Let's play connect the dots.

[solarbird]

Three news stories today:

China's new destroyers feature Aegis tech copied from U.S. - This is China saying, "Hi, we're the dominant regional military power in South Asia," even if they had to steal a lot of our technology to do it.

It is in no way coincidental that they are building a deep-water-capable navy, particularly given that shipping goods towards China through India is nontrivally difficult. Double-particularly given how, well, unstable places like Pakistan are, even if you have a pretty good friend on the other side of that country.

China takes first step to revalue yuan - This is China saying, "We feel we're now economically strong enough to let our currency climb a bit."

Probably also not coincidentally, since oil pricing is set in dollars, it reduces the price they pay for oil.

Congress to add 2 months to Daylight Savings Time - This extremely unpopular move apparently saves approximately 100,000 barrels of oil a day for those two months. It's also one of the things they could do to reduce oil consumption that is least likely to provoke resistance from large corporate interests who are not interested in changing anything about their business models. It's not much, but it's a start.

Comments

[starfallz.livejournal.com]

Hm. Will the DST change take effect this year?

[solarbird]

According to the article, if all goes at the rate planned, yes.

[poetry-lady.livejournal.com]

Ickyickyickyicky.

Someday, I'll move to Hawaii and not have to deal with this directly. But utnil then, phoey.

[banner.livejournal.com]

They did this once before when Carter was President. Has anyone looked at the data from back then to see if it really made any difference?

[solarbird]

From what I understand, a bunch - as in a lot - of energy savings programmes were put into place simultaneously. I don't know how you'd isolate that one out.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

"Winter back" doesn't have quite the same mnemonic appeal.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Oh, and as for the yuan reevaluation, it's only 2%. By itself, it's not much. It's mostly symbolic at this point. Also, if you look at the details, they're allowing a .03% float compared to a basket of currencies including the dollar, with a new price set each day based on the values of those currencies on the previous days. In practice, they probably won't allow a float of more than .01 on most days--they'll buy securities in other currencies to maintain the float. This indicates that they'll be buying assets of several currencies to manipulate the financial markets for their benefit.

This gives them a lot of financial clout. They've already gotten to the point with dollars that they're looking at non-currency investments instead, like Unocal. That will only increase, and they'll be buying European, too. Only the Chinese central bank knows the exact basket they're using, and they can change that basket without another announcement. This means they've created a situation where they have incredible flexibility to increase their purchasing power anywhere, particularly when it comes to buying access to oil. The limiting factor is their own ability to maintain exports, but with an 8% yearly growth rate they've got a lot of room to maneuver. Very clever people, these Chinese.

Still, they hold only a fraction of US debt, so it's important not to exaggerate their influence or paint this as some dangerous Chinese conspiracy. Really, it's about time that a country of their size and history do well, and US hegemony can't last forever. Hopefully, we know how to ride our way down from our perch without panicking and without collapsing into a large version of a third world banana republic.

[solarbird]

0.3%, not .03%. You can get a 10% swing in a month with that. It's still heavily damped, but it's not trivial.

The navy is to protect their shipping. They're anticipating getting a lot higher share of Persian Gulf oil, and they're anticipating the need to project military force to make that work.

All this points back, again, to the end of cheap oil. This post is economic, not conspiratorial.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

"All this points back, again, to the end of cheap oil. This post is economic, not conspiratorial."

I realize what you were saying. However, I think that a lot of the "OMG China" fears go beyond the actual economic situation and are rooted in nationalist and in some cases racist fears. I don't think you were tapping into those fears, but I think it's really easy to inadvertently reinforce that kind of thing. So I mentioned that just to temper my own comments and avoid reinforcing those fears myself.

Or, to put it another way, even if a fight over declining oil supplies is in the offing, I don't think it's helpful to start taking sides. I prefer a simultaneous more local and more global view--how do we deal with this collectively as human beings, and how do I deal with it personally? I'm really not so concerned about Team USA vs. Team China.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

I'm really not so concerned about Team USA vs. Team China.

IMO, it's healthy to be wary of a way of life you find repellant and alien.

Of course, IMO, it's NOT healthy to let that get to the point of fear.

I realize that this applies to any number of people and MY way of life.

[solarbird]

And it's not like part of being a Player isn't military. And it'd be really nice if they didn't have loose cannons sparking off quite as much as they do. (Taiwan is in such a clusterfuck...)

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I'm currently much more concerned about US militarism than Chinese militarism. When they're the ones invading the Middle East or trying to overthrow governments in Latin America to preserve oil access, then I'll worry.

All powerful countries will have military power, now and forever. The way to protect ourselves against rising Chinese military power is to favor multilateralism and collective security under international law, and hold ourselves to those standards. It's to ensure that our economies are interconnected but our people still have decent living standards. Do that, and the chance of war goes down, and the ability to fight back if any one country goes off the rails is increased.

For right now, though, objectively speaking, Europe is a bigger military threat than China and a more direct economic rival, even though they're historically more friendly. Russia is a bigger threat. North Korea, because of its insane government, is a bigger threat. A nuclear Iran is almost as big of a threat. When I think of military threats to yours truly, China's way down the list.

In world terms, I really think the US is the biggest threat to the most people, because we have more raw power and a rising tendency to use it without even bothering to conjure up a justification. It's only a cold comfort to realize that I'm not subject to that threat because it's my country. Unless that military power is turned to internal repression years down the line...

[solarbird]

I'm not concerned about Chinese adventurism outside of South Asia. However, we have commitments to Taiwan. China wants Taiwan back, and they're acting very much like they're running out of patience.

Of course, one can presume that at least some portion of that is sabre-rattling to keep Taiwan's pro-independence parties from gaining too much power. But how much? And are they willing to launch an invasion in case of, say, significant domestic unrest? As Fritz is fond of saying, war is the health of the state, and it would work - for the domestic side, anyway.

They have a real ultra-nationalism problem building up over there. What if the government decides they have to take Taiwan in order to satisfy it?

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

"They have a real ultra-nationalism problem building up over there. What if the government decides they have to take Taiwan in order to satisfy it?"

A replay of the Cuban missile crisis, with us taking the role of the Russians this time. Hopefully, our president is as sensible as Khrushchev was and backs off.

Wait, what am I saying? We're all DOOOOMED.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I don't find the Chinese ways of life--any of the many ways of life that persist in that extremely complex and diverse country--to be either repellent or alien. Much of it is *foreign*, true, but the word "alien," even when it's applied to people, conjures up something that's fundamentally different rather than part of the same human community.

I don't like the Chinese government. Despite their economic reforms, they're still authoritarian bastards. But I don't like lots of governments, including my own, and I tend to think that the Chinese government will moderate over time.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

It's the government and the economic justice models that I find alien.

Corruption is built into the system. I find that alien.
(Well, we have corruption, but of a different sort.)

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but ever been to Mexico? They're admittedly less authoritarian, but corruption is a way of life.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

And thus alien, but just in a different way.

[epawtows.livejournal.com]

I've seen reports in AvWeek and other aerospace mags about the new Chinese ships: Calling them "Ageis" technology is a bit of a stretch.

For those who don't know, AGEIS is the anti-aircraft system used by modern US anti-aircraft warships. It's an extremely complex system- you don't install it on a vessel, the vessel must be designed around it.

Up until now, the air-defense capability of Chinese naval vessels has been very rudimentary. As in, you could probably take them out with WWII-era prop-driven torpedo planes, even if you called them up the day before and told them what time the planes were coming.

These new ships of theirs are a dramatic improvement for them. They might have as much AA capability as a USN vessel of the early 1980's might have had.

So, it's better, but hardly up to our standards.

I'm not trying to be a nay-sayer, here. I *do* consider the Chinese to be a significant military threat, and they are clearly building up with the intention of being able to challenge the US, at least in their local area. But I think it is counterproductive to over-rate their short-term capabilities.

[starsongky.livejournal.com]

If the DST thing passes, I wonder how long it'll take Microsoft to issue a Windows update so all their clocks reset on the right days.