CHINA

[Old Koreelah]

Our biggest trading partner deserves a thread all of her own.

 

Is China a threat to Australia? Recent governments have panicked about the massive growth in China’s economy and military. Australia is absolutely throwing money at weapons makers, particularly in Britain and the US. Home-grown manufacture of weapons systems is getting support not seen since the 1940s.
 

This bloke is one of many who don’t believe this will be China’s century. In fact, some analysts think The Middle Kingdom will collapse this decade.

 

If even partly true, this has enormous implications for the world and Australia in particular.

Our biggest market will be gone. Enormous numbers of refugees will head our way.

What will China’s recently-reaffirmed emperor do to stave off the collapse?
 

 

[Yenn]

China is only a threat because of USA. USA makes it a threat because it is in fear of losing its boss of the world position. China threatens it because of its trading power and the USA only knows one way of getting what it wants. That is to declare the percieved enemy as a world wide threat. I reckon China wants to dominate trade to its own advantage and is willing to push or pull others into alignment with it, preferably by trade and monetary methods. I can't see China wanting to go to war, it would just cost too much.

[nomadpete]

2 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

Our biggest market will be gone.

That is not so much a worry, the biggest problem for us Aussies, is we have beholden ourselves to a single supplier.

Yenn, it is not a problem caused by USA, who do indeed have a problem with competition.

Whatever you are making or maintaining, it is essential to have at least two sources of supply. It is foolish to be held to ransom by a single supplier.

[nomadpete]

1 hour ago, Yenn said:

China wants to dominate trade to its own advantage and is willing to push or pull others into alignment with it, preferably by trade and monetary

Yes, that was made clear by china many years. They have got most western manufacturers by the gonads. All western 'manufacturers' have surrendered their local manufacturing abilities. In return for cheaper chinese components.   Meantime,  I worry about chinas military expansion. After all china has conquered the world by economic means, without a single shot fired.

So, after all that success,  the big question is, why do they build the world's biggest military?

[Jerry_Atrick]

China has done very well proprelling its power econonomically rather than militarily. However, I am drawn to some parallels to the not so distant past. In the aftermath of WWI, Germany was an economic basket case, but a leader took that basket case, ignored the restriictions placed on it by the international community, rebuilt itself economically, and towards its end, invested heavily in arms and munitions, and, well, aloing came WWII. In fact, you could argue Putin did much the same thing, although against a different backdrop, and along came the Ukranian war (had he been better organised, it could have escalated).

 

The common thread through all of this is a brutal autocracy - corrupt and lethal to its opponents, while building an inner sanctum it will listen to.

 

China is suffering economically, and according to this article, some dissent in the population and in the CCP is surfacing. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-19/analysis-china-xi-jinping-third-term-trust-problem/101546528

 

Also, China is going through a recession, that is for sure. But does it spell the demise of China?

 

 

And, even if it is the end of China's rise, they have invested heavily in the military (to help fiscal stimulus, as well)... what's to say they won't take a pot shot on their way down. They are alleged to have recruited foreign ex fighter pilots to train their own (admittedly a practice performed by many countries, but usually of their allies.. and traitors, I guess).

 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-19/defence-investigates-whether-china-luring-raaf-pilots/101552056

 

I still consioder them a threat - it is probably being exaggerated.. but the signs are there.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Jerry_Atrick

[nomadpete]

China? The historic rise and fall of many previous autocratic dictators does not prevent others from following similar paths. Those paths usually lead to their demise And the consequential suffering of their previously adulant public.

 

Maybe, or maybe not, China has watched and learned how to avoid the demise part of that.

 

We will have to wait to see it play out.

 

Threat? Of course every big player is a major threat to small players such as ours. Our best hope is that our local politicians manage to protect our rather cushy lifestyles whilst it all plays out in the global arena.

[red750]

On Channel 7s late news tonight it was reported that 30 - 40 former RAF pilots had been recruited to train Chinese fighter pilots in western air tactics, on salaries of up to $400,000. Approaches have also been made to Australian pilots.

[nomadpete]

7 hours ago, red750 said:

On Channel 7s late news tonight it was reported that 30 - 40 former RAF pilots had been recruited to train Chinese fighter pilots in western air tactics, on salaries of up to $400,000. Approaches have also been made to Australian pilots.

Red, that looks like a threatening step. It implies that china is in a bit of a hurry to get practical, effective military. It is a big step beyond previous symbolic posturing that is used for political bullying. It might indicate that they learning from russia's recent military and political poor performances

[nomadpete]

Maybe the RAF pilots are being paid to train the AI flight control systems for use in chinese fighter drones?

 

The best, of the best, Sir!

 

(My paranoid thought bubble)

[onetrack]

The threat of War with China hinges 100% around Taiwan. We are facing the greatest threat to world peace simply because Xi Jinping has made it his lifes aim, and the pinnacle of his career to invade Taiwan and reclaim it for China.

 

He is a warmonger, exactly the same as Trump. He will eventually invade Taiwan and threaten the rest of the world with his giant, enlarged Navy and huge number of soldiers in the PLA forces - essentially asking what the rest of the world is going to do about it?

 

Xi will be watching the Ukraine War with unbridled interest, seeing how the rest of the world reacts to the invasion of a small, relatively weak (militarily) country. He's probably a little concerned about the current fairly unified response to Ukraines invasion - but weighing up what his chances are of neutralising Taiwans defences, and walking in and taking over before the rest of the world can react.

 

For this very reason, the West needs to be strong in its response to Russia's aggression, and to continue to support Taiwan in every possible way - including running the biggest American aircraft carriers regularly through so-called "Chinese waters", which are in effect, the open seas. The fact that China is going helter-skelter, building the worlds biggest Navy, which will shortly exceed in total ship numbers, the number of ships in the American Navy, is of major, sobering concern.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/05/china/china-world-biggest-navy-intl-hnk-ml-dst/index.html

 

 

[facthunter]

Beat you up till you love me.  How does that work? The lifestyle of modern China is  like "1984" on steroids. "your government is your enemy". Why would people of Taiwan want that when they have something much better?  Real elections and a good taste of freedom..  Nev

[willedoo]

I guess that's why totalitarian communist regimes have at their core a system where the people get no say in it. If the people were allowed to vote, the regime would not survive because nobody in their right mind want a system like that. I think Marx, Lenin and all those characters figured that one out early in the piece.

[spacesailor]

Why is  ! , Our Old allies, , China, Russia, 

From that Big war,

Now our enemy.

Has it anything to do with' uncle sam '  .

spacesailor

[onetrack]

Spacey, those two nations were only our Allies while it suited the U.S. to use them to beat Nazism. Once the Nazis were beaten, it was back to the old, Commos VS the West game, again.

[Old Koreelah]

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

The threat of War with China hinges 100% around Taiwan. We are facing the greatest threat to world peace simply because Xi Jinping has made it his lifes aim, and the pinnacle of his career to invade Taiwan and reclaim it for China.

Nobody seems to have the guts to challenge Xi’s claim to Taiwan. The communist party took control of China by force. How legitimate is that? They didn’t conquer Formosa, which for a long time has been a functional democracy. After all China’s broken promises about respecting Hong Kong’s unique system, the Taiwanese know what their future will be if the mainland invades.

 

Most concerning for the west is that Taiwan produces so much of the world’s strategically vital computer chips. Might be sensible to quietly shift some of that capacity and those critical people to somewhere safer. Australia could surely benefit from their enterprise.

[old man emu]

On 20/10/2022 at 10:01 PM, Old Koreelah said:

Might be sensible to quietly shift some of that capacity and those critical people to somewhere safer. Australia could surely benefit from their enterprise.

That's a great idea, but we wouldn't want to get the wong people.

[Old Koreelah]

27 minutes ago, old man emu said:

That's a great idea, but we wouldn't want to get the wong people.

Dunno OME, we’ve got one Wong that’s turned out to be a bonzer Aussie.

[onetrack]

Peter Zheihan makes a lot of suppositions. One supposition is that the Chinese have no ability to deal with economic collapse. They're the most resilient and the most industrious people on the face of the Earth. I wouldn't place great faith in Peter Zeihans future projections. In 10 years, I believe it is very likely we will see a different China to today - but not one where the Chinese economy has collapsed, and the country has become a basket case.

 

There are probably at least 3 things that Zeihan hasn't examined in his talk.

 

One - Xi Jinping is 70 next year, and in 10 years he'll be 80. He will become an old man in that time, and his leadership will come under questioning and pressure.

 

Two - The whole of China is ageing rapidly and it has little population growth. It is facing a lack of young people to provide the major workforce it needs. This will impact on China's industrial output more than any other factor.

 

Three - The property market bubble in China is still there, it has not been allowed to burst. It's funny how Evergrande doesn't rate much of a mention, right at present - but everyone in the West shat themselves last year when Evergrande couldn't pay its debts - and in fact, couldn't even pay its employees. The CCP has stepped in to prevent total collapse in the Chinese property market, so the Evergrande problem has gone off the radar - but it's still there!

 

The bottom line is, that a vast number of Chinese people who thought their property market would never stop booming, are starting to realise, there is such a thing as a property downturn - and they are having to accept that they are going to lose personal wealth, because of this.

Xi Jinping is constantly trying to manage any downturn in the Chinese economy by ensuring that the Chinese people are constantly cushioned from any financial losses that might start a revolt against the CCP.

 

Unfortunately, history tells us that unforeseen events have a long record of undoing many Emperors aims to stay in power - and the combinations of an ageing workforce, ever-increasing costs of industrial inputs (fuel, fertiliser, minerals and commodities in general), a demand for a reduction in pollutants that has become an energy shortage (leading to loss of production, therefore lower economic growth), the loss of production from constant COVID-19 lockdowns, many Western companies leaving China as a result of supply-chain concerns - and the Chinese economy is looking at some pretty rough seas in the next decade - which could lead to a revolt that unseats Xi Jinping.

 

Any unforeseen economic event that comes out of left field, is something that may be the event that causes great disruption in an already moderately-disrupted China. Who saw COVID-19 coming? Who foresaw the War in the Ukraine?

 

I don't believe the CCP is going to go away any time soon, but it may "reform" itself, if deteriorating economic and social conditions dictate a different approach to the iron-fisted controls that Xi Jinping insists on maintaining.

[Old Koreelah]

Jerry’s “events from left field” will always arise and test out the best of us. To be nimble enough to rapidly adapt to them we need reliable information, clever scientists and engineers, plus wise leaders.
 

Rigid command structures in Russia’s forces stood no chance against Ukraine’s flexible military. 

 

Global warming seems to be accellerating, but the likely disruption of The Gulf Stream could plunge Western Europe into an Ice Age.

One Pinatubo-sized volcanic eruption could reverse warming for years.

 

The bad guys could enlarge their cyber attacks on our communication networks. 

One solar storm could knock out much of our power and internet system, turning our urban areas into disaster zones.

The worrying reality is that our people have become far less resiliant than previous generations. North Koreans stand a much better chance of survival.

[onetrack]

China's property market near-collapse is being carefully managed by the CCP so that the rich entrepreneurs who initiated it, lose the most. Many of China's billionaires have lost more than half their wealth in the last year or so.

Jack Ma has virtually disappeared, he's been seen about 5 times in public since he criticised the CCP and its leadership for allowing the property bubble to happen.

 

No-one knows what's going on with these people - but what we do know, is that Xi Jinping has a policy of "eliminating" super-rich Chinese, who he sees as a threat to his power - and as a threat to his stated aim of "spreading the wealth evenly".

This "elimination" of threats can be either trumped up charges and prompt jailing - or a serious reduction in wealth, which seriously reduces the rich individuals power.

The second option is obviously one that works best, and produces the least blowback.

 

The Chinese Govt is the biggest lender to the Chinese property developers, and the Govt is calling in the loans to the troubled developers such as Evergrande, so they can get as much of their Govt money back as possible.

But the bottom line is, the Chinese Govt is still going to take a financial hit - but the insolvent property developers, and the other (foreign) lenders to the insolvent property developers, are going to take a bigger hit.

The Chinese Govt doesn't care too much about these others taking a hit, as long as they salvage as much as they can, of their monies lent.

 

Many developers expected the Chinese Govt to bail out the residential property development industry - but it hasn't, or not on the scale expected. The Chinese Govt has supported the property developers who are still solvent - but any money it has offered to developers, has to go into infrastructure development, not residential development.

It's obvious the Chinese Govt has woken up to the major imbalance in their building/construction industry, with far too much emphasis on residential development, and not enough on industrial and infrastructure development.

 

The Chinese (residential) property market is in decline, it has now shown 10 consecutive quarters of negative growth - over 2 years of slowly declining property values. It's not a destructive bust - just a slow withering on the vine of both property developer wealth, and individual Chinese wealth.

The Chinese are heading the way of the Japanese, whose banks are still wearing the massive losses from their property bubble collapse in the early 1990's. Property values collapse simply leads to major recessions.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/25/china-property-why-beijing-wont-bail-out-its-real-estate-sector.html

 

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

 

Liquidators are regularly moving in and selling the largest assets of the insolvent Chinese property developers - and the sales prices they're getting are 20% or 30% below expected market values. As a lot of these assets are commercial buildings, this value damage goes right through all the Chinese businesses and industry. China's not a happy place to be, right at present.

 

https://www.reuters.com/business/dozens-weigh-bids-evergrandes-hong-kong-headquarters-2022-10-21/

 

Edited October 29, 2022 by onetrack

[nomadpete]

44 minutes ago, Old Koreelah said:

The worrying reality is that our people have become far less resiliant than previous generations. North Koreans stand a much better chance of survival.

I most partucularly agree with your last paragraph.

 

I also worry that we do not teach open minds, relience, and lateral thinking.

 

And not to trust that any anonymous 'authority' will always get us out of the shyte

[nomadpete]

4 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Many of China's billionaires have lost more than half their wealth in the last year or so.

So the CCP protects them from paying fully for their gambles. They still stay wealthy.

[nomadpete]

12 minutes ago, onetrack said:

what we do know, is that Xi Jinping has a policy of "eliminating" super-rich Chinese, who he sees as a threat to his power

That says it all.

Same as Putin and his oligarcs. They will both throw old mates under the bus

Edited October 29, 2022 by nomadpete

[onetrack]

Here's another good article from earlier this month, outlining how the CCP is not really addressing their core "capital misallocation" problems, and only kicking the can down the road.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, the can will run into a brick wall, and the CCP will not be able to be kick the can down the road any more.

 

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/why-chinas-leadership-must-respond-to-the-countrys-property-crisis/

 

Nomadpete, I don't think "throwing old mates under a bus" is strictly limited to dictators - I seem to recall a few instances of that happening here, in political circles.

[old man emu]

14 hours ago, onetrack said:

far too much emphasis on residential development,

From pictures I've seen, there wasn't construction to provide residences, but simply erection of the walls and floors of buildings of a residential style. Never fitted out, even with windows. It looked like mum and dad investors were staking a claim on a supposed rental goldfield. It would seem that caveat emptor  does not translate into Mandarin. Or it simply shows that the concept of the inscrutable Chinaman is a myth and your average Mr and Mrs Wong are a gullable as the rest of us when it comes to dealing with smooth talkers.