B
Bruzilla
Guest
Anyone else been checking the news out of the PROC lately? There seems to be an unexplainable drop in consumption of petrolleum products over the past few months. There have been double-digit increases for a long time, and now there's almost a decrease. The PROC government was suppossed to be building a strategic petroleum reserve, but no one seems to think that there would be that level of fuel diversion from industry to fill it at this point, nor do they think the project is far enough along.
What's really worrying is that the shortage is mainly for diesel fuel. There are stories of lines of trucks, outside of closed down gas stations, that there's just no diesel fuel for. So what's causing the decline in consumption? There are the power plants, and speculation that power companies are decreasing consumption because of state price controls on what they can charge for power, but if the power plants are decreasing electricity production you would think there would be a noticeable drop in electricity consumption, black and brown outs, etc., but I haven't heard about any of those issues. So what else in China uses diesel fuel? Tanks, APCs, troop trucks, their ships, and most of their submarines (including all of their modern Kilo Class SSs that they bought from Russia, which are the only boats they have with the moxie to go up against our subs.) If the diesel isn't getting diverted to a strategic reserve, might it be getting diverted and stockpiled by the military?
And today, after a good couple of years of keeping the saber rattling to a minimum, some PROC officials start spouting off about how they will use nuclear weapons if the US attacks the PROC following an invasion of Taiwan. Even more unusual is that the old party line was that the PROC would respond with nuclear weapons is attacked by nuclear weapons. The new party line is: “If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu (link below). That's a pretty big gauntlet to toss down as they are now saying that if we attack them the way we did Iraq, they will respond with nuclear weapons, and that's an odd thing to be telling a bunch of international journalists, unless you want a specific message to get out. Couple this with all of the commotion the PROC government is stirring up about the Unocal purchase, which they know the US government will never approve, and you've got the makings for the same justification the Japanese used for invading China in the 1930s.
It just makes me wonder if all the crap the Democrats are throwing about the media as to how our military is stretched too thin, is worn out, is understaffed, in need of new equipment, etc., is having an effect on the PROC government and making them think that maybe now would be a good time to hit Taiwan.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/28cfe55a-f4a7-11d9-9dd1-00000e2511c8.html
What's really worrying is that the shortage is mainly for diesel fuel. There are stories of lines of trucks, outside of closed down gas stations, that there's just no diesel fuel for. So what's causing the decline in consumption? There are the power plants, and speculation that power companies are decreasing consumption because of state price controls on what they can charge for power, but if the power plants are decreasing electricity production you would think there would be a noticeable drop in electricity consumption, black and brown outs, etc., but I haven't heard about any of those issues. So what else in China uses diesel fuel? Tanks, APCs, troop trucks, their ships, and most of their submarines (including all of their modern Kilo Class SSs that they bought from Russia, which are the only boats they have with the moxie to go up against our subs.) If the diesel isn't getting diverted to a strategic reserve, might it be getting diverted and stockpiled by the military?
And today, after a good couple of years of keeping the saber rattling to a minimum, some PROC officials start spouting off about how they will use nuclear weapons if the US attacks the PROC following an invasion of Taiwan. Even more unusual is that the old party line was that the PROC would respond with nuclear weapons is attacked by nuclear weapons. The new party line is: “If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu (link below). That's a pretty big gauntlet to toss down as they are now saying that if we attack them the way we did Iraq, they will respond with nuclear weapons, and that's an odd thing to be telling a bunch of international journalists, unless you want a specific message to get out. Couple this with all of the commotion the PROC government is stirring up about the Unocal purchase, which they know the US government will never approve, and you've got the makings for the same justification the Japanese used for invading China in the 1930s.
It just makes me wonder if all the crap the Democrats are throwing about the media as to how our military is stretched too thin, is worn out, is understaffed, in need of new equipment, etc., is having an effect on the PROC government and making them think that maybe now would be a good time to hit Taiwan.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/28cfe55a-f4a7-11d9-9dd1-00000e2511c8.html