6 ms·

What’s his thesis on China, at a high level?

DennisP 4y ago
There are two main parts to it. First is that, in his view, globalization is mostly coming to an end. The US protected global trade and borders as a trade for help in containing the Soviets, and has been gradually pulling back from that effort since the Soviets fell. This is coming to a head, and is bad for everyone heavily dependent on the global system, especially if they import critical goods. China imports over 80% of their energy and agricultural inputs. One reason the US can't afford to police the globe anymore is that the boomers are retiring. But at least US boomers had lots of kids, because the US urbanized slowly and built things like suburbs. Most other countries urbanized more rapidly, and their boomers lived in little urban apartments and had fewer kids. This is very much the case in China, which of course had the one-child policy on top of that. Their population is going to shrink dramatically over the next couple decades. Russia has similar severe demographics. Zeihan predicted in 2014 that they would invade the rest of Ukraine around the end of 2021, because if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower. This is the first of many trade-disrupting conflicts he expects.
- majormajor 4y ago
  > Russia has similar severe demographics. Zeihan predicted in 2014 that they would invade the rest of Ukraine around the end of 2021, because if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower. This is the first of many trade-disrupting conflicts he expects. "if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower" isn't really a reason to invade Ukraine. It's a reason to invade before waiting to long if you already have decided to invade for another reason. In 2014 lots of people were predicting Russia would come back at some point. Does he have a unique take on a more underlying reason for the conflict in the first place? That would be more telling in terms of predicting further global breakdown.
  - yomkippur 4y ago
    not if you are an authoritarian government which maintains power through violence. here Putin hits two birds with one stone: he gets rid of a problematic demographic and attempts to achieve political/geographic gains to ensure Gazprom lives on and pay dividends to his offsprings. Xi faces similar problem. His growing number of unemployed, educated, unwed single male is another source of anxiety. The last thing he needs is a massive Tianmen Square event spreading and his button men unwilling to push the button. Not to mention internal competition from the opposition (Zhang Zemin faction). All in all, we are headed for uncharted waters. For the first time we have more old people than young in many developed economies, and governments face a three prong dillema with only two that they can save: economy, housing and health care. No country can have all three, you can have two but one needs to be sacrificed. ex. Japan sacrificed its economy but kept its housing and health care intact by ensuring homogenity to continue. Israel also does the same to a degree (since thats the point of its existence). UK sacrificed housing to continue its economy and health care. Canada did the same. It boils down to do you want to open up immigration and allow them to keep your economy going strong? Different countries have different needs and wants. Korea seems to be experimenting with immigration/multicultural society more actively than Japan which clearly has signaled it will not change. The countries that have chosen economy over homogenous population are definitely having their moment in Scandinavia and Germany.
  - DennisP 4y ago
    Sure, I skipped over that since the question was about China. The reason he gave for Russia invading Ukraine is geographic. Over the course of its history Russia has been invaded fifty times, so they're touchy about that even if things look peaceful at the moment. Right now Russia has no real geographic boundaries, so it takes immense manpower to actually defend the borders, assuming you don't want to go nuclear. With the old Soviet borders, they had mountains and only nine passes to defend, which could be done relatively easily. Now they control one of those passes. Ukraine gives them two more plus a good base of operations to take the rest. This fits his overall approach to geography: you want crunchy borders, good ports, and a productive interior with nice easy transportation inside. The US has all that in spades, a few other countries do to a lesser extent, most have various impediments, and all this drives a lot of everybody's history. His 2014 book applies this basic idea to many of the great civilizations in history, starting with ancient Egypt.
- majormajor 4y ago
  Separate question than my other one: Strength seems like something that can only be measured relatively, so I am a bit confused by the demographic claim here - if the US is weak because they have fewer people the right age, but most other countries and especially China have urbanized and seen demographic change even faster... doesn't that mean the US would actually relatively stronger than other countries who were hit even harder by the same trend? If the population of the US was 400M but the population of China was 2B, say?
  - DennisP 4y ago
    Yes. Zeihan believes that by the 2030s the US will be significantly more dominant than it is now. At the moment though, we still have strained finances and limited motivation to defend everybody else's supply chains.
- yomkippur 4y ago
  > Zeihan predicted in 2014 that they would invade the rest of Ukraine around the end of 2021, because if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower. This is the first of many trade-disrupting conflicts he expects. What's scary is China is going through the exact same issue as Russia. Their demographic is aging, after this inflection point they would certainly lose manpower. However unlike technologically advanced countries like Korea & Japan, it cannot modernize, not with US sanctions hitting it like it did Russia. I'm afraid Russia is on a path of no return. No sanction uplift or normalization is possible at this point. Putin is in a do or die mode, he chose to throw his country in a perpetual war rather than being over thrown. Question is will Xi do the same? I believe so. The globalization capital is dwindling and that is it's lifeline. Without rest of the world buying its labor output, it's sitting on a massive population that increasingly become uncooperative with a centralized leadership. Couple that with young single unwed males living in city centers, its rife for a major revolution, much like what happened in Syria.

There are two main parts to it. First is that, in his view, globalization is mostly coming to an end. The US protected global trade and borders as a trade for help in containing the Soviets, and has been gradually pulling back from that effort since the Soviets fell. This is coming to a head, and is bad for everyone heavily dependent on the global system, especially if they import critical goods. China imports over 80% of their energy and agricultural inputs. One reason the US can't afford to police the globe anymore is that the boomers are retiring. But at least US boomers had lots of kids, because the US urbanized slowly and built things like suburbs. Most other countries urbanized more rapidly, and their boomers lived in little urban apartments and had fewer kids. This is very much the case in China, which of course had the one-child policy on top of that. Their population is going to shrink dramatically over the next couple decades. Russia has similar severe demographics. Zeihan predicted in 2014 that they would invade the rest of Ukraine around the end of 2021, because if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower. This is the first of many trade-disrupting conflicts he expects.

majormajor 4y ago
> Russia has similar severe demographics. Zeihan predicted in 2014 that they would invade the rest of Ukraine around the end of 2021, because if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower. This is the first of many trade-disrupting conflicts he expects. "if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower" isn't really a reason to invade Ukraine. It's a reason to invade before waiting to long if you already have decided to invade for another reason. In 2014 lots of people were predicting Russia would come back at some point. Does he have a unique take on a more underlying reason for the conflict in the first place? That would be more telling in terms of predicting further global breakdown.
- yomkippur 4y ago
  not if you are an authoritarian government which maintains power through violence. here Putin hits two birds with one stone: he gets rid of a problematic demographic and attempts to achieve political/geographic gains to ensure Gazprom lives on and pay dividends to his offsprings. Xi faces similar problem. His growing number of unemployed, educated, unwed single male is another source of anxiety. The last thing he needs is a massive Tianmen Square event spreading and his button men unwilling to push the button. Not to mention internal competition from the opposition (Zhang Zemin faction). All in all, we are headed for uncharted waters. For the first time we have more old people than young in many developed economies, and governments face a three prong dillema with only two that they can save: economy, housing and health care. No country can have all three, you can have two but one needs to be sacrificed. ex. Japan sacrificed its economy but kept its housing and health care intact by ensuring homogenity to continue. Israel also does the same to a degree (since thats the point of its existence). UK sacrificed housing to continue its economy and health care. Canada did the same. It boils down to do you want to open up immigration and allow them to keep your economy going strong? Different countries have different needs and wants. Korea seems to be experimenting with immigration/multicultural society more actively than Japan which clearly has signaled it will not change. The countries that have chosen economy over homogenous population are definitely having their moment in Scandinavia and Germany.
- DennisP 4y ago
  Sure, I skipped over that since the question was about China. The reason he gave for Russia invading Ukraine is geographic. Over the course of its history Russia has been invaded fifty times, so they're touchy about that even if things look peaceful at the moment. Right now Russia has no real geographic boundaries, so it takes immense manpower to actually defend the borders, assuming you don't want to go nuclear. With the old Soviet borders, they had mountains and only nine passes to defend, which could be done relatively easily. Now they control one of those passes. Ukraine gives them two more plus a good base of operations to take the rest. This fits his overall approach to geography: you want crunchy borders, good ports, and a productive interior with nice easy transportation inside. The US has all that in spades, a few other countries do to a lesser extent, most have various impediments, and all this drives a lot of everybody's history. His 2014 book applies this basic idea to many of the great civilizations in history, starting with ancient Egypt.
majormajor 4y ago
Separate question than my other one: Strength seems like something that can only be measured relatively, so I am a bit confused by the demographic claim here - if the US is weak because they have fewer people the right age, but most other countries and especially China have urbanized and seen demographic change even faster... doesn't that mean the US would actually relatively stronger than other countries who were hit even harder by the same trend? If the population of the US was 400M but the population of China was 2B, say?
- DennisP 4y ago
  Yes. Zeihan believes that by the 2030s the US will be significantly more dominant than it is now. At the moment though, we still have strained finances and limited motivation to defend everybody else's supply chains.
yomkippur 4y ago
> Zeihan predicted in 2014 that they would invade the rest of Ukraine around the end of 2021, because if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower. This is the first of many trade-disrupting conflicts he expects. What's scary is China is going through the exact same issue as Russia. Their demographic is aging, after this inflection point they would certainly lose manpower. However unlike technologically advanced countries like Korea & Japan, it cannot modernize, not with US sanctions hitting it like it did Russia. I'm afraid Russia is on a path of no return. No sanction uplift or normalization is possible at this point. Putin is in a do or die mode, he chose to throw his country in a perpetual war rather than being over thrown. Question is will Xi do the same? I believe so. The globalization capital is dwindling and that is it's lifeline. Without rest of the world buying its labor output, it's sitting on a massive population that increasingly become uncooperative with a centralized leadership. Couple that with young single unwed males living in city centers, its rife for a major revolution, much like what happened in Syria.