Mr Opinion said- "I think the Chinese will be able to swing Indonesia to its side."

Answer- Good analysis. Thanks.

Dear Canem Malum,

«"I think the Chinese will be able to swing Indonesia to its side."»

What nonsense: every Indonesian understands that under China it would be "bye bye Islam"!

Islam in Asia is perhaps different than Islam in the Middle East. I would characterize Indonesia historically as primarily military in nature perhaps (Australia perhaps is more dominated by it's courts)- but looking at pictures of the cities it appears to have had a lot of investment over the past twenty years and now the cities look more modern than Australia- not that that is a good thing. Poverty appears to have gone from 70% in the 80's to 10% now.

Surprisingly figures indicate that Indonesia's population density is lower than Britain- though in some countries population isn't well documented especially in slums- and as I understand many of the people are concentrated on tiny Java- 270 million people. I understand there are some issues in the north of Sumatra with separatists and the fallout from the tsunami.

Aside-
Given Australia's changes over the last seventy years the influence of the church has perhaps been replaced by the courts- you could argue the church was perhaps more sensitive to the community- this "institutional vacuum filling" is an interesting addendum to the "no vacuum" law in politics.

Anyway- it appears that Chinese want access to strategic resources to expand it's influence- it has apparently taken over the largest port in Africa the Port Of Mombasa- Kenya- and the Port Of Darwin- interesting to see how that effects the Port Of Singapore as it's infrastructure ages. I saw something about the Chinese Debt Diplomacy strategy. I'd expect that the Chinese would attempt to aggressively integrate the Darwin Port infrastructure with the Darwin Airport and rail links to capture Australian trade with South East Asia. Given Chinese activities in Africa their ultimate goal may be to capture Suez or just make Suez irrelevant in world affairs- perhaps even encircling India. There are also some signs India is also attempting to control key assets in Australia.

To state the obvious- The worlds shipping routes are the modern equivalent of the ancient Silk Road.

The future is unknown but we still must try to manage it.

Yuyutsu,

As a Taiwanese you will say anything if you think it will help Taiwan defeat the PRC in the Chinese Civil War.

Mr Opinion- I thought Yuyutsu was Indian- the name Yuyutsu apparently relates to an Indian myth- of course the Indian's also perhaps dislike the Chinese.