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Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

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Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#121

Post by whimsicalism »

simonh wrote: post #79
whimsicalism wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will take them another generation to catch up to the west in the ability to innovate in new technologies. I think you are in for a rude awakening.

I don’t think so, building effective scientific institutions is incredibly time consuming. You don’t just need a slew of fresh graduates, you need an established cadre of experienced researchers to teach them. Where does this older generation of experienced mentors come from? Where do the deep institutional values come from? It’s not at all like building a factory. Modern advanced scientific methods and technologies…

In the two academic fields I've worked in, materials science and deep NLP, China already has the cadre of experienced researchers. China has some of the best research universities in the world.

I suspect you haven't traveled to China recently, if you had it'd be pretty hard to claim the things you're claiming about where China is.

Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#122

Post by prepend »

echelon wrote: post #2

So is China going to surpass America to become the world's #1 economy? Or are the predictions that China's growth will decline true? Some analysts think China's population is too old and that youth will peter out, whereas others think that all the CCP has to do is ask its millennials to have more babies. Some analysts think that democratic nations will band together and give China the cold shoulder. China could just…

> The West has a huge military and space program. So does China

I don’t think this is true. China’s military is quite weak compared to the US (dollar amount, global reach, navy, nuclear) and it’s not able to project power globally. Even as far as the Middle East would be a problem as they don’t have bases or carrier groups.

This is actually kind of an advantage as they can funnel money into more productive purposes, but I think it means they won’t be the sort of unipolar force that the US was.

I think the 21st century will be multi-polar and if I had to bet on a single country, I would bet Nigeria or maybe even somewhere like DRC or Brazil. A truly digital world will be best for countries in Africa who have so much untapped raw power and resources.

Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#123

Post by gen220 »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #81
est31 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China would be severely affected by such a measure as well. This is WTO's doing, and is a big reason why there has been no world war 3. It's easy to wage war if your economy is truly sovereign, but with a nation your economy is intertwined with, it's hard to wage with. Trump's anti-China policy, while it is sensible in many ways, could have the ill effect of enabling a major war in a few years.

This argument reminds me of the pre WW1 pro-bismark arguments for entangled, complex alliance systems, because they would make "war unlikely"..

The difference is that mutual defense pacts (WW1 alliances) are very different from trade agreements (modern alliances).

If you have a 1-year stockpile of food, produce only enough food for 50% of your population to not go hungry, and depend on imports to make up the slack, that is a dampening force on the decision to go to war.

These agreements are now negotiated at the national level in trade agreements, and at the international level by the WTO. It's a very different system from the one that existed prior to WWI.

...

Although, that's not to say that trade did not play a role in WWI!

Incidentally, the German pre-WWI german economy was dependent on migrant labor from Poland and Russia to exercise successful harvests in Prussia. When WWI broke out, they were not able to replace these migrant laborers in the fields, and experienced crop failures.

This led to significant food shortages during the war, signaled by large increases in the price of bread, in particular.

The military elites (Luddendort, Hindenburg) of the country must have known why prices were rising (because there was a gaping hole in supply), but successfully spun the narrative for the common folk that it was merchants (price-setters) who were to blame for the war.

Needless to say, price being a function of supply and demand, and the post-zollvereini/unification interdependence of the German commodities economy was not as popularly-understood of a concept as antisemitism.

The reality was that the war was poorly-planned and poorly-executed, but this was an unconscionable admission for the Prussian elites.

This was one of the load-bearing columns for the dolchstoss myth that was weaponized to develop German anti-semitism in the interwar years.

Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#124

Post by hosh »

simonh wrote: post #12
echelon wrote: post #2

So is China going to surpass America to become the world's #1 economy? Or are the predictions that China's growth will decline true? Some analysts think China's population is too old and that youth will peter out, whereas others think that all the CCP has to do is ask its millennials to have more babies. Some analysts think that democratic nations will band together and give China the cold shoulder. China could just…

China is huge and powerful and still growing rapidly. It's nominal GDP is $15tn, compared to $20tn for the USA. However it's GDP per capita is 1/6th that of the USA because it has 4x the population. Of course the west, or the developed democracies are much more than just the USA. Also while China is catching up in many areas, it is far behind in many of the ones that really count. China's military infrastructure and…

Aircraft carriers are a weapons platform that requires both tech prowess and organizational culture to wield. For this reason, America has more than a single carrier task force. Russia and the handful of others could only field a single one. (Instead, Russia had focused on building up their submarine fleet). The carrier groups have allowed the US to project both military and soft power around the world.

But that is just on the surface. What may not be as well-known are asymetric weapons platforms that are cheaper to operate and have been demonstrated effectiveness against larger naval vessels, within the US's own military war game exercises. In the last one, the oppositional team had been able to use such platforms to defeat their larger opponents, to the point that the exercise was cancelled. China has definitely been developing those weapons platforms. (I think the US has been as well, but the US also need to maintain the facade that the carrier groups are the premier projection of power).

Furthermore, the cultural aspects are eroding. The US military is a voluntary service organization, which has been the leading explanation of why the US can field multiple carrier groups, and no other country could. However, training and operational fitness has been eroding. This is what lead to the several naval disasters a couple years ago. They threw the commanding officers under the bus, but the deeper causes are (1) erosion of quality training for ship handling and (2) the personnel are running ragged, where normal ship operations are being affected (let alone what that says about their ability to operate in wartime conditions). This all happened within the US 7th Fleet, that operates within China's sphere of influence.

It's just as well that US pressure on China is being exerted through a trade war instead of military positioning.

(I also have had talks with friends about space-based kinetic weapons platforms, which, if fielded, changes the game dramatically in favor of the US).

As far as China's economic and technological power in the civilian sector ... There is a lot of advantages there. Probably the biggest thing is that China has cultural unity, greater economic optimism, and a cohesive will of the populous to catch up and displace US as the leading world superpower. The US, in contrast, is wracked with a culture war, and 70 years of policing the world and 30 years of trying to maintain the post-Cold War liberal order has left a very tired, pessimistic country.

Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#125

Post by whimsicalism »

coredog64 wrote: post #117
whimsicalism wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US camp, I see Western Europe + NATO countries, Australia, NZ, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, India and Israel. Do you think China can match that alliance? Project population forward another 50 years. China will have Nigeria along with a few other African power houses, which at some point will probably comprise at least 40% of the world's population. I don't think the US can count on India in the same way that it c…

Unless China stops antagonizing India, I think there will at least be a conditional alliance between the US and India. We may also see slight shifts as Indian-Americans become eligible for US political office.

I agree, although there are still some potential obstacles:

1. the US is becoming increasingly liberal and India is becoming increasingly jingoistic/illiberal.

2. The US views Pakistan as an important strategic ally.

Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#126

Post by coredog64 »

wahern wrote: post #73
delfinom wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Democratic nations banding together or building new supply chains are pipe dreams. New supply chains are in fact underway, even before Trump's horseshit. There was a inkling of migrating manufacturing to India and its only been accelerated further.

They began moving years ago because wages were increasing in China, same reason those jobs left the U.S. decades ago. I'm tempted to say the process was accelerated in China, but then again the heyday of U.S. manufacturing was only 20-30 years, maybe 40-50 if you include 1920s appliances boom[1], as the shift to Japan was in full swing by the 1970s. China is at about the 30 year mark (1990-2020), so if we really want…

This. I don’t have a link handy, but at present China’s superpower is effective final assembly. The common example is the iPhone, where once you subtract out the value from imported parts, China is only keeping something like $4. (From memory, so there may be some more recent and/or accurate numbers)

Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#127

Post by georgeecollins »

echelon wrote: post #2

So is China going to surpass America to become the world's #1 economy? Or are the predictions that China's growth will decline true? Some analysts think China's population is too old and that youth will peter out, whereas others think that all the CCP has to do is ask its millennials to have more babies. Some analysts think that democratic nations will band together and give China the cold shoulder. China could just…

If you look at the fifty year picture, China and the US have been developing trade with each other and the rest of the world and growing in prosperity. Particularly vs important rivals from the last fifty years, such as the USSR and Japan. You can argue about the distribution of the prosperity in the US, and you can argue about the political liberalism in China, but neither country is exclusively responsible for the other countries problems in either regard.

Both countries depend on world trade and have a lot to loose from any event (like a war) that would upset trade. Neither country is really threatened by each other or any other power. It is possible that this could be a situation like the United States and Great Britain, where one country passed up another in power and wealth without a need for conflict.

Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#128

Post by tigerlily »

Two things China has in common with the West are aging demographics, and asset price bubbles.

I figure somewhere the two go hand in hand, and I will go out on a limb here and suggest that by the end of the decade, either or both lateral hemispheres will experience an asset price bubble the likes of which have never been seen before.

I think there is scope in China for heinously priced real estate in the coming years, for example.

I believe it's human-behavioural stuff like that which will confound the best laid plans of our leaders, in both east and west.

Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#129

Post by piccolo666 »

I really wouldn't mind other country taking leadership of the world from the US. What scares me the most is that this leadership can be taken from a selfish leaded country and their expansionism program:

* Xinjiang * Hing Kong * Taiwan * Inner Mongolia * Tibet * Spratly Islands / Nine dash lane. * Northern India * Vietnam sea

They cannot just be nice with their neighbours. And, for some reason, they think they have the rights to take and to threat.

I personally don't want these bully leaders to be the leaders of the world. But unfortunately, this is happening in front of us right now and there's not too much we can do about it.

Re: Dreams of a Red Emperor: The Relentless Rise of Xi Jinping

#130

Post by zepto »

landryraccoon wrote: post #111
est31 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authoritarianism has been tried out around the globe in the 20th century multiple times, but each attempt failed. In fact, moth western nations were kingdoms at the start of the 20th century, and WW1 and WW2 turned most of them into republics.

If you look at the past century, democracies have been more successful, but if you look at the past millennium, dictatorships have done just fine. The fact that Democracy has had a really good run for the past 100 years is nowhere near a guarantee that Authoritarianism won't rise again for the next 100.

This is only true if the recent success of democracy is random, and not systematic.
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