dailyreckoning.com.au / By Dan Denning / February 6th, 2013
In today’s Daily Reckoning we revisit an old friend: China. That is, we revisit the importance of China to Australia’s economic, political, and demographic future. And we’ll take a look at China’s large influence on Australia’s present. And since we’re talking Pacific Powers in the Asian Century, Japan will make a cameo appearance.
There is a geopolitical aspect to the resource story that can’t be ignored. In fact it was almost a year ago that the entire China-Australia relationship was explored at our ‘After America‘ conference in Sydney.
By the way, almost all of the speeches are still topical and relevant. Steve Keen made a cameo appearance. There was Dylan Grice, Satyajit Das, Dr Paul Monk, and the entire cast and crew from The Daily Reckoning. We’ve nearly run down our final inventory of the six disc DVD set. But there are some copies left if you check soon.
In the meantime, Japan has entered stage left. ‘Japan accused China’s navy of locking weapons-guiding radar onto Japanese naval forces twice in the past three weeks – a serious escalation in the countries’ long-running territorial dispute that has heightened fears of a looming military conflict between the two Asian giants,’ reports theWall Street Journal.
It’s hard to imagine Japan and China going to war over a couple of islands. But then, devaluation makes for unhappy bedfellows. Nobody thought war between the European powers was likely in 1914 either. You put some well-armed warships in the same neighbourhood and who knows what can happen?
Still, it seems unlikely two such large and mutually dependent trading partners would come to blows over unpopulated islands. This is probably a test to see how the US will react as China begins to flex its military muscles in the region. Around 37,000 US soldiers are stationed in Japan. Does the US back Japan as a regional power to counter-balance China? Or does it do nothing? The Chinese are probably keen to find out.
Recent Comments