Viet Nam and India WILL be China's great pains in the south and western fronts, Japan and the US will harass China in the east, and the Russians will contain China in the north. Pakistan can do nothing.
Oh, come on! China is surrounded by midgets.
1. Vietnam has an economy of $100 billion. China's economy is $7.3 trillion. Vietnam is 1/73rd China's size. Let's cross ultra-midget Vietnam off the list of potential problems for China.
2. It will take years for Japan to recover from their earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Also, Japan has a national debt at 200% of GDP. Japan is in intensive care and they won't be bothering anybody for a long time to come. We'll scratch off sclerotic Japan from the list.
3. U.S. is busy cutting its defense budget, because the government is broke with national debt at 100% of GDP. The Philippines begged the U.S. for military aid. In response, the U.S. doubled its annual military aid to the Philippines from $25 million to $50 million. With $50 million, the Filipinos can buy ONE F-16 without spares, training, or ammunition.
4. The Russians are angry at NATO for the continued attempts at encirclement. NATO insistence on building an anti-missile system on Russia's border has led to Russian threats of pre-emptive nuclear strikes. The Russian relationship with China is very friendly (see citation below). Both countries recently conducted a joint naval exercise.
5. Pakistan is an all-weather friend of China and a reliable ally.
You can keep on dreaming Gambit, but the geopolitical situation looks quite favorable to China.
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...tighten-key-alliance/articleshow/13764785.cms
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Putin visits China to tighten key alliance
AFP | Jun 3, 2012, 09.37AM IST
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin visits China on Tuesday on the first trip to Asia of his new Kremlin mandate to tighten an increasingly close alliance that is key for Russia's diplomatic and economic strategy.
Putin, who began a historic third term as president less than a month ago, has already made a lightning trip to Germany and France but will symbolically be visiting Beijing before the United States.
The sometimes troubled Moscow-Beijing relationship has warmed during Putin's 12 years of domination over Russia and the two governments are notably in lockstep in opposing outside intervention to solve the Syrian crisis.
"One can understand where the vector of Russian policy is turned" with the Beijing visit, commented Georgy Kunadze, a China expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences and former diplomat.
Putin is likely to coordinate positions with President Hu Jintao on the violence in Syria and Iranian nuclear crisis, with the West keenly aware both UN Security Council permanent members are prepared to wield their vetoes.
But economic issues are also set to figure prominently on the three-day trip, particularly the energy sector as Russia searches for new markets while China seeks cheap natural resources.
Russian energy giant Gazprom over the last week held talks in China in an apparent bid to overcome continued disagreements over gas prices in a landmark contract that has been in its final stages since last summer.
The long-term deal envisages that Russia is to annually supply nearly 70 billion cubic metres of natural gas to China over the next thirty years, under a framework agreement signed in late 2009.
Russian deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said this week that the sides have still not reached an agreement on price, and it is unlikely that the deal will be signed during Putin's visit.
Meanwhile, Russian media reported this week that the two countries are also preparing to launch a joint aerospace project to develop a long-range passenger plane based on Russian know-how and Chinese investment which would challenge giants Airbus and Boeing.
The presidency of Dmitry Medvedev -- who held the Kremlin from 2008 to May of this year while Putin served as prime minister -- was marked by optimism about Russia's strengthening relations with the United States.
But Putin led observers to believe his foreign policy will be rooted elsewhere when he surprisingly cancelled a trip to the United States last month that was to have been the first foreign visit of his new term.
On Wednesday, Putin will participate in a Beijing summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security body that includes Russia's former Soviet partners in Central Asia and a handful of observer states, including Iran.
Putin's attendance at the SCO summit -- seen as a fledgling eastern counterpart to NATO -- is also symbolic given he was absent from the NATO summit in Chicago amid a row with the United States over missile defence.
Putin is a frequent guest of Chinese leaders, last visiting Beijing as recently as October in his capacity as prime minister. It was his only foreign trip after he announced in September his plan to run for president.
A month after his visit, he was awarded China's version of the Nobel prize for "keeping world peace".
Relations between the territorial giants, who share a frontier of 4,000 kilometres, have improved since Putin first entered the Kremlin in 2000, especially after outstanding border issues were regulated in 2005.
While Russia's economy pales in comparison with China's growing economic might, Putin indicated in his pre-election foreign policy manifesto that Moscow does not view its neighbour to the east as a threat.
"Growth of China's economy is not a threat," he wrote, instead seeking "Chinese potential in developing Siberia and the Far East," regions with a wealth of energy resources which are battling a population drain.
Putin will be arriving in China from ex-Soviet Uzbekistan, where he is due on Monday to meet President Islam Karimov."
