IIRC during the Cold War the Soviet subs were so loud and inefficient we were able to shadow them until we had time to sneak up on and ping most, possibly all of their fleet, on the same day just to show the Reds how badly overmatched they were.
You’re look at this through terms of profit as if their government sees domestic proserity as the desired end result.
If their desired result is a sustainable engine of aggression, and I believe that is the case, then they don’t have to maximize their profits. They merely have to keep enough resources coming in to fuel the war machine.
For example, PepsiCo knows that people generally reach for a coke if they see the two products placed side by side. The Cola Wars made Pepsi resort to strange tactics.
Almost nobody prefers Pepsi to Coke when they have a choice, so one of things they did was acquire a lot of different restaurant chains that exclusively use their product.
China can make favorable trade deals and wage war on the US dollar by trying to work out deals wherethey offer their own currency and a trade and reserve currency.
The reasons why people would do that is that doing business with China means their government can do any shit thing they want to do. China sees more opportunity in the developing world by economic colonialism than it does through continued relationships with the US.
They have a billion and a half consumers in their country. That drives a lot of economic growth when snapping up resources on the cheap through self dealing presidents that pocket money from private sales of national resources. That’s where Putin and his thugs get all of their money and where Chinese thugs get theirs. Russia may have a shit economy but Putin lives better than any emperor since Mansa Musa.
The reason small nations wouldn’t want to do that is because now they’re in bed with a regime that will lean on them and break their legs like a back alley mobster if they ever do anything at cross purpose or even just pisses off the PRC’s petty need to be seen as the master race (make no mistake, that’s where this is headed). Vietnam and Cambodia already learned the lesson of doing too close a trade with China’s PRC.
We don’t come in and do things like steal huge portions of the Pacific Ocean from the rest of the world anymore. We’re making amends for our Colonial past and China is just getting started. We don’t just claim that their water and land is our sovereign territory just to seize territory with flimsy justifications that we built a sandcastle on top of some rocky shallows and by producing documents from100 something years ago when our government forced them to sign a treaty under threat of death that said we have ownership of the whole known world and all waters which touch our soil.
Chinese people need to eat dung… And they have a lot people.
You are correct about that.
China’s enemies are circling it and putting to test its testicular fortitude.
Comparatively speaking China has not been particularly aggressive as a nation to anyone other than they’re own people.
Once all their economic schemes are shat on I dont see them feeling war will be the best option.
They are far too cunning for that and they think long term, better to retreat tactically and continue to play the whipping boy as economies forget and become overly dependent on them again and have another run at it in 2050.
“appearing weak” to their people isnt a problem for China because they simply tell them the opposite is true.
Say what you will about L’Orange but he was right about China.
Most likely because somebody intelligent told him about them but regardless he was bang on.
I doubt their plans will be thwarted
They hold most of the cards economically
They just have to keep the people fed
As long as we sell food to China we prolong and support the regime
They do not hold all the cards economically.
If it wasnt for western money they would still be a third world country.
They hold western debt.
If the money supply stops they will regress.
Maybe the people get hungry and rebel maybe they dont but one thing is for certain the country will not continue to progress at its rapid pace.
They have been desperately trying to obtain the one thing they lack by taking over western educational institutions and sending their students over seas and that is the ability to innovate and create.
They seam to be largely ignorant of the fact that it is western democratic capitalist culture that has cultivated the environment in which creative people spring up and thrive .
Until such time as they change their own culture accordingly they will continue to be a nation great in copying others creations whilst producing people that are great at learning , crap and dreaming.
That’s the rub
They are addicted to dollars
We are addicted to Made in China
It’s a co-dependant relationship
How ironic given how much Europeans borrowed from Chinese technological advancements at the beginning of the millennium.
Never loose that British smug sense of superiority.
Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia, India, Canada aside… Obviously.
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We are talking about today or shall we start at Ancient Greece ?
We wouldn’t have roads if it wasn’t for the Italians
Some of those are their own people as they see it and the rest have not been attacked by them .
Japan has a negative history of crimes against China as big as our own .
I will of course gleefully rise above your insults and put them down to your needing a nap .
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The Chinese government has falsely imprisoned and killed Canadian nationals over their grievances about us detaining Weng Wangzhoo at request of the Americans.
While we have just kept her under home arrest in her multi million dollar mansion.
Fuck the Chinese government and winnie the pooh.
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Not that imprisoning foreign nationals isn’t barbaric but I was kinda talking about the whole invading countries and starting wars vibe that we western powers enjoy.
Although to be fair it’s a real struggle selling democracy when it has served up Trump, Biden, Boris, Macron and Trudeau recently .
I wasn’t a huge fan of many of Tony Blair and Obama’s policies but they were proper leaders or atleast looked and acted the part .
The last few years has been cartoon characters and if Le Pen wins in France we may as well all start speaking mandarin because democracy will have jumped the shark .
You think we are so fragile our ideals could not survive a few inept leaders?
Think of all the English have accomplished in spite of having a bunch of inbred parasites at the helm for the longest time.
They were German.
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Individual freedom. The freedom to do business without having to pay bribes and innovate without a government office leaning on them to put them back into place. The ability to speak out about injustice, colleges that teach people how to think instead of just how to memorize the recipe, colleges that teach history as close to the truth as can be determined instead of convenient lies, the list goes on forever.
Chinese engineers are masters of Soviet era hacks but they’re just no good at coming up with something new, novel or celebrated outside of their country. Their government views all others with suspicion, coveting and jealousy.
Don’t discount them yet. They have been really bad at the psyop portion of the game outside of their country but there are plenty of desperate liars who’ll sell their own mother for a devil’s bargain.
I don’t see them being cowed. I see them plowing forward and finding new shills, borrowing Russian tactics and flipping piece of shit demagogues wherever they’re for sale. Look at how much that crapbag in the Philipines has already given them. He sucks up to them at every turn while he calls NATO ambassadors a bunch of “faggots”; his words.
Terrorist leaders are mostly in it for the money and power. If China or Russia dangles a big enough carrot they’ll come to heel.