An English historian, Jeremy Black, who has devoted several pages to the Franco-English rivalry during the "Second Hundred Years' War", explains that one of the reasons for France's failure was its inability to forge alliances, to change them too often and to worry other countries in the region.
The United Kingdom, on the other hand, has built up a solid and reliable network of alliances, enabling it to make the most of its capabilities.
Could China face the same problem?
Do you think that one of the problems China could face in its rivalry with the United States is the lack of solid, reliable alliances?
Leaving aside Taiwan, nobody else in close proximity to China seems to have a very chummy relationship with the Peoples Republic. You could think Vietnam should as a communist country but NO! Vietnam fought a war with China and beat it. You could think Soviet Russia but NO! the two countries came close to nuclear exchanges.
You could think India is quite chummy with Brics etc but NO! India fended off a Chinese border incursion at the exact time, Covid-19 was occupying was pushing every other headline off the world's headlines.
Most recently China has published a map which now includes an island that was partially under Chinese control and partially under Russian control as within it's borders. Included within the new map, China has added an extra dash to the nine dash line that UNCLOS found illegal. Does anybody think there is much respect for China's claims to the South China Sea?
Overall the further your countries capital is from Beijing the probably the better is your relationship. Mendicant countries like Argentina and South Africa will suck up free cash but good luck getting it back PRC! Reputedly some African countries just laughed when China broached repayments for belt and road - most of that debt can be described as doubtful if not bad debt.
What I can say is that Australia had a sense of shared history with the UK. When UK declared war in WW1 & 2, Australia followed to a large degree because there was a sense of family involved without coercion or force. The UK has never put our backs up.
I suspect with former French colonies there might be a sense of compulsion and expectation that just doesn't exist in the Commonwealth of Nations. We expect everybody to be happy with everybody in the Commonwealth.
I don't think so. The CCP knows that US allies are dependencies who will not be of much use (some will not be of any use) to the US in case of war and are more interested in doing business with the CCP (thanks in part to bribes or the pressure from the business elites of their own society).
The CCP doesn't do alliances- it does debt traps and business arrangements that are convenient to it that it uses to its own advantage. The US has also foolishly driven Russia into the CCP's sphere of influence although the CCP is by far the only real threat to Russia, both economically and militarily.
The weakness of the CCP is its heavy, command-economy hand on its economy and its economic relations with other countries.
A bigger problem is energy... China has less than 17 years of oil left. The USA is the big dog of oil production and refining... When it comes to coal, China has less than 50 years of coal left. America has the largest coal reserves in the entire world. China is in deep shit. Energy use and GDP are positively correlated... Without it, China has no economy, they starve to death by the millions because they can't even produce enough food for their citizens. They are dependent on importations. America is the largest food exporter in the world. If China rubs the USA wrong, they are fucked.
It's even worse than that. To keep themselves industrialized, They need more oil than they produce. But that puts them completely reliant on countrys like Russia, shipping through Europe, and the Middle East, shipping around India. Both of those trade routes are highly vulnerable.
@Grond21 We have the oil/coal but they have the majority of the 17 rare earth minerals, to the point that they massively overpaid (at many estimates 6x fair market) for the mining rights of Afghan mines with no intention of extracting them just so nobody else can get them out of the ground. If we want our computer chips and lasers, they'll get their oil.
@strateguy632 You made it to 47 and you think 17 years is a long time? You're out of your mind. That's one generation. China is in a position where their primary resource is human labor in an industrial sector run by fossil fuels. Their products need to be transported globally to continue to eat. The only options for China are war to acquire new territory with energy resource, become a vassal state of an energy/food super power, or die.
@BoopBoopBeep The United States has the second largest rare earth metal output in the world and the 6th largest reserves at 2.3 million metric tons. Just over our northern border in Canada there are another 15.1 million metric tons of rare earth metals that need capital investment/development. Sure, China has 44 million metric tons of rare earth metal reserves, they just don't have the energy to get them out of the ground.
@ibodi The USA who is the world leader in the technology is optimistically decades away from Nuclear fusion energy and is leaps and bounds ahead of China. Sorry to break it to you, but you will likely face mass famine in China in your lifetime.
You dont know the phenomenon of an empire fall down. China is leading it but of course I think American nerd suit to it but you know other street youngers think nerds are not cool. Chinese are not so. so rely on systerm is more realtic.
I could see China getting desperate and resorting to an invasion of India for their coal, oil, and arable land... China's closest ally is Pakistan who already has issues with India and there is constant border friction between the countries. They might make sort sort of deal to divide up the territory if a larger world war were to break out... That said I think China will continue their attempts at soft power in the near future to try to acquire the resources they need. That said, they will still decline by doing so... It's just an attempt at buying time.
@ibodi I don't know what you're trying to voice... Maybe you're talking about the Federal Reserve dollar hegemony issues and you think that's the "end of an empire"... The Federal Reserve isn't the USA, it is a private corporation acting as a central bank. It is in fact the USA's third central bank in history. We previously ended two other central banks. Each time a central bank was ended in America, we became more prosperous. So what you think is the end of Ameria, is really just a new beginning for us. The USA throwing off the shackles of central banking makes us stronger. The opposite of what you think is happen, is what is going to happen. As I said America is the big dog of energy, which makes us the big dog of economy by default. Currencies come and go, they don't change the real wealth of nations...
@rigmarole Annually we put out 26,000 metric tons. China puts out 168,000 metric tonnes. That's like me bragging about getting second place next to Usain Bolt when all the other competitors are kids in wheelchairs.
I don't think 17 years is a long time, I think we'll cave for REE/REM before they cave for oil that they cannot get from Russia, plus, China would think nothing of starving out another million people and cutting off their oil supply entirely. Americans are weak. We don't have the internet for a week and people are ready to kill themselves. We can't go without air conditioning much less oil. Kids are "traumatized" because they had to wear a mask in school.
@BoopBoopBeep It sounds to me like you're projecting. No American had to wear a mask, weak people like you listened to a geriatric want to be dictator with dementia that mandated you wear a mask when he had no legal authority to do so. You obeyed because you're a good communist. The bulk of America told him to go get stuffed...
I more care my theory to decide my action to live good. Fed rely on theory too but I don't see that is better than French... etc. It is also about living under the view of mercantilism in China they are convinced so act so. but American is really mercantilism. Chinese learn it just to face USA but inside are not so. they have their road to go. presently USA is trouble that mean it will be better without USA
@rigmarole I lived in asia where everybody wear's masks. For years. Doesn't traumatize me in the least. The kids didn't have a choice at all the schools I've read about. I'm not a breeder. Couldn't tell you firsthand.
I'm not sure if you mean Fauci or Biden there. Trump? We had mandates under both presidents. Who are you talking about? A great many adults didn't have a choice, because it was wear a mask or don't go to work. Not everybody has the luxury of saying no to that.
You think we're still a tough society? Go call some bluehaired freak with 10 facial piercings the wrong pronoun and watch the mob erupt around you. You are 52 years old surely you remember a time with fewer fragile snowflakes out there.
I've been called a great many things. First time I've been called a communist. You're clearly never read any of my posts. Welcome to G@G.
I'm not projecting anything. I lived in asia for 4 years where everybody's worn masks for decades. Doesn't bother me in the least.
Is that Fauci, Trump or Biden? Who are you talking about? All three contributed to mask mandates. The kids had to wear them if they went to school. At least everywhere I know. I'm not a breeder so that's not firsthand. People had to wear masks if they were going to work. Not everyone has the luxury of saying no to that based on their principles. The "bulk of america" did no such thing, because they can complain about it all day long but they still put them on.
You are in your 50s surely you remember a time when society wasn't so weak. Go find some blue-haired freak with 10 facial piercings and use the wrong pronoun, see how the mob descends on you.
I've been called a great many things. Communist has never been one of them. You've clearly never read anything I've written, so welcome to G@G.
There is another factor that hasn't been addressed here. Chinese food supply, imports, exports, energy consumption, and the whole economic model it uses depend on this.
Namely cheap international trade.
America allows the oceans to be safe for international trade, and has for 70 years. This fact alone has allowed China and many other countries to industrialize. Without that international trade guarantee, the cost of any trade internationally drastically increases. So much so that many economies that depend on it would completely collapse If there is an increase in price of even 50% of the bulk of cheap goods. And by an incredibly large margin, China is at the top of that list.
If that safety and security goes away, China will collapse within a year. They have no ability to secure their own trade routes.
@BoopBoopBeep I read what you posted right here on this thread and that told me everything I need to know about you and your belief system. In America the hierarchy is God > Constitution > People > Government. We are an individualist society that operates on principles laid out in the Constitution and Judeo-Christian morality. A core value of all Americans is to stick to the principles and hold people accountable for breaking the code. There is no one that can tell us to wear a mask. The people are above the government on the American hierarchy so the strong person will stick to their principles, stand their ground firmly, and tell tyrants to go eat shit. You in contrast feel people should obey illegal orders just because they came from the central government. You are am authoritarian slave… This is the same reason you think people have no choice but to comply when it came to their jobs. You feel people are weak, because they did not comply with illegal orders, when in reality the weak people are those who follow and do comply. That individualism is where America’s strength has always come from. It doesn’t matter if it’s a new innovation that goes against the established way of doing things, an entrepreneur that starts their own business to make their own living rather than pandering to some corporate leader that is breaking the law, or a commander on the battlefield that exercises their individual authority and agile and adaptive leadership to gain initiative rather than waiting for orders from a central dictator… How you look at issues, exposes how you really think and what you really believe. So you can shine shit all day, but in the end it will still be turd. You don’t think like an American, and you don’t have American values. You are a collectivist authoritarian which is exactly what communism is….
@Grond21 I agree with you. A dominate American Navy is what allows a global economy to exist on a sustainable level in this era. Without the American Navy policing the seas with total dominance, the world goes back to chaos as piracy rises and privateers fighting for their own piece of the pie as they intercept shipments for their own country.
Possibly. I think China's biggest problem is its dependence on selling manufacturered goods made by cheap labor to the west and using the sale to buy the resources it needs to grow and its inability to maintain and build infrastructure.
China has no real major allies. Any possible allies like Russia or more like a rival and other potential allies like Pakistan that are already in the with America will use China to get better trade deals with the US.
China fears being blockaded in the south China Sea by S Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and India. Possibly Vietnam too.
China's both problem and strength is his government. A dictatorship is good to control everything happening in your country and "erase" anything going wrong.
But people will always try to find more freedom, and despite the PCC's resilience, there will be a moment where people will realize what the regime really is. People will see, more and more, what the world is outside, and what they can wish for. Especially after the pretty brutal covid repression.
On the other hand, people could think that a benevolent totalitarian regime is better than any corrupted democracy. And tbh, I couldn't blame them.
Not really. China is leagues better than the USA in soft power projection. They used to be completely isolated but that became the catalyst for them to turn this into their strength.
Now they have indirect control over a lot of countries, especially in Africa and Asia. China has many problems but "alliances" (more like Chinese imperialism) is not one of them.
@Agagagagaga No, this is factual. You can for example track how much support China has had in the UN over time and see that they keep securing more and more allies to cover their ass when they do crimes against humanity. It started out by China being essentially alone and today they have almost half of Africa alone in their back pocket because of their foreign investment schemes.
Meanwhile, what has USA actually accomplished recently? Quite frankly, USA can almost not even organize a piss-up in a brewery. The west is more or less trying to distance themselves from USA as much as possible to get away from whatever fallout is coming from that direction this month.
In an all out Asian hemisphere war scenario they would find out the hard way that they stand alone (North Korea notwithstanding). But in peace times they have other problems, the end of a decades-old economical boom, aging society, rivalry from their democratic (and now larger) neighbor India and, probably worst, the limitations and restrictions an oppressed and controlled society displays in itself.
China and Russia have tensions over their overlapping sphere of influence in Central Asia. China and India don’t really get along too much. China and Pakistan get along but china’s treatment of its Muslim population could possibly effect that.
china treatment is only "suppressed extremist ones" as a famous arab representative anounced a few months ago. the "treatment" isn't considered anti-muslim, by muslim leaders, because even muslim say it is aganst the extremists.
Absolutely. China has absolutely apocalyptic problems with its energy, its food production, it's government, it's military, and it's trade. The lack of any dependable alliances is the death knell for that country.
They are not making any new contracts and eople are pulling away. Despite high volume, there is no growth. Only apparent growth because they are printing money. Their military is not very strong at all in the ways that matter.
You don't think so. They have Russia. They have Iran. They have Syria. They have North Korea. They have Venezuela. They have Serbia. Basically all the countries that hate America.
No they don't have Russia, it's more complex than that, in reality despite the demonstrations of Love, these two countries distrust each other, even more knowing that they have border rivalries.
As for the rest, it's all a joke. If you compare the economic, technological and military levels of these countries, they're insignificant compared to the power of the United States.
Whereas among the alliances of the USA there are at least the 5 greatest military and economic powers in the world.
18.6K opinions shared on Society & Politics topic.
Sure, China keeps screwing with its currency and stealing tech from its trade partners. Bad business.
But I think it’s food and water issues are more important.
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They may have a pact with India, Russia and others. But apparently the shipping routes are very problematic for China if the US and China fell out in a big way.
Home > Society & Politics > Questions > Do you think that one of the problems China could face in its rivalry with the United States is the lack of solid, reliable alliances?
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