The future of China in Season 2/3
12-07-2013, 02:01 PM
(split of from the discussion in the "Android anatomy" thread)
When I started the "Gas Station" story I looked for a potential "bad guy" back on Earth willing to disrupt Europe's and Japan's operation at Saturn and decided to use China.
There isn't much hard facts what is going on in China in Season 0/1/2, only that China is hostile to Fenspace. My interpretation of this was that China's government feared about a loss of control... and Handwavium is a LOT about loosing control. What use is your great firewall and repressive regime if your population can begin to create spaceships, hacker AIs and all kind of crazy tech in their backyard?
I think China is looking for a way to regain a position of strength for dealing with Fenspace without loosing control. The "stealth spacecraft" project might be one result of this politics, but its not necessarily the only Handwavium based space project in China (or even an official one, it might be a black ops project of one powerful faction in China).
in Season 2 China seems to have one of the best waved stealth spacecrafts in Fenspace. Its good enough that the Chinese LOST one of their crafts within their factory when the pilot left the craft without switching off the stealth system. They have yet to find the craft, despite the fact that the craft has no AI so it should not be able to move on its own.
China managed to build a small base on an asteroid in elliptical orbit around the sun without anyone noticing. But the whole project has multiple problems, which might lead to its end in 2018-2020... the first is that all their stealth crafts are HIGHLY quirked, which means it takes a long time to build them and sometimes they are just unusable and have to be wrecked. There is also the problem of building up a secret base in the asteroid without allowing it to go independent, which leads to some self-sabotage of their success.
I assume that some heads rolled (literally) when they fired the shot at Pan (and did not succeed)... for the first time they left evidence about their operations in Fenspace and got nothing for it. The project also learned that their secret "long range bombardment cannon" is not the final answer to Fenspace warfare... even when attacking with total surprise and without any knowledge about their existence and technology among the Fen they did not achieve a full success.
There is also the accident when Ford Sierra rammed an unknown (and invisible!) object in low Earth orbit with the Dragon Wagon... which might also have been part of the "Chinese stealth system", just built into an Earth surveillance satellite.
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China has never really cared what the barbarians (i.e., non-Chinese) think of them. The current regime is also big on control - "Orwellian" fits some of their policies and practices. Add to that the fact that their first major contact with Fen was a completely unauthorized emigration of an entire passenger-trainload of their citizens in a way calculated to confuse and demoralize the authorities and you get a regime that's not going to be well-disposed to the Convention.
(Aside: I'm guessing the Kandor Treaty wasn't signed by the UN Security Council, since the Chinese have a veto there.)
Then consider that the Chinese are not stupid, and that the stereotypical East-Oriental opinions about honour and "face" apply just as well to the Chinese.
If we hadn't had Operation Great Justice to create a local villain group, China would have been the "big bad" of Fenspace from the Convention's point of view- and they would have been completely blameless from their own viewpoint.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
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- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Yes, China and the Fen had a rough start...
but I am not sure China would veto the treaty, because they also have to worry about people from Fenspace coming down again... and bringing nasty things (like big rocks) with them.
Most likely they wrote of the people who escaped China to Fenspace and focused on damage control (spelled: let no Handwavium into China). 
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The thing with China's foreign policy is that it's always with an eye to maintaining internal stability and legitimacy and credibility with its own people first - international politics comes second. The recent air-defense zone being a prime example - they never expected that to work, but it worked at home.
I'd guess Chinese wavetech would stay mostly at home, for big World No.1 projects like 3-Gorges Dam, or a supertall skyscraper, or a highly advanced aerofighter - things the local people could see and touch. It's all about how it's spun to the locals. That wasn't a trainload of people escaping, it was a trainload of people being kidnapped - and there's enough of a critical mass of paid commenters and bloggers on the local internet to make the spin stick.
Having a stealth-drone collide with a fencraft over Nevada isn't necessarily embarrassing for them. It's fencraft's own fault for getting in the way, while it allows the government to spin it to their people that they have stealth craft that not even the US, or Fenspace can track. They won't care that this'll annoy the Americans when discovered - as keeping an eye on one's potential enemies will be seen as a natural right, and something the States are happily doing to everyone else.
If I wanted to be a little satirical, I'd suggest that they start hopping out into space, claiming places were discovered by Chinese Astronomers first, so they have a natural right to them. To the annoyance of the people actually living there. It's a little bit ridiculous - but it wouldn't necessarily be out of character either. People in Fenspace would laugh at it, but the people at home on the mainland would fervently get behind it - and the government making such proclamations. It's unlikely they'd ever try and impose such claims militarily - which risks a fiasco - but they'll still make them and then announce at home that the foreign invaders are the ones causing trouble by not moving.
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I'm hesitant to immediately brand China as " the enemy" or even " an enemy" in Fenspace, because the Yellow Peril has a long and really unpleasant history in sci-fi and of all the great legacies of fandom I think we can leave that one the hell behind, thanks.
So. With that in mind, let's get rolling.
Chinese foreign policy abandons The Conquest Of Space(tm) early on, way moreso than say, the US or Russia. The Fen gain too much of a foothold too quickly for the Chinese to make any big moves without starting something. Instead the focus is on creating and maintaining trade links between China and Fenspace - they're one of the leading suppliers of Stuff in the world, and we all know Fen love their Stuff.
Diplomatically, well, China don't love the Fen and the Fen don't love China. Above and beyond elaborate pranks like the Great Train Escape, Fenspace has a tendency to cut into key Chinese markets: asteroid mining messes with the price of rare earths, and Fen supplying sustainable wavetech Stuff to the developing world fucks over Chinese efforts in Africa and elsewhere. None of this endears Fenspace to the PRC.
Internally I think Dartz has the right of it: the Chinese government will emphasize the internal use of wavetech for prestige projects - maybe not a supertall skyscraper but an arcology of some sort - as well as for things like national defense. At least one branch of the PLA will be over 50% wavetech by 2030. Chinese companies will have access to certain strains for dispersal into the population - waved goods will be a big thing for the average consumer, as well as a major export product.
..which is about where the inspiration falters for the moment, so I'll leave it here.
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One of the things I see about China in the 2020's is the drastic slowdown, or near complete halt, in their economic growth. Why? Fen recycling tech primarily.
I don't remember how much OTL China has a hold, but there are significant amounts of metals shipped there for recycling. Not only do local (and superior) facilities drop that, it means less travel for the goods (which not also saves money, but lessens greenhouse emissions which will be a bonus for Governments looking to be see as 'Green'). This I see as further allowing Fentech (waved or not) being implemented locally. Governments will like more local production if it doesn't cost too much (and creates jobs). Along with the mineral resources now commercially available (as Dartz and M Fnord point out), this will drop China's economic footprint.
This starts happening around 2016, after the curfuffle of the end of the Boskone conflict dies down due to things like the PEPPER treaty. Around then I see plenty of Dane corps looking to get a hold of Fentech.
With all to automation tech I see the Fen introducing, the need for labour that China (and India) currently fulfils would be greatly reduced. As much as it benefits China, I see it annoying them at the same time due to loss of customers.
...And that's where my inspiration falters for the moment.
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I've had an idea percolating in the back of my head for the last few days on the subject of China's top secret Wavetech research initiative, and how that plays into their operations. China has always been big on having secret initiatives in the background, while presenting a wall to the rest of the world. But on top of that, they've also got a cultural mindset which is very different from say, America. They've had to live most of the last thousand years within spitting distance of an enemy capable and willing to annex most of Europe if it ever got its act together. Bear in mind that China is a nuclear power, and this didn't come about because they were afraid of the Americans as much as the Russians. When you're dealing with a society like that, you have a reactionary civilization which is going to throw tremendous resources at developing standoff deterrent options meant to keep "enemy" forces at bay. And given the threat Fenspace offers, there's no way they'd ignore the threat.
Also, don't forget that traditionally, the PRC in the real world doesn't respect other people's treaties or agreements unless it specifically benefits them. A good example is the Berne Convention, which covers copyright and trademark law. You copyright or trademark anything elsewhere in the world, and about 95% of the world will automatically grant you the same exclusivity according to the terms of the Berne Convention, which is meant to extend global exclusivity to something you own. But not in China. If you don't register separately, you don't own squat in China. Anyone can copyright or trademark the same exact thing, look, brand name, etc. Even copy the processes used to invent something. If you don't register separately in China, they win and you lose.
Take that mindset and extend it to Fenspace. It won't matter to them what "decadent western agreements" may be on the table to restrict the militarization of the rest of space, it won't matter to the Chinese. They're going to be finding ways to do it. They may not be the "big bad", but if written up properly, the idea of violating any offplanet Chinese installations or assets should invoke the same feeling of unease and dread that a person would get at the idea of flying a Cessna into Chinese military airspace on a bar bet. They're the "looming menace over the horizon" if written properly, because frankly, their operational policy and long-term strategy is based on this philosophy. They will overcome. Period. Even if it takes generations. That kind of mindset will apply to the conquest of space, even if they have to take time and assess the situation carefully.
Which is where my plot idea comes in. But here's the thing. It involves adding something the creators of Fenspace may or may not want, so I need to know who I need to email to in order to explain the idea. If they don't want it, I can drop the project, but I don't want to write too much only to be told later that I can't do it.
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That would probably be me. It could be other guys too, but eventually it usually comes back to me, so.
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I want in on this, I can see so much possibility
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I've sent Fnord a detailed email of what I have in mind. If he okays it, I'll post the whole thing here. But I don't want to step on the Editor's toes, so if he doesn't like it, I won't post it. 
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Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:One of the things I see about China in the 2020's is the drastic slowdown, or near complete halt, in their economic growth. Why? Fen recycling tech primarily.
I don't remember how much OTL China has a hold, but there are significant amounts of metals shipped there for recycling. Not only do local (and superior) facilities drop that, it means less travel for the goods (which not also saves money, but lessens greenhouse emissions which will be a bonus for Governments looking to be see as 'Green'). This I see as further allowing Fentech (waved or not) being implemented locally. Governments will like more local production if it doesn't cost too much (and creates jobs). Along with the mineral resources now commercially available (as Dartz and M Fnord point out), this will drop China's economic footprint.
This starts happening around 2016, after the curfuffle of the end of the Boskone conflict dies down due to things like the PEPPER treaty. Around then I see plenty of Dane corps looking to get a hold of Fentech.
With all to automation tech I see the Fen introducing, the need for labour that China (and India) currently fulfils would be greatly reduced. As much as it benefits China, I see it annoying them at the same time due to loss of customers.
...And that's where my inspiration falters for the moment.
I would disagree with this, because Chinas economic increase is NOT dependent on any metal export at all. In 2014 and later they are primarily buying stuff and making people opening companies in China, because an economic good thing for them.
They consider their ACCESS to "rare earths" a strategic resource, so the export of Fenspace might decrease the dependence of some other countries on China, but it won't really do much bad to their own industry.
Dragonflight Wrote:Take that mindset and extend it to Fenspace. It won't matter to them what "decadent western agreements" may be on the table to restrict the militarization of the rest of space, it won't matter to the Chinese. They're going to be finding ways to do it. They may not be the "big bad", but if written up properly, the idea of violating any offplanet Chinese installations or assets should invoke the same feeling of unease and dread that a person would get at the idea of flying a Cessna into Chinese military airspace on a bar bet. They're the "looming menace over the horizon" if written properly, because frankly, their operational policy and long-term strategy is based on this philosophy. They will overcome. Period. Even if it takes generations. That kind of mindset will apply to the conquest of space, even if they have to take time and assess the situation carefully. Yes, I can see this...
because China is not necessarily willing to play by the same rules... the Fen neither want to wake up the US nor China in a bad mood, so they will stay careful. On the other side I am not sure they would give China a "blank card" with things they do in orbit.
The whole "stealth ship/weapon test" thing of the Gas Station Story could be (but don't need to be) a part of Chinas long range strategy to get recon data and prepare some military presence in space without showing their cards before they are ready. Most likely they didn't consider the idea that the weapon would be found.
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I'm willing to wait on Mals call on this.
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>.>
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Still working on it. Also, you know, real life & shit. You'll get an answer when it's ready.
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DRAG0NFLIGHT Wrote:>.> --
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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No worries. I just didn't know if it had been received or not.
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