by Perry McCarney

Created on: June 30, 2009   Last Updated: April 09, 2012

A cold war is a conflict between two or more nations fought predominantly on political and economic grounds rather than through major military conflict. Although small scale military conflicts fought in geographical regions remote to those nations may occur; considered minor by the major antagonists although not to the small nations where such conflict may be extremely destructive. The extended Cold War between the nations of the West led by the United States of America and the Eastern Bloc dominated by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics tends to make us forget this.

Throughout the period of that Cold War there was a significant third player: Communist China. Initially a strong ally of the USSR after being supported in their conflict with Nationalist Chinese forces, with their successful conquest of mainland China political disagreements soon restored a traditional ethnic conflict between the two nations, despite both professing to be communist.

With the withdrawal of nationalist Chinese forces to the island of Taiwan, mainland China became a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by Chairman Mao. He might as well have been called Emperor Mao, the only difference was the title and the new aristocracy that supported him. While the leadership has changed over the years since, the basic authoritarian structure has remained the same. The concept of human rights are as much ignored today as they have been since Mao achieved power, and for that matter, were ignored under the Nationalist government and the multitude of warlords that dominated China before the rule of the Communist Party.

China today has unparalleled conventional military forces and unknown but presumed significant nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. The extensive border between China and the previous USSR and now Russia has seen frequent military conflicts rarely reported in Western news media. Their conventional military forces are therefore experienced, capable and well trained and prepared. Any presumption of technological or tactical superiority by the military forces of Western nations, even on an equal numbers basis, is likely to result in a large-scale strategic shock and significant initial losses on the part of any Western forces put into conflict with the Chinese military.

But China has no need to conquer the West by military force. The current economic recession has shown that they are already well on their way to owning the nations of the Western world. While the Western world suffers under a lack of capital, China is still flush with foreign currency.

There should be no surprise in this. The commercial enterprises of the Western world have moved more and more of their production capacity to China because it is cheaper. Not only are most of the legitimate products of the Western world now produced in China but most of the pirated products as well. After all, if you are producing the real stuff anyway, it doesn't take much effort to produce large numbers of pirate copies too.

In recent years the authorities of China have allowed the development of a technocratic class for two reasons. It gives the appearance of fundamental change towards a capitalist ideology consistent with the Western world and encourages a Chinese intelligentsia capable of competing with the research scientists of the Western world, especially since such scientists are being increasingly restricted in their research goals by short-sighted commercial requirements.

In many science fiction novels the 21st Century is presented as being dominated by the Pacific Rim nations. China is well on the way towards making such fiction reality.

Of course, this is all conjecture, opinion, supposition and paranoia ... isn't it?

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