On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 16:27:31 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:
In article ,
"Adrian" wrote:

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message

In my opinion selling them top of the line stuff is the height of
stupidity. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what the
situation is going to be with China and the West in ten to fifteen
years.

Please explain. I see no conflict coming.

China has a lot of "issues" of the type that usually leads to war in one
way or another.

They're on the edge of running out of oil, and don't have a strong
enough economy in most other respects to let them buy enough for their
near-future needs. There are, however, areas in their vicinity (Siberia
and Malaysia for example) that have oil.

And Russia is a declining power; many have speculated on an eventual
Chinese takeover of Siberia.

The Chinese government, despite the perceptions of some, is fairly
nasty,

Indeed, they have a far-from-perfect human rights record.

and the Taiwan situation alone could make things go very bad,
very fast.

That's true.

It wouldn't take much for a single event to push China over the edge. A
major earthquake at the Three Gorges Dam after it's filled up, for
example. In one stroke, they would lose much of their future electrical
generation *and* a lot of their crops and industrial production for a
year or two.

I imagine the Chinese have thought about this.

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