China and Korea

As time goes by I'll organise this blog into something with a structure, with pages regarding China and North Asia. There are a few very good reference books that I know of about China; ones that dont just provide a geo-political view but rather something more interesting and personal; including the ties that bind and the remarkable tensile stregth of families. I've travelled to various points well across China by plane and train three times and I know that isn't much but at the same time it is something and worth relating. I think you'll find that I do go on a bit about the scale of humanity when talking about China. It really is The People's Republic of People.
The way the top-down rule system works, a well thought through policy can lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into a much better life faster than these things have ever happened before in the world. At the same time a bad policy can do enormous harm. It is this point in particular that really does astound me.
A nation that is building a new city of 20 million people every year and has been doing so for about 2 decades and will continue on this track. That's China. To me it really is mind-boggling. I'll also include some re-edited the articles on China that I had published in the Bangkok Post over the past few years.
Last year China began the relocation of 200 million people from rural areas into new and existing cities...I think the annual rate is about 20 million people per year, so the plan for the next ten years is established, in place, and operating now.
A big change will come with the hand-over of power from the current Chairman Hu to the next Chairman in 2012. Both Hu and Wen are social-engineers whereas the new guys I think come from stronger political roots with closer ties to the Peoples Liberation Army and that will mean a lot in terms of re-structuring defense systems and providing everything from a brand new full sized modern navy to anti-satellite missiles and some form of nuclear shield. So the future is very interesting and so much depends upon China, the soft-power re-unification of Taiwan, and the sway of power across the Koreas. There is no North or South Korea, really; it is a divided country much the same as Vietnam was divided, but is now unified. How this happens with the Koreas will be quite devastatingly important to world peace.
The Middle East is always unsolved simply because it is not really worth the effort of the 'great powers' to solve. There's just not the human density nor resources there that can really make much difference no matter who has what weapon. If peace mattered there, it would have happened by now. Whereas in North Asia the combination of huge populations, massive resources, clashing ideology and strategic world power is right there, right on a 'tectonic plate' of humanity where if one thing goes wrong, everything can change very quickly; and if something does go wrong then everything, for all of us, will change very quickly.