I read an interesting bit on Substack a few months ago (I wish I could remember whose writing). The writer said he was on an international flight from China, sitting next to a Chinese businessman who was fluent in English, so they conversed quite a bit during the long flight. The Chinese man said that all of China’s population was enslaved now, working jobs they didn’t like, feeling despondent and trapped, to the point that young people didn’t want to marry and raise children to be slaves like their parents are. Boy, that’s telling, isn’t it? It stuck in my mind. China is not a happy country, and that is likely to end badly someday for the Chinese elite!
I'm not surprised by that story. "Lying flat" has, by many accounts, become a significant cultural phenomenon in China.
As a matter of purely economic considerations, if China's next generation is unwilling to work to sustain Chinese society, Chinese society must collapse--and that collapse will hit the elites the hardest, as they will be falling from the greatest height.
Yes. And it just occurred to me - you know how the Chinese people are trapped by their ‘social credit score’? Well, someone in China is going to find a tech solution around that, something that enables individuals to start a grass-roots rebellion to end their oppression. And that tech could be the salvation for us Americans, as well! Our government would simply not be able to technologically force us to comply with their whims - we would be able to get around them. (Not just wishful thinking on my part - I could see this tech happening!)
Against the US? No. Outside of Taiwan there's simply not a whole lot of real estate where China and the US can realistically fight each other.
For all of the media hyperventilations about China's aircraft carrier program, at this juncture it lacks a true blue water navy, and its military power projection capacity ends at the first island chain--which puts its reach several thousand miles short of what is needed to threaten the US militarily.
While the US has the power projection capacity, what it does not have are allies with useful land borders with China from which a land invasion can be mounted. There are two reasons for this--one is that US relations with ASEAN countries don't include accepting large numbers of US troops, and the other is that China's southern border is mostly not very hospitable jungle, which makes it a poor choice for an invasion, and which again puts China and the US out of reach of each other, militarily.
That leaves Taiwan. Will China invade? Certainly Xi Jinping seems to want to invade. Will he? Good question, and the only person who really knows the answer is Xi Jinping.
Would Xi launch an invasion of Taiwan as in a "wag the dog" move of desperation? It's possible.
However, with China's terminally declining population, aging demographics, and fragile if not failing economy (despite what the Q1 numbers indicate), it is also quite possible that social unrest and social disruption could upend the CCP dynasty before that invasion can be mounted.
Throughout China's history, the events that have ultimately brought its various phases of imperial dynasty down are internal forces--societal decay, economic collapse, political turmoil. While the Mongol invasion and the subsequent Yuan Dynasty of Kublai Khan are a noteworthy exception to this rule, the downfall of that same Yuan Dynasty was the result of internal strife rather than external mischief.
Even the successor Ming Dynasty collapsed largely due to its own inward turning in the 16th century, resulting in a period of technological stagnation and political decay (another reason autarky fails as an economic model), and its displacement by the Manchu Qing Dynasty as well as the ending of the Qing Dynasty by republican forces led by Sun Yat-Sen in the early 20th century were the results of internal politics.
Launching wars to stave off political collapse has never been a part of Chinese political culture, and even Mao Zedong opted for the Cultural Revolution rather than an external war as a means of restoring his unchallenged political authority in China during the 1960s.
Thus while Xi must be considered likely to invade Taiwan if he thinks he can make a plausible showing of it, it would be very much out of step with the past few millennia of Chinese history for him to do so in a desperate gambit to retain power. If Xi invades Taiwan, it will likely be because he views his position as secure enough that he can expend some political capital in that direction.
You sure don’t see tons of people clamoring to immigrate to China.
I read an interesting bit on Substack a few months ago (I wish I could remember whose writing). The writer said he was on an international flight from China, sitting next to a Chinese businessman who was fluent in English, so they conversed quite a bit during the long flight. The Chinese man said that all of China’s population was enslaved now, working jobs they didn’t like, feeling despondent and trapped, to the point that young people didn’t want to marry and raise children to be slaves like their parents are. Boy, that’s telling, isn’t it? It stuck in my mind. China is not a happy country, and that is likely to end badly someday for the Chinese elite!
I'm not surprised by that story. "Lying flat" has, by many accounts, become a significant cultural phenomenon in China.
As a matter of purely economic considerations, if China's next generation is unwilling to work to sustain Chinese society, Chinese society must collapse--and that collapse will hit the elites the hardest, as they will be falling from the greatest height.
Yes. And it just occurred to me - you know how the Chinese people are trapped by their ‘social credit score’? Well, someone in China is going to find a tech solution around that, something that enables individuals to start a grass-roots rebellion to end their oppression. And that tech could be the salvation for us Americans, as well! Our government would simply not be able to technologically force us to comply with their whims - we would be able to get around them. (Not just wishful thinking on my part - I could see this tech happening!)
Do you think the collapse will be preceded by military action (against Taiwan and/or the U.S.).
Against the US? No. Outside of Taiwan there's simply not a whole lot of real estate where China and the US can realistically fight each other.
For all of the media hyperventilations about China's aircraft carrier program, at this juncture it lacks a true blue water navy, and its military power projection capacity ends at the first island chain--which puts its reach several thousand miles short of what is needed to threaten the US militarily.
While the US has the power projection capacity, what it does not have are allies with useful land borders with China from which a land invasion can be mounted. There are two reasons for this--one is that US relations with ASEAN countries don't include accepting large numbers of US troops, and the other is that China's southern border is mostly not very hospitable jungle, which makes it a poor choice for an invasion, and which again puts China and the US out of reach of each other, militarily.
That leaves Taiwan. Will China invade? Certainly Xi Jinping seems to want to invade. Will he? Good question, and the only person who really knows the answer is Xi Jinping.
Would Xi launch an invasion of Taiwan as in a "wag the dog" move of desperation? It's possible.
However, with China's terminally declining population, aging demographics, and fragile if not failing economy (despite what the Q1 numbers indicate), it is also quite possible that social unrest and social disruption could upend the CCP dynasty before that invasion can be mounted.
Throughout China's history, the events that have ultimately brought its various phases of imperial dynasty down are internal forces--societal decay, economic collapse, political turmoil. While the Mongol invasion and the subsequent Yuan Dynasty of Kublai Khan are a noteworthy exception to this rule, the downfall of that same Yuan Dynasty was the result of internal strife rather than external mischief.
Even the successor Ming Dynasty collapsed largely due to its own inward turning in the 16th century, resulting in a period of technological stagnation and political decay (another reason autarky fails as an economic model), and its displacement by the Manchu Qing Dynasty as well as the ending of the Qing Dynasty by republican forces led by Sun Yat-Sen in the early 20th century were the results of internal politics.
Launching wars to stave off political collapse has never been a part of Chinese political culture, and even Mao Zedong opted for the Cultural Revolution rather than an external war as a means of restoring his unchallenged political authority in China during the 1960s.
Thus while Xi must be considered likely to invade Taiwan if he thinks he can make a plausible showing of it, it would be very much out of step with the past few millennia of Chinese history for him to do so in a desperate gambit to retain power. If Xi invades Taiwan, it will likely be because he views his position as secure enough that he can expend some political capital in that direction.