Here is today's news about China:
Growth collapse: The World Bank lowered its forecast for GDP growth in China to 2.8%, a big drop from last year's 8.1%.
Belt and Road: The B&R initiative was designed to spread Chinese influence and goodwill in the developing world. Instead, it's been badly managed and is now being reined in due to huge losses on loans that small countries can no longer pay back.
Currency woes: The yuan hit its weakest level ever against the dollar.
There is no magic to China. It has strengths and it has weaknesses. It is not an implacable foe and it will not bulldoze its way over the US anytime soon. Probably not anytime period.
China’s demographics would always cutoff their aspirations and is now being compounded by terrible ideology. They will fade as an economic powerhouse and their military is a worse Potemkin than Russia, having not fought any meaningful battles in decades. They have power now, but they will fade fast, like by end of decade. Their greatest power right now is stealing Western IP and even that can’t stop their decline. The demographics are worse than any nation in history and is accelerating way faster than anyone thought. Their decline will reinforce that despite the mud that comes with capitalist democracy, there is not a better path forward.
China's population is starting to fall, and India should overtake it in a few years as most populous country. USA is third.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries
It’s not falling, it is crashing and the decline they predicted by 2030 has already come. These demographic changes take place in a wealthy country like the US, but we have no shortage of immigrants willing to fill the gap. Not so much for China
Reduction of the Chinese population does not create a "gap". China has very close to the same land area as the US, and very close to the same amount of useful land, but four times the population, and the US is overcrowded. Reduction of the population of China is a good thing for the world, and a VERY good thing for China.
It is an implacable foe, though.
But, like the Nazis and the Soviets before them, their victory is not foreordained... indeed, we tend to have the better cards...
The only thing inscrutable about the Chinaman is that no one in the lamestream media breathlessly asserting the PRC's toppling of the US-led order & launching of the 21st as the Chinesse Century was smart enough to know China's deep racism would stymy Belt n' Road project in Africa.
And Xenophobia that cuts off desperately needed immigrant to fill the coming demographic hole
To be fair, as terrible as Monroedoctrinal abuse of Latin America has been, the people south of the Rio Bravo del Norte don't hate us enough to not want to come here.
Can't say same of China's neighbors. Few Vietnamese, Cambodian, Mongolian, Kazakh, or Afghan are jonesing to be immigrant-clsss in the PRC. All the Central Committee can hope for is Koreans fleeing the DPRK. & the CC doesn't actually want those migrants.
Similar to the cold war, China has used the belt and road program to expand its global influence. Also similar to the Soviet (and perhaps US) efforts, during the cold war, in Africa, the results are not long term beneficial.
Where have you gone, Joe di Magg--... Jonas Savimbi? A lonely nation turns it eyes to you...
I don't like this. The more internal problems a dictator has the more likely he will be to try and generate "patriotism" by attacking some neighbor (like Putin jut did--his failing may make the Chinese a bit more carful--but I guess they think they are smarter than Putin, people like them alway do).
Historically, internal weakness has tended to make Chinese leadership less aggressive, not more, with respect to foreign policy. Doesn't mean that trend will hold with Xi, of course...
Wait - where are the trend lines on which these prognostications are based?
If currencies like the yuan are falling so drastically against the dollar how does this affect the US economy?
Downward pressure on US inflation; less competitive exports; eventual layoffs in manufacturing; a rising trade deficit
B&R was also an attempt to continue China's infrastructure program; most of the workers that built things for these small nations were Chinese. It provided a jobs program for their own people.
And China knew these nations couldn't pay back the loans (just because you're a tyrant doesn't mean you're stupid); that was part of the point. So China still gets paid back, but not in the form of money: I doubt any of these nations would object to China conquering Taiwan, and I expect they'll go along with Chinese interests in the UN.
“(just because you're a tyrant doesn't mean you're stupid)”
It surprised me that Xi was stupid enough to believe Putin’s assurances that invading Ukraine would be a cakewalk. Doesn’t say much for the PRC’s intelligence services, either.
American intelligence believed the same thing.
Don't believe everything you read at 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘱𝘰𝘤𝘩 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴.
Falun Gong is even more bonkers than the Moonies.