THE TORRENTS

 I am moving ahead in my studies of China and found this tonight as I was reading some more Spengler.

Westerners think of a nation in organic terms: Nations begin with a common language, culture, and religion. They coalesce from tribes and clans, and then decide what sort of state they will have and what those states will do. The reverse has been true in China since its earliest beginnings, shrouded in legend and unearthed by archaeologists: The Chinese state created China, not vice versa. The core of the country is the enormous flood plain defined by the 8,000 miles of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. Taming the floods and irrigating the fields made it possible for successive Chinese dynasties to assimilate peoples who still speak 200 dialects today out of six major language groups. This is not a new or original assertion: Karl Wittvogel’s 1957 book Oriental Despotism, among others, presented a similar thesis.

I bolded the core sentence that the author uses to say that China is nothing like what we think it is. 

 Right now everyone in the West believes deep down that we have both the military might and the economic muscle to compel China but any rational mind that looks at the situation will know that this simply isn't so. I am not happy that so many of the higher levels of government, military and academic keep bleating about how we must prepare to defeat or deter or counter Chinese who are doing.........

To put it in simple terms, if the wheel continues to go around then things have a chance to settle down but right now China needs those resources it is harvesting all over the world in order to keep it on its feet economically and socially. Lodging embargoes or sanctions on China because it is behaving in its own best interests for its own continued survival are bound to have negative consequences that probably exceed in size and scope anything dreamed of by the nitwits and morons pontificating about 'dealing' with China.

Do read the rest of the article at the link.