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Man, a Chinese-American war would be a great tragedy. Think about how many problems there are on earth and how a beneficial cooperation of these two powers woul

by Sol- 4y ago

Man, a Chinese-American war would be a great tragedy. Think about how many problems there are on earth and how a beneficial cooperation of these two powers would be in solving them. Climate change alone would need that, just for China's manufacturing power alone (so many cheap solar panels could happen!). Alas, realizing that war is generally bad for human welfare is of course a somewhat trivial remark. I hope China and the US find a way to de-escalate. Recent commentary and media reports make it seem that a war in the 2020s is a foregone conclusion.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
Also, China's at its best position to fight a war right now. In a few decades or a century, demographic collapse[0] will mean it'll be at a fraction of its current power. In adversarial terms, for China, it's now or never; for the U.S., it's later or never. 0: Check out how dark blue it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_sex_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_se...
- ninethirty 4y ago
  Why would the CCP tolerate demographic collapse? They have all the levers to incentivize people to have children.
  - danaris 4y ago
    That's making a bunch of assumptions. China has been trying to incentivize people to have more children for a few years now, and it hasn't been working. Turns out, when the future looks bleak and you don't have time outside of work to socialize, let alone raise a child, you're less likely to be willing to have one. Add to that all the work China did for decades to promote and enforce its widely-known one-child policy, and you've got a recipe for demographic collapse.
    - ashwagary 4y ago
      >China has been trying to incentivize people to have more children for a few years now, and it hasn't been working. Seems a bit premature to draw any conclusion when the window includes the years of covid lockdowns.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - CogitoCogito 4y ago
    Even if they managed to turn around China's birth trends right now, it still would take a generation to catch up. The CCP can't just will this problem away.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    Maybe it’s easier to force the village elders to perform forced sterilizations than it is to do the opposite? In authoritarian communist countries you typically see silent protests in the form of giving up of quiet quitting. This would apply to starting families as well due to low levels of hope.
  - lordfrito 4y ago
    Even if they could solve the problem today, it takes 20 years to raise/train a human being into a productive member of society. China's problem is a pipeline problem. What to do until the new humans arrive?
    - dirtyid 4y ago
      Break down pipeline problem. PRC is generating roughly ~OECD countries combined worth of STEM talents per year with other disciplines also catching up. There's already increasing youth unemployment due to the shock of oversupply of talent that makes industries move up the value chain and economies grow. The pipeline problem is more constrained at low end labour, that's mostly going to be plugged by record automation, more than the next 15 industrial powers combined. If labour shortages persist, will be compelled to adopt some foreign worker systems like MENA countries, in which case there's about 100 millions from low/mid income countries to import on a transient basis. The TLDR is PRC is trending from a population mixture of roughly 2 Japans and 6 Nigerias to 5 Japans and 1 Nigeria over next 80 years in terms of productive potential, the latter being a significantly more productive society even if it only has 60% of people due to net human capita upgrades. The problem with rate of birth decline IMO is it compresses and increases stress of PRC weathering society transitioning to more strategically/geopolitically suitable population levels from something like 80 years to 60 years which poses governance challenges. But productivity increase will chug on due to recomposition into a disproportionate high skilled society, by 100s of millions. Best way to conceptualize this is that PRC will be transitioning from current population mixture of roughly 2 Japans and 6 Nigerias to 6 Japans over next 60-80 years in terms of productive potential, the latter being a significantly more productive society even if it only has 60% of people due to net human capital upgrades. Higher birth rate means maybe PRC can manage transition largely alone with domestic births and automation, lower means importing 10s of millions of foreign workers and remittance outflows which is politically and strategically unpalatable. There's plenty to do, but some more politically preferrable than others.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Yes, in a few decades China might hit its peak due to demographic decline. But the Chinese Army is rapidly modernizing and industrializing and will definitely be becoming more powerful over the next couple of decades. So that argues the Chinese would be better to wait a couple of decades to fight that war when they are at their peak.
- trashtester 4y ago
  Their best position is likely to be the 2025-2030 period. Their fleet is currently growing much faster than the US Navy, and the J20 are quite possibly more suitable for the geographical region than F22's and F35s (that were developed primarily for air supremacy over Europe, where range is much less important than over the Pacific). If the West is not reacting soon, China's ability to dominate East Asia may extend well into the 2030s. At some point, though, it's reasonable to expect stagnation in China, unless there is some black swan event (AGI breakthrough, large scale eugenic/crispr "directed evolution" or something similar that democratic countries do not have the stomach for)
- sander27home 4y ago
  The same is true for USA. You can see American society collapsing. American military cant get enough people to sign up. Majority are too out of shape to serve. Then you have underperforming troops that peppered with softies other than a typical male. Police kills for pleasure, elections irrwgularities across ALL election tiers (used to be around local municipal level, but now at presidential level). High homelessness and proverty. Lifespan dropped. Literacy dropped. Significatlnt dedollarization in the last year now in favor of BRICS new currency, gold and crypto. Defeat by Talebans, Yemens and Syrians. Weapons are largely designed for maximization of maintenance then being effective. Expenditure literal has no bounds other than occasionall haggling of new debt ceiling. Compare to China, at least the Chinese able to build mega structures at record speed. You can ask any American architects that Americam absolutely cant built a Three gorge dam due to lack of know-how and severe legal constraint. China is waiting Russia to conclude so as to have strong partners to sink American pacific fleet and setup Eastern bureau for suicidation activities similar lile Mossad but on steroid level akin to what the Chinese practiced during Ming dynasty. USA is going for a very roigh ride in comong decades. Maybe Ray Dahlio is right om his book/YT.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  You have it reversed. US prefer sooner war because PRC military closing gap and will continue to both in platfrom numbers and capabilities. PRC also has the BEST demographics to fight future wars. She's still going to generate multiple times US population as 800M country by 2100, except most will be high skilled necessary to operate modern military, which current reforms is running short on talent because access to high end mil talent is relatively new due to efforts paying off from past education reforms. Reality is, even depressed PRC demographics is still generating 8-5 million bodies a year, and all you really need is a few hundred thousand for modern war machine. The entire demographics will affect PRCs ability to wage war is frankly stupid. Doubly so in age where unmanned roles increasing which still overwhelmingly favours PRC industry. Meanwhile PLA isn't even close to upper limit of military size and power, with a signficantly greater upper bound than US due to population and industrial base. Like her defense budget is ~2%. She's barely trying. Decades from now PLA will be multiple times more powerful than now, like PLA modernization plans anticipates MATCHING broad spectrum US military primacy after 2040s, there's no reason to do anything now especially if trigger is capability based. Condition based sure, like if TW declares indpendance or US crosses redlines, but that's not for PRC to decide. Hence why all the PRC will attack TW "windows" are coming from US, because the long term trend significantly favours PRC who'd rather wait. At minimum until post 2030s until she builds out another few thousand nukes. Overlooking that PRC would rush TW scenario unilaterally without proper nuke umbrella is what gives these "windows" little credibility.
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  As an aside, have a look at that table and sort it on "Total", descending. Notice which countries rise to the top and in what way they differ from more or less all other countries: Country/region birth 0–14 15–24 25–54 55–64 Over 65 Total Vatican City -- -- -- -- -- -- All male Qatar 1.02 1.02 2.42 5.01 3.40 1.89 3.39 United Arab Emirates 1.06 1.07 1.19 3.27 6.05 3.39 2.56 Bahrain 1.03 1.03 1.31 1.87 1.67 1.04 1.53 Kuwait 1.05 1.09 1.21 1.69 1.26 0.79 1.38 Saudi Arabia 1.05 1.04 1.09 1.52 1.61 1.12 1.30 Oman 1.05 1.05 1.11 1.33 1.13 0.92 1.18 Where do women in Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia end up? Do they die much earlier or is this some weird effect of migration?
mensetmanusman 4y ago
Someone would have to convince Xi that killing Taiwan isn’t in his best interest.
- ashwagary 4y ago
  "killing Taiwan" is an obnoxious way to describe reunification.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    The youth of Taiwan do not want that, so Xi will have to kill many of them to change that.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    "Reunification" is an obnoxious way to describe a one-party undemocratic takeover of Taiwan.
    - ashwagary 4y ago
      >Reunify - to unify again : to bring (people or things) or to be brought into a unit or a coherent whole after a period of separation [0] Whether it's democratic is not relevent to the definition. Dont let personal emotions affect literal meanings of English words. The US also had a civil conflict where the south attempted to secede, I wouldnt consider it unreasonable to call what followed a reunification. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reunify https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reunify
      - locopati 4y ago
        reunification / invasion potayto / potahto being literal is pretending words don't exist in a wider context
      - unethical_ban 4y ago
        There are values to consider. You are defending the values of the communist party and advocate for the communist party taking Taiwan. And you're indirectly comparing Taiwan to the Confederate States which seceded primarily to continue the use of slavery. Or am I wrong?

by Sol- 4y ago

shrimp_emoji 4y ago

Also, China's at its best position to fight a war right now. In a few decades or a century, demographic collapse[0] will mean it'll be at a fraction of its current power. In adversarial terms, for China, it's now or never; for the U.S., it's later or never. 0: Check out how dark blue it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_sex_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_se...

ninethirty 4y ago
Why would the CCP tolerate demographic collapse? They have all the levers to incentivize people to have children.
- danaris 4y ago
  That's making a bunch of assumptions. China has been trying to incentivize people to have more children for a few years now, and it hasn't been working. Turns out, when the future looks bleak and you don't have time outside of work to socialize, let alone raise a child, you're less likely to be willing to have one. Add to that all the work China did for decades to promote and enforce its widely-known one-child policy, and you've got a recipe for demographic collapse.
  - ashwagary 4y ago
    >China has been trying to incentivize people to have more children for a few years now, and it hasn't been working. Seems a bit premature to draw any conclusion when the window includes the years of covid lockdowns.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  Even if they managed to turn around China's birth trends right now, it still would take a generation to catch up. The CCP can't just will this problem away.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  Maybe it’s easier to force the village elders to perform forced sterilizations than it is to do the opposite? In authoritarian communist countries you typically see silent protests in the form of giving up of quiet quitting. This would apply to starting families as well due to low levels of hope.
- lordfrito 4y ago
  Even if they could solve the problem today, it takes 20 years to raise/train a human being into a productive member of society. China's problem is a pipeline problem. What to do until the new humans arrive?
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    Break down pipeline problem. PRC is generating roughly ~OECD countries combined worth of STEM talents per year with other disciplines also catching up. There's already increasing youth unemployment due to the shock of oversupply of talent that makes industries move up the value chain and economies grow. The pipeline problem is more constrained at low end labour, that's mostly going to be plugged by record automation, more than the next 15 industrial powers combined. If labour shortages persist, will be compelled to adopt some foreign worker systems like MENA countries, in which case there's about 100 millions from low/mid income countries to import on a transient basis. The TLDR is PRC is trending from a population mixture of roughly 2 Japans and 6 Nigerias to 5 Japans and 1 Nigeria over next 80 years in terms of productive potential, the latter being a significantly more productive society even if it only has 60% of people due to net human capita upgrades. The problem with rate of birth decline IMO is it compresses and increases stress of PRC weathering society transitioning to more strategically/geopolitically suitable population levels from something like 80 years to 60 years which poses governance challenges. But productivity increase will chug on due to recomposition into a disproportionate high skilled society, by 100s of millions. Best way to conceptualize this is that PRC will be transitioning from current population mixture of roughly 2 Japans and 6 Nigerias to 6 Japans over next 60-80 years in terms of productive potential, the latter being a significantly more productive society even if it only has 60% of people due to net human capital upgrades. Higher birth rate means maybe PRC can manage transition largely alone with domestic births and automation, lower means importing 10s of millions of foreign workers and remittance outflows which is politically and strategically unpalatable. There's plenty to do, but some more politically preferrable than others.
bryanlarsen 4y ago
Yes, in a few decades China might hit its peak due to demographic decline. But the Chinese Army is rapidly modernizing and industrializing and will definitely be becoming more powerful over the next couple of decades. So that argues the Chinese would be better to wait a couple of decades to fight that war when they are at their peak.
trashtester 4y ago
Their best position is likely to be the 2025-2030 period. Their fleet is currently growing much faster than the US Navy, and the J20 are quite possibly more suitable for the geographical region than F22's and F35s (that were developed primarily for air supremacy over Europe, where range is much less important than over the Pacific). If the West is not reacting soon, China's ability to dominate East Asia may extend well into the 2030s. At some point, though, it's reasonable to expect stagnation in China, unless there is some black swan event (AGI breakthrough, large scale eugenic/crispr "directed evolution" or something similar that democratic countries do not have the stomach for)
sander27home 4y ago
The same is true for USA. You can see American society collapsing. American military cant get enough people to sign up. Majority are too out of shape to serve. Then you have underperforming troops that peppered with softies other than a typical male. Police kills for pleasure, elections irrwgularities across ALL election tiers (used to be around local municipal level, but now at presidential level). High homelessness and proverty. Lifespan dropped. Literacy dropped. Significatlnt dedollarization in the last year now in favor of BRICS new currency, gold and crypto. Defeat by Talebans, Yemens and Syrians. Weapons are largely designed for maximization of maintenance then being effective. Expenditure literal has no bounds other than occasionall haggling of new debt ceiling. Compare to China, at least the Chinese able to build mega structures at record speed. You can ask any American architects that Americam absolutely cant built a Three gorge dam due to lack of know-how and severe legal constraint. China is waiting Russia to conclude so as to have strong partners to sink American pacific fleet and setup Eastern bureau for suicidation activities similar lile Mossad but on steroid level akin to what the Chinese practiced during Ming dynasty. USA is going for a very roigh ride in comong decades. Maybe Ray Dahlio is right om his book/YT.
dirtyid 4y ago
You have it reversed. US prefer sooner war because PRC military closing gap and will continue to both in platfrom numbers and capabilities. PRC also has the BEST demographics to fight future wars. She's still going to generate multiple times US population as 800M country by 2100, except most will be high skilled necessary to operate modern military, which current reforms is running short on talent because access to high end mil talent is relatively new due to efforts paying off from past education reforms. Reality is, even depressed PRC demographics is still generating 8-5 million bodies a year, and all you really need is a few hundred thousand for modern war machine. The entire demographics will affect PRCs ability to wage war is frankly stupid. Doubly so in age where unmanned roles increasing which still overwhelmingly favours PRC industry. Meanwhile PLA isn't even close to upper limit of military size and power, with a signficantly greater upper bound than US due to population and industrial base. Like her defense budget is ~2%. She's barely trying. Decades from now PLA will be multiple times more powerful than now, like PLA modernization plans anticipates MATCHING broad spectrum US military primacy after 2040s, there's no reason to do anything now especially if trigger is capability based. Condition based sure, like if TW declares indpendance or US crosses redlines, but that's not for PRC to decide. Hence why all the PRC will attack TW "windows" are coming from US, because the long term trend significantly favours PRC who'd rather wait. At minimum until post 2030s until she builds out another few thousand nukes. Overlooking that PRC would rush TW scenario unilaterally without proper nuke umbrella is what gives these "windows" little credibility.
the_third_wave 4y ago
As an aside, have a look at that table and sort it on "Total", descending. Notice which countries rise to the top and in what way they differ from more or less all other countries: Country/region birth 0–14 15–24 25–54 55–64 Over 65 Total Vatican City -- -- -- -- -- -- All male Qatar 1.02 1.02 2.42 5.01 3.40 1.89 3.39 United Arab Emirates 1.06 1.07 1.19 3.27 6.05 3.39 2.56 Bahrain 1.03 1.03 1.31 1.87 1.67 1.04 1.53 Kuwait 1.05 1.09 1.21 1.69 1.26 0.79 1.38 Saudi Arabia 1.05 1.04 1.09 1.52 1.61 1.12 1.30 Oman 1.05 1.05 1.11 1.33 1.13 0.92 1.18 Where do women in Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia end up? Do they die much earlier or is this some weird effect of migration?

mensetmanusman 4y ago

Someone would have to convince Xi that killing Taiwan isn’t in his best interest.

ashwagary 4y ago
"killing Taiwan" is an obnoxious way to describe reunification.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  The youth of Taiwan do not want that, so Xi will have to kill many of them to change that.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  "Reunification" is an obnoxious way to describe a one-party undemocratic takeover of Taiwan.
  - ashwagary 4y ago
    >Reunify - to unify again : to bring (people or things) or to be brought into a unit or a coherent whole after a period of separation [0] Whether it's democratic is not relevent to the definition. Dont let personal emotions affect literal meanings of English words. The US also had a civil conflict where the south attempted to secede, I wouldnt consider it unreasonable to call what followed a reunification. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reunify https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reunify
    - locopati 4y ago
      reunification / invasion potayto / potahto being literal is pretending words don't exist in a wider context
    - unethical_ban 4y ago
      There are values to consider. You are defending the values of the communist party and advocate for the communist party taking Taiwan. And you're indirectly comparing Taiwan to the Confederate States which seceded primarily to continue the use of slavery. Or am I wrong?