Your own link has its own story about Air China’s falling share prices that is not in synch with what you said.

“Air China Ltd., the nation’s biggest international carrier, and China Eastern Airlines Corp. slumped to quarterly losses because of wrong-way bets on fuel prices and falling passenger numbers. “

Also, southern China is also the hub of the Chinese toy making industry. They were already being hit hard because of the lead paint scandals, causing cancellation of many contracts and business owners getting into hot water with the government. There won’t be any recess for that area, since a lot of the food related stuff is coming out from that region too, and the government clamping down on the melamine scandal.

You need to read what I wrote more carefully. I am well aware of the consequences of such actions, & that should be clear from what I wrote. I do not suggest that the USA should do such things. But it is still true that the existence of those options affects the possibility of China using its overseas financial balances as weapons against the USA, or Western countries in general, & renders a large part of them worthless in the event of any US-China conflict.

That was the point I was making, & its validity is not affected by what you have said. Everything you have said about possible retaliation by China (e.g. confiscation of assets), & loss of confidence in US bonds, applies even more in reverse, i.e. if China tried to use its balances as a weapon.

Look, you don’t seem to understand. You can’t collect on a Treasury Bond until they matures. There is even no point to repudiate them because by the time they mature, the conflict between China and the USA may have already passed and resolved after some years. And what’s the point, since you already gave the money. That’s like asking who borrowed from you your money back.

China’s real weapon lies in not buying future bonds and not renewing them at all as they mature. In other words, China cuts off the one export that really counts, the money. You got a junkie who is addicted in borrowing money, and you just cut off the supply. And simply _by not buying more_ Treasury Bonds, you can cause the demand for it to fall and with it, its value.

But you need to have some kind of coded illuminator signal, otherwise you’d have a severe problem when firing along the same vector from more than one ship. Without coding the missiles would all home on the strongest reflection. Time sequencing alone does not help here, and the problem is independent from mid-course steering updates (which can be done by a simple radio signal).

All missiles work via channels. You set a missile to Channel A, next missile to Channel B. If two missiles are engaged on the same target, put the two at Channel A. Missiles don’t home on a different channel than the one they are assigned to. Channel assignments are set by the FCS and this is coordinated throughout the fleet so there is no intership channel conflict assignments.

Similarly with aircraft. If you got 12 fighters in the air simultaneously, won’t their radars jam each other? Each aircraft’s radar is set on a unique channel on the ground. Back in the days of the F-4 Phantom its done by switches through access panels but today, its should be by software and within the cockpit. Same with ships, otherwise an entire fleet of AEGIS destroyers will only jam each other.

Same with active seeking missiles. FCS sets unique channels for all of them otherwise, they would only jam each other.

Yes, but consider . . . if you hold reserves in dollars, euros & yen, how can you be said to have more money than the issuers of those currencies, as was claimed? They can, if they choose (though there are obvious reasons why they wouldn’t want to do so), issue enough more to inflate your reserves into worthlessness.

In so doing, crash their economies to the ground. What you are saying is economic suicide.

A large proportion of the reserves are held in Treasury accounts, & therefore only usable as long as you refrain from overt conflict with the issuers, as they can be frozen or even cancelled by the issuers. This is not something that would be done lightly, but in the event of, for examp one, a China-US war, it would be done.

Nope. China only holds $500 billion in Treasury Accounts, which by the way, as they continually mature you need a constant level of buying new ones to keep the same level. And the US needs China to keep buying new bonds to maintain the same level. As a matter of fact, China’s level of Treasury bonds have remained steady while its surplus has grown to nearly $2 trillion.

The huge Chinese reserves give China a very good reason (in addition to their other very good reasons) for avoiding open conflict with Western countries.

The fact that the US needs a diet of $30 billion per day of foreign investment to keep the economy from tanking is the reason why it needs to avoid conflict with its creditors.

The US debt is now over $10 trillion. Debt is not a solid figure that is made some time ago and remains constant. As older debt matures and is paid off, you keep racking new debts to take their place. The figure you get is the net result.

Cancellation of the Bonds does not mean anything because the money is already spent by the US. But what you don’t get is new investment, not just from China, but also from all other investors, Russia, India, and the Middle East included. And when you got less people buying the bonds, the value of the bonds will tank, resulting in a cascade that will either make existing bond holders sell their bonds, and stop buying new bonds when existing ones mature.

Confiscation of China owned Treasury bonds will likewise force a retaliation of China confiscating of US company owned assets in China.

I understand that. However, the farther you go into concepts the farther you go with less assurance that it may or may not finish in the end. Sometimes budgetary issues, sometimes issues with the whole concept itself.

By the way, when something is finally revealed in China, its never at the start of the project. Sometimes its near the finish, sometimes its already in the final stages of testing, sometimes its already operational, sometimes only because they are planning a variant for export, and there are times, weapons systems are only revealed years after they are operational.

Top speeds aren’t relevant in combat.

Top speeds are not, but high speeds certainly are, and top speeds still reflect on the ability or how fast an aircraft can dash past the sonic barrier.

The ability to make a very fast dash—and I am a lot more confident of that ability on an F-15C versus a Super Hornet—is very important for the PK ratio of a BVRAAM, whose effective range and kill envelope is dependent on the launch speeds and height. The faster and the higher, the better, and it gets less effective the slower and the lower.

the best exchange ratio the SH could manage in BVR is 2:1

Even 1:1 is quite possible. When it comes to a volleyed BVRAAM exchange, there are good chances of mutually assured destruction. Even if you kill the other, there is a very good chance you won’t do it soon enough for him to stop him from launching his missiles to kill you.

It has more to do with how accurate or should I say unaccurate polls are than the source. The point about FOX NEWS is yes its bias toward Conservatives and/or Republicans. Yet, more people watch Fox than all the other News Networks. So, why would so many Americans watch Fox News? Well, likely because they agree with its views………

Likely because there is only one right wing news outlet, compared to four or five others that are left to middle.

China’s own CCTV hired off FOX News execs because after all to help run their English language cable channel, if you want to learn how to disseminate propaganda, learn from the best.