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Comment by aryehhoffman | Hacker News Reader

Time does not stand still, and to assume that China will is foolish. With wealth comes power, and China's military will likely be unrecognizable in 30 years. To underestimate one's enemy is simply stupid.

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China has often been wealthy, but has rarely been able to conquer... anywhere. They're not the first, or twentieth, place I would look if I were worrying about foreign aggression.

China conquered China, unifying a large area of territory under one government. Historically, they have not shown much inclination to capture foreign territory and colonize it (even when they could have done so easily). Note that their current, de facto control of large areas of the African continent is a departure from tradition.

If they consider (or can rationalize) a territory to be rightfully part of China, then they will be inclined to be warlike. Right now, the presence of a large reserve of gas and oil in their area of influence, combined with increasing energy requirements in order to industrialize does give them a motive for war.

I think China is trying to build a nation that can thrive for another 1000 years. They're building great infrastructure and securing natural resources wherever they can. But they're doing it for the Chinese people. Invading foreign lands doesn't make sense in that view. But being patient on the Taiwan issue will pay off. Economics not militarism will likely lead to the reunification.

This is exactly it. This is the wisdom of the tiger.

> China conquered China, unifying a large area of territory under one government

The land between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers is relatively flat, making it easier for the Han to unite. When the grand canal was built, the economies of scale of trade made the Tang prosperous.

> Historically, they have not shown much inclination to capture foreign territory and colonize it (even when they could have done so easily)

I don't know if they could have captured foreign territory easily. The hilly southern areas weren't always part of China, but they took it over when they were able. China's surrounded by forests to the southwest, mountains to the west, deserts to the north, and ocean to the east and south, all hard barriers to penetrate. It's easier for nomadic cavalry from the desert to come down and raid, they often did and even ruled China for 100 yrs.

The Chinese then built a navy and probably would have taken over various ports along the coast from Vietnam to Tanzania, but the Ming leaders were so afraid the Mongolians (or similar) would re-invade, they closed down the entire navy and diverted all military resources to securing the northern border, building the Forbidden City and Great Wall.

Like all governments, if they can take over more land, they will.

Reagan won the Cold War by bankrupting the Soviet Empire; it would be ironic if China defeated the US by the same means.

Why would China want to bankrupt the U.S.? They're a massively export-dependent economy and the U.S. is one of their biggest customers.

Sure, but there is more happening than just that. If China decides it wants to pursue its territorial claims against Japan say, then the mere threat of dumping T-bills will give the US pause before intervening. China only really needs the US while it is bootstrapping itself into a developed economy - once it has huge internal markets, it won't need them.

What you're saying doesn't make sense. China buys T-bills to keep the yuan low and exports high, not to do us any favors. If they stopped tomorrow it would probably damage their economy at least as much as ours, and certainly wouldn't make it impossible for the U.S. to pay its obligations: After all, those obligations are something like 99.9% dollar-denominated, and the government owns the printing presses.

Interest rates would likely rise from their current close-to-historic-lows, but that's nothing that would scare the U.S. from defending one of its closest and most important strategic allies.

I'm really curious how you get from "China owns 8% of U.S. government debt" to "The U.S. would have to pause before defending Japan against Chinese territorial aggression."

Japan, by the way, owns 7% of U.S. debt.

8% is plenty enough to move the markets. You are assuming that China is a rational actor; it is not (nor is any country). It is a country well used to making sacrifices for what it sees as it's equivalent of Manifest Destiny. And they really, really want those islands...

The U.S. and China confronting each other over some islands would move the markets dramatically regardless of how China decides to allocate their foreign currency reserves.

I don't think there's any evidence that U.S. strategic planners consider the economic impact of defending the interests of our allies (particularly one as critical as Japan) as more significant than a third or fourth order effect.

And as I alluded to: If China's 8% is so influential on our strategic actions, why isn't Japan's 7% almost equally so? It's not as if the Japanese government couldn't pick up the slack if China started reducing its position in T-bills. There's likely no reason for them to, because unlike you, I don't believe foreign bond holdings represent any kind of serious lever in international relations.

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