Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "CaspianReport" channel.

@hendrikdependrik1891 Are you sure China would want to expand north? There are potential claims in Mongolia and the Lake Baikal area, but what might be more likely is for China to prop up new countries based on the Asiatic ethnicities in Siberia. You might see a Yakut state or an Evenki state.
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@bendyStraws3Lz The policy of the CCP is to first take care of China and then worry about the rest of the world. This is similar to our policy here in the United States.
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@drunkensailor3736 They have no wish to get rid of the Uighur people. They want to stop the terrorism that's run rampant in Xinjiang and suppress the Uighur separatist movement. We can argue about what degree of anti-separatist techniques are acceptable, but let's not call it genocide, because it's not.
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@golagiswatchingyou2966 I don't know that China is that interested in population growth. I certainly don't see them rolling back women's rights to achieve it. The problem regarding the water supplies is too much of a population already in place. I think China may come at India with the logic that "We were responsible enough to control our population, come back when you've done the same."
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@panzerofthelake506 If "All of China's Neighbors… unite[d] with nato for an anti Chinese alliance." Then China would be more likely to cut the water supply off to disrupt the alliance.
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@errormatrix4159 Russia has always had a certain degree of tepidness in its relations with China. Putin (whatever you think of him, he's an excellent judge of power and personality) doesn't trust anyone, and China is a powerful neighbor with whom it is important to have a relationship with that is neither too cozy nor too cold. Russia under Putin will give up nothing, but China, under Xi, is fully aware of that, and frankly, they have other issues that they recognize as having higher priority than any territorial claims that could antagonize Russia. Russia does not want China to be an overpowering neighbor, but neither does it want the United States to be able to work its will globally. Right now Russia is closer to China, both in interests and in philosophy, then it is with the West, and particularly with the United States. China is much more appreciative of Russia's position, and of Russia's needs than the West has proven to be. While Russia is probably not a reliable ally of China, they certainly cannot be counted on to work against them.
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@dr.lyleevans6915 Your words are marked. I see a different future. China is going to come out of this health crisis earlier and with less economic damage (and with a better reputation) than anyone else in their peer group. China's clout in Pakistan is strong and continues to be carefully cultivated and after America's treatment of Iran I don't see how you can even contemplate their cooperation. America's grip on East Asian loyalty in Korea and Japan is fairly strong but will wane over time as China increasingly dominates their trade and their trade routes to Europe. Loyalty from Taiwan will be absolute until China takes it back, probably in 2049. As for SE Asia, China's investments will make going against them difficult and the water situation means that they can never truly stand up against them. I don't see Russia siding overwhelmingly with the U.S., though the will probably vacillate over time. China has maritime disputes that will probably not go away, but as China's navy gains in strength, active opposition will probably decline. As for Trump, are you kidding me? He's done more damage to the international reputation of the United States than anyone in living memory. If his FP legacy ends up being that he pissed off everyone including the Chinese, I don't see how that helps America, especially in the long run. I can't wait til that moron is out of office and we can start to rebuild our foreign relations back to some semblance of what they ere and what they should be.
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The regional powers in that area always have been and will continue to be Anatolia, Persia and Egypt. Everyone else is a flash in the pan. How power and influence distribute themselves among Turkey, Iran and Egypt, and whether or not these polities can get past their ethnic, historical and sectarian differences will determine whether or not the region as a whole blossoms or withers.
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@perkele2040 Yeah, I don't see China losing a war in China. I could see them losing in the open Pacific, but they have a pretty good missile defense system and they can out-produce the Americans. It would take a total combined world assault to defeat China in China, and China hasn't pissed off everybody to the point that they're willing to sacrifice their children to make a point.
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Greece is the beneficiary of sovereignty over a bunch of little tiny islands scattered all over the Eastern Med. They've kind of managed to do organically what the Chinese are trying to do in the South China Sea.
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China is not aggressively atheistic. China does insist on having the ability to control the institutions within its borders, whether they are religious or not.
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@krayzeeantix1439 And how did you determine this exceptionally keen analysis?
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@Quazgarion Occupation of Russia would require a truly global effort. No country, and no likely coalition of countries, could take and hold Russia. However, if there was a military contest in eastern Siberia and the rest of the world didn't get involved, I think China could take and hold large areas, particularly in the south. Having said that, none of this is going to happen anytime soon.
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@Tibetica "Nationalist peace-lovers" is an oxymoron.
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Over the last three decades the government of China has proven much more flexible than that of the United States. The gentleman who best explains this is a fellow named Eric Xi. China has its issues, but rigidity in government doesn't seem to be one of them. Perhaps you're confusing it with North Korea.
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Arvin, America does give a crap about other people. Our biggest problem is that so many of us believe that what people really need more than anything else is freedom and democracy and sometimes we'll let our ideology blind us from reality. Sometimes we'll burn a witch in order to save her soul but it's not because we're evil, it's because we're dogmatic.
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There are potential models for rebuilding more quickly. In 1952 South Korea was the poorest country on the planet. By the 1970's it was completely rebuilt and moving towards a place among the world's first class economies. The same is true more-or-less in Taiwan and Singapore. It will depend upon government discipline, popular work ethic, vision, foreign and domestic investment targeting and effective resistance of international meddling. It's a tall order, but it's not impossible.
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I always see a lot of folks talking about how China doesn't want to police the world. That may be the case for the moment, but when China feels like it's strong enough and potentially influential enough to rewrite the rules of the game in it's favor away from the Western status quo that is likely to change. I don't think the United States is seriously going to decline in power any time soon and what loss of influence occurs will mostly be a matter of stable countries gaining confidence in their own abilities over time. I think at the heart the U.S. and China are extremely similar, large imperial states — natural regional hegemons. I think leaders in both countries are keenly aware of history and anxious to make sure it doesn't recur (or at least I did before this last election). But I don't think either country is inherently violent or inherently peaceful, both countries want to be influential and in control and there will always be tension but not necessarily conflict.
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@IloveDoubleD They're not really trying to stop demonstrations in Hong Kong and while they may very well be able to take Taiwan in a scenario where the US military is overstretched I'd be shocked if they did any time in the next two decades. By and large their military capacity, global economic influence and political heft are all improving and likely to continue so. Time is on China's side and I think they'll hold off until they feel like a victory is assured (or maybe at the hundred year anniversary of the founding of the PRC).
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@adamorick2872 Lesson number one: take what a country's expats say with a sizable grain of salt.
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@marjanp Don't think it's gonna happen, but if it did it would be for two reasons: a) to regain global prestige, and b) to allegedly protect the Russian-speaking minorities within those countries.
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@Dale Gribble Of course the United States also had allies like the Soviet Union, the British Empire and the Republic of China. While the U.S. played a pivotal role in the defeat of the axis powers, the bulk of the human casualties were borne by the Russians and the Chinese.
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@Harmony867 African countries don't have to reject Chinese claims on Taiwan to get along with America.
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If Turkey is going to be anywhere near this ambitious in Europe than they are going to need to ramp up their industry considerably. Being caught between Russia and a German-centered Europe, their really not ready to play that game.
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@mojitocod It's great if you're the benefiting nation and it sucks if you're not. Of course if you have the power to alter the geography, you can use the law against those who can't. This law clearly favors the Greeks. And it will continue to do so so long as Turkey is not strong enough to change either the game or the gameboard. I'm not saying whether it's good or bad.
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@mojitocod I mean the islands already existed in nature as islands.
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@mojitocod I don't know that Greece is acting "Maximalistic" at this time. Their footprint all across the Aegean and up through Rhodes and Cyprus into the Levantine Basin sure tightly hugs the Turkish coastline at some distance—in some cases a tortured distance—form the Greek mainland. It doesn't mean that it's unjustified. The people that live on those islands are Greek and so long as Greece lives up to its obligations to take care of those islands and the people that live on them then they have a legitimate claim on them. If uninhabited or barely inhabited islands are claimed just to extend control over waters according to the international law, especially if you're doing this to choke off a rival, then that would be maximalistic. I don't know that Greece is doing this; they certainly have the kind of footprint that suggests they've done it in the past though.
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@yt.damian I don't think a Russian disintegration is likely either, but we're discussing it.
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@MrFasho123 You have a good point. There are so many contradictory historical claims that it would be not just ridiculous, but impossible to try to honor them all. It's really a matter of congruance between a historical claim and the position of power to act on it. The oldest enforced historical claim that I'm aware of is the Jewish historical claim on the southwestern Levant, which had lain dormant for over eighteen hundred years. So whether or not a claim is considered acceptable doesn't seem to ride as much on factors of time as it does on factors of political usefullness, internal or external, of those who are in a position to mandate acceptability. I suspect that China, at some point, will enforce a claim on Outer Mongolia. Those inside China and their allies will consider it to be a valid claim based on the territorial borders of the Qing Dynasty. Those outside China will consider it an occupation. That's politics.
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@MrFasho123 It's hard to think of anyone finding it in their interest to support Mongolian territorial claims just because of the sheer amount of contries that would be negatively affected. Mongolia would have to become a superpower on its own to even attempt to enforce any claims based on the Mongol conquest of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—but again, that's just politics. China could actually make claims on Yuan Dynasty territorial holdings, as they consider it to be a Chinese dynasty, despite the ruling class being exclusively made up of Mongols. Of course China doesn't consider other Mongol khanates to be part of the Yuan dynasty though, so central Asia, Russia and eastern Europe are probably safe from Chinese claims. As for Israel, the Jews of Europe considered it a territorial homeland and from their perspective it was a valid territorial claim. European support for the establishment of the state, in my opinion, was driven largely by guilt associated withthe holocaust and the recognition of institutional antisemitism over centuries. American support of Israel, which came later, appears to be driven by the legitimate representation of and sympathy for a strong and prosperous Jewish constituency within the United States as well as anti-Arab (and other peoples within the region) sentiment derived originally from the OPEC oil crisis and PLO terrorism in the seventies but exacerbated by the Iranian Revolution, Al Qaeda terrorism, and ISIS terrorism more recently, as well as opportunism and disappointment regarding former Soviet clients who refuse to collapse now that our former adversary has left the scene.
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@errormatrix4159 Don't hold your breath.
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@ewoudalliet1734 There are two directions on the axis of leadership. On one extreme you have the kind of leaders that don't give a rip about the people their responsible for and are only there to satisfy themselves and maximize their profits while in office. On the other end are leaders who care deeply about the people and who try very hard to promote their welfare. In most of these cases they have plans, and they believe that their plans can only help the people if they have the power to carry them out. I think you see the CCP as the former and I see them as the latter, and I don't think either of us are going to change the other's mind.
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@panzerofthelake506 Those warships are a long way from Tibet.
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@panzerofthelake506 I'm not sure they could get close enough. Besides, firebombing the capital of a nuclear-armed rival is probably even too adventurous for the American military.
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@DaniloCassuti Why would you have to have a free market system to belong to the World Trade Organization? The global market is pretty loose. If you have something to offer for trade or you have money to buy goods, why shouldn't you trade? At least as a WTO member there's a regulatory structure.
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glitchy box What an absolutely stupid suggestion.
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glitchy box "well we are not some Tibet that china can occupy" — India's an extremely large country with thick forests largely protected from a northern invasion by the Himalayas. I'm sure the people of India would defend the country vigorously and, as you suggested, the nuclear deterrent is very real. I don't know the extant of India's nuclear arsenal. I'm pretty sure China's is heavily undercounted, but of course it doesn't take much. I do think China is in a better position militarily than India and I think over time they probably will attempt to redefine their borders. I certainly don't think they will try to invade the heartland of India, but the periphery is vulnerable. If India chooses to defend its frontier with nuclear weapons, I would understand that sentiment, but unless India is willing to destroy all of China and accept the fact that China would destroy India as well, and probably to a much more thorough degree, I don't think India is likely to make that decision. "by the way where are you from" — Originally I'm from Seattle, but I live in Portland right now.
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@shikamaruthehokage I hope very much that India eventually gets its stuff together. But India has a whole lot of issues that its going to have to take care of before it can even think about competing with China for power status. Class, caste and religious issues keep India's people divided and weak. Economic liberalism, unchecked corruption, bureaucratic disfunction, and the need to cater to group chauvinist instincts to win elections all hamstring the state, which is a big part of the reason India's infrastructure network is so underdeveloped. India has a lot of potential, but it needs a strong leader who breaks down internal group barriers and effectively harnesses the resources of the state to build a meritocratic and efficient bureaucracy and comprehensive infrastructure. It also needs to slow down on the population growth or else its not going to be able to feed itself, much less break out of extreme poverty.
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