Nuclear War either today or Tomorrow

Sorry slightly off topic.
I tend to think our trade with China is mostly one way traffic, I'm sure we must import much more from them than we export, or are ever likely to in the near future.

Much of this kind of thing, not just China but other countries as well, is what ruined our manufacturing industry.
Free trade, as they call it, has not been good for the west, apart from the consumer getting very cheap, but often inferior products.

I'm sure in the bad old days a 1% tax on all imports could have solved our debt crisis, which we are told we have right now.

 

http://investwirral.com/wirral-waters/international-trade-centre.aspx

Read that.. China are massively important to our economy.. and will be. locally speaking China investing in the local area is going to make us a financial goldmine... and perhaps some of that will leak to the wider British region as well. China and Liverpool have a VERY good relationship in the past (not just financially, but culturally too)... and I for one hope that continues. (for economic reasons)

 

I hesitate to say, is this is what the UK needs.

Its called investment in the UK, but basically its foreign companies moving into Britain.
So we are not only dependant on them for the goods they ship in, we are now dependant on them for jobs at home as well.
OK, I know its work for people but not much is British anymore.

What we actually need is British companies selling abroad, and at home.
The government might like it as it gets the dole queue down and hopefully, if they feel like it the companies might just pay a bit of tax.

 

I was reading something earlier, which of course I can't substantiate, but some chap who worked high in the ranks of Chinese government has apparently been sacked for going public with China's view of the NK problem.

If this chap is to be believed, China sees NK as a 'headache at a time when they are trying to sort out their own reform'.

In any case, we don't need to worry about China getting into the fight. China supports NK because its easier to do so than to fight them, and because China would rather have for a neighbour a regime that is not too dissimilar in its principles to their own. I've said it before and I'll say again. China can't fight us or the US because if they become an enemy of NATO, they can not trade with us, which means they go back to being completely flat broke like they were not too many years ago. China's time of extreme poverty is still in living memory for the people there. It is not something they read about in history books, its what they remember it, and they wont want to go back to it. Another reason China will be reluctant to join in is because they know that they have more than a few enemies right on their own doorstep. Enemies that cant do much harm to China under normal circumstances, but would be likely to seize any opportunity while China is 'distracted'. Disputed territories like Tibet and Taiwan immediately spring to mind. Neither is capable of being anything more than a nuisance to China, but China is very precious about being united as a republic, and they will not want their own colonises to give them grief.

So between the risk of infighting, and the even bigger to risk to their economy, China simply can't join in.

 

The NK may have millions of troops but times have changed and this doesn't matter as much when you have the following:

Drone's
http://www.theuav.com/

Sound Cannon's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Range_Acoustic_Device

Microwave Cannon's
http://rt.com/news/weapon-us-microwave-cannon-363/

All you need to do it turn up the power on those last two and you've got yourself a near-fatal ammo-less weapon. I don't think we or the US have anything to fear from them, I think they know this also.

“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
George McGovern

 

China is on our side. Note, when I say 'our side', even though it is South Korea and the US that is being threatened, the US are incapable of war without Britain so that means we're in it too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22139959

The whole region around and including China is in a permanent state of flux as it is. Lets not forget that the whole region has been in conflict for pretty much the whole of recorded history, and has only recently found tentative relative peace through a combination of oppression and requirement for trade. The far east is like nitroglycerine. Its stable at room temperature as long as nobody shakes it up. NK is currently threatening to shake it up. If they start this war, they will cause a lot of problems for a lot of powerful nations, including China. If they don't start the war but keep up with the threats, they will destabilise the whole region. If you were a CEO of some multinational, would you be thinking about outsourcing to a region that is at imminent risk of war? Probably not. Not least because the big insurers would want too much money for the various business insurances, but also because there would be far too much risk of sudden embargos harming your business, so the region loses out. As China is most of that region, that means China loses out. Also if you are a CEO of some multinational, you have to consider how will you move your consultants and management team in and out of the region? If airlines wont go because its too high risk, then your business suffers, so you don't place work there. No matter what happens, China's economy is in jeopardy now, because of North Korea. China will not allow that to happen. They can't start the war for all the reasons I've just outlined. They certainly can't side with NK. They know this but don't know what to do about it, that's why in a surprise twist, they are following the US lead on this for now. Effectively they are siding with the hand that feeds them.