China

[Xerxes]

Fun fact: China’ greatest Admiral was actually of Persian descent. 
 

 

https://www.kavehfarrokh.com/news/the-hui-communities-of-china-and-admiral-zhang-he/

 

Edited June 20 by Xerxes

[Spekulatius]

So the CCP around Xi is now a 5000 year old civilization. Sound similar to the 1000 year Reich. I think it’s all BS but I agree that Xi likely thinks that way . Of course for him things start with securing his power for life.

[sleepydragon]

4 hours ago, Xerxes said:

Fun fact: China’ greatest Admiral was actually of Persian descent. 
 

 

https://www.kavehfarrokh.com/news/the-hui-communities-of-china-and-admiral-zhang-he/

 

isnt he was also castrated by the emperor since a child — ironically that no matter how great a nation China is, it’s always been under the ruling of some very backward system/class.

 

[Xerxes]

1 hour ago, sleepydragon said:

isnt he was also castrated by the emperor since a child — ironically that no matter how great a nation China is, it’s always been under the ruling of some very backward system/class.

 

yeap, he was an eunuch. 
 

I think he was a relic and legacy of the Mongle empire, as conquered people (Turnians, Iranians etc) from the Middle East came to serve as administrators in China under Mongole imperial rule. 
 

Interestingly when I was in the Yunnan province back in 2013, I heard lore of Persian influence in the south. There was a guy I met who spoke funny Persian but didn’t look neither Persian nor Chinese. What !? Heh

 

I need to read more about it. My information is very limited on the matter. 

[Xerxes]

1 hour ago, sleepydragon said:

ironically that no matter how great a nation China is, it’s always been under the ruling of some very backward system/class.

 

I would add that what is really ironic is that modern unified china was founded, not by Chinese, but by Kublai Khan, the founder of Yunnan dynasty and the last of the great Mongole khakans. 

[ValueArb]

The Mongols were the most dominant military power in world history, even more than the Romans. They conquered much of Eurasia in under 40 years. If Ogedei Khan hadn't died in 1241, we might all be speaking Mongolian as large Mongol armies had crushed every European army in open combat that dared oppose it in Russia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgeria, Serbia, Ukraine and Germany.

 

There are two hypothesis for why they stopped short of conquering all of Europe and the north countries. The standard one is that Ogedei's death precipitated a power struggle as the generals rushed back to Mongolia to secure their positions in the new regime. But they also struggled with sieges against the heavily protected European forts and cities, and it appears that in 1242 European climate got colder and wetter, creating grassland and more marsh, making it harder to sustain horse armies in future attacks. 

 

Personally I think in-fighting did them in. They weren't just a bunch of super talented horse archers, since Ghengis Khan they had adopted the best tools of war from their opponents. They had excellent siege engines run by Chinese engineers, and were the first to use Gunpowder weapons in the European theatre, and their leaders were great strategic and tactical generals, Subutai might have been the greatest general in history. They had incredible reconnaissance as well as intelligence networks, and were super smart about adapting weapons to new uses (Subutai's use of seige catapults to clear a river crossing in Hungary for example). I bet if Ogedei had lived longer Batu and Subutai would have stayed focused on Europe and adapted their armies to more effectively deal with European fortifications and taken France and eventually Spain.

 

The steppe tribes had a huge impact on China. For many centuries steppe war hardened tribes from the west would sweep into civilization softened China and conquer, establishing a new dynasty under their charge. The victors would enjoy the fantastic luxuries of Chinese civilization and their successors would grow soft over time, eventually to be invaded by another hard riding tribe from the west, who would replace them, rinse and repeat.

 

Despite how much influence steppe tribes had as historic rulers of China, the Mongols are still hated for their genocidal massacres, and other acts. Geneticists think 8% of todays asian population are descended from Genghis Khan, so you can work out how that happened.

 

Edited June 21 by ValueArb

[Luke]

Trump is gonna contest Biden in a Song duel in Chinese for this election folks!!! 2024 is getting even crazier!! 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8VAURehSLF/

[Luke]

https://asiatimes.com/2024/06/whats-the-real-size-of-chinas-economy/

 

In May, the World Bank concluded one of its periodic International Comparison Program (ICP) assessments – the price survey which “officially” determines purchasing power parity GDP. Like college rankings, the league table of the world’s largest economies shifted just enough for the obsessives to notice while springing no real surprises. Harvard will be Harvard and whether Princeton ranks above or below Yale this year is largely irrelevant. For the obsessives, China’s lead versus the US expanded by 5.6%, India inched closer to China, Japan kept its ranking while sliding down a tick, Russia moved ahead of Germany, France ahead of the UK, Indonesia tumbled two places and Brazil rose one spot. The top 10 remained the top 10.

 

The ICP is a massive undertaking. According to The Economist, World Bank researchers visited 16,000 shops in China alone to collect price data. The latest ICP assessment collected data in 2021, four years after the 2017 survey. And the conclusion is that China’s GDP was undervalued by US$1.4 trillion pushing China’s 2022 PPP GDP from 119% of the US to 125%.

 

China’s PPP GDP is only 25% larger than that of the US? Come on people… who are we kidding? Last year, China generated twice as much electricity as the US, produced 12.6 times as much steel and 22 times as much cement. China’s shipyards accounted for over 50% of the world’s output while US production was negligible. In 2023, China produced 30.2 million vehicles, almost three times more than the 10.6 million made in the US.

 

On the demand side, 26 million vehicles were sold in China last year, 68% more than the 15.5 million sold in the US. Chinese consumers bought 434 million smartphones, three times the 144 million sold in the US. As a country, China consumes twice as much meat and eight times as much seafood as the US. Chinese shoppers spent twice as much on luxury goods as American shoppers.

 

It is prima facie ridiculous that China’s production and consumption, at multiples of US levels, can be realistically discounted for lower quality/features to arrive at a mere 125% of US PPP GDP.

 

The United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSNA) provides voluntary guidelines and specifically states that nations should base their national accounts on local conditions. What that has meant in the West is to adopt all UNSNA “innovations” introduced over the years. Items like imputed rent, legal fees and R&D are now all included in GDP. The UK went hog wild with both illegal drugs and prostitution as now part of their GDP because… hey, why not? UNSNA’s 2008 guidelines explicitly recommend that illegal market activity should be included in GDP.

 

China’s NBS stood its ground on a conceptual level. Rightly or wrongly, the Leninist MPS considers services necessary costs of material production rather than real value creation. In China’s first attempt at converting MPS to SNA in 1985, it tacked on a ludicrously low 13% to the MPS number and called it China’s services GDP.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The affordability crisis in Western economies, the US in particular, is largely driven by inflation of necessary services – rent, healthcare, education and childcare – not by manufactured goods. While these costs have also gone up in China, they have increased less and much are left out of GDP anyway.

 

Also not captured by the ICP survey conducted in 2021 are the price and service wars that have broken out across industries and products – a bane on businesses but a boon for consumers.

 

This is most visible in China’s car market with OEMs either cutting prices to the bone (Hyundai Sonatas down to $17,000 from $42,000) or offering cutting-edge technology for peanuts (a 2,000-kilometer range BYD Q plug-in hybrid electric vehicle for $14,000). The price of solar panels fell 50% in 2023 and continues to trend down in 2024. CATL has announced plans to cut lithium-ion battery prices in half by the end of 2024. Restaurants are offering white glove perks like hot towels, lotion by the sink and snazzy remodeled decors. Hairdressers hand out bottled water and fruit plates. Tech companies have slashed large language model (LLM) prices to basically free. Service quality in China, impossible to quantify, is now head and shoulders above the West and probably even Japan.

 

Adherence to UNSNA has caused a breakdown in the meaning of GDP. As necessary services become an ever larger share of Western economies, their growth does not appear to result in discernable improvements in living standards.

 

Are US healthcare and universities twice as good as they were in the year 2000?

 

If US households have not gotten vastly improved healthcare, education, housing and childcare over the past two decades, then inflation has been systematically underreported and GDP growth may have, in fact, been less than 1% per annum (instead of 2%), which equals STAGNATION given 0.8% per annum population growth.

 

This may go a long way in explaining popular anger and the meltdown of American politics. China’s material-focused GDP may be a better measure of the economy as it relates to living standards, especially since UNSNA has obviously lost its mind by now officially recommending drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling and theft be included in GDP. Western defense analysts are onto something when they come up with wildly inflated estimates for China’s defense spending. But it’s not China’s defense spending that is lowballed – it is Western defense spending, especially by the Pentagon, which needs to be reassessed.

 

Somehow the $1 trillion a year the US devotes to defense (including intelligence and Energy Department programs) has caused the US Navy to shrink while China’s $236 billion budget has built the world’s largest navy by ship count.

 

Similarly, analysts who lament that China accounts for 30% of the world’s manufacturing output but only 13% of household consumption are far off the mark. China accounts for 20-40% of global demand for just about every consumer product but much of the services it consumes have been left out of national accounts.

 

So how much is it? How big is China’s economy really? About six months ago, this writer estimated that China’s GDP needed to be grossed up by 25-40% to be on a UNSNA basis.

 

But after shopping for cars, buying a domestic brand carbon fiber road bike with all the bells and whistles for $2,600 (equivalent to a $15,000 Trek), paying $7.65 for Bluetooth earphones (much better than the $250 PowerBeats Pro they replaced), renting cars for $20 a day, staying at boutique hotels for $30 a night, buying an extremely solid heavy duty umbrella for $2.20 (and losing it right away) and undergoing an unfortunate series of medical interventions (both major and minor) for less than the deductible on expat health insurance and getting white glove customer service for the smallest of purchases, Han Feizi’s mental map of price and value has crumbled.

[Luke]

The author writes really good articles, highly recommended

[nsx5200]

Yet China's rich are leaving the country...  

https://www.newsweek.com/china-millionaires-leaving-country-1916427

 

With the kind of propaganda that China can push, and does push, I'm always wary to read articles that pushes only the positive of China.  I find that the action of the people speaks much louder than any article/opinion.  Just ask any North Korean outside of North Korea.

[Hektor]

12 hours ago, nsx5200 said:

Yet China's rich are leaving the country...  

Probably an after effect of bringing Ma to his knees!

[Hektor]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/science/change-6-china-earth-moon.html

 

China Becomes First Country to Retrieve Rocks From the Moon’s Far Side

The sample, which might hold clues about the origins of the moon and Earth, is the latest achievement of China’s lunar exploration program.

[Luke]

13 minutes ago, Hektor said:

Probably an after effect of bringing Ma to his knees!

 

13 hours ago, nsx5200 said:

Yet China's rich are leaving the country...  

https://www.newsweek.com/china-millionaires-leaving-country-1916427

 

With the kind of propaganda that China can push, and does push, I'm always wary to read articles that pushes only the positive of China.  I find that the action of the people speaks much louder than any article/opinion.  Just ask any North Korean outside of North Korea.

 

China wants meritocracy, not oligarchies where the rich buy themselves into elite schools and gatekeep high paying jobs. It is understandable that people with money move to a country that will protect them first and not a healthy and fair economy. I think a country that rewards effort, and promotes fairness in compensation will reach a healthier living environment and more flourishment than a society with very high inequality and unfairness. 

14 minutes ago, Hektor said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/science/change-6-china-earth-moon.html

 

China Becomes First Country to Retrieve Rocks From the Moon’s Far Side

The sample, which might hold clues about the origins of the moon and Earth, is the latest achievement of China’s lunar exploration program.

 

Yep, another sign of the progress they are making on all fronts. 

[Hektor]

30 minutes ago, Luca said:

China wants meritocracy, not oligarchies

Interesting.

 

I looked up Oligarchy and found this in Wikipedia.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy

 

"Oligarchy (from Ancient Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía) 'rule by few'; from ὀλίγος (olígos) 'few', and ἄρχω (árkhō) 'to rule, command')[1][2][3] is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, religious, political, or military control.

 

Throughout history, power structures considered to be oligarchies have often been viewed as coercive, relying on public obedience or oppression to exist."

[nsx5200]

19 minutes ago, Luca said:

China wants meritocracy, not oligarchies where the rich buy themselves into elite schools and gatekeep high paying jobs.

That's the propaganda portion.  The real power is not with people with capital, but with people with connections to the CCP party(and thus government positions).  I don't have articles references on it, but I've been watching Youtube videos where children of government official describe that type of system.  Government officials are essentially mini-kings over their 'area of responsibility', and senior official holds similar power over less senior officials.  So the meritocracy is actually an autocracy.  We've seen the result of that in their seemingly arbitrary decision to completely close and re-open to handle COVID, and not really based on a consistent transparent approach.

 

We're currently seeing their opaque approach to addressing their current real estate issue.  Maybe they do have a method to their madness that can eventually solve their issue, but it's really not transparent.  Same thing with how they dealt with Qin Gang... well.  Actions speaks louder than... dare I say propaganda?

[Luke]

2 hours ago, nsx5200 said:

That's the propaganda portion.  The real power is not with people with capital, but with people with connections to the CCP party(and thus government positions).  I don't have articles references on it, but I've been watching Youtube videos where children of government official describe that type of system.  Government officials are essentially mini-kings over their 'area of responsibility', and senior official holds similar power over less senior officials.  So the meritocracy is actually an autocracy.  We've seen the result of that in their seemingly arbitrary decision to completely close and re-open to handle COVID, and not really based on a consistent transparent approach.

 

We're currently seeing their opaque approach to addressing their current real estate issue.  Maybe they do have a method to their madness that can eventually solve their issue, but it's really not transparent.  Same thing with how they dealt with Qin Gang... well.  Actions speaks louder than... dare I say propaganda?

We had a tough crackdown on this kind of corruption and CCP leadership doesnt want to have this. Thats why some chinese decide to flee to the US where this behavior is allowed. And yes, China isnt transparent with government workings but the US isnt either and this elitism is sadly always a problem. I like that they sent a strong signal against it.

[nsx5200]

2 minutes ago, Luca said:

We had a tough crackdown on this kind of corruption and CCP leadership doesnt want to have this. Thats why some chinese decide to flee to the US where this behavior is allowed. And yes, China isnt transparent with government workings but the US isnt either and this elitism is sadly always a problem. I like that they sent a strong signal against it.

When a government needs to resort to censorship, even for something as innocuous as Youtube, to control the thinking of its people, I'd be very skeptical of what it pushes.  Corruption crackdown, viewed in a different light, is a mask for the removal of political adversaries.  I'm not saying that's what happened in China, but it's important to keep that in mind, as there's not enough evidence one way or another to say which one is which, from my limited point of view.  Not saying that the mass media in the free world doesn't have bias leaning, but given the choice... you know what the 'correct' solution is.

[crs223]

To those who are making good arguments about China heading in the wrong direction, will you please give your thoughts on the bullet points below, which are being used to describe the west?  You guys would provide a good balance.  Text taken from this long article.

• Widespread sociocultural and political upheaval produced by the emergence and rapid proliferation of an ideology that foregrounds extreme attention to issues of identity (including racial, gender, and sexual identity) and victimhood, a morality of collective “social justice,” and a revolutionary objective of universal liberation from historical “oppression.” This ideology, an outgrowth of progressive left-liberalism, is today colloquially known as “Woke” in the West and “Báizuŏ” (白左: “White Leftism” or the “White Left”) in China. It features what can be described in sociological terms as an “inversion of values,” or the subversion and reversal of traditional moral beliefs, strictures, and value judgements. This inversion means that the ideology manifests as distinctly oikophobic (fear of and hostility to one’s own homeland and culture) and ultimately antagonistic to Western civilization itself. This has resulted in sharp, largely generational divides over what previously were widely held Western values, such as the importance of freedom of speech, objective reason, meritocracy, patriotism, or the idea that individuals (rather than collectives) should be held culpable for crimes.
• A crisis of social atomization, loneliness, low social trust, mental illness, and drug addiction, contributing to a proliferation of “deaths of despair,” including by suicide, overdose, and alcoholism. In the United States, these deaths have helped to drive a fall in overall life expectancy. This crisis may be related to a broader context of sharp declines in reported religiosity and participation in traditional religious communities, as well as the suffusion of society by a more widespread, if less measurable, sense of nihilism and loss of meaning.
• A culturally significant background of persistent structural economic weaknesses, including the offshoring of manufacturing and an overall pattern of deindustrialization and financialization, the hollowing out of middle-class economic security, high rates of debt, and exceptionally tight housing markets that have largely priced out younger buyers. This has fostered persistent popular resentments about economic inequality and lack of social mobility.
• Rising crime, homelessness, and vagrancy as well as an increase in instances of disruptive protests, riots, looting, and political violence, reflecting a perceived general breakdown in social order.
• Loss of control over national borders and the normalization of illegal mass migration due to a political unwillingness to enforce immigration law along with an inability or unwillingness by Western societies to assimilate migrants into existing cultures and value systems.
• A failure in education systems’ ability or intention to transmit inherited knowledge and values across generations, reflecting a broader crisis of authority and institutional legitimacy and purpose.
• A breakdown in gender norms and relations between the sexes along with a collapse in family formation and fertility rates, driving a worsening demographic crisis that threatens the long-term survival of Western societies (although this particular crisis is arguably now even more acute in China), and a concurrent rise in the percentage of the population, especially among the young, identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) or other alternative sexual and gender identities.
• A significant collapse of public trust in major institutions, including across all branches of government, the law, corporations, media, education, and even the military. This collapse has proceeded alongside a broader decline in the popular legitimacy of elite institutional or “establishment” authority—a trend accelerated by the widespread adoption by many of these institutions of radical ideological positions corrosive to their own historical raison d'etre.
• A decline in overall levels of both patriotic sentiment and approval of democratic governance. Only around half of young Americans, for example, still favor democracy as the best form of government, while only around 40 percent of Americans and 30 percent of Europeans say they would be willing to fight to defend their country.
• Intensifying partisan political division, factionalism, and rivalry, producing growing risks of political instability, including breakdowns in the peaceful transfer of power and, in extremis, the potential for civil conflict or revolutionary regime change.

 

 

 

 

 

[nsx5200]

37 minutes ago, crs223 said:

To those who are making good arguments about China heading in the wrong direction, will you please give your thoughts on the bullet points below, which are being used to describe the west?  You guys would provide a good balance.  Text taken from this long article.

I don't know about heading the right or wrong direction, but social discourse, IMHO, is a sign of a healthy democracy.  Without social discourse, it's less feedback mechanism for society to improve.  All those concerns are very valid points against western society, but I don't think they're solely the product of western society/value.  There are stories in China where people are so distrustful of the fallen that they don't even dare try to help them (https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-34612516).

 

Current democratic/capitalistic society is not without issues, and it'll get worse as the trend toward fully mechanization/automation becomes a reality.  We'll need discourses to correct them.  Exposing the issue is the first step in correcting them and I'm glad somebody took the time to list them so that they can be addressed.

 

I think the proper way to evaluate these contemporary issues is to take a step back, and look at it from a 20+ year span, and the perspective changes significantly.

[crs223]

28 minutes ago, nsx5200 said:

I think the proper way to evaluate these contemporary issues is to take a step back, and look at it from a 20+ year span

 

In the USA, the major problems (outlined in the bullets posted earlier) sound like rot in the core of society, and more importantly future generations.  i.e. the problems compound (in the bad way) over decades.  The most obvious example to me is education.  I'd love to be convinced otherwise... it's very sad.

 

Some Chinese problems (stealing of organs, lack of western-style bailouts, poor building codes, lack of shareholder rights), if real, could be fixed overnight (not multi-decade threats).  Low birth rate is the obvious multi-decade threat.  I'm not convinced that "regime oppression" is as real/awful as westerners imagine... looks like they have made great progress over the decades with their system.  I would not say the same about North Korea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Spekulatius]

Had $1.5 Tacos today from a local chain since it’s  Taco Tuesday. I bet you can’t get Tacos that good for the same price in China.

It has been a while since I was in China on business and what I do recall is that China is cheaper, but not that much cheaper - perhaps 1/2 US prices for restaurants.

 

Turkey In my experience was equivalent or cheaper than China in term of prices. My experience was from 2017 - I do not know how the currency collapse and the inflation played out if our pay in foreign currency.

[Luke]

3 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Had $1.5 Tacos today from a local chain since it’s  Taco Tuesday. I bet you can’t get Tacos that good for the same price in China.

It has been a while since I was in China on business and what I do recall is that China is cheaper, but not that much cheaper - perhaps 1/2 US prices for restaurants.

 

Turkey In my experience was equivalent or cheaper than China in term of prices. My experience was from 2017 - I do not know how the currency collapse and the inflation played out if our pay in foreign currency.

China street food and local restaurants are dirt cheap for our salary. McDonalds etc are not as cheap and depending on location bit more than 50% off sounds right.

 

Well guys, as far as i like the shareholder protections in the US, i like the prices and business more in China. BRICS also seeming to really getting further interest, Thailand interested too. They all also seem to not agree with the wests treatment of the ukraine conflict. China seems to secure access to a lot of markets of the global south and is better positioned in an area that will have way more growth than the US is. Both are fighting for influence in SEA/asia but China sits in the heart of it with closer supply chains and cultural proximity. Combined with the FUD and dislocation I still cant leave this space to invest in. 

[Luke]

5 hours ago, crs223 said:

To those who are making good arguments about China heading in the wrong direction, will you please give your thoughts on the bullet points below, which are being used to describe the west?  You guys would provide a good balance.  Text taken from this long article.

• Widespread sociocultural and political upheaval produced by the emergence and rapid proliferation of an ideology that foregrounds extreme attention to issues of identity (including racial, gender, and sexual identity) and victimhood, a morality of collective “social justice,” and a revolutionary objective of universal liberation from historical “oppression.” This ideology, an outgrowth of progressive left-liberalism, is today colloquially known as “Woke” in the West and “Báizuŏ” (白左: “White Leftism” or the “White Left”) in China. It features what can be described in sociological terms as an “inversion of values,” or the subversion and reversal of traditional moral beliefs, strictures, and value judgements. This inversion means that the ideology manifests as distinctly oikophobic (fear of and hostility to one’s own homeland and culture) and ultimately antagonistic to Western civilization itself. This has resulted in sharp, largely generational divides over what previously were widely held Western values, such as the importance of freedom of speech, objective reason, meritocracy, patriotism, or the idea that individuals (rather than collectives) should be held culpable for crimes.
• A crisis of social atomization, loneliness, low social trust, mental illness, and drug addiction, contributing to a proliferation of “deaths of despair,” including by suicide, overdose, and alcoholism. In the United States, these deaths have helped to drive a fall in overall life expectancy. This crisis may be related to a broader context of sharp declines in reported religiosity and participation in traditional religious communities, as well as the suffusion of society by a more widespread, if less measurable, sense of nihilism and loss of meaning.
• A culturally significant background of persistent structural economic weaknesses, including the offshoring of manufacturing and an overall pattern of deindustrialization and financialization, the hollowing out of middle-class economic security, high rates of debt, and exceptionally tight housing markets that have largely priced out younger buyers. This has fostered persistent popular resentments about economic inequality and lack of social mobility.
• Rising crime, homelessness, and vagrancy as well as an increase in instances of disruptive protests, riots, looting, and political violence, reflecting a perceived general breakdown in social order.
• Loss of control over national borders and the normalization of illegal mass migration due to a political unwillingness to enforce immigration law along with an inability or unwillingness by Western societies to assimilate migrants into existing cultures and value systems.
• A failure in education systems’ ability or intention to transmit inherited knowledge and values across generations, reflecting a broader crisis of authority and institutional legitimacy and purpose.
• A breakdown in gender norms and relations between the sexes along with a collapse in family formation and fertility rates, driving a worsening demographic crisis that threatens the long-term survival of Western societies (although this particular crisis is arguably now even more acute in China), and a concurrent rise in the percentage of the population, especially among the young, identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) or other alternative sexual and gender identities.
• A significant collapse of public trust in major institutions, including across all branches of government, the law, corporations, media, education, and even the military. This collapse has proceeded alongside a broader decline in the popular legitimacy of elite institutional or “establishment” authority—a trend accelerated by the widespread adoption by many of these institutions of radical ideological positions corrosive to their own historical raison d'etre.
• A decline in overall levels of both patriotic sentiment and approval of democratic governance. Only around half of young Americans, for example, still favor democracy as the best form of government, while only around 40 percent of Americans and 30 percent of Europeans say they would be willing to fight to defend their country.
• Intensifying partisan political division, factionalism, and rivalry, producing growing risks of political instability, including breakdowns in the peaceful transfer of power and, in extremis, the potential for civil conflict or revolutionary regime change.

 

 

 

 

 

Ironically many of these points are under active problem solving by China. Censorship of the media does a lot of work here too, just ban "sissy men" and control kids play time. There are advantages to their total political control and longterm planning power the west just cant match. "China builds an airport and the west holds a lecture" is something i read on a lot of african news channels that talk about china and the wests aim to stop cooperation with africa->china. Why arent we matching the developing power of china? Where is our belt and road? My government is currently betting on austerity and buying weapons for ukraine while fighting china with tariffs and deindustrializing the economy with absurd green energy plans that just wont work. Its an odd time and China is setting a lot of groundwork for a great economy and future IMO but is discounted to death. 

[Hektor]

China used to be the world's destination for all things manufacturing. That might be shifting. While the shift might not be detrimental to China in the short run, I doubt how anyone can prosper without friendly relations with the world.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/26/business/india-us-manufacturing.html

 

For American Brands Worried About China, Is India the Future?

As multinational retailers diminish their dependence on Chinese factories, some are shifting production to India.

 

In a global marketplace reshaped by volatile forces — not least the animosity between the United States and China — India shows signs of emerging as a potentially significant place to manufacture products. Multinational brands that have for decades relied on Chinese factories are expanding to India as they seek to limit the vulnerabilities of concentrating production in any single country.

 

India presents a unique proposition as a country of 1.4 billion people, making it even larger than China. With abundant raw materials, from cotton to iron ore to chemicals, it holds the potential to develop its own supply chain. 

Edited June 26 by Hektor

[Luke]

31 minutes ago, Hektor said:

China used to be the world's destination for all things manufacturing. That might be shifting. While the shift might not be detrimental to the China in the short run, I doubt how anyone can prosper without friendly relations with the world.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/26/business/india-us-manufacturing.html

 

For American Brands Worried About China, Is India the Future?

As multinational retailers diminish their dependence on Chinese factories, some are shifting production to India.

 

In a global marketplace reshaped by volatile forces — not least the animosity between the United States and China — India shows signs of emerging as a potentially significant place to manufacture products. Multinational brands that have for decades relied on Chinese factories are expanding to India as they seek to limit the vulnerabilities of concentrating production in any single country.

 

India presents a unique proposition as a country of 1.4 billion people, making it even larger than China. With abundant raw materials, from cotton to iron ore to chemicals, it holds the potential to develop its own supply chain. 

Yes, so the US will try to establish manufacturing in India, makes sense. China is changing its development model anyways to not being a cheap labor force for US goods but having their own brands, vertical supply chains and exporting them to the world and all of that at a more affordable price and partly even now better features. 

 

America can produce in India but that wont change the fact that China has more competitive products, supply chains, and talent pool. The production environment is probably a lot better in China than it is in India where many things have yet to be established. 

 

The best for the US would be to lure China into doing something they can use to isolate China from most countries and hope the competition evaporates so they can own the market again. This likely won't happen but I can see from public statements and media consensus that this is what they try to mentally prepare western societies for. "the china threat" is simply an economic threat that threatens to dethrone the richer Western standard of life and obviously the western governments will try to stop that from happening. Thats why voters wanna see trump and biden being "tough on china" because they simply are growing too fast, producing too fast and have the ability to disrupt so much. 

 

China has tremendous opportunity the next 10-20 years. They can actually challenge liberal democracies by increasing their wealth a lot more from internal scientific advancement and adaptations to the capitalistic system and rise to the center of the world again. Which is of course the plan of the CCP. I think its not unlikely this is going to happen but if you are the leader of a western liberal democracy which gets financed by wealthy western capital, your job is to try to stop China from achieving all that, destroying their influence with other countries and inflict as much damage as possible and getting away with it in the public eye. 

Edited June 26 by Luca