interesting item - china power cuts, page-31

Michael,
You can call me Thurlow.

My reference to the Opium wars is meant to generally encompass the entire experience of their contact with external powers during that time and so includes the Extraterritoriality Policies you mentioned.

As I mentioned, my guess is that they are likely to take their revenge in being very succesful, and in setting hard terms for trade and other territorial disputes that are still simmering.

But this is by no means assured. Once you have a large and strong military, the urge to sabre-rattle to get your way is almost irresistable. Look at the current sabre-rattling with Taiwan and Hong-Kong. There is not much of a leap from that type of preparation to combat of some sort. Of course there are many levels of combat.

My guess is that there will be a very long period of geopolitical adjustment with their neighbours and with the other major powers. This is likely to be a dangerous period due to many reasons that I guess you can list as well as I can.

My guess is that China is smart enough to stop, at least for the near future, at sabre-rattling. The party in power in a country like China can only derive some legitimacy by bringing prosperity to the bulk of the people and by maintaining that prosperity.

If the path of war seems to offer an easier, lower risk path, they might take that path, but I think they are smart enough for now to avoid it.