plawolf
Lieutenant General
Re: Somali pirates and Chinese navy
Someone in the west will always find fault or sinister motives in anything China does, and the western mainstream media will always give such people airtime. There is no point trying to please such people.
China will do what is in her best interest and if you don't like it, lump it.
Building a blue water navy is imperative for a major trading power like China because while its cost effective to have the Americans patrol your trading lanes, that kind of support could hardly be relied upon, especially in times of tension or conflict.
What more, as China develops, China has more interests abroad and more and more of its citizens are working and living in far away countries. Many of which are not what you would call stable, and in some countries, there are those who use China as a target to refocus public anger away from domestic troubles.
If one of those countries does suffer a coup or implodes into civil war, a powerful navy could be used to evacuate Chinese nationals or persuade a new government its not a good idea to tear up the agreements of its predecessor and seize Chinese holdings.
Then there is the direct economic benefit from having a large navy - jobs. Building warships is just like building infrastructure. It keeps large numbers of people employed during the economic slump and boosts the economy as those people have jobs and are more ready and able to spend, and that in turn helps to save more jobs in the local economy, a classic snowball effect.
Also, shipbuilding is a very specialized skill. If naval orders keeps a shipyard's books full then they can keep all their highly trained workers and continue with investment programmes on new and improved machines and facilities so that when commercial demand picks up again, the Chinese yards will be in a much better shape then competitors who have had to sack workers (who can't be replaced easily and quickly if you need people with those skills again) and cut back on investments.
Someone in the west will always find fault or sinister motives in anything China does, and the western mainstream media will always give such people airtime. There is no point trying to please such people.
China will do what is in her best interest and if you don't like it, lump it.
Building a blue water navy is imperative for a major trading power like China because while its cost effective to have the Americans patrol your trading lanes, that kind of support could hardly be relied upon, especially in times of tension or conflict.
What more, as China develops, China has more interests abroad and more and more of its citizens are working and living in far away countries. Many of which are not what you would call stable, and in some countries, there are those who use China as a target to refocus public anger away from domestic troubles.
If one of those countries does suffer a coup or implodes into civil war, a powerful navy could be used to evacuate Chinese nationals or persuade a new government its not a good idea to tear up the agreements of its predecessor and seize Chinese holdings.
Then there is the direct economic benefit from having a large navy - jobs. Building warships is just like building infrastructure. It keeps large numbers of people employed during the economic slump and boosts the economy as those people have jobs and are more ready and able to spend, and that in turn helps to save more jobs in the local economy, a classic snowball effect.
Also, shipbuilding is a very specialized skill. If naval orders keeps a shipyard's books full then they can keep all their highly trained workers and continue with investment programmes on new and improved machines and facilities so that when commercial demand picks up again, the Chinese yards will be in a much better shape then competitors who have had to sack workers (who can't be replaced easily and quickly if you need people with those skills again) and cut back on investments.
