[UncoveringTruths]

BEIJING (AFP) - Environmental officials in Beijing have asked residents to stop driving their cars to work one day a month in an effort to clean up the capital's stifling air pollution and ease traffic jams.

More than 200,000 drivers in up to 100 Beijing auto clubs have agreed to comply with the voluntary request, the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said in a report posted on its website.

"As soon as people leave their homes they are faced with the depressing sights and sounds of noisy, congested roads, while the black exhaust leaves their minds muddled," the report said.

Beijing has more than 2.6 million motor vehicles on its roads with the number of new vehicles increasing by more than 1,000 a day, the bureau said.

Beijing institutes "no car day"

A 1000 more cars a day!

[Sys1]

Soon, they will institute a no car century

[Colorado-Valley]

Hmmm ... what would happen if the world got together and instituted a weekly "no-drive day?"

[Zardoz]

Yangtze pollution 'irreversible'

Around one-tenth of the 6,200km-long river is in a "critical condition" and nearly 30% of major tributaries are seriously polluted, the report found. Even a huge reservoir created by the Three Gorges Dam has become heavily polluted. China's environment has suffered as a result of the country's economic boom.

The government has pledged to clean up the Yangtze, which supplies water to almost 200 cities along its banks and accounts for 35% of the country's total fresh water resources. But correspondents say attempts to clean up China's polluted lakes and waterways have been thwarted by lax enforcement standards.

China is plunging towards an environmental day of reckoning. How are they going to avoid total disaster?

[Jack]

They will not - indeed cannot - avoid the total disaster of which you speak.

More interesting is what they will do in the attempt to avoid it. I'd suspect warfare.

New Zealand may not be too safe. I doubt Siberia or Iran are either.

[Sheb]

Do you think China would look to "colonize" New Zealand?

Siberia and Iran, I can understand, from a resources and logistics point of view. However of what interest would New Zealand be to China, being relatively isolated and only . Especially when thave such closer, if not greener, pastures such as Indonesia, New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and Siberia (with its growing seasons projected to increase over the next century).

I ask, and am very interested in your input, since I have long considered NZ an ideal bugout location, due to its size and isolation.

[Jack]

Do you think China would look to "colonize" New Zealand?

Sure. Not only a place to put people, but a resource-rich venue.

Siberia and Iran, I can understand, from a resources and logistics point of view. However of what interest would New Zealand be to China, being relatively isolated and only . Especially when thave such closer, if not greener, pastures such as Indonesia, New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and Siberia (with its growing seasons projected to increase over the next century).

Indonesia has lots of people - one must either control or eliminate them. New Guinea would be a good target. Southeast Asia has, again, lots of people.

The problem is - 1.3 billion Chinese. How to feed them, clothe them, satisfy them? Yes, I think New Zealand could be in the sights.

I ask, and am very interested in your input, since I have long considered NZ an ideal bugout location, due to its size and isolation.

Sure, almost everyone thinks NZ would be great. So...why wouldn't China?

[Eddie_lomax]

They will not - indeed cannot - avoid the total disaster of which you speak.

More interesting is what they will do in the attempt to avoid it. I'd suspect warfare.

New Zealand may not be too safe. I doubt Siberia or Iran are either.

My thoughts are while encroaching into the older Southern USSR looks likely if things fall apart (along with a feel good but pointless war to takeover Taiwan) will probably happen my guess is that they would fall apart either before or during any attempt at crossing oceans to get at resources. And our experience in Iraq has shown how poor a return military adventures give, imagine a Chinese leadership trying to exploit for example Australian coal while worrying about the rising body count causing unrest at home.

Especially if their government did break down dramatically then it could be back to 1900 as the other ex-soviet states have shown that when communism/hard line central control left abruptly fighting broke out, there are plenty of different ethnic groups in China to make this a real possibility. Especially when less than 100 years ago most of China was held by various warlords busy fighting amongst themselves with the peasants either dying in wars or famine. I just hope if this does happen that some nut doesn't get hold of the nukes there.

[Madpaddy]

Eddie-lomax wrote,

And our experience in Iraq has shown how poor a return military adventures give, imagine a Chinese leadership trying to exploit for example Australian coal while worrying about the rising body count causing unrest at home.

Sorry Eddie, but this comment caused me considerable mirth although I do agree with your view that China will fall apart before undertaking any trans oceanic conquests.

Why you consider that any body count, no matter how high, would cause worry to the Chinese leadership is naive.

a.) The public would never know about the body count due to censorship.

b.) The loss of millions of male soldiers will solve the male/female ratio disparity in the country and would therefore be welcomed.

c.) I imagine any Chinese invasion of Australia or Indonesia would be followed by an immediate and vigorous campaign of genocide. It's not like they need the manpower as slaves...

[Polemic]

It's pretty clear that China is building a war machine to effectively deal with its surplus population and resource needs. Even if they lost 800 million people in war, they would still have too many people! They believe they have the numbers and superior intelligence to control a large part of the globe, and they will probably try to do it - when they're ready.

No continent is safe from the Chinese swarm!

[nocar]

What about India?

India has a younger populatiion than China, and is therefore set to increase faster. Already its population is over one billion, with just a third of the area of China.

nocar

[phaeryen]

Popular sentiment inside China as a deterrance to putting radical policies into practice: It has not prevented them before. For example, they have implemented harsh population control measures in modern times: attempts at restricting families to 1 child as an example that comes to mind immediately - and I believe the implementation has been a moderate success, from the point of view of the policy makers. So I belive sentiments of their population do not, for the large part, play into their decisions when forming long-time strategy. At least that has been the conduct for the great majority of their states existance.

Currently the geopolitical climate is such that, actual hard colonization, meaning the obtaining of land from another state through warfare, is something no one is doing. China is at the center stage of the global economic game with its complex relations to the USA as just an example, so it is not a viable option for them, or almost anyone, to actually go to a colonization-mode warfare type of setting, as such a war is something everyone would have to react to politically in an extremely negative manner. The ramifications in the political spheres of such a strategy are too extreme to ignore. I deem this course of action unthinkable even for China, at present times.

The modern state of China is a very young one. It is a state that was born in the fierce fires of war and geopolitical maneuvering. They are no strangers to genocide, war, and radical socio-economic reforms, but they are not isolationist anymore and have intertwined into the global economic game. They are very less likely to do "the unthinkable" than when they still were isolationist geo/econo-politically, which was the case right into the times when chairman Mao passed away. He died in the fall of 1976.

[Brasso]

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: At least 74 workers have been killed in an attack on a Chinese-run oil field in eastern Ethiopia, an official of the Chinese company said Tuesday.

"The attack happened this morning. Nine Chinese were killed, seven Chinese workers were kidnapped and 65 locals were killed," said Xu Shuang, the general manager of Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, based in Addis Ababa, told The Associated Press.

Link

[Leanan]

Breaking news on MSNBC. No details yet.

[Leanan]

I think this is the same story:

Gunmen Attack Chinese-owned Oil Field In Ethiopia - Embassy

[Leanan]

It's up to 74 now:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18287943/

[Lore]

What does this mean?

A disruption in oil supplies to China, China on the market for new imports? Just the Chinese way of creating job turnover and it will be business as usual?

[Leanan]

Here's a more detailed AP report:

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Gunmen raided a Chinese-run oil field in eastern Ethiopia on Tuesday, killing 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese workers, an official of the Chinese company said.

Seven Chinese workers were kidnapped in the morning attack at the oil installation in a disputed region near the Somali border, Xu Shuang, the general manager of Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, told The Associated Press.

China has increased its presence in Africa in recent years in a hunt for oil and other natural resources to feed its rapidly growing economy. Its forays into areas considered politically unstable, however, has exposed Chinese workers to attacks.

No one claimed responsibility for Tuesday's raid, but an Ethiopian rebel group warned last year that any investment in the Ogden area that also benefited the Ethiopian government "would not be tolerated."

The Ogaden National Liberation Front is fighting a low-level insurgency with the aim of creating an independent state for ethnic Somalis. Somalia lost control of the region in a war in 1977.

What this means is that as oil grows scarcer and more expensive, it will become more of a target for dissidents, as well as embolden those who control it, such as Hugo Chavez.

IOW...expect the "above-ground" factors to deteriorate as fast or faster than the below-ground.

[Pablo2079]

This will also cloud the issue for those not convinced of Peak Oil. They'll point to political unrest around the world as the reason for the spike in cost (ultimately shortages). This reason will be more of a "platable" reason for the masses. Rather than oil production not being able to keep up with demand, the problem is actually (fill in the blank).

Wouldn't you rather think that the cost of oil is high due to terrorists/rebels rather than the fact that we just can't get any more?

[KevO]

What does this mean?

A disruption in oil supplies to China, China on the market for new imports? Just the Chinese way of creating job turnover and it will be business as usual?

yes, yes, no and it may have to mean that China sends troops into Africa.