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They have some massive negatives to deal with: - China is net food and energy importer. Look at last year for a preview of future food. The land they leased in

They have some massive negatives to deal with: - China is net food and energy importer. Look at last year for a preview of future food. The land they leased in Africa won't help in terms of climate shift, locusts, etc. Who is the number of one food and energy exporter? - China has an aeging population, and it's already a rapid shift. - China's infrastructure isn't as well built as other countries (see their most important infrastructure project ever being the literal definition of half-assed), and it will start degrading, and maintenance is a pain. What happens when a few dams collapse, or nuke plant blows up? - Supply chains are moving elsewhere. - Taiwan has enough medium-range missles to take out the Three Gorges Dam, which is effectively MAD as far as China is concerned. One could also see Taiwan being a few minutes away from going nuclear, if need be(learning the Ukraine lesson). - The US controls space, and will solidify it's grip in the next 3 years. Nobody is within even a decade of SpaceX's launch technology. 60s solid fuel missles to launch small satellites into orbit won't cut it. Putting Mir 2.0 into orbit won't cut it. A moonbase that is effectively an even more expensive and worthless version of Belt and Road won't cut it (and obviously will provide less jobs). - What do you do about automation, if it wipes out jobs for all the restive angry young men? Now sure, a war in the South China Sea favors China heavily, but I don't think the "Let's party in Taiwan" scenario is winnable for them without wiping out 80% of their agriculture, their entire biomedial industry and their main banking centre, along with a bunch of nuke plants and military bases. Not to mention the US soon being able to just stack depleted uranium telephone poles in orbit to protect it's dependencies. A larger scale war in SE Asia would probably just drag the region back 50 years, and China would likely be on the losing end as all their neighbors hate them, and India for example has a very competent military. The whole "West is in decline" narrative assumes countries are static- the US is especially dynamic in terms of social trends. We are about to end the war on drugs and undergo a massive shift in our education trends as we realize most schooling is worthless, and there is decent chance we'll go to UBI. Now granted the current expamles of UBI in the ME don't bode well, but it's kind of a hazy future. Now if this was for Western Europe, sure I could buy it.

alert0 5y ago
Agree with everything except the implications about Belt and Road. This was actually strategically clever by China. In 2012 they stopped purchasing (as much) US debt which stopped feeding our reserve currency system. Being a reserve currency requires a country to run persistent trade deficits, not the most sustainable but when everyone takes the inflow of USD and buys bonds, it feeds the USD back into the system allowing it to go on. China bucked this trend and instead started putting their money to work in Africa. This undermines the USD's position petty well.
newdude116 5y ago
"China is net food and energy importer." Chinas wealth is based on neither. So what? Many rich countries import energy. BTW, China is serious about fusion and thorium reactors. " China has an aeging population, and it's already a rapid shift." Most countries do and this can still Change. "- China's infrastructure isn't as well built as other countries and it will start degrading, and maintenance is a pain." I am sure that the huge and extensive bullet train network in the US won't show any sign of aging very soon. Just kidding. "- Supply chains are moving elsewhere." Unlikely, the Chinese type of clustering is hard to replicate. Lower things like textiles and assembly might move to Vietnam. Owned by Chinese companies. "The US controls space, and will solidify it's grip in the next 3 years. " Yes, sure. Good luck with that. Sure the Russian will also we happy about it. If I remember right, the next version of the S400 System can even shot satellites out of orbit, but I may be wrong. "What do you do about automation, if it wipes out jobs for all the restive angry young men?" Chinese will be leading in automation. Not sure about the angry young man. A Chinese person seems to be happier and more able to endure things in my experience. Strangely, I found many very sensitive to hunger. US vs China would be an interesting war. The US has very to no experience in fighting such a war. What most Americans don't know (and actually phrased to me in this way by my US professoer): The second world war was a German-Russian war in Europe. The US industrial might helped Russia, but the US fighting was negligible. Russia lost every two days as many people as the US in a ten year war against Vietnam. The US has never fought an equal opponent. Just as a word of caution.
- shatnersbassoon 5y ago
  > the US fighting was negligible. This is either ignorant or dishonest. Just because the US wasn't insanely profligate with lives, doesn't mean they didn't make a huge contribution to defeating Germany. Multiple German armies were defeated by the Western allies in Africa, Italy, France, the low countries and subsequently Germany. Germany's war production was crippled by USAAF and RAF bombing, and its transport was almost totally destroyed. Perhaps most importantly, Germany's ability to fuel its vehicles was removed by the bombing campaign. Literally thousands of 88mm guns were kept in the Reich because of the bombing, and these would have been on the Eastern front shredding Russians otherwise. Without this contribution, the USSR could at best have reached a stalemate. Anyone who denies this has an agenda.
inter_netuser 5y ago
"US soon being able to just stack depleted uranium telephone poles in orbit to protect it's dependencies" Rods from God is actually real? Thought it was a failed research project?
- medium_burrito 5y ago
  It's a question of economics. A 20,000 kg rod costs $200m to launch into LEO at $10k/kg. At $200/kg it's only $4m. Uranium price per kilo seems reasonable at $60/kg, so we're getting to a point where the raw material cost is not that different from the getting the damn thing to LEO. If you can get each complete rod down to say $200m, ie the cost of a cruise missle for the DOD, that's a pretty impressive capability.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    cruise missiles are like 2 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile) Im not sure what cruise missiles are you talking about?
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  RFGs are just a subclass of "kinetic impact weapons", which are _definitely_ feasible. RFGs are rod-shaped to minimize air resistance during re-entry. Tungsten is the material they're most associated with, but DU would likely work just fine as well. A (relatively) small, tungsten rod can be launched by braking from a parking orbit which would mean extremely little in the way of detectable activity. Even if it were detected... it's already at apogee, already at orbital speed, and already on a virtually unstoppable course to impact. To take this a step further - realistically, Elon Musk is on the cusp of being the most powerful man the world has ever seen. Once SpaceX has a semi-permanent presence in orbit and beyond, he would have the practical ability to launch attacks anywhere on Earth with a destructive potential on par with nuclear weapons.

alert0 5y ago

Agree with everything except the implications about Belt and Road. This was actually strategically clever by China. In 2012 they stopped purchasing (as much) US debt which stopped feeding our reserve currency system. Being a reserve currency requires a country to run persistent trade deficits, not the most sustainable but when everyone takes the inflow of USD and buys bonds, it feeds the USD back into the system allowing it to go on. China bucked this trend and instead started putting their money to work in Africa. This undermines the USD's position petty well.

newdude116 5y ago

"China is net food and energy importer." Chinas wealth is based on neither. So what? Many rich countries import energy. BTW, China is serious about fusion and thorium reactors. " China has an aeging population, and it's already a rapid shift." Most countries do and this can still Change. "- China's infrastructure isn't as well built as other countries and it will start degrading, and maintenance is a pain." I am sure that the huge and extensive bullet train network in the US won't show any sign of aging very soon. Just kidding. "- Supply chains are moving elsewhere." Unlikely, the Chinese type of clustering is hard to replicate. Lower things like textiles and assembly might move to Vietnam. Owned by Chinese companies. "The US controls space, and will solidify it's grip in the next 3 years. " Yes, sure. Good luck with that. Sure the Russian will also we happy about it. If I remember right, the next version of the S400 System can even shot satellites out of orbit, but I may be wrong. "What do you do about automation, if it wipes out jobs for all the restive angry young men?" Chinese will be leading in automation. Not sure about the angry young man. A Chinese person seems to be happier and more able to endure things in my experience. Strangely, I found many very sensitive to hunger. US vs China would be an interesting war. The US has very to no experience in fighting such a war. What most Americans don't know (and actually phrased to me in this way by my US professoer): The second world war was a German-Russian war in Europe. The US industrial might helped Russia, but the US fighting was negligible. Russia lost every two days as many people as the US in a ten year war against Vietnam. The US has never fought an equal opponent. Just as a word of caution.

shatnersbassoon 5y ago
> the US fighting was negligible. This is either ignorant or dishonest. Just because the US wasn't insanely profligate with lives, doesn't mean they didn't make a huge contribution to defeating Germany. Multiple German armies were defeated by the Western allies in Africa, Italy, France, the low countries and subsequently Germany. Germany's war production was crippled by USAAF and RAF bombing, and its transport was almost totally destroyed. Perhaps most importantly, Germany's ability to fuel its vehicles was removed by the bombing campaign. Literally thousands of 88mm guns were kept in the Reich because of the bombing, and these would have been on the Eastern front shredding Russians otherwise. Without this contribution, the USSR could at best have reached a stalemate. Anyone who denies this has an agenda.

inter_netuser 5y ago

"US soon being able to just stack depleted uranium telephone poles in orbit to protect it's dependencies" Rods from God is actually real? Thought it was a failed research project?

medium_burrito 5y ago
It's a question of economics. A 20,000 kg rod costs $200m to launch into LEO at $10k/kg. At $200/kg it's only $4m. Uranium price per kilo seems reasonable at $60/kg, so we're getting to a point where the raw material cost is not that different from the getting the damn thing to LEO. If you can get each complete rod down to say $200m, ie the cost of a cruise missle for the DOD, that's a pretty impressive capability.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  cruise missiles are like 2 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile) Im not sure what cruise missiles are you talking about?
Ancapistani 5y ago
RFGs are just a subclass of "kinetic impact weapons", which are _definitely_ feasible. RFGs are rod-shaped to minimize air resistance during re-entry. Tungsten is the material they're most associated with, but DU would likely work just fine as well. A (relatively) small, tungsten rod can be launched by braking from a parking orbit which would mean extremely little in the way of detectable activity. Even if it were detected... it's already at apogee, already at orbital speed, and already on a virtually unstoppable course to impact. To take this a step further - realistically, Elon Musk is on the cusp of being the most powerful man the world has ever seen. Once SpaceX has a semi-permanent presence in orbit and beyond, he would have the practical ability to launch attacks anywhere on Earth with a destructive potential on par with nuclear weapons.