If you withhold economic data, it means that things must be even worse than anyone can imagine:
China released more bad economic news on Tuesday, but it was the number that wasn’t included in the official data dump that stood out: Beijing said it would stop publishing figures for youth unemployment, weeks after it hit a record high of 21.3 percent in June.
....China has been publishing less economic data since Xi Jinping rose to power. In recent months, authorities have reportedly told Chinese economists to avoid discussing negative trends. Officials have also instructed lawyers working on I.P.O.s to soften their wording on the country’s risks.
Is China just in the midst of a temporary downturn? I suppose that's the way to bet, but I'm not so sure. I think it's more likely to be a harbinger of a permanent slowdown in China's economy, due partly to fundamentals like population growth and partly to Xi Jinping's steady abandonment of free-market policies.
I've often said that if you believe in free-market capitalism as a growth engine, then you should believe in free-market capitalism as a growth engine. I do, with obvious caveats, and this means I don't believe in China. Their housing bubble economy of the moment will eventually recover, just as ours did after the Great Recession, but their long-term growth is going to be weak if they steadily move further away from free-market principles and instead clamp down on private business while tying themselves ever more tightly to the anchor of state-owned enterprises weighing them down.
Needless to say, China will remain a major economic force during all this. And if Xi decides to roll the dice and invade Taiwan while he's still alive to see it, it will be a disaster for the world economy no matter who wins. At a 10,000 foot level, however, the future does not belong to China, no matter how many people say it.
China is only an economic superpower because the West made them so, collectively deciding over the last few decades that pretty much everything should be manufactured there. Now China seems determined to flex its newfound power in a way that will scare off the very source of that power.
There's a cautionary tale to be written here.
I have my first check for $13,000. I have a lot of energy so I always have something first. t5 Now I’m going to work a lot harder and barely finish next week’s episode. q I strongly encourage everyone to sign up. .
periods,……………………. http://bizpay68.blogspot.com
"China is only an economic superpower because the West made them so,"
@Citizen Lehew, I have long thought that this was the exact case. The US also built up the economies of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, giving them favored trade status, in order to build allies in the Pacific after WW II.
"..... collectively deciding over the last few decades that pretty much everything should be manufactured there."
This was a decision made by the heads of corporations here in the States. Some CEOs made that decision because they hated their US unions, some made it because using cheap Chinese labor made them richer, and some made it reluctantly, fully aware that they were destroying jobs in their community, because if they didn't, they'd be out of business completely. But they all made that decision, shortly after Congress permitted them to trade with China.
China itself tried to industrialize three times in the last century, and failed spectacularly until the third time, when the US opened its markets to China. That was what built the Chinese economy.
No manufacturer has trouble making widgets. Every manufacturer has a huge problem finding someone to buy all the widgets that they can make. Historically, the Chinese people are paid so little and save so much that they can't afford to buy all the things their factories produce. This means that the only way that China, or any industry in the world, can thrive is with a huge base of buyers. For China, the US provided that base of buyers, at the expense of US jobs and US workers.
Thank you, Capitalist class.
These assholes who run US factories really need to be on very short leashes, because money has no morals. And the politicians who sell out the US workers in exchange for campaign contributions should suffer proportional consequences themselves.
Obviously, there are downsides, and current Chinese behavior dictates reducing trade in both directions. But opening up trade to China, by the U.S., Europe, and Japan, has done more to alleviate poverty than anything else that has ever happened in the world. I struggle to call that anything but a very positive development.
I don't. 300 million Chinese dirt farmers are not worth the impoverishment of 10 million Americans.
Because I am American and as such, my fellow citizens are more important than non-citizens.
Cheap Chinese products have also improved the living standards of 300MM Americans.
I, myself, am a human being, and care about the welfare of even those who do not look like me or speak any language that I do.
You are a disgusting example of an inhuman being.
The other change brought about by opening trade with China is a substantial increase in income inequality. Many poor became better off; the well-connected became filthy rich. A mixed blessing.
Even with China clamping down on data, there is ample evidence to show that China's economy is slowing and will probably never recover to its previous high levels. An aging population. No jobs for young people. A housing catastrophe. Basically no population growth. Government inserting themselves into private companies a la the old USSR. War mongering in the China Sea. And, probably more that I'm forgetting.
I’d somewhat like for that to be true but they have a lot of strengths
Can’t keep the Chinese down. Too many people, they’re too smart, politically and culturally unified (not likely to go post-Soviet style I mean, I’m not some Han ethnonationalist)
I’d rather the future successful China be one we get along with though
The Chinese are generally not well liked by the local populations in their client countries. The locals find them insular and arrogant, the new "ugly Americans" so to speak
I'd rather see a moderately successful China, but China has a multi-thousand year history of cycles with long periods of inward looking stasis alternating with brief periods of outward looking growth and change. We are seeing this pattern repeat. China threw off its invaders, eastern and western, and had a century of outward looking reform and restructuring. It is now, once again, closing in on itself and reverting to its usual form.
Is it national character? Is it political geography? We're seeing something like this with Russia as well, except that China tends to ratchet up while Russia reverts.
I’d say 40 years of outward looking and reform, not a century. Unless you count the Great Leap Forward. 😵
Then we need regime change there.
That will require smashing then economically.
"An aging population. No jobs for young people."
This is what Dean Baker (Beat the Press Blog) calls the which way is up problem. Is China (or any country) running out of workers or running out of jobs? According to what economic principle could it be both?
With unemployment of young workers at 21.3%, I don't think they are running out of workers. I think the fact that the US imported some 24% less goods is the problem. No buyers for goods leads to layoffs. So no jobs for workers.
Maybe not a shortage of workers or jobs ... but a shortage of wives.
China's one-child policy has created a lopsided male/female ratio and the societal damage from that will play out for decades to come. When a lot of men don't have good prospects to marry and settle down, that usually doesn't bode well.
Demographics, to a large degree, is destiny, and China's is screwed. Its population growth already is negative, and its population is projected to be cut almost in half by the end of the century.
https://tinyurl.com/bddyhths
Your numbers are outdated. Their population will drop between 2/3 and 3/4 by end of the century.
Half of China's present population is still twice the US's present population. By no stretch could that be considered to be a shortage of Chinese people.
You'd think that there would be plenty of jobs providing goods and services for an aging population. Those could even be good jobs that let one afford to marry and raise a family. Unfortunately, this requires a more active socialist state and gets massive opposition from wealthy capitalists since it limits the growth of their own wealth. Too many resources have to pass through too many people before they get their grubby mitts on them.
It's hard enough dealing with this is in the western democracies, but it's worse in China. Europe, in particular, already has a framework for the necessary welfare state. China does not and does not have a tradition of social welfare. This makes such a change an even bigger political risk than in a democracy. The party presiding over a screw up might be ousted and discredited, but in China, there is only one party and its ouster must be avoided at all costs.
It would seem that of the aging population and the lack of jobs for young people, only one at a time should be a problem. The problem caused by an aging population is labor shortage; too many retired people compared to the number of working people. If the aging population is causing a labor shortage, there should be lots of jobs for the relatively small number of young people. If there is a shortage of jobs for young people, that means their elders are not retiring fast enough, which is to say that the population is not aging fast enough.
At a 10,000 foot level, however, the future does not belong to China, no matter how many people say it.
Nobody is saying the "future belongs to China" at this point unless they're utterly devoid of any knowledge whatsoever of demographics and economics.
And if Xi decides to roll the dice and invade Taiwan while he's still alive to see it, it will be a disaster for the world economy no matter who wins.
If it prompts an actual kinetic war between the US and China, it will likely go way beyond a disaster for the "world economy." It might well be a disaster for the human race. And many other species as well.
Given the very obvious medium-term trajectory of PRC geopolitical power, it's a mystery to me why more people in Washington, DC are seemingly spoiling to speed up the arrival of a military confrontation with China. Kevin's right: they're doomed to suffer geopolitical decline. If we but let nature takes its course—and get our own house in order—we (Western liberal democracy) will prevail. Waiting out Communist China seems to be the sensible course of action here.
Desperate leaders in failing governments sometimes do desperate things. The U.S. needs to make it clear where the lines are. Too many wars (Korea, the Falklands, Kuwait) happened because of misunderstandings about where the lines were.
For "desperate leaders" see "Trump." There's nothing he would not have done to stay in power.
Indeed.
"It's a mystery to me why more people in Washington, DC are seemingly spoiling to speed up the arrival of a military confrontation with China."
If war is inevitable, some believe it is better to have it now, while the US still has a big advantage, particularly on the high seas. At this time, China simply can't go toe-to-toe with the US Navy, particularly on the high seas. I do believe that China could mount a spirited defense of its littoral waters. I suspect the US would lose several aircraft carriers in a war with China.
The US would likely prevail in a war with China but it might end up like Great Britain after WWI -- essential a mortally wounded nation on a downward trajectory.
If war is inevitable, some believe it is better to have it now, while the US still has a big advantage, particularly on the high seas.
How could war between China and the US possibly be inevitable? It's true that Xi may regard invading Taiwan as an historical imperative from which he won't be dissuaded (I hope not, but it certainly cannot be ruled out).
But Taiwan is not a treaty ally of the US like Japan or Estonia or Canada.
The US absolutely has the choice to sit out the last stage of the Chinese Civil War. Moreover, such a course of action absolutely does not mean abandoning Taiwan to its fate. We can engage in arms sales, training exercises, intel sharing, etc. We can also exhort Taipei to spend a lot more on national defense. And we can make it clear to Beijing the economic cost they'll pay if they make such a move.
But entering a kinetic war with another nuclear power (one with a rapidly expanding arsenal) is almost certainly within the power of the United States to avoid. Given the declining fortunes of our primary geopolitical rival, its a choice we should make. Again, let nature (ie, demographics and political economy) take its course.
Bullshit. I will not abandon the democratic Taiwanese to be forcefully subjugated by a government as nasty as China's. And fuck you for saying we should.
+1
I will not abandon the democratic Taiwanese to be forcefully subjugated by a government as nasty as China's.
Selling arms, sharing intel, helping them to train their troops, etc—this is very indeed from "abandoning" Taiwan. Did the US abandon Ukraine by providing arms but not sending in the 82nd Airborne?
To me this is simple cost-benefit analysis: Democracy will prevail in the end, and, even if Taiwan were annexed by the PRC, their subjugation won't last forever (no more than Estonia's or Poland's did). And in the meanwhile we reduce the chances that civilization will be destroyed.
But yes, short of an actual shooting war (one that, needless to say, could very conceivably lead to a nuclear exchange), we should indeed help Taiwan defend itself. No reasonable person argues otherwise. To me the question is: does that help translate into US boots on the ground, or should it be confined to other forms of assistance?
But I am sorry I triggered you, though. My bad!
But "I am American and as such, my fellow citizens are more important than non-citizens." The Taiwanese are not American citizens. How many American deaths are you prepared to accept to "save" Taiwan, which would be pretty much wrecked after a full scale war over it no matter who won.
Good logic re: the US entering a war between China and Taiwan. A fighting war between us and China is insanity. I sure hope calmer minds prevail.
Thank you. It’s abundantly clear a lot of what’s driving the saber rattling on the US side isn’t legitimate natural interest calculus, but rather domestic politics. Same as it ever was.
How could the US "prevail" in a war with China? It lacks the means to land troops on the Chinese mainland. Even if it somehow managed to do it, they would be wiped out. In a no-holds-barred conflict, US troops in Korea and Japan would almost certainly have to be evacuated. I doubt China would even think of trying to engage America "on the high seas"; its goal would be to drive the US out of the region. I expect it would succeed in doing exactly that, at staggering economic cost for both parties.
How could the US "prevail" in a war with China?
I suppose the (remotely) plausible way is: the United States could, through military successes, help Taiwan fend off and defeat an attack from the mainland. The US obviously need not invade China itself.
But I have a hard time believing such a conflict—which the CCP would (rightly) regard as an existential event—is something they'd ever bow out of. I believe it's depressingly likely the Xi regime would do everything in its power—even resorting to the use of nuclear weapons if it ever came to that—to stave off defeat of its forces by the US (an event that would likely precipitate its fall from power). And this is assuming US conventional forces would actually prevail, which the Pentagon, at least, seems to think is far from a given.
The current strategy is for the U.S. to help defend Taiwan from being invaded, and to blockade China. China gets a *lot* of resources via long ocean routes.
The current strategy is for the U.S. to help defend Taiwan from being invaded
I've talked to a number of Taiwanese (I was there last month, by the way: wonderful country!) who seem to more or less espouse the view that deterrence is everything. IOW (in their opinion) failing to dissuade China from attacking would constitute a significant defeat (presumably because of the destruction and death involved) no matter the ultimate outcome.
Current strategies suggest a Chinese invasion would fail, Taiwan would be rubble, and both sides would lose tens of thousands.
'Tens of thousands' sounds like a substantial underestimate. But otherwise I agree: the PRC could inflict a lot of damage, but an invasion attempt would fail -- Taiwan can afford more antiship missiles than China can afford ships.
No country can "prevail" in a war with an enemy that has significant numbers of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. At best, a war between nuclear powers can involve minor gains or losses of territory; if one opponent is about to prevail, the other opponent is likely to start launching nukes, and then both sides lose.
When my son was a pre-teen, he developed a pre-teen's unsophisticated interest in matters military. I rapidly persuaded him that the first rule of nuclear war is very simple: "Don't". There is no second rule.
I imagine the CCP leadership feels that angry youth are the biggest threat to the CCP’s continued reign, so they want to reduce the talk about youth unemployment any way they can.
Xi is 70. We can assume he'll be in power another 10 to 15 years, followed by some less competent crony from his inner circle, followed by some kind of reformer, followed by some kind of crash or upheaval.
That brings us to the 2050s or early 2060s.
Plenty of time to find an external disaster to take their collective mind off the economy, --and dealing with climate change just doesn't inspire the social conservatives' manhood boner.
You would think that an untested military would try their hand at war in a place that didn't matter much, to learn lessons and find flaws. Not the Chinese.
They're apparently going to try their first (modern day) war against Taiwan, and they think an overwhelming force size is all they need to guarantee victory.
Never mind the rampant corruption throughout the CCP and the bureaucracy that mirrors Russia's, nor the legacy of that corruption resulting in the spread of cheap copycat designs that haven't been tested IRL.
I am sure the Chinese leadership has taken note of the Russian experience in Ukraine. Whether they have taken sufficient note I have no idea.
+1
A very different kind of war, with very limited lessons for either Taiwan or China. I expect Beijing will continue to exert increasing pressure on Taiwan, probably moving to a partial blockade, rather than launch a full-scale invasion. They will judge, probably correctly, that domestic political considerations and nervousness on the part of Pacific allies will prohibit a robust American intervention.
They will judge, probably correctly, that domestic political considerations and nervousness on the part of Pacific allies will prohibit a robust American intervention.
I fervently hope that's not their judgment. I see little prospect that a PRC blockade of Taiwan wouldn't be met by a robust response form the 7th fleet for precisely the reason you cite: domestic politics. What US president would be able to withstand the massive political pressure to intervene? In the America of 2023, the CCP is about as hated as the IRS, maybe even more so.
Not just domestic politics. Taiwan is a vital manufacturing center for the global economy. No way a blockade goes uncontested.
Although I don't disagree with your overall point, the cynical view would be something like: it doesn't matter if Taiwan's economy is managed by Beijing or Taipei: It's highly unlikely the Chinese would annex Taiwan only to shut down that island's export industries.
An invasion of Taiwan by China would be orders of more difficult that Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It would literally be the most difficult military operation in history. I am unaware of any recent experience the Chinese military has with massive sea-based invasions. I am pretty sure they are unlikely to even attempt such a thing, but they will keep talking about it.
The question isn't whether the Chinese have taken sufficient note. The question is whether or not the current Chinese regime is even capable of making the changes needed to produce a more effective military than the Russians have.
The essential quality for a modern military is that those down the ranks, especially junior officers and NCOs, but really all the way down to the privates, are trained and empowered to take the initiative in a fluid operational and tactical environment. If they aren't, then they will flounder around haplessly, much as the Russian military has. They are experiencing a very high rate of senior officers turning into casualties because everyone below the rank of colonel is terrified to act independently. And the best of those senior officers are getting cashiered because they insist on telling their superiors things the superiors don't want to hear.
Exactly why would we expect a country led by Xi Jinping to be any better at creating a flexible military than one led by Vladimir Putin? In the modern era, defined as there being significant countries with a liberal system of government, no authoritarian country has managed to create a military that was, man-for-man, anywhere close to the best armies fielded by their liberal counterparts. Nazi Germany had such a military, but only because it had been built and nurtured long before the Nazis took power. The proceeded to do their best to degrade the quality of the Wehrmacht. Something similar happened with the Imperial Japanese Army, which got rid of the generals who led them to spectacular victories in early 1942, because they were deemed politically unreliable.
The other weak point that I strongly suspect the PLA has is logistics. You can't drive a supply management system down the boulevards of Beijing in a parade, so they get neglected. Rampant corruption plays holy hell with military logistics. Flexibility and initiative are also essential among your supply troops, but authoritarian regimes have a strong tendency to push those qualities into pilferage rather than actual supply of combat units.
Americans get spoiled because the U.S. military is, ands down, the most efficient logistics operation in the world. That stems from the fact that ever single war we have fought over the last 150 years required that each soldier, cavalry horse, tank, bullet, and everything else has to be put on a boat (or, later, a plane) and shipped to wherever it is going to be used in anger. The U.S. Army has no choice but to take logistics very, very seriously. Just about every other country consistently thinks that supply is a lot easier than it really is. I would bet significant money that the same is true of China.
A totalitarian government can survive a recession. See North Korea. They don’t need economic growth or capitalism anymore.
But China tried to have it both ways. Encourage a vibrant entrepreneurial class that in turn created a middle class all while remaining fundamentally an authoritarian government. That’s way different from North Korea where everyone is either dirt poor or personally dependent on Kim.
China's biggest problem is food and water; they have poisoned their whole country in order to become an economic super power. Along the way, they have hoovered up all the loose cash on the planet which they are using to delay the inevitable by buying land in, say, Africa to produce food to ship back home. This, coupled with other internal problems like demographics and youth unemployment, is going to cause real trouble going forward.
Looks like the land-buying in Africa didn't work out:
"But when companies realized the poor state of infrastructure in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo or Ethiopia, and the fact that small farmers held customary tenure over land they thought they were leasing, most firms either massively reduced their plans or pulled out entirely, she said."
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-africa-food-china/chinese-firms-buy-lease-far-less-african-farmland-than-thought-book-idUKKCN0S61DE20151012
Hard to know the extent of this but, yes, this is a huge problem for China. They have picked the low hanging fruit, so to speak, in the name of growing the economy. This kind of worked, but they have polluted a lot of land and water in the process. Seems like they’ll have huge problems just feeding and housing their population and trying to find jobs for them.
I can’t imagine that they’d try to invade Taiwan. The results would be catastrophic. Imports and exports would collapse. Unemployment would soar. Likely there would be drastic food shortages. And for what gain? Just to plant their flag on Taiwan? All of the wealth and technology would flee the instant the fighting started. However, autocrats do stupid things all the time.
Shipping food away from Africa, which has the fastest growing population of any of the world's regions, is a losing proposition. The Africans are on site and are going to eat the food; neither contracts nor treaties nor armed force will be able to maintain significant food exports from countries where the local people are starving.
There was always going to come a time when China would "do a Japan" and see spectacular rates of GDP growth gradually slow to the levels associated with other advanced economies. The wealthier a citizenry becomes, they less inclined it is to tolerate the damage to lifestyles and natural environment associated with rapid economic growth.
80,000 indicators? Was that a lot or few relative to other economies?
one for each economist (each 10? 100?) in China.
China could do really well if the Chinese Communist party loosened its hold over China's citizens and redistributed the wealth that it has apportioned to wealthy industrialists and real estate corporate owners to the average citizen.
So, given the likelihood of that happening, yes, China is fucked. Or rather, the average citizen in China is fucked. I'm sure that the guys running the country will do very well.
Wealth disparity is inherent in capitalism. Its main premise is that individuals who own the capital (like Elon Musk?) are better able to make decisions, based on greed, than politicians or bureaucrats who are supposedly making the decisions on the basis of societal good.
This seems to work somehow, but obviously when the capitalists succeed in getting all the money for themselves the rest of the people don't have enough to keep up demand. This has probably happened in the US. Do capitalists have too much money in China? How much control does the government have over the capitalists? Who knows - the information is probably not available.
There is considerably less income and wealth disparity in the mixed economies of Europe than in the mixed economy of the US. Stronger unions, Mitbestimmung, more extensive social safety nets, universal health care, free or very-low-cost postsecondary education, and more, make a difference.
Nobody wins an all out war between nuclear powers. Our military is designed for short sweet wars with minuscule powers. And even then we can’t “win.” Oppenheimer was right to have misgivings.
Good. The more fucked China is, the better for us. We still hold ‘em by the short and curlies economically and we should exert that leverage now. Abandon them to their African client states, good luck with that Xi.
If you believe in free-market capitalism then you oppose sanctions.
Actual capitalists don't believe in free-market capitalism if it's a matter of sanctioning their competition.
Nonsense.
I believe that free market capitalism enriches everyone. However, my objective is not to enrich China. It is to prevent them from developing technologies that will strengthen their military and to weaken their government. Sanctions are one tool to do that.
Google "Jack Ma" to see a snapshot of how China is strangling its own economic growth. Then google "China exit ban" to see why international businesses are cutting ties with China.
It's only a "permanent" slowdown to the extent that current policies are permanent.
China still employs a huge fraction of its workforce in agriculture, and high youth/young-adult unemployment is another indicator of growth potential. It's in the interests of the ruling class to put more people to work in higher paying jobs so that the ruling class can rake in far higher rents. Eventually, the ruling class will figure out how to better exploit their masses.
"It's in the interests of the ruling class to put more people to work in higher paying jobs so that the ruling class can rake in far higher rents."
@illilillili, Keynes and Kalecki would completely agree with you.
So, why don't capitalists pay their workers more? Or we might even ask, why are most capitalists opposed to government aid to the average person, given the fact that that aid doesn't come out of the capitalist's pockets and simply gives the workers more money, which they can use to buy the capitalists' products? Which would, as you pointed out, make the capitalists richer.
Kalecki had an answer in his 1943 essay, "Political Aspects of Full Employment".
"...the maintenance of full employment would cause social and political changes
which would give a new impetus to the opposition of the business leaders.
Indeed, under a regime of permanent full employment, the 'sack' would
cease to play its role as a disciplinary measure. The social position of the
boss would be undermined, and the self-assurance and class-consciousness
of the working class would grow. Strikes for wage increases and
improvements in conditions of work would create political tension. It is
true that profits would be higher under a regime of full employment than
they are on the average under laissez-faire; and even the rise in wage rates
resulting from the stronger bargaining power of the workers is less likely to
reduce profits than to increase prices, and thus adversely affects only the
rentier interests. But 'discipline in the factories' and 'political stability' are
more appreciated than profits by business leaders. Their class instinct tells
them that lasting full employment is unsound from their point of view, and
that unemployment is an integral part of the 'normal' capitalist system."
So, the capitalists in a country would make more money from a population which had more available spending money, but the capitalist's social positions would be eroded if people, in general, were less destitute.
I think that speaks volumes about the motivations of people who oppose higher wages and/or government spending on the poor.
This, incidentally, is exactly the problem that China is experiencing in their economy. China's workers don't make enough money to single-handedly consume everything that their present levels of production produce, so their production levels will fall if the US doesn't keep buying Chinese products.
The Chinese government could recover their economy by increasing their domestic consumption (they wouldn't need the US market), if they would change the laws and transfer more money to their workers, but that transfer would come at the expense of the ultra-wealthy Chinese, most of whom are Communist Party members. So that's not going to happen.
Incidentally, if Biden wants to prevent a war between China and anyone else, he only needs to threaten to entirely stop buying Chinese products. Their economy would collapse, and Xi should be smart enough to understand that.
OK let's think about this just for a moment
keep in mind China's growth rate HAS TURNED NEGATIVE (for now)
what if it stays negative and in fact continues its down ward movement?
In 25 years they all this military hardware but not enough recruits to fly the jets, or man the nuclear powered subs. the best they can do is have 50+ year Olds doing that. what then? conscription? from where?
forced breeding may work but I don't think their society is THAT compliant.
the 50 year Olds can keep turning out products for their export heavy economy but they won't have enough people for their military needs. UNLESS they reverse course and "engineer" a return to stable population growth
China has a population of 1.4 billion people. If it's only half that 50 years from now, that's still twice the current population of the US. That's enough to maintain a powerful military, even if the average age of the people in uniform is up.
Traditionally, the English speaking countries have followed a policy of accepting volunteers up to 40 years old in time of war; Ukraine is apparently taking them considerably older than that. Most, but not all, military tasks can be carried out by healthy fifty or sixty year olds.
China seems not to have heard of catching flies with honey.
They are giving the impression that they are thinking that if they don't capture Taiwan now they'll never be able to again.
But are they thinking that?
If they were going to capture Taiwan it would take a huge landing force, airborne or seaborne, probably both. Preparations for that would be clear as a bell.
Beijing obviously wouldn't care how many died in such a venture, but they would care about losing it and unless they could launch an attack by surprise there's a good chance enough could be put in place to at least force a stalemate if not a defeat.
They could try a kind of lightning strike to seize the capitol or most of the government, but I'll bet I'm not the first to think of that.
So, is Taiwan a feint? Is their real goal to seize the China sea, irrespective of what else might be in it, the plan being to ramp up their naval activity until everyone is used to it and thinking that as long as Taiwan isn't actually attacked it's ok?
Not only are you not the first to think of that, publicly available information about Taiwan's defensive preparations say that their defense planners have thought of it and taken steps to make sure that a lightning strike doesn't succeed.
A dropped shoe. How many to follow? https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/08/17/business/evergrande-files-for-bankruptcy/index.html
Comparing the shakeout of China’s property sector to America’s Great Financial Crisis of 2008 has become a popular meme in the commentariat. Stock markets don’t see it that way: During the 10 months from November through August in 2008, US financial stocks lost half their market value, while Chinese financial stocks have gained 20 percent.
https://asiatimes.com/2023/08/property-shakeout-beijings-tool-to-fight-fiefdoms/