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Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

economist.com

51–60 of 187 posts

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#51
post #17
post #11

I have a feeling 10 years from now Trump will be funny blip on the radar of how crazy the '10s were while Asia will be quite meaningfully transformed. I wish this was getting as much attention as BREAKING NEWS: Trump/staffer did something dumb. The (soon plausibly) richest and most populous country in the world will soon have a dictator. That's a bit scary.

It's part of the same larger pattern. The entire world seems to be moving toward totalitarianism to varying degrees. I have yet to encounter a really good explanation of why this trend is occurring across so many nations and cultures.

[deleted]

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#52
post #48
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the strategies is to keep Taiwan itself armed. Civilians like us can't know this, but it has been hypothesized that one of the levers being used on China with regard to North Korea's development of nuclear weapons is explaining to them that if North Korea goes nuclear, they can expect Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and who knows who else to go nuclear, either via local development of the weaponry or via assisted…

> We'd probably know if they'd ever tested a weapon. We wouldn't necessarily know if they'd actually built one. If I were them, I totally would have. What's the point of having nuclear weapons and not telling everyone? The entire point of nuclear weapons is to deter attacks.

Why would you tell them, until such a time that you need to tell them? They have strong deterrent value, but there is no need to let others know until such a time as the deterrent value is needed.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#53
post #48
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the strategies is to keep Taiwan itself armed. Civilians like us can't know this, but it has been hypothesized that one of the levers being used on China with regard to North Korea's development of nuclear weapons is explaining to them that if North Korea goes nuclear, they can expect Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and who knows who else to go nuclear, either via local development of the weaponry or via assisted…

> We'd probably know if they'd ever tested a weapon. We wouldn't necessarily know if they'd actually built one. If I were them, I totally would have. What's the point of having nuclear weapons and not telling everyone? The entire point of nuclear weapons is to deter attacks.

Having a card up your sleeve is still valuable, even if nobody knows it is there, because it means if you have to pull it out all of a sudden, it's there. Taiwan would be my A#1 pick for "country most likely to secretly have nuclear weapons" because while everyone around China has reason to be nervous at one level or another, Taiwan's clearly got the best one.

"The world" as a whole is also a bit jumpy about nuclear weapons, so pulling the card out early isn't free. If for the sake of argument Taiwan does have some prototypes lying around, they must have judged the risk of a reveal greater than the reward. But that can change swiftly.

One of the questions I find most interesting, from my civilian and total outsider position, is: How developed are the world's intelligence agencies? How good are countries at successfully keeping things secret from each other? Is it theoretically possible for Taiwan to have secretly developed a prototype bomb without China covertly knowing about it? (This is an especially interesting question in that for structural reasons, Taiwan and China have means to spy on each other relatively easily.) Is it in fact the case that everybody basically knows everything about everybody, or are there many, many successfully kept secrets? What are the probabilities of discovery? What's the appetite for risk of discovery within the relevant governments? I expect from my current position that it is simply impossible to get solid answers to these questions. It also seems to me that while the world does not care for countries overtly advertising they have a bomb, the game theory for covertly making it known to certain of your enemies that you have the bomb may be quite different.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#54

Some other disturbing signs from China: increasing military budget https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/03/06/china-splash-us175-bil... , kidnapping relatives of the reporters in other countries that exposed the uigher concentration camps http://m.dw.com/en/chinese-authorities-detain-relatives-of-r... , China literally banned words and letter n in social media https://mashable.com/2018/02/28/china-bans-n-xi-jinping-term..…

Copycats!

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#55

The Economist has a very biased reporting slant on anything China related. I try to take everything from them with a grain of salt.

The economist is completely and openly biased with all their reporting; that's why their pieces are both valuable and only part of the picture. To just scratch the surface:

> Our public agenda is liberal in the classical sense. We have supported free trade ever since our foundation in 1843 when we opposed Britain’s corn laws, which sought to keep the price of grain high by limiting imports. We have continued to advocate bold policies in favour of individual freedoms, such as same-sex marriage and legalisation of drugs, regardless of whether they are politically popular, in the belief that the force of argument will eventually prevail.

https://www.economist.com/about-the-economist#editorial-phil...

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#56
post #33

Some other disturbing signs from China: increasing military budget https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/03/06/china-splash-us175-bil... , kidnapping relatives of the reporters in other countries that exposed the uigher concentration camps http://m.dw.com/en/chinese-authorities-detain-relatives-of-r... , China literally banned words and letter n in social media https://mashable.com/2018/02/28/china-bans-n-xi-jinping-term..…

Can you elaborate more on why China's increasing military budget is a disturbing sign to you? China spends a mere 1.9% of its GDP in 2016 and that number is smaller than from Vietnam, Korea, India even Singapore [0]. To me China is only trying catching up its neighbors. BTW Japan's PM has just submitted his 2018 Military Budget and if approved would be the 6th "straight annual increase" [1]. [0]: https://data.worldba…

It's usually not except within in the context of Xi Xinping appointing himself ruler for life. The combination is cause for concern.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#57

Some other disturbing signs from China: increasing military budget https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/03/06/china-splash-us175-bil... , kidnapping relatives of the reporters in other countries that exposed the uigher concentration camps http://m.dw.com/en/chinese-authorities-detain-relatives-of-r... , China literally banned words and letter n in social media https://mashable.com/2018/02/28/china-bans-n-xi-jinping-term..…

Is it disturbing from a US POV, or generally speaking? Because if I recall correctly, the US military spending has gone up significantly as well, also it's projected to rise even further in the future. On a related note, could someone explain to me how Russia manages to stay a threat with a military budget that's about 6% of the US budget? Or does it only seem to be that smaller because their soldiers are payed less?

A couple of friends of mine worked as hardware engineers in Russian military (or, to be exact, some subsidiary). They later moved on to Intel and Nvidia, and overall you can consider them quite capable CPU engineers (I never got the hang of what exactly they were doing, and a lot of it was under NDA).

While working there, they got less than $10k annually. If they would be able to get H1B, it's my understanding they'd get at least $100k.

While a lot of folks move to commercial sector and other countries, there a lot of people staying there, despite low salaries. Doing essentially the same job that their counterparts in US are doing, quite often for 10 times less money.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#58

Some other disturbing signs from China: increasing military budget https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/03/06/china-splash-us175-bil... , kidnapping relatives of the reporters in other countries that exposed the uigher concentration camps http://m.dw.com/en/chinese-authorities-detain-relatives-of-r... , China literally banned words and letter n in social media https://mashable.com/2018/02/28/china-bans-n-xi-jinping-term..…

Is it disturbing from a US POV, or generally speaking? Because if I recall correctly, the US military spending has gone up significantly as well, also it's projected to rise even further in the future. On a related note, could someone explain to me how Russia manages to stay a threat with a military budget that's about 6% of the US budget? Or does it only seem to be that smaller because their soldiers are payed less?

The majority of US military spending is on soldiers and things related to soldiers (VA care, housing, retirement, education, etc). Most people think the US is spending all of that money on hardware, when that's not the case.

Incomes and general costs related to soldiers in Russia are even lower proportionally compared to the ratio of the per capita output gap between the US and Russia. Russia doesn't take very good care of their soldiers in most regards. If you divert a higher share of your military spending to R&D and hardware, as opposed to soldiers, you could close the gap some (and the US wastes plenty of money on unnecessary things; so if Russia is more careful about that, and chooses to focus more on what they can really afford to make a dent in, they can further close the gap).

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#59
post #33

Some other disturbing signs from China: increasing military budget https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/03/06/china-splash-us175-bil... , kidnapping relatives of the reporters in other countries that exposed the uigher concentration camps http://m.dw.com/en/chinese-authorities-detain-relatives-of-r... , China literally banned words and letter n in social media https://mashable.com/2018/02/28/china-bans-n-xi-jinping-term..…

Can you elaborate more on why China's increasing military budget is a disturbing sign to you? China spends a mere 1.9% of its GDP in 2016 and that number is smaller than from Vietnam, Korea, India even Singapore [0]. To me China is only trying catching up its neighbors. BTW Japan's PM has just submitted his 2018 Military Budget and if approved would be the 6th "straight annual increase" [1]. [0]: https://data.worldba…

This is a sign that Xi Jinping wants to become a dictator, and it concerns other countries if a giant country like China with a massive military is controlled by a dictator with unlimited power. China has every right to have a large military to defend itself, but a dictator might use the military to be aggressive to other countries.

China's GDP is several times bigger[1] than Vietnam, Korea, India, and Singapore, so spending a smaller percentage is still a larger absolute amount. Even India, the closest competitor that you listed is only 1/5 as big by GDP, and in absolute terms has a smaller military.

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?order=wb...

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#60
post #33

Some other disturbing signs from China: increasing military budget https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/03/06/china-splash-us175-bil... , kidnapping relatives of the reporters in other countries that exposed the uigher concentration camps http://m.dw.com/en/chinese-authorities-detain-relatives-of-r... , China literally banned words and letter n in social media https://mashable.com/2018/02/28/china-bans-n-xi-jinping-term..…

Can you elaborate more on why China's increasing military budget is a disturbing sign to you? China spends a mere 1.9% of its GDP in 2016 and that number is smaller than from Vietnam, Korea, India even Singapore [0]. To me China is only trying catching up its neighbors. BTW Japan's PM has just submitted his 2018 Military Budget and if approved would be the 6th "straight annual increase" [1]. [0]: https://data.worldba…

China has been getting aggressive with India, sometimes it feels like somebody needs a war to manage economics.
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