You ignored 95% of my comment. I would like you to re-read it instead of repackaging your other, usualy credible, arguments about the need for Chinese economic and trade reoriantation to try and support an immaginary scenario. China may be in danger for all shorts of things, but not from what you are saying. I listed like 8 seperate angles on why the US trying to strangle and significantly disrupt Chinese sea trade roots following a Chinese action against Taiwan is logisticaly nearly impossible, extremely porous, self defeating and apocalyptic to pretty much everyone before it is for China and its plausible stretegic advantages cant come remoetly quickly enough to matter in timescale of a conflict in SCS. And that was on the asumption that the US would attempt an actual cut off and blockade of a sea route. If your hypothetical also has that the US will be achieving that chocking and rerouting of global maritime trade while actively engaged militarily with China in the pacific theater and SCS with like 2 available US subs scouring an erea larger than Europe and doing indiscriminate terrorism (because monitoring and intelligence isnt actualy there) to 1 or 2 out of 500 passing containers per day then this adds more layers of implausibility that drops it bellow r/worldnews tier.

It cant happen, it wont happen and no one on the military or civilian command of either country considers it seriously

Since Russia’s new icbm tests seem to be a bit hit and miss lately and with China’s test recently its important to note that while the general public in the west seem to be under the impression that Russia’s ICBMs are the faulty and unreliable ones, it is the US that actualy fields almost exclusively positively ancient barely working missiles .

The Minuteman III is by far the world’s oldest ICBM still in active use as part of a nation’s nuclear triad. It was originally deployed in 1970 and only had a planned service life of 10 years. It’s only still operational over 50 years later because of life extension programmes but at some point, a thing is so old that there’s no life left to extend. The electronic components of that era basically don’t exist anymore. So you’d not just be re-engineering the missile’s design, you’d be re-enginering and remaking components from the very birth of the chip industry. It’s an impossible task. Which basically means as these things break down there’s no fixing them.

The former STRATCOM Chief had this to say about the situation:

“Let me be very clear: You cannot life-extend the Minuteman III [any longer],” he said of the 400 ICBMs that sit in underground silos across five states in the upper Midwest. “We can’t do it at all. … That thing is so old that, in some cases, the drawings don’t exist anymore [to guide upgrades],” Richard said in a Zoom conference sponsored by the Defense Writers Group. Where the drawings do exist, “they’re like six generations behind the industry standard,” he said, adding that there are also no technicians who fully understand them. “They’re not alive anymore.”

People joke about questionable operational readiness of Russian ICBMs but in reality, Russia has significantly more modern ICBMs in service than the US and im not even gonna mention China’s buildup in quantity and quality. It’s the US that should be worried about the operational readiness of its ICBMs. This is especially prominent after the highly publicising failure of 2 of the US’ Minuteman III tests last November. Sure, two missile tests worked in June (one barely) but given the recency of the previous failure, another failure would have spelled absolute disaster for the US’ nuclear credibility so I’m sure extra care and attention to detail was taken in ensuring that failure was not even a possibility. Problem is its douptfull that the US even has the domestic capability to replace the land portion of its nuclear triad completely without it costing like 2 trillion dollars and taking 20 years. Sure the subs will always be there and they work quite well but its interesting to see what the US will done with its land based nukes. I highly doubt either the Democrats nor the Republicans will want to be seen as the party that says "our nukes dont work and we need 1 quintillion dollars to replace them " or just completely drop one leg of the US’ nuclear triad, however unnecessary that leg may be.

One thing’s for certain and its quite funny, and that is if the US does not find significantly more money for its military, it will have to cut back on many aspects of its military it has up until this point taken for granted. Already, we are seeing budget constraints affecting every branch of the military in very significant ways. With the USAF being forced to rethink what it wants with quite literally one of its most important next-generation projects due to budget constraints. The state of the USAF tanker fleet is also less than optimal with them significantly cutting back on the number of tankers they planned on ordering this decade by half. Instead, the USAF wants to pursue a gold-plated stealth tanker solution called NGAS to enter service in the 2030s at the same time as all of their other commitments. God knows where they’re going to get the money for this.

The USN is also being forced to cut back on its own next-generation projects that are not limited to just F/A-XX as DDG(X) has also been running into issues. This is all in addition to F-35C procurement that is far less expedited than it should be. There is no money to expand shipyards and increase production in any significant way and submarine production is progressing at a glacial pace, with the US being unable to produce SSNs and SSBNs at the rate it needs to let alone produce surplus SSNs for Australia.

The US Army has also been forced to consistently delay replacements for aging platforms like the Bradley, Abrams, Apache, Chinook and so on. But, given that I highly doubt the US is going to be seeing any large land war with a major power any time in the near future, the US Army can get away with it much more than the other branches can.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact there is a complete disconnect between what the actual state of the USN is and what the general public think the state of the USN is.

The general public are convinced the USN is still by far the most powerful navy in the world with no one even able to compete and so they are not really cognisant of the very real issues facing the USN today. If the public don’t really know about these issues then they’re not going to vote for politicians who know or care about these issues which exacerbates things even more.

The public will hear the USN has 11 aircraft carriers and assume the USN can send all 11 out to pummel whatever poor country is on the other end of the barrel when in reality the USN doesn’t even have 11 carrier air wings due to budgetary conditions and is currently undergoing a severe carrier shortage and quite literally had to divert an entire carrier strike group whose original mission was to perform FONOPs in the South China Sea over to the Red Sea to deal with the Houthis last year because there was literally nothing else available to send. That’s how bad things have gotten.

The public has no idea about how there will be a severe cruiser shortage in the coming years once the Ticonderoga-class is forced to retire without any replacement due to CG(X) falling flat on its face years ago. The USN’s stop-gap “replacement” for these cruisers is the Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer but even then it’s less capable in terms of VLS complement. The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is at the very limit of its original design and yet the USN has no replacement for it yet with DDG(X) delayed as it is.

Meanwhile, the PLAN’s actual capabilities are increasing at a blistering rate, with destroyers like the Type 052D being very capable in their own right and cruisers like the Type 055 having practically no proper equal in the USN’s inventory aside from their own cruisers that are about to be retired. And yet the public perception of the PLAN is simply a big navy that comprises of hundreds upon hundreds of useless and tiny patrol vessels with no big capital ships equivalent to those in the USN’s inventory. Meanwhile the Chinese naval industry is nowhere close to sprinting. If anything, it’s moving at a rather conservative pace. They’re producing single carriers and single-digit submarines out of yards which could churn out many times that, but then again the PLAN loves its steady iterative cycles. After they’ve settled on a mature design, then you’ll start seeing mass production the way they printed frigates and destroyers. But they are in no hurry to produce large numbers of subpar vessels. It’s much more of a jog than a sprint.

This massive overestimation of American capabilities and a serious underestimation of Chinese capabilities is what is worsening the issue so badly in the US. The public is convinced the USN alone could steamroll the entirety of China’s military in an engagement over Taiwan when in actuality the combined efforts of the USN + USMC + USAF would arguably barely even be able to hold the Chinese off at this rate. If there is no sense of concern or urgency in the public’s eyes, there will never be a sense of concern or urgency in Congress which is why for the past few decades the USN has been raising alarm bell after alarm bell only for Congress to basically completely dismiss them.

If this does not change soon, by the 2030s you are likely going to see a PLAN that overmatches the USN in both capability, quantity and tonnage. If that happens, it’ll be too late for a course correction. The US will be forced to relinquish the Western Pacific to China since they will simply lack the capability to challenge them. Or provoke a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in order to start a nuclear war

This harkens very closely back to the attitude and position of the RN with respect to the USN back during the pre-WW2 era. The RN still held the advantage in most areas, tonnage especially, but the USN was catching up fast. Now, the USN is where the RN was and the PLAN is where the USN was

i replied to the wrong comment lol, reposted it above

submarines can disrupt shipping lanes vital for Chinese exports. Blowing up a few container ships and the global trade gets stunted to a halt. This will significantly damage both the US and China’s economies. The US has food and fuel, China needs to import food and fuel (and a lot of them came from America too), so the question is: who can survive longer?

Sorry but this a reddit tier analysis.

To begin with such an attempt by the US would come after some PRC blockade or kinetic action on Taiwan and as a result even if we assume what you say is credible as an anti-China strategy the answer to the question of “who can survive longer?” is by and far “not Taiwan”. If the US doesnt attempt to actively break a Chinese blockade in a scale that matters or engage invading Chinese forces, so actualy engage in war in that theater, then Taiwan will capitulate in weeks and then its over. US cant get it back and them continuing to destroy the most important shipping lanes in the world after China already takes Taiwan is silly. For the effects of a blockade to even be felt by China, Taiwan would have to hold for over a year due to the size of China’s stockpiles, which in and of itself is a highly questionable assumption given that unlike Ukraine, Taiwan is extremely reliant on trade for basically everything from food to fuel. If Taiwan falls in a few months which is a good case scenario for them, the blockade will likely not force China to relinquish control. If Taiwan doesn’t fall in a few months, it won’t be because of the blockade. A blockade cant be done with some subs striking rando ships. Its a completely lopsided resource drain for little to no immediate battlefield benefit which is what Taiwan needs. If Taiwan is successfully cut off from world trade, they have virtually no chance of lasting for very long and given deteriorating domestic conditions, they could probably be convinced to capitulate.

Lets talk self sufficency tho because you overstate chinese food and fuel dependance.

China produces 4.3m bpd, imports 11.4m bpd crude but exports 1.1m bpd refined. They can get abt 2-3m bpd from Russia. 400k bpd from Myanmar & Kazakhstan thru pipeline. Getting 6.5m bpd during an emergency is easily do-able.

Stopping half the flights, shipping & gas cars can cut abt 5-6m bpd of usage and in general gasoline/diesel usage can be reduced to minimal levels in such situation since NEVs are everywhere and they will be even more so everywhere with each coming year. Petrochem usage can be reduced through higher utilization in coal-to-chem plants + more imports over land. Food, Crude & refined products can be transported in over land through trains & trucks. North Sea Routes add additional shipping capacity - US would bring Russia into conflict if Russian tankers are targeted in their own water. China also has the option to increase the capacity from Russia but chose to not do it currently. If China bellived this was a problem they would have approved power of the Siberia 2 and other pipelines.

There is basically no way you can actually choke off Chinese economy through sea blockades of energy imports once its this far along in electrification of is transportation sector. And that’s assuming you can choke off its energy routes to Middle East, which is dubious since any such effort would actually destroy Japan & SK + most of southeast Asia, who do not have the option of turning to EVs or coal chemical plants or importing via pipeline/shipping from Russia & Central Asia. Any real blockade would blockade ASEAN countries as well as Eastern Asian ones from the necessary energy imputs to have their economies functioning. You will be facing off against a southeast Asia who would also be eager to break off any blockade and work with china to get around it in any way possible in order to not collapse economicaly before even China feels the heat. You basicaly surrender the entire region to China and even make sure Japan and SK cant and dont join you in any action

There is also the feasibility of such blockade in the first place. Striking a couple of ingoing and outgoing comersial ships to China wont do shit to make the roots stop, which in the first place would collapse the economies of every signle country in the erea before china even feels it. To actually be effective you would have to manage an actual blockade of Malacca and likely more than just that since there are alternative, albeit slightly longer, routes due to the fact Indonesia is an archipelago. There exists the Sunda Strait just to the south next to Java and the Lombok Strait further east. If the Strait of Malacca is blockaded, it would be trivial for ships to divert towards the Sunda Strait or the Lombok Strait and completely circumvent the American blockade so for an effective blockade, the USN would have to blockade all three straits. That’s a lot of resources the USN needs to divert away from the actual battle happening in the Pacific towards a blockade that won’t have much of an immediate impact on the actual battle happening.

The USN will have to question if implementing three blockades in Southeast Asia is an effective use of their very limited resources against an opponent which will have a massive local superiority in forces… The US needs as many assets in the fight to even stand a chance as is, there is little point crippling the world economy even more and putting South Korea and Japan on ticking time bombs by blockading three straits in and around Indonesia.

You also cant trivialize the amount of resources required to screen tens of thousands of ships carrying trillions worth of trade. Not as in “please report your manifest so we can carry out mutually beneficial peacetime commerce” but “physically verify every ship is carrying what it says and going where it says because they have a huge profit motive to lie.” And that’s not even counting all the ships who actually do dock in SEA, but whose cargos go to China by rail. The ships have no control over what happens to their cargos after they offload. The other option is what . Striking ships that may or may not be going to any random port or country in the erea. A logistical impossibility. Never mind that the US cant actualy track most container ships either in port or out in the sea if they dont want to be tracked. Let alone know which are china bound. Ship-tracking satellites do not exist. This is a fantasy. Its difficult it is to keep track of even just a ship in the vast open ocean, let alone thousands of them.

The US also just cant sink the ships when they are close to dock in China or leave china. The USN will be lucky to even have a few ships survive within stand-off ranges from the Chinese coastline. South China Se is pretty much a complete no-go for the USN considering the shallow waters reduces the effectiveness of submarine stealth, and the thousands of air and see sensors China has littered the erea with. The entire sea is well within range of China’s absolutely gargantuan stockpile of AShMs and is close enough to Chinese air bases that the PLARF will have a massive numerical superiority to any potential USAF/USN aerial assets in the region. I highly doubt the USN will have any SSNs to spare for patrols of the straits around Indonesia to begin with when they will be desperately needed in the Pacific. The USN is already dealing with a serious hull shortage even during peacetime. I don’t understand how people can expect the USN to have multiple SSNs available for something like a blockade when they’ll need every little bit of help they can get in the Pacific. A very limited number of American SSNs who will already be tasked with the monumental job of surviving China’s massive and extensive ASW network of ships, helicopters, submarines, aircraft and land-based sensors whilst at the same time finding, targeting and engaging Chinese warships will now also be tasked with implementing a blockade and attacking any and all vessels in the region, exhausting their already limited torpedo and Tomahawk supplies. This does not seem like a very useful way to utilise the only USN assets that have a higher degree of survivability within 1,000 km of Chinese shores given that these assets will likely have an actual amphibious invasion that they will need to stop.

Cause again sea trade in the erea wont stop just because the US randomly strikes 2,5 or even 20 containers they can fet their sights on out of the 1000 per day heading from and to China, never mind that it would be a completely self defeating endeavor in the first place.

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The inflection point where the US will no longer be able to content and keep up with China militarily in the only theater that matters (South East Asia, First Island Chain, Taiwan) is somewhere between now and 2030. The inflection point where China is energy and tech independant enough and its global import/export network is balanced and diversified enough towards countries that would not follow the US in any attempt at economic war against them is again a pre 2040 thing. Thats their course but to keep it that way making correct and steady decisions on their domestic economic, industrial and political restructuring is way more dangerous and a focus than taking more active stances regarding the middle east or Ukraine with a lot less room for mistakes

How are they being encircled? The US alied stooges in the erea are the same as always, Japan, SK, Taiwan and Philippines. In regards to those US alliances and military presence the situation is the same as it was 10 years ago. They cant do much bar making any SK or Japanese action against china in some future conflict economy collapsing for them and in that aspect they are much more able today than years ago

No other neighbouring nation will side with the US against China, economically or militarily. Not indonesia,not vietnam, not Thailand,not Singapore,not laos,not Malaysia, not the Stans, bot Mongolia ,not even China. With every day that passes their economies and development are even more dependent and intermingled with China’s and for the Muslim majority nations US public option has drop like a rock in the last year so US lost them for the near future.

And to the most important point, China has military superiority against the US and allies in any conflict taking place in SCS and off of the Chinese shores. They outgun and arguably outtech the US in that region and every day that passes the military balance of power regionaly shifts more and more to Chinas favor. The actual trends are the opposite of them getting encircled

As a seperate point to the bellow, since this is something you constantly say it must happen, how do you ever expect the Yuan to take a substancial share of the dollar’s position worldwide without any QE happening and without some financial carrots thrown to foreign finance capital. Its impossible. Any dedollarization wordwide has to come with an increased yuan share even if it never becomes more than a moderate minority % wise. Every single measure taken would have to be taken sometime for that to happen.

But either way not everything has to be about the dollar.

What the central govt just did is that they spent a year letting the financial system languish in an all downside environment, making the financial sector so desperate for any kind of dependable asset to invest in that investors started begging for sovereign bonds at any yield, which then effectively lowered the cost of issuing more sovereign debt, and reset market wide ROI expectations from the lofty days of real estate exuberance, ultimately making it cheaper to start the transition from a land finance based financial system to sovereign bonds finance. The central govt had the option of intervening much earlier to preserve a higher anchoring point for long term financial value extraction, and instead they chose to wait for the credit cycle to bottom until it was clearly starting to impact economic momentum before intervening with fresh credit injections. They saw 3 straight months of deceleration and decided to do some easing. Decisions on intervention have followed quarterly trends for years now. They will a continue drip irrigation approach until they feel there is sufficient headway on debt deleveraging.

And some other notes

The fiscal element is smaller than the chinese pandemic stimulus and much, much smaller than the '08 chinese stimulus. If we factor incremental credit, the size difference is even larger.

Capital formation is what drives credit formation in China. GCF as a % of GDP rose in the 2000s, plateaued over the last decade and is presently transitioning to its decline phase. The aim of loosening credit is to stabilize capital intensity i.e. prevent it from declining too quickly. Beijing is very focused on the downward slope of the transition. Also Higher-income groups drive the majority of demand (consumption and gross capital formation) in China in the last decade. So even tho CPC focus is on decreasing inequality and uplifcting lower income groups (GINI has droped like a rock in the last decade after all) into a healthy consuming middle class they still have to make sure the economic activity of higher income groups doesnt drop too much and too fast before the lower income groups ,well stop being that, and are able and willing to support domestic consumption on their backs. But RE downturn and stock market being garbage has made lot of the top 10% in China lose and decrease their treats a bit too fast for CPCs liking so throwing some stock numberinos and helping measures is meant to stabilize that decline into something managable , not to reverse the trend or the economic restructuring. So for example the mortgage interest cuts impacted ~50 million households that have mortgages, totaling approximately ~150 million people, or ~9-10% of the total population. These households are predominantly in the top two quintiles but acounted for an outsided piece of the total consumption and GCF like i said and like i said their economic activity was dropping a bit too fast for China’s liking

So when economic indicators weakened in the summer, much of it driven by worsening sentiment — especially in higher-income groups. Beijing’s worry was on trickle-down effects from higher-income groups to the broader economy. For example, Fixed Asset Investment growth in the larger, higher-income provinces was faltering. It was down ~3% in Guangdong YTD. That is important for lower-income migrant workers in the largely blue-collar construction and manufacturing industries. On the consumer side, declining/stagnant asset prices clearly contribute to such worsening sentiment and decreased spending in those higher-income groups. It was enough of a real economy impact that Beijing finally felt the exercise a “call option” and try to put a “floor” on asset prices, both in its property & stock markets.

If nothing else it will be more interested to see where the money goes. What if anything grows from this monetary stimulus will tell China a lot about which financial channels are functioning and the current structure of economic activities. Finance in China has been reigned in quite a lot in the last decade and im sure the CPC feels it has room to throw some carrots like this to domestic and foreign investors and markets. This is a volatile transitionary period in China’s economy with all the deleveraging and restructuring going on so i imagine they want some easy numberinos to go up and show, even if its fake financial stuff, and the financial class to shut up a for a bit

Hexbear doing the clickbait anti-china thing where a random proffesor/media person/low level official says something means “China says”, weird

Either way expecting the retirement age to never change from an age set when the average life expectency was 50 years is naive. Cuba has higher RE, some eastern bloc countries had higher than China before the change, some the same ,some lower.

Uniquely tho China does need to bridge its current level of development and economy to a highly automated and cleanly electrified one in 30-40 years that can sustain and provide without the same anormous enormous human capital demands as today and for that to happen, since indeed their labor force is slowly shrinking and aging and there is a missmatch of labor demand and supply in certain sectors, a gradual 3-4 year retirement age raise from a low base seens like a huge help.

Idk what the “socialist” idea is? Magicaly make automation increase by an order of magnitude in a decade or import one hundred million workers from the global south

Maybe this is in the context of their much deeper relationship with China in latter year(s). If China leads in most tech categories in research by a large margin all while tech transfers and university and research cooperation (and investment) between Russia and China has increased notably lately then Russia may get simillar or greater benifits in R&D while spending less

Do you trust the DPP to not try some dumb shit together with a US anti-china neocon administration. Like an independence refferendum, constitution change or some (in)formal US bases popping up

Fun fact: The chinese province of Guangdong alone has more active factories than the number of total cruise missiles ever built by the US since 1980. Roughly by about an order of magnitude.

Just something to think about and laught when you see Americans jerking off to war with China and the mighty american military superiority

One the one hand it would be very cool if she wins. On the other hand her opponent is a Chinese Boxer and since the final Gold medal count of US vs China will be very close so every Chinese Gold gets us closer to some first grade US copium

On the other hadn the US Navy admitted that they had instances of last second intercepts of Houthi missiles that got through to the last line of ship defences. A limited number of older iranian missiles managing that doesnt bode well for the carrrier group against an order of magnitude more modern chineae missilies

First of all China’s average Monthly Money supply has more trippled in the last decade. I agree it must pick up but its by no means sluggish.

The real issue rn is the sluggish credit cycle. Who is generating the debt that drives the exponential increase in money circulation that you want now that you (China) are killing land finance. What is the asset base backstopping financial activity that goes hand in hand with that money generation now that land is not the fulcrum? Helicopter money drops still require central bank operations to issue a ledger, aka debt. No market economy has a choice on this matter. You either generate collateralized asset to drive money circulation or you don’t have a market economy. China right now is a market economy through and through. The USSR in the 30s and 40s ? Orders of magnitude less so. A weakness to that comparison to keep in mind

So, one should think of land sales in the Chinese economy the same way one thinks of Treasury Bills in the US economy. T Bills are the US’s unique magic sauce. That’s what the US economy discovered when FDR made war bonds go BRR. Capital formation is whatever collateral you can issue as a promise for future repayment. It doesn’t need to be land. China is trying to shift the basis of capital formation from land sales to more abstract financial instruments but it cant happen overnight. What is needed is a new ,mature, credit generation mechanism that fits China’s current state of development,administrative capacity and local finances.

Details MUST be very ironed out before attempting such expansions. Sure China is attempting to develop their bond market for example and is slowly itching twoards tax reforms but its not nearly there to support what you are advocating. Comparing it with a mid 30s NON capitalist, non market, massively planned and non globalized /financialized to the slightest USSR economy (with completely different resources and demographics as well as regional disparities and levels of development) doesnt help. Until local finances are sufficiently unlinked from land sales and the bond markets and tax system are sufficiently mature and reformed what you are saying cant happen. Restructuring must come first before any large monetary expansion but also happen slow and controled enough to not cause a bigger crisis. A delicate balance but one that China is walking at the momment quite efficiently

Many chinese economies advocate (more conservatively) for the direction you describe ,even before and during this plenum. The holdup is in the details of what the specific circulation and dept generation mechanisms will be and how they should work, how to steer them to the right kinds of activities and behaviors, use of credit, resources mobilised, the system’s turnover velocity etc

A Chinese EV sold in the EU has a profit margin of 10 TIMES the same EV model sold domestically in China

I imagine you are refering to this cause this is the only “10 time profit margin” thing i have come across

Im gonna link this long breakdown of someone that seems to know way more than i (or you i assume) that argues that this figure from this particular research research that, while interesting, understates the amount of variable profit per incremental vehicle sold in China by a notable margin(25%, not 6%). That Incremental onshore profit for each BYD Seal would be €5,395, not €1,306 and also that it overstates the profit margin per unit in Europe by ignoring some additional costs .

Here https://x.com/GlennLuk/status/1809563664615198784

Overall this would mean that European markets , while important, arent nearly a “lifeline” for Chinese EVs and that the vast majority of profit is and will be made in domestic sales and in sales in SEA and 10-20k GDP per capita countries. European automakers are dependent from the Chinese market way way more than Chinese EV makers ever will from the EU market. Let alone the US that isnt a relevant market in the first place.

Im not in the lgbt community and of you are i understand your anger and wont say you are wrong. I just think that since that social conservativism in large part has it roots both in colonialism and in the subsequent economic underdeveloped under the global imperialist western regime i cant be too vindictive towrards them as individuals. I laid out how i think things can get better and thats where my comment comes from

I didnt say that it shouldnt have been in the opening ceremony. Im just considering the sad reality of that with the way world politics and contradictions and media works it may very well be a net negative for the progress of lgbt rights worldwide, not in a conspirational short of way .Tho its not that serious on its own.

Wether you think its good that it happened depens on how you judge such think and how much weight you give on weighting such performances in such an event as a natural and organic manifestation of lgbt acceptance and progress in the west that reflects their values against more more opportunistic and performative rainbow capitalist stuff