Quote: Pariah said: Wouldn't have been able to do it without Hong Kong.
What on earth makes you say that?
Guangzhou province in the south is the size of France with the same economic output. France, lest we forget, is the world's 4th or 5th most significant economy.
Shanghai is booming, too because of its location. Hong Kong has recovered from when I lived there, but its hardly the economic centre it was in the 1980s. Its lost out to Singapore for regional economic influence.
I live in Western Australia which is the main beneficiary of China's boom. All those Chinese made stainless steel pots are forged from Western Australian iron ore and nickel, heated with Western Australian gas. Its a boom time here at the moment.
Incidentally, I agree that a war over Taiwan is very likely while the Communist Party is in power, although it won't happen until after the Beijing Olympics. More likely though is that Taiwan will eventually capitulate to the one country two systems concept currently in place (and more or less working very well, despite some hiccups) in Hong Kong until 2049. I also think a war with Russia is also likely in the long term, over the Russian Maritimes and its oil reserve. Already Siberia is flooded with Chinese. China virtually runs the place.
A Chinese invasion of the United States is a ludicrous proposition. But do you guys remeber when that spy plane was shot down over Hainan Island (I've been there by the way - nice place with pearl farms, notorious for hookers)? That was because the US, with its long range fleets, constantly annoys the crap out of China by running observation missions on the edge of Chinese sovereign airspace, to test reaction times of scrambled fighter planes. China only has a littoral fleet and can't do the same. I'm hardly sympathetic to China, but no wonder they view the US as a threat.
