US asks China to explain why it needs aircraft carrier Options

[NigerianPride]

I wouldn't mind China acquiring some naval bases in the Pacific...

I mean, if you are a military strategist.. no base is better than Guam or Hawaii.

So its just realpolitik? Like the way Europeans and Japanese went about snatching up lands regardless of what the natives thought around 1910?

Why Guam ur Hawaii though, why not some poor islands that would really benefit from Chinese presence instead of resent it?

I mean Papa New Guinea is extremely poor (btw its one of the few islands still occupied by South East Asia's original inhabitents who were dark skinned)... if China wanted to spend a lot of money developing it and subsidizing them like the US did Guam and Hawaii they'd probably be open to it. I'm betting there are a number of other such islands where China could purchase the rights to a base.

US military spending is very questionable. Look at this table:

It's excessive, but also really inefficient. As a percent of GDP its comperable to many other countries, like Russia. Also US spending is going down both in real terms and as a percent of GDP in future budgets. The opposite of what it would be doing if US were ramping up to threaten China or something.

Also a good bit of that US spending is just for stationing troops in countries that do basically nothing, like Germany or Italy. But those governments don't want them to leave because they prop up the local economy, when US reduced spending and closed bases in Germany in the early 90s a lot of Germans lost their jobs.

This post has been edited by NigerianPride: Aug 21 2011, 11:14 PM

[Megapower]

Um, China is a developing nation - you shouldn't expect so much out of her.

Your imposing European/Japanese first world nation guilt on a developing nation, doesn't really work so well, because Chinese can say - they started it first, and we are behind.

This post has been edited by Megapower: Aug 21 2011, 11:12 PM

[NigerianPride]

Um, China is a developing nation - you shouldn't expect so much out of her.

Your imposing European/Japanese first world nation guilt on a developing nation, doesn't really work so well, because Chinese can say - they started it first, and we are behind.

So because one nation has some Islands in the pacific, China needs to go get some too, regardless of what the natives think?

You do realize, this is exactly what the US said when it went to war with Spain (We must have an empire to defend ourselves). This is what got France rolling on building its empire (We have to compete with Spain), what got the English going in their colonization. Japan followed exactly the same line of reasoning.

It has nothing to do with being first or third world, developing or not, Japan was still developing when they went around conquering and killing natives. What matters is the will of the people there, if China makes them a deal and they agree to a Chinese presence, more power to China. Anyway this is a totally hypothetical argument since no one but the most crazy leader in modern day has plans to go around and annex land permenantely by force, the last guy to do that was I think Ghaddafi, who wanted to invade and steal a bunch of land from Chad by cleansing it of blacks. Not even Bush tried to annex Iraq or even permenantely staiton troops there (US is leaving in a few months likely).

[Yerroperil]

What's wrong with China building bases on islands, as long we provide economic aid.

[NigerianPride]

What's wrong with China building bases on islands, as long we provide economic aid.

Yeah exactly dude, thats what im saying. I'd also like China to build some bases in Africa, and help the development. The more China, Europe and US compete with each other the better the deal is for Africans.

Same in the pacific. I'm just saying theres no need to focus on Guam or Hawaii where people are already doing well there and would vote to stay with the US, there are so many other thousand islands that would benefit a lot from the Chinese. There are many many poor islands who need help.

[Yerroperil]

Chinese bases in Africa is kind of stretching it,not near the U.S., maybe Northern Africa since Europe is close. The only problem with Chinese building bases in Pacific is that the U.S. will go berserk and think red dawn is coming...

[Megapower]

Sittwe, Burma

Coco island, Burma

Kyahputa, Burma

Gwadar, Pakistan

Hambanota, Sri Lanka

Chittagon, Bangladesh

Maldives

Dude, China is bringing massive economic investment to create port facilities (China's secret is infrastructure) and is getting naval bases all in the Indian ocean.