Edited by zooterkin:
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Moderated material and response removed.
In actual point of fact, I am very concerned about this, and certainly wouldn't even attempt to argue that it's "all ok". But the reasons for that are different than the more superficial slant given by TA.
I don't think China's doing this so much to assert aggression internationally...and if push
really came to shove, they'd back off. But the plain fact is, they know that push won't come to shove. Hell, Putin is
actively invading sovereign states, and the West is just sitting around moralizing and condemning him, without taking any real action to stop him. And China at present has far
greater strategic importance than Russia does...the West simply does not want to get into a direct confrontation with China right now.
And China knows that.
However, as FMW pointed out, this is being done much more for local consumption, than to threaten the U.S., or other countries. China's heading for a major crisis, and everybody knows it. Banks (all state-owned) are crippled by massive bad loans. Real estate is being sold at ludicrous prices, creating a bubble that is in all likelihood going to burst fairly soon. With the internet, Chinese are becoming far more informed about what is happening both inside and outside of China, and more vocal in expressing disagreement and discontent with their government.
So the Chinese government is doing what it always does whenever it starts to see control slipping away, when its citizens start criticizing it. It doesn't try to defend itself. It just creates an outside enemy, demonizes them, preaches unquestioning nationalism, and then sits back comfortably as it successfully redirects all the anger and frustration of its citizens at some external target.
Problem is, it is backfiring. What isn't reported in much media at all is that the Chinese reaction to this posturing has been largely negative. While most Chinese quite adamantly support China's claim to this territory, they do not like threats of violence, war, etc. In the past, it's always been China's assertion that they are the victims, that it is aggression by others that is the threat...but now, it is the Chinese government actively threatening aggression.
So far from the desired goal of redirecting Chinese anger and frustration, it's actually as yet another item for Chinese to complain about (although all such efforts to do so are censored and denounced as unpatriotic).
There are very serious issues here. China's heading for a crisis, and instead of taking practical measures to prepare for it, the government is burying their head in the sand, and using tactics that no longer work to try to simply re-direct criticism and anger elsewhere. Essentially hoping that if nobody talks about the problem, then it won't happen.
The greatest threat isn't Chinese aggression due to a desire to expand their territory. The greatest threat is that, if an internal collapse becomes inevitable, the government may choose to start a war to avoid it. Wars jump-start economies, they redirect anger, they feed patriotism, and they provide a convenient excuse (other than government incompetence) for whatever internal problems they may have.
And in the final analysis, if China did officially take control and establish a permanent military base there, I doubt that the U.S. or other Western countries would do anything more about it than they have with Putin (and quite possibly less). A war with China would be extremely costly; it would be undesired by most ASEAN members; and given how dependent the U.S. economy is on China right now, it would also mean a massive blow to the American economy.
