CRISISBOOM

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a major report last May arguing China would be a “coercive power” in enforcement of its way with Japan, but emphasized that economic interdependence with the United States and the rest of Asia would prevent a major Cold-War style confrontation with China in the region. Carnegie claimed that despite hawkish rhetoric from Japan’s new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s economic troubles and political paralysis would prevent it from countering China’s increasing military capabilities. Carnegie obviously failed to consider Japan’s last two decades of increasing militarization. When it comes to intimidation, Japan and an increasing number of Asian nations will aggressively confront China.

As I reported on December 3rd in “Energy Drives Asian Military Confrontation,” China and other Asian export economies are at risk of losing tens of millions of manufacturing jobs due to America’s huge advantage in energy cost from fracking more than offsetting Asia’s traditional labor cost advantage. China announced last month that it would begin enforcing an expanded offshore Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) as sovereign territory that would capture the  Full Article Here