Quote: magicjay said: Do you guys really think China will unilaterally invade the North American continent with an expeditionary force? Wouldn't they need to have a really BIG Navy? At present they don't even have an aircraft carrier! The PLAN is building up but they're ambition extends no further than a green water naval force capable of projecting Chinese power as far as Guam by the mid 21st century. PLAN currently is capable of no more than active offshore defense. The challenge they present to the US is largely economic. In that arena they are a formidable competitor. The 'invasion' is happening today: Chinese businesmen arriving in 747 armed with Yuans. Not PLA soldiers in battle fatigues.
Not North America, but possibly Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, or oil-rich Indonesia.
In normal circumstances, I don't think the Chinese would make war with the United States, so long as China continues growing economically, remains politically stable internally, and doesn't have any emerging or growing shortage of resources.
But as Pariah linked above, the danger is that China --with a rapidly expanding but volatile economy, even though their economy is expanding at about 10% a year, there is huge disparity in incomes within China, and huge migration from impoverished farms to major cities in search of better wages. So much urban population growth and pressure to accomodate that growing urban population with food, housing and jobs, that China's economy, rapid as its expansion is, can barely contain it.
I read an article excerpted from a book on China, where the author projected an economic collapse in China within five years. (I read it in print, wish I could find the article now to link).
The concern is that China, in the face of massive civil unrest, would attempt to unify the nation and eliminate internal rebellion by pulling a "Wag The Dog" with Taiwan invasion, to unify the divisions in their country. And possibly go to war with other nations to get oil and other resources they desperately need ion ever greater quantity.
It should also be pointed out that the very existence of Taiwan, a part of China under non-Chinese rule, that is the last remnant of the Chiang Kai-Shek government that the Communists overthrew in 1949, exists in defiance of a unified China, and of a Communist China.
It is a symbol of defiance that the Chinese leadership is burning to destroy.
Similar needs drove Imperial Japan to pursue an expansionist policy, as detailed in The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang.
Imperial Japan --who actually allied with Britain and France during World War I-- found itself screwed in the two decades after 1918. Japan was shut out of trade, and its impoverished citizens were even denied the ability to immigrate in pursuit of work.
China, while it would prefer the easy path of economic expansion, may at some point feel it is easier to seize the resources it needs from other neighboring nations. And it is rapidly expanding its military resources to meet that need.
( And I assume PLAN = People's Liberation Army Navy.
A rather ominous acronym. )
