The Chinese periphery is a sleeping hotbed of tension. Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia - they don't even need to fight directly against China to bring it to its knees in 3-4 months. It is enough to cut off sea communications, and China - like the USSR in its time - can be sent to the dustbin of world history.
Today, China is seen by many in the world as a kind of colossus, pumping up its muscles day by day. Woe analysts predict that he will be world champions in 20 or even 15 years. Around the end of the 1970s, they also talked about the USSR, which was about to swallow half the world, and behind it, the United States.
China's main trouble is that it, like the USSR, has no allies. The country can only buy “temporary friends” for itself - as the Soviets did 25 years ago: either in Mozambique, Grenada or Yemen. Not to mention some Poland.
China is not embedded in any world-system: neither in the Western world, nor in the Muslim world, even as a colonial appendage (like some Singapore or South Korea). North Korea and Pakistan, on the verge of falling apart under the blows of domestic barbarians craving a hamburger in front of a flat-screen TV, are all China's “friends”.
China's external borders are its eternal headache. Along their perimeter, there are countries for which the very word "China" is associated with the concepts of "Shaitan, Death and Threat". To understand the picture more clearly, just imagine that Russia does not border on a helpless Ukraine or peaceful Norway, but on some large, hungry and aggressive Pakistan and Azerbaijan. With armies of millions. There is no need for any landings from Japan and the United States, much less preventive nuclear strikes on China - just set fire to its outskirts and neighbors, and the country will tumble down like a mammoth, stuck with hundreds of stone-tipped arrows.
To begin with, China has its own Chechnya. But not as useless in all respects as in Russia, but from a geopolitical and geo-economic point of view, it is a hundred times more significant. This is Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
At first glance, there is nothing dangerous there. A dozen or two millions of Muslims who are absolutely alien to atheist-Confucian China. Absolutely poor and semi-illiterate (like 80% of their oppressors - the Han people). But there is oil in Xinjiang.
Oil is one of the most vulnerable spots in China. Recently, the country has stepped over a psychologically and economically important mark - oil imports exceeded 50% of its total consumption in the country (to be precise, imports are 55%). But even of the remaining 45%, a significant part comes from Xinjiang.
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Xinjiang Uygur region is one of the main "oil fields" in China. Thus, the oil reserves of this autonomous region are 21 billion tons. (30% of all China's reserves), gas - 1.1 trillion. cubic meters (34% of the country's reserves). Xinjiang annually produces about 30 million tons of oil and 22 billion cubic meters of gas. One can imagine what would become of China if it were deprived of such a volume of extracted energy as a result of the next “orange uprising” or a long terrorist war.
A gas line from Turkmenistan also passes through Xinjiang. So far, 10 billion cubic meters of gas is pumped through it a year, but in 5 years its throughput will increase to 30-40 billion cubic meters. And this is already about 50% of the country's gas consumption (it is about 90 billion cubic meters per year). Add Xinjiang mining and get 75% already.
Now the PRC annually produces on its territory 185 million tons of oil, and imports about 190 million tons more. In terms of the volume of food imports, China has become the 4th country in the world, moreover, the rate of growth in the country's food purchases is increasing from year to year. For example, by 2015, the PRC, according to forecasts, will purchase up to 25 million tons of corn annually from the United States, today soybean imports amount to 4-5 million tons, and in five years it will grow to 12-15 million tons. In total, China now buys 20% of food abroad, by 2015 this figure will grow to 30%.
Also, China depends on imports of the rest of the raw materials - iron ore, non-ferrous metals, timber, fertilizers, etc. If the supply of raw materials to China is destabilized, then the country will be able to hold out for a few months - after that there will be food riots, a halt in industry and literally darkness due to a shortage of energy resources.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that Chinese traffic is very vulnerable - it goes in a relatively narrow strip across the seas of Southeast Asia: oil from the Middle East - through the narrow Moluccan Strait, food and iron ore - through the Indonesian archipelago. The US fleet, which still remains tens (if not hundreds) of times stronger than the Chinese fleet, can easily block these transport arteries, which will bring the situation in China to collapse.
But even without direct US military intervention, China's neighbors have someone to bring the country to the state of the USSR in 1991. Consider these potential pain points in China.
Burma. China's southern neighbor has been unstable since the late 1940s. A third of the country's population is made up of national minorities, the most militant among which are the Karen. In the eastern part of Burma, they created their unrecognized state. Two more unrecognized states - in the north of the country, near the Chinese border - created the Shan and Kachin tribes. Today, neutrality is maintained between the central government of Burma and these three unrecognized states on its territory. But there is no reason to doubt that with skillful "conducting" from abroad, the war in Burma could break out at any moment. The situation is aggravated by the fact that in neighboring China, there are several million representatives of the tribes who have created their state in Burma. And we cannot exclude the possibility that an armed conflict could spill over into the jungle of China.
Thailand. In this country, the largest knot of tension is its southern part, Pattani province. It is inhabited by Muslims. Guerrilla warfare in this region almost ended only in the 1970s. The last punitive operations by the authorities took place in Pattani in the mid-1980s. However, in 2004, a powerful new guerrilla group was created in the province - the Movement of Islamic Mujahideen of Pattani Province. It is noteworthy that this province is located at the entrance to the Moluccan Strait - through which up to 70% of Chinese imports pass.
Indonesia. It is customary for political scientists to call this country an “artificial construct”. There are 17 thousand islands, dozens of tribes in the country, but the power belongs solely to the "Javanese clan".
The most conflict region is considered to be the Ace province. Since the late 1970s, a radical partisan group, Movement for Free Hache, has been operating here. Their main slogan is similar to the slogan of the separatists of many resource-based countries (Russia is no exception): “Of our oil and gas revenues, the Center leaves us only 5%. We want the opposite ratio - 95% for the province, 5% for the Center. For 2 decades, 15 thousand people died here in a local war. Finally, in 2006, the central government made concessions - it now leaves 70% of all oil and gas revenues in Acha, legalized the Movement (it immediately won the local elections). However, the radical part of the partisans continues to demand that they keep 95% of their income or even grant independence.
The second problem region of Indonesia is West Papua (through the waters of this island there are supplies of ore and food from Australia to China). Here, too, a partisan struggle was unfolding in the struggle for raw material revenues - the largest gold mines are located in the provinces, and the "federal center" took for itself the same 95% of the revenues from gold mining. In 2006, the government also granted broad autonomy to West Papua, but local guerrillas are reluctant to stop there and demand independence.
Earlier, the former Indonesian province of East Timor gained independence. It is possible that with skillful work from the outside, the "orange revolution" in Indonesia could lead to a parade of sovereignty - potentially 15-20 new states could be formed here, and the armed struggle of the separatists could paralyze shipping in this region.
Malaysia. Since the 1950s, there has been a smoldering conflict between the central government and the Marxist partisans. In the 1980s, the Islamists became the new opposition to the regime. Also in the country, there are serious interethnic tensions between Malays and ethnic Chinese - they, in particular, own 75% of all private business in the country with a population share of 23%.
Philippines. For decades, guerrilla warfare between Islamists and the central government has continued in the southern province of Mindanao. Tens of thousands of people died in its course. The Philippine authorities are sure that the guerrilla (the number of militants reaches 12-15 thousand) is financed by Saudi Arabia.
Also on the island there are organizations of various left orientations - the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines and the Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers' Party of Mindanao, which have their own armed formations. At the same time, both the Maoists and Trotskyists in recent years have transferred their partisan activities to the northern territories already inhabited by Catholics.
Ideally, the ruling clans of the Persian Gulf dream of transforming Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, the southern Philippines, Thailand and Burma into a "New Asian Caliphate." The "Old Caliphate" would include the territory of North Africa, the Persian Gulf and Central Asia. As a result, China will be caught in pincers by two Caliphates - from the west and southeast.
Yes, the West still needs China as a cheap assembly plant. However, today this cheapness is no longer satisfying the "overseas owners" - workers' wages of $ 150 seem too expensive for them. Moreover, in neighboring Vietnam (by the way, a more complimentary West - both as a former French colony and as a country with a 20 percent Catholic population), half-slaves take $ 30-50 a month for the same work. And then there is Bangladesh - already a world sewing factory (60% of the world's jeans are sewn there) - where even $ 20 is considered a good salary. Finally, India is a longtime ally of the West, trained by the British to be a working dog.
Throwing China off the side of world history is half the battle, and then it will have nothing to do but fall into the arms of the same world outcast - Russia. It was then that Siberia will be covered with rice fields.