose collateral for countries such as Burma when they just don't have much rule of law.

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Using war as an analog, the Dam is a lost battle. But as part of the strategy, it is something you have to try. Without that "failed" battle you may never win the war.

An example is Qian Long's war in Jing Chuan. It was a win with massive loses, one can say it is actually a failure, a war that doesn't worth it. But that "lose" secured the gate to Tibet preventing loosing Tibet forever. PLA entered Tibet in the 1950s without much bloodshed precisely through that gate.

Another example is also Qian Long's war with Myanmar. It was a total disaster from the perspective of military gain vs. cost, yet because it was fought when Myanmar invaded Thailand, it essentially saved Thailand which is a friendly state.

It is like playing in the stock market, one has to be prepared and accepts loses every now and then. One can not stop doing things just because previous setback.

taxiya said:

I am generally against naming any country as "failed state" or "shitholes". That are pretty much a western habit which I am strongly against.

Regarding the "collaterals", China may or may not have. But there is the saying "no risk no gain, big risk big gain". If you wait for all these countries to stabilize, you will never get BRI done. In an inappropriate analog, have you seen the Europeans avoided risks in their world dominance struggles? Some of them as UK and US were lucky winners, many were losers. But one thing is certain, China was the loser because China began to avoid risks long ago. Note, making this analog does not mean I agree with the western colonial acts back then.

CIA aside, who is the strongest rebel force and survive today? I don't need to imagine, I know which rebel is being funded by whom, and I know if they are still around and kicking. If the Myanmar leadership take care of China's interest, no need for the threat. If it doesn't that means it is siding with US or India, then the threat becomes real. In this case who cares if US and India get in the civil war? They are already in.

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Good point on naming conventions, I have to admit Trump terminology influenced me on that one..

On your second point i partially disagree. If China is banking on the "big risk, big gain" then agreed, that's a legitimate strategy for a great power. However, the British when they were building their Empire they didn't just hope for harmonious existence with the rest of the world, but they built the largest and most powerful Navy the world had ever seen to protect their interests, so they had "little risk, big gain".
The US after the WW2 started the massive Marshal Plan on Europe where they invested a lot of money, however by that time they arguably had the biggest military to protect their investments (and geopolitics but that's another story), so they also had "little risk big gain". And regarding China not taking risks and being a loser, I agree, it was criminal from the China side why they were left so much behind in the past.

But now China decided to launch the BRI and started massively investing in many politically unstable countries. So what does China have now to ensure that they can control the situation and dont become losers? It requires a strong military able to project force but that will take a long long time (IMO at least 20.years more). Thus, from now until 2040 the BRI investments could in theory go bust and China wouldn't be able to anything which forces it to go for "big risk, big gain" which is far worse than the US and UK strategies.

As for your last point, it would matter if a civil war happens in Myanmar as it is bordering China. CIA could supply some small missiles and then by "accident" they would often shoot into China. Or they could smuggle through the border, militias or weaponry into China or maybe start radicalising the chinese population there to cause terrorist attacks. So as you can see there are many other things the CIA could do.

foofy said:

Soft power is childish game. We don't play it anymore since very long ago.

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You are right.

China has soft power, but for several centuries it never bothered anymore because it does not need to.

Chinese soft power was always been shock and awe. That was Chinese civilization.

Xi Jinping, the stated policy is the rejuvenation of Chinese civilization, which kind of means shock and awe is back.

Who knows. If we read the Liberal media, seems like Chinese soft power of shock and awe is affecting some of the psyches of those reporters.

Those reporters could be developing a psyche problem.

voyager1 said:

On your second point i partially disagree. If China is banking on the "big risk, big gain" then agreed, that's a legitimate strategy for a great power. However, the British when they were building their Empire they didn't just hope for harmonious existence with the rest of the world, but they built the largest and most powerful Navy the world had ever seen to protect their interests, so they had "little risk, big gain".
The US after the WW2 started the massive Marshal Plan on Europe where they invested a lot of money, however by that time they arguably had the biggest military to protect their investments (and geopolitics but that's another story), so they also had "little risk big gain". And regarding China not taking risks and being a loser, I agree, it was criminal from the China side why they were left so much behind in the past.

But now China decided to launch the BRI and started massively investing in many politically unstable countries. So what does China have now to ensure that they can control the situation and dont become losers? It requires a strong military able to project force but that will take a long long time (IMO at least 20.years more). Thus, from now until 2040 the BRI investments could in theory go bust and China wouldn't be able to anything which forces it to go for "big risk, big gain" which is far worse than the US and UK strategies.

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Have to agree with this point. Yes, China's military projection is kind of behind its economy expansion for the past 10 years.

voyager1 said:

Good point on naming conventions, I have to admit Trump terminology influenced me on that one..

On your second point i partially disagree. If China is banking on the "big risk, big gain" then agreed, that's a legitimate strategy for a great power. However, the British when they were building their Empire they didn't just hope for harmonious existence with the rest of the world, but they built the largest and most powerful Navy the world had ever seen to protect their interests, so they had "little risk, big gain".
The US after the WW2 started the massive Marshal Plan on Europe where they invested a lot of money, however by that time they arguably had the biggest military to protect their investments (and geopolitics but that's another story). And regarding China not taking risks and being a loser, I agree, it was criminal from the China side why they were left so much behind.

But now China decided to launch the BRI and started massively investing in many politically unstable countries. So what does China have now to ensure that they can control the situation and dont become losers? It requires a strong military able to project force but that will take a long long time (IMO at least 20.years more). Thus, from now until 2040 the BRI investments could in theory go bust and China wouldn't be able to anything which forces it to go for "big risk, big gain" which is worse than the US and UK strategies.

As for your last point, it would matter if a civil war happens in Myanmar as it is bordering China. CIA could supply some small missiles and then by "accident" they would often shoot into China. Or they could smuggle through the border, militias or weaponry into China or maybe start radicalising the chinese population there to cause terrorist attacks. So as you can see there are many other things the CIA could do.

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I would wish the CIA good luck with that project!
There is a reason why they are focusing their energy on Burma proper. They already lost these border regions.

Here is a 2019 article about the town of Panghsang bordering China. It is controlled by the United Wa State Army.


I would especially note the bills the street vendor is trading in. Also note that the signs in Chinese are no accident. Wa State leader declared all signs should be trilingual (Wa, Burmese, and Chinese).

Tatmadaw already accidentally bombed Yunnan a few years ago while fighting these militias. It's actually the other way around, Burmese military is afraid of China smuggling more. If they are not careful, suddenly the rebels might find some surplus Type-95 AAA/SAM system.

So really, China probably already expected the results to speak for themselves. Maybe they expected too much? The border minorities have always been close to Chinese. Even if they are not "ethnic Chinese", they all speak Chinese and want to learn Chinese.

voyager1 said:

Thank you for clearing up some wrong information I had.

But why the whataboutism, nobody is talking about the western countries now, i am clearly refering to Myanmar which is in all intents and purposes a shithole. In addition, China also holds many similar sized investments in very political unstable African countries. Has China secured any collateral?

What will happen when CIA (yes it will happen) starts going after the unstable countries China has investments? I assume you saw how fast the Myanmar situation deteriorated and how fast the protesters organised themselves, i am sure they had good "leaders". And you saw how easily they directed anger toward China and then they burnt the factories.

I understand that Xi was.not in power when they signed this deal but now he is and he does not have any excuses if something similar happens now. As I said, withing the bloated BRI, he better select the core countries where China has interests and start requesting to shift a portion of their assets into China.

And lol on threatening chance of remaining in one chance of Myanmar. If any kind of civil war starts happening on Myanmar, CIA will be celebrating and throwing parties all day long. Can you imagine US and India funding different rebels in Myanmar....

Click to expand...

You're expecting China not to already have fixers and people in place to prevent against damages to its investments; China's already been investing in Africa since the 90s, under full view of western sabotage and economic hitmen, especially under the glaring jealous of france and the US who have attempted to sabotage Chinese investment.
And what is the actual result of all that?
Africa is as closely tied to China's economy as anywhere else in the world, and those ties are increasing.

Why wouldn't China already have its own people and assets in position in Myanmar, a country that borders China and isn't in africa or the other side of the planet?
To say nothing of the Shan State militia and other rebel groups who are supplied and trained by the PLA. In fact, i believe the Shan State is the only rebel group in existence with its own PLA supplied air force.

That's a bit of an interesting move.

The United States and Japan warned

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against “coercion and aggression” on Tuesday after their defence and foreign ministers met in Tokyo, on the first overseas visit by members of President

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cabinet.

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“China uses coercion and aggression to systematically erode autonomy in

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, undercut democracy in

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, abuse human rights in

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and

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, and assert maritime claims in the

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that violate international law,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters after he and the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin met Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi.

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Japan is getting into the action

“They are saying that China’s assertive behaviour and aggression has only come about under Xi and that under his predecessor, Hu Jintao, this did not happen,” he said. “They are blaming this on Xi and singling him out.”

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Haha they following the Long Telegram where they said they wanted to topple the Xi's regime and that after he is gone (with democracy of course) everything will be fine...