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> (oil and coal) via road, which I don't think is currently feasible They'll be able to ship oil via rail and pipes from Western Siberia and the Russian Far Ea

> (oil and coal) via road, which I don't think is currently feasible They'll be able to ship oil via rail and pipes from Western Siberia and the Russian Far East pretty soon, which, granted, is not as cheap as sea transport but is good enough. I think they have enough coal available inside China's borders. I still cannot understand what the US strategists think when they're throwing the Russians (and their huge mineral resources) directly into China's hands. On this Kissinger is of course right, i.e. he mentioned recently that back in the day the US was careful not to diplomatically "fight" against both China and the USSR/Russia at the same time, for good reason.

ericmay 4y ago
> I still cannot understand what the US strategists think when they're throwing the Russians US and NATO and the West gave Russia all the opportunity it needed to integrate and they refused. Also the resources don’t matter much. Ok so China buys them cheaply from Russia, and then the US buys them cheaply from other producers, and China keeps making products. What’s the issue?
- paganel 4y ago
  Russia does not want to "integrate" (i.e. adopt Western "values" for the benefit of those Western countries), Putin has said that out in the open back in Munich, in 2007, I thought this global hegemonic thing that the US has had been left out somewhere in Iraq or/and Afghanistan. > and then the US buys them cheaply from other producers, and China keeps making products. What’s the issue? Afaik the US doesn't produce as much, it's China that does. In case of a future proxy war between China and the US cutting access to mineral resources might have been one of the main tactics adopted by the US. It's easier to do that when China brings in its resources via marine transport (it's a well established fact that the US dominates the planetary oceans), way harder to do that if said transport of resources is carried out "inside" a huge landmass like Eurasia.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    > Russia does not want to "integrate" (i.e. adopt Western "values" for the benefit of those Western countries), Putin has said that out in the open back in Munich, in 2007, Then I guess I'm confused about your comment: > I still cannot understand what the US strategists think when they're throwing the Russians (and their huge mineral resources) directly into China's hands. It seems you understand yea? Russia doesn't want themselves or their minerals in the hands of the West. > I thought this global hegemonic thing that the US has had been left out somewhere in Iraq or/and Afghanistan. No, it's just continued to evolve. Moving out of Afghanistan for example left a mess in the backyard of Iran, Pakistan, and China. Iraq so far has been a flawed, but growing in success endeavor. > Afaik the US doesn't produce as much, it's China that does. Sure, but that's not a lack of ability. > In case of a future proxy war between China and the US cutting access to mineral resources might have been one of the main tactics adopted by the US. It's easier to do that when China brings in its resources via marine transport (it's a well established fact that the US dominates the planetary oceans), way harder to do that if said transport of resources is carried out "inside" a huge landmass like Eurasia. I think there'd be a direct war. But I'm not sure you're disagreeing with me? The point I made was that the US Navy dominates the oceans and would block marine transport to China. In order for China to pivot into a defensive mode here it would have to spend a lot of noticeable money on infrastructure development for a future war that may or may not occur depending on its own actions. If China preemptively launched an attack and didn't build out this infrastructure, then it would be blockaded. If it did build out this infrastructure but didn't attack then it spent a lot of money for no good reason. Certainly the option is to try and build these networks in case of launching an attack, but that would happen regardless of US action.
    - paganel 4y ago
      Not being on the US side does not immediately correlate with being on China’s side, or, more exactly, it shouldn’t mean that. What Russia said it wants, several times, is a multi-polar world, so (for example), a world with the US vs Russia vs China (again, just as an example). The US is doing its best to make this into a world of US vs China+Russia thing. That’s also the thing, blockading something by sea only makes sense if you blockade something of real value, so to speak. Right now that would work against China because they bring many valuable things by sea, a big part of that being mineral resources (iron from Australia, I guess copper from South America, oil from the Persian Gulf). If China can bring that stuff by land instead of by sea (so from Siberia/Russia instead of Australia and Chile) then a maritime blockade will have almost no discernible effect. And lastly, I think money is not an issue for countries like China in this type of situations/scenarios, as in they’re not doing a cost/benefits analysis based on financial reasons, so to speak, they’ll be thinking along the lines of “does spending all this money make us just a little more ready against a war with US, no matter how unlikely?”, and if the answer is “yes” I think they’ll go for it, they’ll put that way above the financial well-being of the Chinese population (who will bear the costs for this). At the limit, that’s how a country like North Korea has been functioning since its inception, that’s how the former USSR was functioning at the height of the arms races against the West in the ‘70s and ‘80s, that’s how the West itself functioned for short periods of time in the past (during WW2, for example). That’s why when I see so many analyses (and I’m not targeting your comment, I’m thinking mostly about the Western media) that focus first and foremost on the economic thing in this type of scenarios I strongly believe that they fail to see the true nature of this confrontation.
ivan_gammel 4y ago
> They'll be able to ship oil via rail and pipes from Western Siberia and the Russian Far East pretty soon Not even close to that. Transsiberian railways are already operating at full capacity, mostly due to re-routed coal exports. Both rail and pipes will take a decade to build to re-route supplies to China from sea to land.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  You overestimate how long it would take to build a pipeline from China to Russia in wartime with no regard to cost. The transsiberian railway isn't operating anywhere near the capacity of the rail itself, it just doesn't have enough rolling stock. The recent upgrades weren't to increase maximum capacity, they were to increase capacity at cost by increasing maximum train length and maximum speed. Nothing prevented there to simply be more trains, it's just less economical. In wartime this matters little.

ericmay 4y ago

> I still cannot understand what the US strategists think when they're throwing the Russians US and NATO and the West gave Russia all the opportunity it needed to integrate and they refused. Also the resources don’t matter much. Ok so China buys them cheaply from Russia, and then the US buys them cheaply from other producers, and China keeps making products. What’s the issue?

paganel 4y ago
Russia does not want to "integrate" (i.e. adopt Western "values" for the benefit of those Western countries), Putin has said that out in the open back in Munich, in 2007, I thought this global hegemonic thing that the US has had been left out somewhere in Iraq or/and Afghanistan. > and then the US buys them cheaply from other producers, and China keeps making products. What’s the issue? Afaik the US doesn't produce as much, it's China that does. In case of a future proxy war between China and the US cutting access to mineral resources might have been one of the main tactics adopted by the US. It's easier to do that when China brings in its resources via marine transport (it's a well established fact that the US dominates the planetary oceans), way harder to do that if said transport of resources is carried out "inside" a huge landmass like Eurasia.
- ericmay 4y ago
  > Russia does not want to "integrate" (i.e. adopt Western "values" for the benefit of those Western countries), Putin has said that out in the open back in Munich, in 2007, Then I guess I'm confused about your comment: > I still cannot understand what the US strategists think when they're throwing the Russians (and their huge mineral resources) directly into China's hands. It seems you understand yea? Russia doesn't want themselves or their minerals in the hands of the West. > I thought this global hegemonic thing that the US has had been left out somewhere in Iraq or/and Afghanistan. No, it's just continued to evolve. Moving out of Afghanistan for example left a mess in the backyard of Iran, Pakistan, and China. Iraq so far has been a flawed, but growing in success endeavor. > Afaik the US doesn't produce as much, it's China that does. Sure, but that's not a lack of ability. > In case of a future proxy war between China and the US cutting access to mineral resources might have been one of the main tactics adopted by the US. It's easier to do that when China brings in its resources via marine transport (it's a well established fact that the US dominates the planetary oceans), way harder to do that if said transport of resources is carried out "inside" a huge landmass like Eurasia. I think there'd be a direct war. But I'm not sure you're disagreeing with me? The point I made was that the US Navy dominates the oceans and would block marine transport to China. In order for China to pivot into a defensive mode here it would have to spend a lot of noticeable money on infrastructure development for a future war that may or may not occur depending on its own actions. If China preemptively launched an attack and didn't build out this infrastructure, then it would be blockaded. If it did build out this infrastructure but didn't attack then it spent a lot of money for no good reason. Certainly the option is to try and build these networks in case of launching an attack, but that would happen regardless of US action.
  - paganel 4y ago
    Not being on the US side does not immediately correlate with being on China’s side, or, more exactly, it shouldn’t mean that. What Russia said it wants, several times, is a multi-polar world, so (for example), a world with the US vs Russia vs China (again, just as an example). The US is doing its best to make this into a world of US vs China+Russia thing. That’s also the thing, blockading something by sea only makes sense if you blockade something of real value, so to speak. Right now that would work against China because they bring many valuable things by sea, a big part of that being mineral resources (iron from Australia, I guess copper from South America, oil from the Persian Gulf). If China can bring that stuff by land instead of by sea (so from Siberia/Russia instead of Australia and Chile) then a maritime blockade will have almost no discernible effect. And lastly, I think money is not an issue for countries like China in this type of situations/scenarios, as in they’re not doing a cost/benefits analysis based on financial reasons, so to speak, they’ll be thinking along the lines of “does spending all this money make us just a little more ready against a war with US, no matter how unlikely?”, and if the answer is “yes” I think they’ll go for it, they’ll put that way above the financial well-being of the Chinese population (who will bear the costs for this). At the limit, that’s how a country like North Korea has been functioning since its inception, that’s how the former USSR was functioning at the height of the arms races against the West in the ‘70s and ‘80s, that’s how the West itself functioned for short periods of time in the past (during WW2, for example). That’s why when I see so many analyses (and I’m not targeting your comment, I’m thinking mostly about the Western media) that focus first and foremost on the economic thing in this type of scenarios I strongly believe that they fail to see the true nature of this confrontation.

ivan_gammel 4y ago

> They'll be able to ship oil via rail and pipes from Western Siberia and the Russian Far East pretty soon Not even close to that. Transsiberian railways are already operating at full capacity, mostly due to re-routed coal exports. Both rail and pipes will take a decade to build to re-route supplies to China from sea to land.

sudosysgen 4y ago
You overestimate how long it would take to build a pipeline from China to Russia in wartime with no regard to cost. The transsiberian railway isn't operating anywhere near the capacity of the rail itself, it just doesn't have enough rolling stock. The recent upgrades weren't to increase maximum capacity, they were to increase capacity at cost by increasing maximum train length and maximum speed. Nothing prevented there to simply be more trains, it's just less economical. In wartime this matters little.