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posted by takyon on Monday April 20 2015, @06:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the group-of-two dept.

China intends to invest $46 billion in infrastructure links to Pakistan:

The focus of spending is on building a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) - a network of roads, railway and pipelines between the long-time allies. They will run some 3,000km (1,865 miles) from Gwadar in Pakistan to China's western Xinjiang region.

The projects will give China direct access to the Indian Ocean and beyond. This marks a major advance in China's plans to boost its economic influence in Central and South Asia, correspondents say, and far exceeds US spending in Pakistan.

[...] Some $15.5bn worth of coal, wind, solar and hydro energy projects will come online by 2017 and add 10,400 megawatts of energy to Pakistan's national grid, according to officials. A $44m optical fibre cable between the two countries is also due to be built.

The Great Game lives. Different players, same game. Equally large implications. Diplomacy game geeks, awake! Who are the players, and what's the play?

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @12:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @12:10AM (#173335)

    The players, as I see them:

    Europe

    Yes, people make fun of Europe for being fractious, ill-coordinated, inward-looking, and largely pacifist. Europe is still a huge economic player, with a lot of top notch manufacturing, research and development capacity. At least some parts of Europe are capable of hitting, and hitting quite hard (both UK and France have nukes, for instance, and smallish but highly competent military organisations). Europe mostly counts as a unit, however much they snarl at each other, because if there were any serious assault on any part of Europe, it's a smart bet that the whole subcontinent would unify the response (or almost all of it). They've also done a solid job of creating economic links, so their interests really are shared at some level.

    Europe is showing every sign of being more interested in soft power than hard, and development rather than expansion. However, this provides something of a physical buffer between Asia and the Atlantic, while capping the Mediterranean. Nobody in Europe (well, nobody sane anyway) would consider a long march East, but modern Europe also defines a western limit to any russian dreams of expansion, which brings us to ...

    Russia

    Biggest country in the world. Massive natural resources. A population only half that of the USA - you would think that Russia could go nuts with an internal growth and infrastructure plan to beggar belief. A modern-day counterpart to the USA's homesteading, settlement and expansion plans would turn Russia into a real bear, but right now Tsar Putin (I'm sure he thinks of himself in roughly those terms) is spending more time and energy swinging his dick at the world and trying to impress everybody, while mostly impressing the home crowd (which is good for his tenure) and making the rest of the world nervous (which is bad for foreign relations). That said, Russia is smart enough not to push too hard, because Russia is big enough to be ringed by some very big players indeed.

    This makes me think that Russia is being effectively mismanaged (no surprise given the corruption figures) and will probably slip in the international stakes. Regardless of what happens in the Ukraine, in Georgia, and in the 'stans, Russia's investment of time and energy is probably bigger than any return, once international suspicion and hostility are counted.

    India

    India is basically shambolic. A vast population, usefully huge natural resources, but the kind of poverty and messy politics which really screws up development. In some ways India has the opposite problem of Russia. In Russia, Vladimir gets what he wants. Things happen. Not always smart things, but things happen. India as a nation gives a strong impression of chaos.

    This doesn't mean that India can be discounted. Also a member of the nuclear club, a credible military, and India's intellectual and technical elite are second to none (partly, but only partly because of India's exports and re-imports of technical expertise to the USA and Europe). However, India is spending more time trying to build India, and stare down Pakistan and China over disputed territories, than trying to expand like Russia.

    The interesting part is that India may be finding more of a taste for commercial power, as witness the election of the current government. If this continues, and India's wealth, education and general coordination improves significantly over the next few decades, watch out. We may all be worshipping the almighty Rupee instead of Dollar.

    Africa

    Sorry, a bad joke. Nobody in Africa is big enough to swing a global stick. The closest approximation would be if somehow a caliphate managed to coordinate North Africa, but given the positively toxic politics of Asia Minor and Mediterranean Africa, I don't see that happening any time in the next century.

    China

    China went from a weak hand fifty years ago, to a steel fist in a velvet glove. They spent a long time building the steel, and softening the glove. Now they're a big player. Militarily, they are probably the biggest in their area although India and Russia are credible and redoubtable competitors. China shows no sign of wanting to fight either one of the above, which is smart. China has also realised that simply gobbling up neighbours doesn't make friends, and that while internal media can be censored and internal dissidents bullied (though more about that in a moment), international players on the same scale can't as easily be silenced. This has turned China to the firm pursuit of soft power at range (South America, Africa) and increasing aggression nearby (building a sea border in the South China Sea and elsewhere nearby). There's no reason to particularly believe that conquest at the point of the bayonet is in China's game plan, but that might change with some rapidity if China's commercial interests can be used as proxies and pretexts, the same way that european chartered companies became proxies and pretexts for european meddling in China. Watch this space with care.

    Internal dissent may be China's biggest headache. Not everyone in China is a fan of China. This is a good reason to believe that China may have decided that China is big enough. What would another conquered, but consistently unruly captive population do that China's corporations can't do across borders? If I were to bet, I would anticipate that the chinese may be taking their space programme a lot more seriously than many guess, and may be looking at interplanetary power plays. For example, there are strong cases to be made that Venus would be easier to terraform than Mars, and the chinese leaders (many of whom have engineering backgrounds) would also consider that asteroid bases would be a position of strength for further expansion. This may sound crazy, but the folks who lead China think very big, very long term, and very technocratically. So there are risks? So what? China has a long history of being comfortable with sending people to their deaths in the national (chinese) interest.

    Brazil

    The biggest, most infrastructurally advanced (by some measures) country in South America. Is also a confirmed neutral, wants no real part of international politics beyond maintaining the status quo. A loud voice regionally, but beyond the region not all that significant.

    USA

    The world's policeman is showing many signs of disgust with the role. Still the biggest, toughest, hardest-hitting, most technically advanced, and by some measures the most experienced and hard-nosed military in the world. It is clear that the USA's taste for conquest at this stage is effectively nil. If it weren't, it would have been politically a lot easier to simply take and hold Afghanistan and Iraq, and manage them on a generational basis to do real nation-building - but instead the USA's population insisted (in electoral terms, anyway) on getting out, so conquest, even creation of temporary regional hegemonies, is a thing that the USA doesn't do these days.

    The likeliest role for a while, for the USA, will be as a sort of senior partner in multiple alliances. NATO, the western Pacific (Korea/Japan/Australia/New Zealand/Philippines/various others), the caribbean (not counting Cuba) and of course the NAFTA countries.

    The Big Picture

    Some of the big players are playing monopoly with small players. The Middle East is a case in point, as is Ukraine, but there is no reason to believe that any of the big players are spoiling for war with each other (Russian demonstrations notwithstanding). At this stage everyone is mostly showing interesting in more wealth and technical advancement. Colonialism has largely gone out of fashion, inasmuch as it relies on guns. Now it relies on money and ideology. I anticipate the next couple of decades will be, unless Russia goes berserk or China suddenly becomes acquisitive, a cold war of commercial interests (outside current conflict zones).

    Black Swans

    A few things could change the picture very quickly. Here are two major ones:

    Revolution/Devolution

    Russia, China and the USA all have problems with substantial internal disgruntlement. China has not yet managed to silence Tibet, nor pacify Xinjiang. What isn't commonly known is that at the same time as the protests in Beijing which were famously suppressed, there were popular protests across China. Cynicism in China is strong and constant. Russia's disagreements are a bit more open, but attempts at manufacturing consent in Russia show signs of being constant battles rather than propaganda triumphs. And in the USA, the divide between pro-government, or pro-federal groups and anti-federal, or anti-government groups shows every sign of deepening. A civil war might not be imminent, but there are certainly good reasons to believe that if a nationwide rift were to form, it might end up being permanent. It turns out that what's good for Connecticut and California, doesn't necessarily play well in Kansas.

    But this is all guesswork.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday April 21 2015, @03:59AM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday April 21 2015, @03:59AM (#173387) Journal

    Terribly nationalistic thinking there.

    Worldwide, we're facing too big problems: greed and climate change. Climate change has killed civilizations before. We're much more knowledgeable and powerful, but we are most definitely not immune. We can live in peace if everyone chooses to do so. What I find frightening is that a lot of people won't settle, no they want more, more than the other guy. They would launch the nukes, for power and money. Some of our nuttier Christians really do want a war with the Muslims, because they're so sure we'd win and be able to take over and exploit the region. Exterminate all the Muslims then we can do that go forth and multiply thing. Fill the land with the children of Christians, and keep control of all that oil. Some really would rather live in a messed up, ruined world with destroyed civilizations where our total wealth is only 1% of what it is now, as long as they have more than their neighbors.

    If climate changes gets bad, it could push the nuclear powers into desperation. If they get desperate enough, they will think about launching the nukes. If they actually do it, it's game over for our civilization.

    • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 21 2015, @07:57AM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday April 21 2015, @07:57AM (#173443) Journal

      Dude I'm a socialist atheist and even I know it AIN'T the Xtians strapping bombs onto 14 year olds and having them drive bikes up to banks, that would be the Muslims. You look at every country with Sharia law? Its like turning back the clock 2000 years, with stoning of gays and rape victims, cutting the hands off thieves, say what you want about the Xtians but they haven't been THAT whack-a-doodle for quite a long time.

      While I personally would be happy if you threw ALL the religious books in a fire (since its obvious that humans can't handle fairy tales about sky bullys) you'd be damned lucky if you needed 2 hands to count the number of Xtian terrorist attacks in a whole year, you'd probably run out of fingers and toes counting Muslim suicide bombers in less than 3 weeks, its really no comparison.

      --
      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 21 2015, @05:35AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday April 21 2015, @05:35AM (#173404) Journal

    I think that seeing the fault lines in terms of nation-states is missing most of the picture these days. It's outdated. Nevertheless, it's interesting that you didn't mention Japan at all. Unlike China, they are a relatively harmonious society. They can mobilize on a dime, and they have the cash and the tech to do it. They have also traditionally been the counter-weight to China in the region. They might be again. Also, South Korea has really come on strong, and if China starts throwing its weight around it's a safe bet that Korea and Japan would bury the hatchet and pull together with ASEAN to form a united front. The news this week that China's building military air strips on disputed islands is sure to ratchet up tensions.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.