The [Chinese] currency manipulation has been going on for at least 10 years. I happen to think it was bad policy, but I understand why it happened. I did not personally gain from it to the extent that others have, for example by occupying an over-leveraged property or working for a company which does. I don't want to see military action with China but I wouldn't doubt that it will come to that.
Years ago, when I worked for a Bay area start-up with the late Henry Taube ("The Conversions with Henry" guy I blog about), we hired a young Chinese guy who worked for us for about a year. He was a hard worker but contributed no patents or publications (intellectual property), and left, returning to China. He ended up (according to my former boss) appropriating a decent chunk of alkane activation technology back to China.
Zhu-lin (I recall his name) spent what little time he socialized talking about how the map of the real China resembled a giant chicken, withKorea beingthe Korean peninsula as the wattle and Vietnam being the feet and legs. You can see this rightward facing chicken if you look at a map and use a little imagination. He said (ca. 1998) that it was only a matter of time before the chicken was whole again.
China has ancient enemies in Asia which I'm sure you know. They have historically been weaker and may not wish to remain so always, though that may be inevitable.
