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Comment by local_issues | Hacker News Reader

BRICS org doesn’t actually mean or do anything, and as should always be mentioned:

- India and China fucking hate each other and engage in frequent deadly border skirmishes

- Same with Iran and Saudi but without the border

- Egypt and Ethiopia are dick inches from a war, and not backing down

Maybe BRICS org can help fix some of that but unlikely. More likely this will go the way of the African Union, CARICOM, and ECOWAS - aka a lot of noise but no material change

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> - India and China fucking hate each other and engage in frequent deadly border skirmishes

One insane fact I recently learned is that they do not use modern weapons, like guns, for fear of things getting out of hand. Only medieval clubs, bats with barbed wire, and martial arts/fists are allowed. [1]

[1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a44725757/...

It is a mutual understanding.

Improvised clubs with embedded nails, rebar and wooden bats ala Mad Max style. Both are nuclear armed nations, so it is sort of de-escalation mechanism for saving face whenever they clash without somebody taking it up a notch.

They have a working agreement that allows no weapons within two kilometers of the demarcation line. Hence the medieval weapons.

That's to add one additional rung to the escalation ladder. It's a good thing.

China is more dependent on Middle Eastern oil more than any other single country in the world. And in a potential breakdown of relations with the US (... and Japan.. and the Philippines...and everyone else in SE Asia) they going to have to get that oil all the way home around the Indian Ocean. So they kind of need it to work.

JP/PH energy mix is much more reliant on imports. Same with SKR/TW. Most of ASEAN as well especially if they develop and increase demand/consumption. TLDR most other parties along MENA SLOC would have much worse time weathering energy disruption than PRC because they're mostly islands/small countries with limited domestic energy resources and hence wouldn't be retarded enough to disrupt and self sabatoge. PRC is a large land country with abundant resources, just not enough oil yet still large producer - large enough to ration while 80%+ energy production is from domestic inputs. Only spoiler is US, who has no energy security if they attempt to mess with MENA slocs to cripple PRC because that's a world where CONUS refineries go boom. Reality is PRC has more deterence against energy disruption than ever by virtue of now being able to disrupt everyone else's energy infra, most of whom would starve, literally sooner. Including US who has never been more vunerable because shale autarky means nothing when they've lost actual energy security because PRC can now degrade CONUS infra directly via global strikes.

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