ANALYSIS – If there was any nation for whom the word ‘history’ means anything, that nation is China.

For this rising superpower has had a long life, stretching back some two thousand years.

So, perhaps the best way to read how China will develop in the world will come through looking back to the past.

Two incidents stand out in relation to recent moves by the US into Australia.

The first involved the rising power of Japan, who found itself under an embargo targeting the raw materials which it needed to continue its move into the industrialised age.

The established wisdom is that the Second World War in the Pacific started with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, however didn’t that war really begin with those US sanctions that struck at the heart of nation?

So how do you think China, could interpret America’s recent move into Australia, allied to her talk of supporting South Korea, Japan, and Australia, all of whom are said to be concerned about the rise of this future superpower?

Could the move into Australia, be seen as the opening of hostilities by a status-quo power?

Today, China is a huge nation, a continent of some two billion or more people.  It was a huge nation also when Great Britain forced it through gun-boat diplomacy to allow the selling of opium on its mainland before eventually ceding control of Hong Kong.

Could there be a repeat result over trade in the South China Sea, which the US and her allies claim is an  international trade route?

All this of course, negates one stark fact, any future conflict with China will mean any potential foe would have to deal with her arsenal of nuclear weapons.

So, it appears that a number of nations will have to get around the negotiating table to iron out their differences with China.