4 ms·

> 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 li

by 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.
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    No-one cares about Ukraine in the West. The current help the US provide to Ukraine is painless and in fact the US are benefiting from the war on a number of front (of course that's the actual reason for the support). If the situation in Taiwan was painful in the West because of the economic impacy then Western public opinions would tire long before the Chinese do because, again, this would be nothing to them while for Chinese it would be a national cause. Here in the UK many people are already unhappy that we're paying so much, including on our energy bills, for Ukraine. The situation in Europe is not painless and that puts a strain on public opinion. This has nothing to do with democracies vs autocracies. One thing that many get wrong about China is that reunification is not what the CCP wants to achieve it is what the Chinese people want to achieve. And the US do not want that no matter whose in charge in Beijing because their aim is to weaken China. And again, none of that would trigger WWIII.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  For Russia Ukraine is as personal for historical reasons but also for strategic reasons. Ukraine is the buffer state between nato and Russia and the access to the black sea.
  - jnsaff2 3y ago
    What historical reasons would justify invading and killing people who don't want to be part of russia? As for buffer states, by attacking Ukraine they pushed Finland into NATO which the führer does not seem to mind. So we can easily call bullshit on this trope. As for access to Black Sea, just look at the map. russia has plenty of access to it.
  - ajuc 3y ago
    If you asked Russians about that 20 years ago nobody would say that :) The main russian propagandist - Solovyov - publicly argued that Russia cannot invade Crimea and should let Ukraine do whatever it likes like 15 years ago. Now he argues Russia should nuke the west because Ukraine must be russian. Not 20 years passed. Watch the videos - they are hilarious when you compare to what they are saying now [1] Russia is authocracy, they will say whatever putin wants them to say. If putin decides to stop the war and go home - the same people will say with 100% confidence that it's the best thing to do and Russia has no interest in internal Ukrainian affairs. As for strategic reasons - Russia moved its soldiers from Finland border after Finland joined NATO. Russia knows perfectly well NATO does not want to invade it. They not only know it - they rely on it. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-solovyov-1751095 https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-solovyov-1751095
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - thiagoharry 3y ago
      This is not what leaks tell us about communications between Russia and USA from 15 years ago: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1502177250300600320 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1502177250300600320 (I would post the original cable, but Wikileaks is offline now).
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.

by ajuc 3y ago

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.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  No-one cares about Ukraine in the West. The current help the US provide to Ukraine is painless and in fact the US are benefiting from the war on a number of front (of course that's the actual reason for the support). If the situation in Taiwan was painful in the West because of the economic impacy then Western public opinions would tire long before the Chinese do because, again, this would be nothing to them while for Chinese it would be a national cause. Here in the UK many people are already unhappy that we're paying so much, including on our energy bills, for Ukraine. The situation in Europe is not painless and that puts a strain on public opinion. This has nothing to do with democracies vs autocracies. One thing that many get wrong about China is that reunification is not what the CCP wants to achieve it is what the Chinese people want to achieve. And the US do not want that no matter whose in charge in Beijing because their aim is to weaken China. And again, none of that would trigger WWIII.
ipaddr 3y ago
For Russia Ukraine is as personal for historical reasons but also for strategic reasons. Ukraine is the buffer state between nato and Russia and the access to the black sea.
- jnsaff2 3y ago
  What historical reasons would justify invading and killing people who don't want to be part of russia? As for buffer states, by attacking Ukraine they pushed Finland into NATO which the führer does not seem to mind. So we can easily call bullshit on this trope. As for access to Black Sea, just look at the map. russia has plenty of access to it.
- ajuc 3y ago
  If you asked Russians about that 20 years ago nobody would say that :) The main russian propagandist - Solovyov - publicly argued that Russia cannot invade Crimea and should let Ukraine do whatever it likes like 15 years ago. Now he argues Russia should nuke the west because Ukraine must be russian. Not 20 years passed. Watch the videos - they are hilarious when you compare to what they are saying now [1] Russia is authocracy, they will say whatever putin wants them to say. If putin decides to stop the war and go home - the same people will say with 100% confidence that it's the best thing to do and Russia has no interest in internal Ukrainian affairs. As for strategic reasons - Russia moved its soldiers from Finland border after Finland joined NATO. Russia knows perfectly well NATO does not want to invade it. They not only know it - they rely on it. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-solovyov-1751095 https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-solovyov-1751095
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - thiagoharry 3y ago
    This is not what leaks tell us about communications between Russia and USA from 15 years ago: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1502177250300600320 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1502177250300600320 (I would post the original cable, but Wikileaks is offline now).

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.