China Appears To Warn India: Push Too Hard and the Lights Could Go Out (nytimes.com) 197
Early last summer, Chinese and Indian troops clashed in a surprise border battle in the remote Galwan Valley, bashing each other to death with rocks and clubs. Four months later and more than 1,500 miles away in Mumbai, India, trains shut down and the stock market closed as the power went out in a city of 20 million people. Hospitals had to switch to emergency generators to keep ventilators running amid a coronavirus outbreak that was among India's worst. The New York Times: Now, a new study lends weight to the idea that those two events may well have been connected -- as part of a broad Chinese cybercampaign against India's power grid, timed to send a message that if India pressed its claims too hard, the lights could go out across the country. The study shows that as the standoff continued in the Himalayas, taking at least two dozen lives, Chinese malware was flowing into the control systems that manage electric supply across India, along with a high-voltage transmission substation and a coal-fired power plant.
The flow of malware was pieced together by Recorded Future, a Somerville, Mass., company that studies the use of the internet by state actors. It found that most of the malware was never activated. And because Recorded Future could not get inside India's power systems, it could not examine the details of the code itself, which was placed in strategic power-distribution systems across the country. While it has notified Indian authorities, so far they are not reporting what they have found. Stuart Solomon, Recorded Future's chief operating officer, said that the Chinese state-sponsored group, which the firm named Red Echo, "has been seen to systematically utilize advanced cyberintrusion techniques to quietly gain a foothold in nearly a dozen critical nodes across the Indian power generation and transmission infrastructure." The discovery raises the question about whether an outage that struck on Oct. 13 in Mumbai, one of the country's busiest business hubs, was meant as a message from Beijing about what might happen if India pushed its border claims too vigorously.
The flow of malware was pieced together by Recorded Future, a Somerville, Mass., company that studies the use of the internet by state actors. It found that most of the malware was never activated. And because Recorded Future could not get inside India's power systems, it could not examine the details of the code itself, which was placed in strategic power-distribution systems across the country. While it has notified Indian authorities, so far they are not reporting what they have found. Stuart Solomon, Recorded Future's chief operating officer, said that the Chinese state-sponsored group, which the firm named Red Echo, "has been seen to systematically utilize advanced cyberintrusion techniques to quietly gain a foothold in nearly a dozen critical nodes across the Indian power generation and transmission infrastructure." The discovery raises the question about whether an outage that struck on Oct. 13 in Mumbai, one of the country's busiest business hubs, was meant as a message from Beijing about what might happen if India pushed its border claims too vigorously.
Xi getting power hungry (Score:5, Insightful)
The more they act like the Soviet Union the more they will be treated like the Soviet Union: isolated and shunned by democracies. If you want an economy based on international trade, you better not bark at (nor bite) your customers.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Xi getting power hungry (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard to be sure that the person who replaces him will be better. Lenin was bad, but Stalin was worse. Saddam Hussein was bad, but was he worse than two decades of tribal and sectarian warfare?
Re:Xi getting power hungry (Score:4, Interesting)
China's government was generally controlled by a centralized group rather than an individual before Xi. Thus, it was still a totalitarian system, but it also made China more risk aversive, as nobody wanted to rock the boat that got them to power. But Xi is willing to pound his chest, as he has fewer to answer to if things vary from the plan.
Re:Xi getting power hungry (Score:5, Interesting)
For a long time after the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese leadership had learned the lesson of having too much power in the hands of one man. The created a power structure that essentially shared power so that no one person had his hand on all the triggers. But Xi has gained so much power within the Party and with the PLA that he has managed to concentrate power again. I think Xi is safe so long as he wants to be in power, but of course, as we saw with both the deaths of Stalin and Mao, the big problem for such a government comes when multiple would-be successors and pretenders vie for power. The vacuum that a tyrant creates upon his death or departure can lead to considerable chaos. After Stalin's death, Khrushchev managed to get rid of Beria and the Politburo as an effective cabinet was re-established. In China it was a helluva lot more dramatic, with the Gang of Four almost managing to seize power but General Lin Biao, who as I gather was going to bring the military in line, died in an "accident", and that was pretty much that for the would-be usurpers.
China's a different place now than it was fifty years ago, its economy is much larger and its international reach far greater, so I think if Xi dies or is removed, the results are at once less predictable (so far as who gains power), but in another way more certain, in that whomever gets in power is going to do what they can to retain China's power and standing. So whether it's Xi, or a shared leadership as happened after Stalin's death, the results on the geopolitical stage are likely the same. China isn't going to magically transition into some sort of democracy, we can now put the 1990s dream of the Western leaders that rapprochement and economic integration would lead to political reforms out of our minds. China has made it clear that it intends to be a Great Power, to gain both regional dominance and far greater geopolitical prominence.
At this point, as much as I dislike much of Trump's policy, I think his general view (hardly his alone) that China has become an open competitor and belligerent has to inform all US foreign policy. Trump's problem has never been in identifying China as a threat (he's hardly the first, that was apparent in the dying days of the George W Bush Administration), but rather that he didn't really seem to have any kind of strategy, nor did he seem interested in the one thing that's going to need to be done, and that is to build a bulwark of allied middle and great powers (like regional allies in Vietnam and Japan) and Western allies, that can apply significant economic pressure. And of course, we're all going to have to face the reality that as the West starts to repatriate supply chains, or at the very least secure them more firmly in friendly Asian nations, prices for consumer goods are going to go up.
Re: (Score:3)
A good deal of the cost is going to go into securing supply chains. If China is willing to monkey with competitors' power grids, I'd say this kind of "warfare" will become a great deal more common. China isn't going to simply sit back and let the US and its allies ringfence it. They won't launch missiles, but that's such a 20th century way of waging warfare. There are better ways, and ones that can create nearly as much chaos, and a great deal cheaper and with far more plausible deniability.
Re: (Score:2)
Orthogonal to your point, but prices are going up no matter what.
Multiple trillions of dollars have been pumped into an economy that is producing a LOT less, by far, than it did a year ago.
More money chasing less production means that the money becomes significantly less valuable. Helping debtors in the short term, but dramatically hurting savers, investors and producers, and thereby shrinking the economy dramatically going forward.
It will take a Pinochet to fix this, and even that might not be enough.
Re: (Score:2)
"Less valuable" is relative. If we spend on more expensive toilet paper instead of vacations, that's still moving the economy along. Hotels may lose money, but paper factories and their workers get more. As economists often say, a glass of water is "worth" more in the summer desert for a reason.
Re: (Score:2)
"Less valuable" is relative. If we spend on more expensive toilet paper instead of vacations, that's still moving the economy along. Hotels may lose money, but paper factories and their workers get more. As economists often say, a glass of water is "worth" more in the summer desert for a reason.
Hotels employ a lot more people than paper factories...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Russians and the Iraqis had no living memory of freedom or anything even close.
There are some of us left here in the U.S. who still do, but not for much longer, and if we do not find a way to teach the principles of liberty, justice, rule of law, free enterprise, and peace through strength (without aggression) to those who will come after us, they will find themselves under systems like the ones you mentioned.
Re: (Score:2)
What freedoms does the US lack that we had before?
Re: (Score:2)
Er, no he wasn't. He died in his bed, of a stroke, at the age of 74. Which resulted in his death because his doctors were too scared of him to enter his bedroom without his permission and check on him, but still, nobody killed him.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Sure would be mighty convenient if we could blame all the problems on one bad apple, but I'm skeptical. Nor am I convinced that all of the apples are bad just because it's a Chinese barrel. I'm quite willing to stipulate that Xi is "power hungry", but that's a prerequisite for any political leader in any political system.
So we already know that anyone who winds up leading a country must have some competence at those political games required to become leader. But what do we know about the other dimensions of
Re: (Score:2)
China has been very high for defense and relatively low for vulnerability. At the time Clarke wrote that book, he didn't rate China as a top player on offense, but the point of this story is that China is certainly capable of offense.
With the Chinese government's control over so many aspects of life and the network, it's certainly understandable that China's cybersecurity defense is strong. However, that is a strength evaluated solely on network considerations. In reality, networks control systems, and there are many ways to attack those systems. For example, with cruise missiles. Consider if the Chinese openly attacked the power delivery system of India or another large country. Would China be able to prevent a retaliatory strike
Re: (Score:2)
Well, mostly you reminded me of the joke about not wanting to fight a land war in Asia, but Clarke's book mostly ignored kinetic weapons.
However I think America is right now showing how democracy can be threatened by non-kinetic weapons of disinformation and lies. Try to imagine President Lying Ted, notwithstanding his recent little escapade in Cancun.
Re: (Score:2)
But what do we know about the other dimensions of Xi's personality? A few examples: Is he broadly competent or only narrowly competent in gaining power? Does Xi understand the real world? Which of his policies are dangerous and who are the targets?
He appears to be very good at gaining and consolidating power, but mediocre at everything else. It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it bows to me.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you have any concrete examples for the "everything else"? Looks to me like he's playing the "everything else" well enough, though of course that mostly reflects which way he's building his stuff. Are they technical experts or just political henchmen?
I have recently concluded that TANSTA-BSD. There Ain't No Such Thing As Benevolent Stable Dictatorship. Every dictatorship always goes bad, sooner or later. Sooner if the dictator is incompetent, which may be from the git-go or as he ages into senility. Later
Re: (Score:3)
Do you have any concrete examples for the "everything else"?
Yeah, Coronavirus, for one. Although it wasn't created with CRISPER, their secretiveness and lies made them look really bad. We can also look at foreign policy in general, which tends to make countries mad at China. They bribe countries and then expect the country to do their bidding, like a vassal state. He doesn't have a concept of friends, only masters and followers.
Another thing to notice, when China starts conflicts on the border with India or makes noise about Taiwan, it is most often an attempt to di
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Xi getting power hungry (Score:3)
Boom goes the dynamite.
The original poster is a bigot who has clouded judgement. India hasn't released any relative proof and they won't because it's admitting weakness without any guaranteed advantage. This is to say, even if they released their information, the whole thing is debatable as to the true origin of the attack.
This is all outlined deeply in the concept of 5th generational warfare. We are starting to come to grips with 4th gen and how to stop it. Insurgency and terrorism is commonly addressed
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Xi getting power hungry (Score:4, Informative)
Xi is not just a leader with a strong grip over the party, which is a new style of leader for DNC, but there's also a very powerful wealthy class that is tolerated (possibly embraced) which is new for the DNC. Thus you have a single guy at the top with power and a wealthy group with a vested interest in keeping him there.
Threatening the livelihood of the nouveau riche would do more to topple Xi than any amount of diplomacy.
Re:Xi getting power hungry (Score:5, Interesting)
The rise of china is the US responsibility, and the US alone.
The US decided that china should be the world factory, so they allowed them to do that.
The US has cheap labor, a relatively educated workforce, and easy control of Latin America, with the bonus that it's in their own backyard (well, timezone), AND improving qualityy of life in LATAM would decrease illegal immigration into the USA.
But the US has decided many decades ago that LATAM is a stockpile of natural resources and the CIA has effectively prevented any latin american country from having any sort of real development.
Anything china gets away with is within the blessings of the Department of State and nothing more.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, no. The US is about 1/4 of all their exports. I will agree that we should have kept a better eye on them, but it's hard to predict the future. A lot of "growing" nations sputter out over time.
Re: (Score:2)
It's full of political turmoil because the country boundaries are arbitrary thanks to European imperialism a few generations ago, but once trade money flows in, they will more likely stabilize.
It largely has stabilized.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
US multinational corporations have Latin America at their disposal but the Department of State decided that China should grow, not LATAM.
Re:Xi getting power hungry (Score:5, Insightful)
China is far from being some 'benign, misunderstood' country.
All the China shills will now deny any of this story is true, claim it's 'fake news', 'racist', or whatever cheesy excuses they'll make for it, but is anyone really dumb enough to believe that the entire world is in on some conspiracy against poor old China? LOL. Hilarious.
China is malignant and is just getting worse as time goes on.
Most of all I feel sorry for the average citizen of China for having to live under such a poor excuse for a government.
Re: (Score:2)
If you want an economy based on international trade, you better not bark at (nor bite) your customers.
It is the capitalist west who got China into the position they're in now. We* poured billions into China in return for access to their giant population as a source of cheap labour and later a consumer market.
China set the rules and greed did the rest.
* By "We" I mean the people who run huge corporations in our countries.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL, yea, right, that is what you and some leaders want people to think, but the business man and common people only think about money! .
Most of your products are now made in china... you can't really isolate then when you buy all your stuff from them!
Ohh, you are really talking seriously?! sure, ready to be unable to buy half of your products and pay 100% for most of the other half? Even local build products are using china supplies. Not even talking about china owning many of western countries debt
Lets fa
Re: (Score:3)
Most people don't equate infiltrating US colleges and industry and stealing prop info as having "worked hard". Why do you?
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They are not, and have never been a legitimate government. They are a nuclear-armed terrorist occupation force with 1.5 billion hostages,
Most of the people in China support their government. Mainly because their lives have been getting better and better under it, for the last four decades.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the people in China support their government. Mainly because their lives have been getting better and better under it, for the last four decades.
Anyone who don't support the government in China have either fled, been imprisoned, or been killed. Of course those who are left alive and speaking lively say they support the government~ Recently Xi and his puppets found those in Hong Kong still dare say things unpleasant to their ears. Now they are planning the same procedure to subjects in Hong Kong.
The source of Chinese being poor last century is the Communist Party. Before their rule China is richer than average of the world. Thank you for telling us
Re: (Score:2)
Before [the communist party] rule China is richer than average of the world.
No. If you go back to the 1200s, China was rich (and Europe was dirt poor). By the 1800s, China had devolved into a bunch of regional warlords. The communists unified China.
China is not paradise. Nor is here. (Score:3, Interesting)
Me thinks you're arguing with a racist. But if you want to take a broader perspective, then I think you should run the tape back at least as far as the Opium War. But I don't think the Chinese worry too much about four decades or even four centuries. I think they would be willing to start the clock four millennia ago.
In contrast, I think many Americans can't remember what happened four months or four weeks ago. Can barely remember what they saw on TV four hours ago?
Re: (Score:2)
Well okay, but whatever it was, it was huge and fantastic, and the best one anyone has ever seen, believe me!
Re: (Score:2)
Well played. If I ever had a mod point...
Re: (Score:3)
Can barely remember what they saw on TV four hours ago?
Pretty sure I saw some people arguing about the confederate flag and changing the name of a square in Boston (because the governor in the 1600s had slaves or something).
After that I noticed there was some kind of drama on TV about Queen Elizabeth.
Re: (Score:3)
Got me to look at an AC, the racist did. But I just wanted to see if you were helping him prove my point or if you were another racist, like so many ACs.
Can't actually thank you for your support in your nameless state, but I can actually rationalize that you might be afraid of the racists, one of the (few) legitimate reasons to be anonymous.
However I would consider the possibility that he isn't actually a racist, but just completely ignorant of history and proud of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Quite so. The movies Wolf Warrior [boxofficemojo.com] and Wolf Warrior 2 [boxofficemojo.com] were hugely successful.
And that "Peace behind me, war in front of me [businessinsider.com]" patriotic/nationalistic video was very well done. Like something Lockheed or Northrop Grumman would put together.
In the US, we're all so scared of cultural insensitivity - until Trump - that it was difficult to criticize China. No one noticed they were taking the technologica
Yeah, but without them (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The highest rational estimate I can find is 14 million, and even that seems to be a stretch.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Fuck the CCP. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, if they try and fight India, it's not going to end well for them. India will kick their asses back to the South China sea!
Really. One suicide mission to drop the biggest, dirtiest nuclear weapon India can make, about a kilometer or so back from the Three Gorges Dam, and the vast majority of China's industrial heartland will be gone . . . After that. . . it's all logistics. . .
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, if they try and fight India, it's not going to end well for them. India will kick their asses back to the South China sea!
Really. One suicide mission to drop the biggest, dirtiest nuclear weapon India can make, about a kilometer or so back from the Three Gorges Dam, and the vast majority of China's industrial heartland will be gone . . . After that. . . it's all logistics. . .
Why suicide mission. It is well within range of Indian ICBMs and they have sufficient precision to place the nukes correctly. AGNI-5 has 8000km range and was specifically designed with "hit any place in China" in its design brief.
Re: (Score:2)
Why suicide mission. It is well within range of Indian ICBMs and they have sufficient precision to place the nukes correctly. AGNI-5 has 8000km range and was specifically designed with "hit any place in China" in its design brief.
Plausible deniability. And if they could make it out of 'missing' ex-Russian nukes, it would muddy the trail even further
Re: (Score:2)
As well as a huge fraction of its population. The Yangtze River is the main/only source of water for tens if not hundreds of millions of human beings, most of them innocent civilians.
This would be among the worst acts of genocide in the history of the world.
Re: (Score:2)
I live in a traditionally Tibetan region of China.
But you don't live in Tibet.
Re: Fuck the CCP. (Score:2)
I do not live in the Tibetan Autonomous region which you call Tibet. I live in Amdo Tibet which like Kham has mostly been assimilated into other Chinese provinces. The Dali Lama was born in a village where the city I live is located.
Take your shit understandings and fuck yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
Take your shit understandings and fuck yourself.
You tried to justify the attempts from the CCP to destroy Tibetan culture. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Furthermore you are rude.
Re: (Score:3)
I have many Chinese Muslim friends. I work with Chinese Muslims. My boss' husband is a Muslim. I have had them admire American freedom but I also think they do not know the cost of those freedoms because they have not seen America first hand. You seem to be claiming you have seen China first hand and talked to Chinese Muslims directly. That's great -- truly is for crossing that threshold. However, I have not heard any of these individuals speak about being punished. I wonder which sect of Chinese Muslims yo
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Fuck the CCP. (Score:2)
No, it's logical. They cannot be self sufficient which is why they need to have strong ties to another country. China is the best candidate.
More so, they were the most significant modern theocracy and America by it's very founding principles is anti-theocracy. What government style do Tibetans in exile use, oh that's right democracy. So modern Tibetans are quite lost from their traditions on both sides. At least Tibetans living under China still get to practice many of their traditional festivals, games,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: No easy fix [Re:F*** the CCP.] (Score:2)
Bingo but this starts with understanding. Kundalini Yoga teaches, "understand through compassion or you will misunderstand the times." These comments are overflowing with bigotry and a lack of understanding.
appears (Score:2)
Appearance is in the eye of the beholder. Opinion substituted for reporting.
Re: (Score:2)
You must be a chinese hacker :) Spreading doubts on perfectly clear and accurate information by downplaying the reputation of whoever is not in line with the official party line .
Offensive (Score:3, Funny)
And considering the fact that some parts of China's railroad system are running on Flash I see lots of possibilities for mayhem here.
Re:Offensive (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
If someone crashes Stack Overflow, the world's infrastructure may grind to a halt within a week. One of the main reasons people use Microsoft is because it's easy to find fix-its on the web because everyone else and their dog are using it for biz. (Network effect.) If one has to rely on just Microsoft's own guides, they'll soon go mad.
The next Bin Laden may target S.O.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You don't see why a crime is still wrong for you, if somebody else commits it?
How about not being the same kind of person as the one that you despise?
There's a difference between stopping somebodyfrom doing harm to you, and doing harm to someody "because" they are doing harm to you. The latter makes you both equal to every observer.
I will only knock that stick away that you're poking me with so many times before I knock you on your ass to stop you from poking me further. And, no, defending yourself in no way makes you equal to your offender to an impartial observer. Sometimes there is no other way to defend yourself than by causing harm to your offender.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Offensive (Score:2)
Dude, if you could get people in mass to pass joints around in China, you would be a true revolutionary.
Re: Offensive (Score:2)
Really depends on where you are and who you know. In Kunming, drugs are more popular. I am in Qinghai and I have seen it around a few times.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Hi friend.
I'm a small elle libertarian not a Trump MAGA guy. Strike one. There were both MAGA and Antifa people running around the capitol building. No one knows who exactly smeared what where or what their politics were. Strike two. You immediately resorted to ad hominem. Strike three. You're out. Better luck next time.
Libertarian?? So that's why you call yourself Orange Man Bad and spend half your time defending Trump? .. you are not one if his supporters, you just defend him at every turn, ... but you are not a Trump supporter, ... you argue in favour of what he does, ... but you are not a Trump supporter, ... your signature is a Trumpist propaganda slogan, ... but you are not a Trump supporter? As for ad-hominem attacks, it is not an ad-hominem attack to point out the documented fact that you Trump supporters smeared y
Re: (Score:2)
The ad hominem was the use of the word asshole.
My name was for personal amusement. So if I chose "Nancy Pelosi" as my name you'd think I was Nancy Pelosi? *eye roll*
I don't defend Trump. What I do is call out when people are factually incorrect. Like you. On this site which has changed from techie libertarian to Marxist-socialist over the years that means I'm mostly correcting the Marxist-socialists. That does not make me a Trump supporter. On the pro-Trump sites, I correct them and they call me a liberal fascist. I'm sorry I don't fit into your completely binary left/right/Uniparty bullshit schema.
I am a libertarian. We are not like the left or the right. We see you both as mostly the same.
Once you grock there is more than left/right/Uniparty you'll understand. Until then, sure if it makes you feel better to think that everyone who doesn't agree with everything you believe is a "MAGAasshole" as you intelligently said then obviously I have to be a 100% pro Trumpist because there is no third, fourth or other options. Oy vey....
Nancy Pelosi is a person's name, 'Orange Man Bad' is a favourite Trumpist slogan, a statement of political identity, they are about as similar as an apple and a barnacle. As for you being a libertarian, you seem to side with the Trumpists far more often than with anybody else. If it floats your boat to think you aren't a Trumpist go right ahead. Nobody's buying it. Anybody watching you defend the orange buffoon quickly realises that you are a Trumpist despite your claims to the contrary. As for being called
All your base are belong to us! (Score:2)
Why ? (Score:3)
Why are such systems on the web ? .. this is looking for trouble. sounds terribly idiotic to have the important infrastructures like the electric grid on the web with just a few steps between the hackers and disaster. Pull the fucking plug.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah this is India's fault (if the news story is correct, which I doubt).
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why ? (Score:5, Informative)
Power grid controls need to be connected somehow, the plants need to be able to coordinate and adjust for changing needs. In an ideal world you'd have a dedicated private fiber network between the sites. Realistically, you have your sites talking on their own VLAN, linked together over the internet using VPN.
Once you lose the air gap though, it gets a lot easier to hack in. And once you've found and compromised "the weakest link" somewhere, you have a foot in the door (presence on their VLAN) and can start moving around and expand your control. Your network security people need to be prepared for this (it's going to happen eventually) and be able to catch it early when it starts, smash the kill switch to lock everything down, and then go track down/eradicate the incursion and identify/plug the hole they came in through.
It's not like Iran's centrifuges that could be air-gapped and still run. (and those got hacked anyway)
They're not doing it that way because they think it's the best idea, they're doing it because it's practical and affordable. Like for the same reason you take a VPN box home to work from home, it's not practical or affordable for your company to trench fiber to their employees' houses.
Re: Why ? (Score:2)
I was going to post about how smart Grid is the stupidest thing ever but you are making me rethink this position.
Your argument is basically it's unavoidable because the cost of dedicated networking for adaptability. I always thought a lot of this could be done with hardware solutions instead of exposing one to software intrusion in mass. Stuxnet begins though to break this down with how it invaded PLCs.
So the questions seem to be how much more expensive is it to have a competent IT and security team to det
Re: (Score:2)
Can't have fiber. We can't even get fiber to major neighborhoods that have above average wealth, whereas electrical equipment is wide spread and in many odd places. Ie, many places in the world do not even want to pay the cost to bury electric distribution lines, or even properly maintain the above ground towers, thus you get forest fires as a result, lawsuits, and bankrupt utilities. Paying for fiber is a non-starter. In the major industrial countries they'll use wireless instead if they can and they w
As always, cost (Score:2)
We learned that back when Pakistan literally ignored a planned terrorist attack on India's capital and India just looked the other way.
You can have occupations like the US in Iraq & Afghanistan, you can have little bush fire wars in Africa and the middle east for the sake of selling arms. But big wars against super powers are verboten. The people in charge aren't going to let you break th
Re: (Score:2)
Networked computers.. (Score:2)
Power (Score:4, Informative)
Want to know how to tell if a government has a tenuous hold on power?
China has more land than any other country in the world. They loose their mind when their India decides to build a road *near* a remote valley in Tibet.
*That* is insecurity. This road has exactly zero effect on China, beyond establishing a clear border, which means they can't move the boundary line any further into India's territory, which they have been doing for decades.
Re: (Score:2)
China has more land than any other country in the world.
Russia is bigger. Canada is also bigger. USofA is approximately the same size. So no, it's not the biggest country in the world.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The solution (Score:3)
1) Give India a large nuke pointed at China
2) setup the launch system to remain inactive as long as it receives power.
What could go wrong?
Re: (Score:2)
India the enigma (Score:3)
India held off Alexander the Great, defeated the Mughal Empire (eastern Ottoman Turks), the British Empire, and (so far) successfully avoided becoming a pupped of any other world power. Elements of truly ancient cultures are still very much alive in a diverse and thriving Indian society, the world's most populous democracy.
My bets, and my hopes, are vey much with India.
If you must purchase services or products from non-domestic sources, please choose to do business with India instead of China: https://www.quora.com/Are-ther... [quora.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Let this be a lesson! (Score:2)
And we still have all those corporations who want to shave a couple of hundred bucks off the cost of a new cell phone are still telling us that China will come around if only we let them set up shop there and teach them how to be democracy-loving freedom addicts.
Yeah, China is to be trusted. RIght? (Score:2)
THis is almost insane. Nearly all of the Asian nations will tell you to NOT TRUST CHINA. Not because they are big, but simply because they constantly attack other nations. Not blatantly, but via small things the way that the Communist have done for 80+ years. For example, the other issue for India, is that China put dams on ALL of the rivers that feed into India and far south east asia. China claimed that these were for storage and flood control, except that the dams were not that type. They are div
Re: Trump's best thing? (Score:2)
No... no... no they won't. As it turns out, China likes selling things to most the world. So the chaos of world War, is not something they desire in the slightest.
However, calling for everyone to isolate China will leave them no other option. One of the issues that sealed the deal with Japan attacking the US was economic isolation. Then again, they were already mowing down China by that point but the funniest part of the story now is, who do we like more now, Japan -- a supremely ethnocentric and nati