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China is using russian equipment (or equipment based on reverse-engineered russian equipment), russian tactics, and is training with Russia. Before 2022 it was

by ajuc 3y ago

China is using russian equipment (or equipment based on reverse-engineered russian equipment), russian tactics, and is training with Russia. Before 2022 it was generally agreed that in their joint exercises russian army looked better. China has all the corruption problems Russia has, even less oversight and transparency, and fought no competetive wars in which it could be tested. I expect much worse performance from them if they ever go to a real war. As for decoupling economy - Russia is energy exporter. China is importing resources and energy and selling products to the west. They are much more coupled with the west than Russia, no matter who services the transactions.

mytailorisrich 3y ago
China can buy energy from Russia and the Middle East. It is also the second largest economy in the world with the second largest population, which means they can produce mountains of military equipment if needed, which Russia's small economy cannot. China is coupled to the West in a way that makes the West at least a dependent on China as China is on the West. There is no comparison with Russia and, if anything Ukraine shows China the mistakes no to make.
- ajuc 3y ago
  > China can buy energy from Russia and the Middle East They already do. But they won't have anywhere to sell their products. Most of their economy gone just like that. > China is coupled to the West in a way that makes the West at least a dependent on China as China is on the West. Nope. For west decoupling means higher inflation but lower unemployment and faster growth. You win more than you lose. For China it means economic decline, unemployment, budget deficits. Catastrophe from all POV. BTW it's already happening to some degree, just slowly - old factories are still operating in China, but new ones are built near USA/EU - in Mexico, Eastern Europe, Turkey, etc.
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    What's happening is that the West sees that they are dangerously dependent on China, which as world's second largest economy is also diversifying outside of Western countries. To some extent I think China would be willing to pay, and accept, a higher economic price than the West as long as Taiwan was seized. That's perhaps the same calculation Russia did with Ukraine, though, so they need to give a very hard look and consideration to this 'as long as', at this point it's not a given. The reason is that no-one cares about Taiwan in the West, it is a pawn against China. But for the Chinese it is very personal (which is not really the case for Russian in Ukraine, btw). In any case, that wouldn't unleash WWIII.
    - ajuc 3y ago
      Russia exports fuel which they take from the ground. China makes goods from things they import using western know-how and sell them back to the west. Everybody needs fuel. Rich countries need iphones. When you are isolated you can still pump oil. You can't make iphones. These are polar opposites when it comes to dependency on the west. > The reason is that no-one cares about Taiwan in the West, it is a pawn against China. I wonder what would be your prediction about the West caring about Ukraine in 2021 :) If anything - even fewer people cared about it than about Taiwan. Yet here we are. There's 2 things so called "realists" and "geopoliticians" consistently get wrong. The first is that the only things that matter are economies, armies, nukes, and geography. These people couldn't predict USSR falling, because they thought every culture and every system is the same and values are cosmetic. Meanwhile people like Giedroyć proposed a strategy for Poland after "inevitable USSR collapse and creation of independent Ukraine and Belarus" in 60s already. Look it up - google for "Giedroyć doctrine" and "Kultura paryska". The second thing "realists" consistently get wrong is assuming democracies are weak and fickle and authocracies are strong and resilient. It's an easy mistake to make, because democracies are transparent about their weaknesses and authocracies hide them. But that's exactly why it's a mistake. Democracies are actually surprisingly bloodthirsty once you persuade people something is worth fighting for. Much easier to change the mind of the leader than to change the minds of millions of people. And all wars are ultimately about changing somebody's minds.
      - 3y ago
  - simonblack 3y ago
    But they won't have anywhere to sell their products. Most of their economy gone just like that. The internal Chinese economy* is at 80% as against 20% for exports.** Of those exports, the US plus Europe are about 30%. In other words, if the entire West is decoupled from China's economy, the Chinese economy still has 80%+ (70% of 20% = 14%) or a total of 94% left. The West is not actually as important as it thinks. * The Chinese internal market size is four times the size of the US market for consumer goods. And that's apart from the the Chinese rolling in cash reserves that lets them afford to build lots of infrastructure, just like the US was able to build back in the 1950s and 1960s. ** Back around 1980, the US internal economy was around 95% and the external trade was about 5%. In other words, back then, the 'Rest of the World' could have disappeared and the US economy probably wouldn't have noticed anything. Those times have long gone.
    - keepamovin 3y ago
      This is a good analysis. People need to hear it. Do you have sources for these numbers?
      - simonblack 3y ago
        Those numbers are a couple of years old. They're also rounded off. IIRC, the export figure was actually around 18%. They're out there on the Web somewhere. * It's very likely that the internal economy is even larger now, because there was a new emphasis on enlarging it to reduce the economy's vulnerability to external factors when the US started to work on reducing imports from China some years back. * EDIT: Latest figure from 2022 is 20.68%. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/china/exports/#:~:text=Exports%20of%20goods%20and%20services%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP&text=The%20latest%20value%20from%202022%20is%2020.68%20percent https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/china/exports/#:~:text=Expo.... Exports to US (2021) are 3% of China's GDP. https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/us-and-china-2021-trade-numbers/#:~:text=Those%20were%20record%20highs%20and,2%20percent%20of%20our%20GDP https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/us-and-china-.... Many Americans think that China would go under if the US stopped importing from China. In fact, exports to the US are less than 15% of China's exports world-wide. (3/20.68 x 100 = 14.51) The China of 2023 is the US of 1942. When the US gets belligerent with China, I just shake my head. It's a bit like a 5-year-old kid threatening a quarter-back.
- GoldenMonkey 3y ago
  Sure. They can buy oil. But, how will it make it to China in a war? With sanctions applied by the US Navy. And what about basic necessities like food? China can only meet 65% of it’s food needs. China is completely vulnerable and dependent on the west, in a way that Russia is not.
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    > With sanctions applied by the US Navy. Well, since no-one wants to start WWIII, the US Navy isn't going to attack Chinese ships, especially if escorted by the Chinese Navy. QED. We're used to see the US behave like they can do anything they want but that's only because they are usually orders of magnitude stronger than the opposition. But if the opposition was of similar strength they would be much more restrained and cautious because, again, no-one is suicidal. I'm sure the question has been studied many times in war games and scenarios and I expect the plan would be to put pressure at the source (i.e. 'suggest' that you should not sell to China), which would not work with all countries.
    - HenryBemis 3y ago
      (Internal US) Politics aside, didn't Nancy Pelosi extend a middle finger and landed to Taiwan in 2022? For me that was an unanswered slap in Xi's face.

by ajuc 3y ago

mytailorisrich 3y ago

China can buy energy from Russia and the Middle East. It is also the second largest economy in the world with the second largest population, which means they can produce mountains of military equipment if needed, which Russia's small economy cannot. China is coupled to the West in a way that makes the West at least a dependent on China as China is on the West. There is no comparison with Russia and, if anything Ukraine shows China the mistakes no to make.

ajuc 3y ago
> China can buy energy from Russia and the Middle East They already do. But they won't have anywhere to sell their products. Most of their economy gone just like that. > China is coupled to the West in a way that makes the West at least a dependent on China as China is on the West. Nope. For west decoupling means higher inflation but lower unemployment and faster growth. You win more than you lose. For China it means economic decline, unemployment, budget deficits. Catastrophe from all POV. BTW it's already happening to some degree, just slowly - old factories are still operating in China, but new ones are built near USA/EU - in Mexico, Eastern Europe, Turkey, etc.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  What's happening is that the West sees that they are dangerously dependent on China, which as world's second largest economy is also diversifying outside of Western countries. To some extent I think China would be willing to pay, and accept, a higher economic price than the West as long as Taiwan was seized. That's perhaps the same calculation Russia did with Ukraine, though, so they need to give a very hard look and consideration to this 'as long as', at this point it's not a given. The reason is that no-one cares about Taiwan in the West, it is a pawn against China. But for the Chinese it is very personal (which is not really the case for Russian in Ukraine, btw). In any case, that wouldn't unleash WWIII.
  - ajuc 3y ago
    Russia exports fuel which they take from the ground. China makes goods from things they import using western know-how and sell them back to the west. Everybody needs fuel. Rich countries need iphones. When you are isolated you can still pump oil. You can't make iphones. These are polar opposites when it comes to dependency on the west. > The reason is that no-one cares about Taiwan in the West, it is a pawn against China. I wonder what would be your prediction about the West caring about Ukraine in 2021 :) If anything - even fewer people cared about it than about Taiwan. Yet here we are. There's 2 things so called "realists" and "geopoliticians" consistently get wrong. The first is that the only things that matter are economies, armies, nukes, and geography. These people couldn't predict USSR falling, because they thought every culture and every system is the same and values are cosmetic. Meanwhile people like Giedroyć proposed a strategy for Poland after "inevitable USSR collapse and creation of independent Ukraine and Belarus" in 60s already. Look it up - google for "Giedroyć doctrine" and "Kultura paryska". The second thing "realists" consistently get wrong is assuming democracies are weak and fickle and authocracies are strong and resilient. It's an easy mistake to make, because democracies are transparent about their weaknesses and authocracies hide them. But that's exactly why it's a mistake. Democracies are actually surprisingly bloodthirsty once you persuade people something is worth fighting for. Much easier to change the mind of the leader than to change the minds of millions of people. And all wars are ultimately about changing somebody's minds.
    - 3y ago
- simonblack 3y ago
  But they won't have anywhere to sell their products. Most of their economy gone just like that. The internal Chinese economy* is at 80% as against 20% for exports.** Of those exports, the US plus Europe are about 30%. In other words, if the entire West is decoupled from China's economy, the Chinese economy still has 80%+ (70% of 20% = 14%) or a total of 94% left. The West is not actually as important as it thinks. * The Chinese internal market size is four times the size of the US market for consumer goods. And that's apart from the the Chinese rolling in cash reserves that lets them afford to build lots of infrastructure, just like the US was able to build back in the 1950s and 1960s. ** Back around 1980, the US internal economy was around 95% and the external trade was about 5%. In other words, back then, the 'Rest of the World' could have disappeared and the US economy probably wouldn't have noticed anything. Those times have long gone.
  - keepamovin 3y ago
    This is a good analysis. People need to hear it. Do you have sources for these numbers?
    - simonblack 3y ago
      Those numbers are a couple of years old. They're also rounded off. IIRC, the export figure was actually around 18%. They're out there on the Web somewhere. * It's very likely that the internal economy is even larger now, because there was a new emphasis on enlarging it to reduce the economy's vulnerability to external factors when the US started to work on reducing imports from China some years back. * EDIT: Latest figure from 2022 is 20.68%. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/china/exports/#:~:text=Exports%20of%20goods%20and%20services%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP&text=The%20latest%20value%20from%202022%20is%2020.68%20percent https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/china/exports/#:~:text=Expo.... Exports to US (2021) are 3% of China's GDP. https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/us-and-china-2021-trade-numbers/#:~:text=Those%20were%20record%20highs%20and,2%20percent%20of%20our%20GDP https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/us-and-china-.... Many Americans think that China would go under if the US stopped importing from China. In fact, exports to the US are less than 15% of China's exports world-wide. (3/20.68 x 100 = 14.51) The China of 2023 is the US of 1942. When the US gets belligerent with China, I just shake my head. It's a bit like a 5-year-old kid threatening a quarter-back.
GoldenMonkey 3y ago
Sure. They can buy oil. But, how will it make it to China in a war? With sanctions applied by the US Navy. And what about basic necessities like food? China can only meet 65% of it’s food needs. China is completely vulnerable and dependent on the west, in a way that Russia is not.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  > With sanctions applied by the US Navy. Well, since no-one wants to start WWIII, the US Navy isn't going to attack Chinese ships, especially if escorted by the Chinese Navy. QED. We're used to see the US behave like they can do anything they want but that's only because they are usually orders of magnitude stronger than the opposition. But if the opposition was of similar strength they would be much more restrained and cautious because, again, no-one is suicidal. I'm sure the question has been studied many times in war games and scenarios and I expect the plan would be to put pressure at the source (i.e. 'suggest' that you should not sell to China), which would not work with all countries.
  - HenryBemis 3y ago
    (Internal US) Politics aside, didn't Nancy Pelosi extend a middle finger and landed to Taiwan in 2022? For me that was an unanswered slap in Xi's face.