Geo politics are not my strong suit, not by any measure, but hearing snippets of how terribly China is currently doing, I can't help but feel what we're seeing is them presenting strength when actually weak, as told by Sun Tzu, driven by desperation and internal turmoil.
In short:
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Their economy is also suffering, same as everyone else, and considering how they're the world's manufacturing center, why wouldn't it be?
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You're a fool to think they've locked down Covid to the degree they claim. I guarantee it's ravaging their populace the same as if not worse than anyone else, and they're lying about it, and having their puppets across the globe lie for them.
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I remember something about a famine, coupled with the absolute shit quality of their farm land - a holdover from the days of Mao and his dumbass policies on farming.
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Also, problems with meeting electricity demand, largely because they're trying to play big dick and refuse themselves the Australian coal they so desperately need under the banner of trade sanctions.
Anyone with a better grasp of the situation at hand want to confirm or refute these points? I'm guessing it'll only take a stiff breeze in their direction to cause them to collapse if things are as bad as they could be.
I lived in China during the Wuflu.
Believe me they are doing fine and that's why the shares based economy is higher than ever.
I get that people want to hate on them for the hellhole that was/is 2020 and that's perfectly fine and understandable.
But presently life in China is good according to my friends who still live there. Covid was a thing that lasted 9 weeks early last year and takes up a tiny part of the news now.
The whole region is over it; Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia (Those last three are still taking tourists in rom across the globe too).
China is still heavily dependent on the western world. The US has been at "record high stocks" as well, which doesn't actually mean much when talking about the overall economy. China is only influential because the forces within the western world allow it to keep growing.
That's exactly it, only now the West isn't producing enough internal revenue and so China isn't exporting as much produce.
Add to that the current Australia issue with coal and foods either not being shipped or not being accepted (It's complicated) and the usual rotation of the global economy is likely to shift.
They had measures in place which they learned from the Bird Flu and some other outbreaks over the past decade but nothing like China's lockdown.
Korea even held a wedding with 5000 guests in attendance at the height of the outbreak.
I'm sure Biden and Harris will find someone to attack soon enough.
Judging from the way Shillary was talking back in 2016 Russia (Or an ally of it) is probably where they are looking to.
China has survived by copying our shit, but worse, for decades now. They've never been as strong as they want you to think.
Yeah, China is strong, but nowhere near as strong as they want us to think...and they're much more vulnerable.
The reason it's kind of hard to know anything about the Chinese Economy is again Paper Tiger, they'll only publish things that make them look good and hide the true figures. That power outage is a good example of how weak their true strength is, even though Aus coal accounted for 1% of total coal used in their local electricity generation.
Example 1 Example 2 They'll use state sponsored media or just outright pay "journalists" to fabricate stories about how great they are.
But there are a few guesses you can make from articles that have come out.
Abandoning GDP goals in the midst of Corona.
China's Debt growing to 330%, almost rivaling Japan in total debt.
China's Inflation over the past 2 years has dropped to almost 0, meaning their economy is slowing but that can be argued that's in line with other Western countries.
China's Economic growth has gone from 10% of GDP in 2010, to 6% of GDP in 2019, forecast of 5% in 2020.
That summery is actually really good so I'll post it here.
Also
Trying to find an answer on Quora that isn't a shill is hard.
So the things I would take away from this is.
2.China's Economy is slowing down and while there are powerful corps like Tencent and the like in country, the actual demand for consumer goods is slowing and that means core inflation is going to rise again and with 330% debt that means more money to print and devaluing the Yuan even further.
So yeah, Paper Tiger. They produce inferior crap on the cheap but they're burning good will with stuff that happened during the pandemic, it'd make business sense to stop relying on Chinese goods but we live in clown world, so things will continue like usual and they'll still act like a dick because they can.
A decent economic article on how to starve off Chinese interest.
It's not uncommon for people in private business say Tencent to have spouses that work in the CCP, at a local province or national level. That sort of feudal intermingling is what keeps their country strong, but also very rigid.
With the WuFlu and national news dominating headlines this year, I haven't kept up with China as much as I used to. But I've been hearing that Aus' trade war with coal and grain exports have really been putting the squeeze on them. Add in the economic damage from the pandemic, the massive flooding they had earlier this year, plus the famines and I'd say that, like a lot of other countries, they're acting like they're fine, but they're probably hurting quite bad. Not that the endless propaganda they've been pumping out would tell you different.
Now, are they hurting bad enough to mount large military action against Taiwan or any of their other neighbors? That I don't know.
They're definitely lying about their numbers, but a virus with a 99.997% survival rate cannot "ravage" a populace.
There's also stories about empty factories running to make it look like there's more productivity than there is. Due to the massively authoritarian nature of China, and their increscent need for propaganda and control, I'd imagine a huge amount of electrical power is simply wasted on posturing, where the only outcome is to look good on some reports.
The life cycle of COVID is only about a month. We would have had COVID locked down ages ago if not for shitty politicians who keep letting it back in from known infected states and countries.
Because outside of /pol, people understand that China with its vast army, population, nuclear arsenal, totalitarian government and greater wealth than all the Jewish billionaires put together, is a serious fucking problem.
china's army is larp-tier running equipment half a century old. theres a reason they haven't taken back taiwan: they realistically couldn't. that and Chinese wealth is mostly based on trade with the west (that they give up the second the war starts).
there's a reason China sticks with posturing and espionage. without it, they wouldn't be taken as seriously.
They still have a shit ton of warm bodies to throw at any enemy, but you are right that their primary weapon is espionage for the moment. They are still looking to modernise wherever they can (their navy for example).
Alas, the Chinese are very good at espionage. I suppose it's the whole "subdue your enemy without fighting" taken to its logical conclusion.
Not helped by the fact that a lot of the western world absolutely refuses to acknowledge that this happens, and calls anyone who does a racist. China is brazenly acting in China's best interests, but in the western world, it's considered borderline far-right nazi-ism to put the interests of your own nation first, and the result is a cold war where only one side is even showing up.
In that respect, given how utterly mental the West has gone (what I believe to be a sort of civilisational ptsd from the World Wars worsened by Soviet subversion), can you really blame the Chinese for taking advantage?
As in, they are behaving as any other country would have done in the previous paradigm.
the chinese are darloks
That espionage could be our undoing. Think of everything made in China, you don’t think there are microchips inserted into most if not all electronics that give the Chinese a backdoor? There is evidence of such things being discovered.
China is definitely a major competitor to us on the world stage, but when I can't get electric and water service because I voted for Trump, it's going to be at the behest of the US government and not the Chinese.