There are also a couple of dedicated websites for these, or at least there used to be. chinglish.com
Uh Oh Tik Tok
Really, who would have thought that, FFS people are not real smart. The only Social media platforms in China are allowed to continue if they allow the CCP free rein.
Messi believed he could travel to Taiwan on his Spanish passport, meaning that it was also valid for China. He was quoted as saying: “Is Taiwan not China?”
This some funny ■■■■
https://twitter.com/TGTM_Official/status/1673449646981783552
https://twitter.com/TGTM_Official/status/1668370265477353472
First time seeing a poll like this showing large majority of Americans think US should recognise Taiwan as an Independent Country (which goes against current US policy)
Official US position is strategic ambiguity as to how far it would act to preserve de facto recognition of independence . Independence in economic policy and self government is easy and has some support under the UN Charter.
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Maybe US should stop interfering and provoking other countries for a change. Wishful thinking, I know…
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This is why the FM South East Asia policy speech last year was important- strategic equilibrium sets the tone to not wedge south east asian countries into binary choices.
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Demographic collapse in China is going to shape the world over the coming 20 years.
In 20 years time India’s 20-60 age workforce will be about 35% of the population, whereas China will only be 26.5%.
In the video above it says the Chinese labour costs have gone up 15x in 20(?) years, during a 3x increase in the economy. Biggest labour cost rise in history. Anyone able to confirm or disprove that anecdotally?
This has a big impact on the viability of the Chinese military and their aggressiveness. The political downside of having masses of only sons killed in a war will be huge.
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China ain’t got enough food to invade Taiwan according to the former Japanese defence boss
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I agree with the view that China won’t invade Taiwan as the costs are too high. Rather they’ll try to bully them into submission and then offer a very large economic and security carrot if they symbolically bow down to their mainland masters.
But with regards the impact of reducing economic growth on Chinese military spending, this fails to build in the capacity for 100s of millions of Chinese people to take an economic hit to enable continuing expansion of their military.
We would respond by voting our government out. The average Chinese person will respond by acknowledging it’s all the fault of the americans.
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How’s that economic hit fit with the unspoken agreement between the populace and the regime, the exchange of freedom for economic growth?
That’s a western myth. Also military spending adds to GDP so the official stats will show remarkable economic performance by the CCP in the face of western aggression and persecution of china.
The redistribution of wealth will be accepted by a population that is powerless to change it and supportive of China’s rise to rival the US in all spheres.
Of course my western ignorance of all things Chinese is the caveat to this post.
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What’s your take on the demographics. The military stuff is a debatable flow on effect, but the aging population looks critical for a whole range of reasons.
My view is the same. Chinese people have a capacity that we don’t understand to endure hardship.
Also they believe the propaganda and that will be telling them relentlessly they are collectively better off.
China can’t afford to go to war with US today tomorrow or 10 years from now. But if they are sane, and they are, that’s not the plan. Rather they will secure their standing in the world as a great power and their recovery from their century of shame will be complete.
The US can’t afford a war with China so their security is ensured.
Re Taiwan - I think they’ve lost it. I don’t know how they’ll sell that to the diehards when it is beyond obvious. They’ll probably blame the US and form a 25 year plan to deliver her from evil and bring her back to the motherland.
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The reason I doubt China’s ability to militarily take Taiwan is the vulnerability of surface vessels. China would need to rely on civilian roll on roll off ferries to move equipment after a landing. Those ships aren’t designed to take a hit, so the attrition rate from anti-ship missiles would be huge. Between Taiwan’s land based batteries and US/allied sea and air launched missiles, the Taiwan strait would be extraordinarily dangerous.
We haven’t seen mass naval deaths since the Falklands, which to this day is a painful subject for Argentina. Imagine China losing 10s or 100s of 1000s of young men at sea on sinking transport ships in the first few days of an invasion. When each sunk ship takes 1000s of lives with it, the casualties would rack up extremely fast.
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I think this is the train ferry from Guandong to Hainan Island and something like this was used to ferry tanks in the recent war games that closed off Taiwan for a few days. They’ll modernise them I guess, but they do look like easy targets.
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It’s been discussed in the Ukraine thread previously, but the hardest military operation is an amphibious assault against a prepared enemy. Ukraine is having all sorts of problems pushing an offensive across the Dnipro river, the Taiwan straight is 160km wide IIRC. And Taiwan is an island whose entire military is 1. entirely constructed to face the threat of a Chinese invasion, and 2. underwritten and supplied by the most technologically advanced military-industrial nation in the history of ever (a military-industrial complex that is heavily reliant on the production of microchips from …drumroll… Taiwan).
Yes, China would love to have Taiwan totally under their flag, but it’s probably too costly to actually do militarily, and it conveniently gives them a thing to sell to their populace. Doesn’t mean they won’t keep pushing regional coercion and grey-zone ops to get what they want.
That population demographic stuff is fascinating. I’ve watched a few of those Peter Zeihan analyses and it’s pretty doom and gloom stuff for the Chinese economy. Will be very interesting to see how it actually plays out and how India’s rise will affect the balance as well.
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