Lefty sorts are always whining that other countries have high speed rail networks and we don’t. Many point to China’s extensive network of high speed rail as what we should be doing.
Tiny problem: China’s high speed rail network is a giant, unprofitable sinkhole of $1.8 TRILLION worth of debt.
Some take-aways:
The average operating loss for the system is $24 million per day.
The official amount for China National Railway debt for high speed rail is $900 billion, but since roughly half of the debt comes from local governments, the total is probably closer to $1.8 trillion.
For comparison sake, $1.8 trillion is about South Korea’s entire yearly GDP.
“Shanghai, the richest city in China, has a total GDP of $600 billion in 2020, which means that even the whole year of Shanghai’s GDP won’t be able to cover the debt of China National Railway.”
It’s extensive: 37,900km, nearly double the length from 2015.
Return on high speed rail investment is only about 2%, and the bulk of bond payments for loans are coming due over the next few years. “Cash flow from railway transportation revenue isn’t enough to cover the operating costs, let alone the ability to pay the debt and interest.”
Local government debt levels are around 100%.
“More than 85% of the funds raised through urban investment bonds are earmarked for repaying old debts with new ones.”
Even the most profitable high speed rail stretch, Beijing to Shanghai, only earns a return on investment of 5%.
Japan’s successful high speed rail network serves three metropolitan areas (Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka) that have 55% of that nation’s population.
“A professor at the School of Economics and Management of Beijing Jiaotong University concluded that the operating costs are only just covered when the transport density of a high-speed rail line reaches 36 million passenger kilometers per kilometer. In China the average transport density is only about 17 million passenger kilometers per kilometer.”
High speed rail can’t transport heavy freight.
“The Lanzhou Uramuchi HSR in western China can run more than 160 trains per day. In reality, this route only runs four trains per day.”
High speed rail occupancy rate is only 30%, and is still too expensive for most Chinese to use.
High speed rail construction has squeezed out much-needed construction of regular rail. “China’s rail freight capacity can’t meet market demand. China’s market share of road freight turnover has risen rapidly to 49% market share in 2016.” China rail has jacked up freight costs to make up for losses on high speed rail.
China’s freight trucks get overloaded all the time.
China’s containerized shipping accounts for 40% of global trade, but “the proportion of China’s sea rail intermodal transport volume in 2017 was only about 2.5 percent.” 84% of port containers go out by road.
So why all the money poured into high speed rail? Opportunities for corruption.
Officials see the high-speed rail project in which China is involved as a lucrative opportunity. China’s former minister of railways, known as the father of high-speed rail, was sentenced to death for corruption. Emerging industries such as high-speed rail, which offer both substantial commercial value and political achievements for local officials, have enormous room for corruption. In a systemically corrupt environment white elephant projects, that is a large project that falls significantly short of its goals, and the costs of upkeep outweigh its usefulness, are favored by many officials and businessmen looking to make a fortune. The vast majority of high-speed railways around the world can’t make ends meet on passenger revenues alone to cover their construction and operating costs. Most operate at a loss.
In light of all that, why do American leftists keep complaining about America’s lack of high speed rail? Simple: It’s the corruption, stupid. High speed rail construction offers boundless opportunities for graft and corruption, and refusing to build any keeps them from getting their snouts into another giant trough of taxpayer money…
(I didn’t expect this past week to become a string of “China’s economy is smoke and mirrors all the way down” posts, but I keep running into more examples.)
Here’s another entry for the “China’s economy is smoke and mirrors all the way down” file. Remember the previous story on the mountains of unused bikes for failed Chinese bike-sharing startups? Well, evidently the exact same thing happened with “green” cars:
The mechanics of the scam:
First they put together a down payment, order a batch of vehicles, and license them at a vehicle administration office.
Then they contact government officials, present the vehicles in their hands and apply for permission on the grounds that they are operating an online car sharing business.
The third step is to get the government’s permission, then go to the bank to get a loan.
The fourth step is to find a financer and present the vehicles and the government papers to secure some venture capital from the financer.
Last mortgage the vehicles to some smaller financial institutions to squeeze out their final value.
After all these steps are completed, the scammers disappear. The bank, the financer and the small financial institution are left with triangular disputes while the vehicles rot somewhere in the wilderness.
More takeaways:
China offers subsidies for new “green” cars.
Lots of these subsidized cars are bought by ride-sharing startups…
…that just happen to be subsidiaries of the the Chinese car companies manufacturing the cars being subsidized. (Presumably these are different companies than the pure scammers, but who the hell knows?)
Despite not being used, many have new license plates and up-to-date inspections.
Though there are minimum mileage requirements to get the subsidies, the businesses (in best Chinese fashion) just falsify the data.
“Especially the electric cars produced in previous years, the battery has a short range and the performance declines quickly. It’s worthless. At present it costs more to replace a new battery than the value of the old car.”
Most insane of all: China’s communist government required scrapping vehicles after 10 years or 100,000 kilometers. How’s that for “green”?
They later revised this to 15 years with annual inspections, then revised it again to a maximum of 600,000 kilometers.
And, of course, you can bribe inspectors to pass the inspection.
Green subsidy scams and failed startup detritus is hardly unknown in the U.S. (witness all those electric scooter sharing startups that are just now starting to go bankrupt), but China’s corner-cutting, get-rich-quick mentality combined with green government subsidies, interlocking corporate ownership, the usual Chinese scam artists and loose, bribe-able enforcement at various levels of Chinese government all combined for an especially appalling mountain of waste.
Just days after the Chinese Communist Party lifted Shanghai’s last Flu Manchu lockdown, they’re locking Shanghai down again.
China’s commercial hub of Shanghai will lock down millions of people for mass COVID-19 testing this weekend – just 10 days after lifting its gruelling two-month lockdown – unsettling residents and raising concerns about the business impact.
Racing to stop a wider outbreak after discovering a handful of community cases, including a cluster traced to a popular beauty salon, authorities have ordered PCR testing for all residents in 14 of Shanghai’s 16 districts over the weekend.
Five of the districts said residents would not be allowed to leave their homes while the testing was carried out. A notice issued by Changning district described the stay-home requirement as “closed management” of the community being sampled.
The latest scare triggered a rush to grocery stores and online platforms to stock up on food, as users of China’s Twitter-like Weibo expressed fear they could be locked down for longer, having only started going back to work after the last lockdown was lifted on June 1.
Some areas had remained sealed off or quickly returned to lockdown due to infections and their close contacts.
While the rest of the world has moved on from useless lockdown foolishness, China is still Stuck On Stupid, and their “Zero Covid” policy has as much chance to stop spread as tying a live chicken rump to buboes had at stopping bubonic plague.
You’ve got to hand it to Peter Zeihan, who said this was precisely the sort of stupidity China would keep pursuing when talking about Tianjin’s lockdown last month.
I’ve been telling my clients for quite some time that it was only a matter of issue as to how the American/Chinese relationship imploded. It could be Trump, could be Biden, could be energy, could be food, could be security, could be trade, could be ethics, could be genocide. It’s a long list, but it appears that Covid ultimately is the one that is winning out.
The Chinese vaccine does not work against Covid, and the Chinese have spent the last two years lambasting the world and lying in the propaganda that they are the only country that’s even remotely dealt well with Covid. And they’ve specifically parroted a lot of the crazy theories out there about the western vaccines, that they make you magnetic or they make you infertile or whatever else, so they can’t import the western vaccines at all they have to wait until they make their own MRNA formula, and there’s no way that’s going to happen in the next year or two, so lockdowns are the only public health policy they have and now the majority of the parts of china that matter are offline.
If you’re stuck in manufacturing in China this is the beginning of the end, if it’s not the end already, because as soon as you have an opening, Omicron comes back in and then you get a closing again because that is the only tool that the Chinese Communist Party has left.
It’s tough to be a pimp young worker in today’s China. In addition to being repressed by the communist government, they’re unable to afford cars or houses, and many can’t even find jobs. As a result, some have turned to the philosophy of bai lan, or “Let it rot.” They’re just giving up on working or caring anymore and openly embracing loserdom.
Naturally, the CCP is not pleased. Commies have never been tolerant of “parasitism” getting in the way of their political goals.
A few takeaways:
The unemployment rate for those 16-24 is 18.2%. “The highest rate since official figures began.”
Even graduates of prestigious Peking University were competing for entry level bureaucratic jobs.
The repeat Flu Manchu lockdowns were the last straw for many. “What is the point of working hard when you can lose your basic rights as a human being, when your home can be broken into and when your private items can be thrown away at will? Chinese people once thought that if they worked hard and followed the rules they could have a good future but that seems to be an illusion.” Yeah, totalitarian Communist states are funny that way…
Unspoken is just how these young working-age Chinese who have given up manage to afford food and shelter, but I’m just assuming they’re following the time-honored tradition of sponging of their parents. What are they going to do, kick out their only heir?
The problem with reports like this is that it’s hard for those of us outside China to determine just how widespread this phenomena is. Is it “Hey, all the young kids are listening to Mel Torme” or “Hey, all the young kids are listening to Nirvana”? It sucks to be young with dim prospects during a recession, and it sucks a lot worse to be under the heel of a communist dictatorship. Combining those isn’t a recipe for happiness.
Hey Chinese bai lan sufferers: Have you considered launching a revolution against the communist government instead? That would give you lots of excitement and fill your life with purpose! It may shorten it as well, but I suspect it beats lying around waiting to die…
The economy is contracting (thanks Biden), attacks and counterattacks in eastern Ukraine, regulation madness, and something from the 1875 crime blotter in 2022. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Note: Today’s LinkSwarm will be a bit shorter than usual because: A.) I’m off Twitter for the time being, so I’m not grabbing links there, and B.) I took the day off from work and I’m just feeling lazy.
Sure, the Biden Administration sucks on basic competence when it comes to the American economy, but to balance that, they also suck on regulation.
The Biden Administration capped off its first full year in office with more than $201 billion in regulatory costs and 131 million hours in new annual paperwork, putting it far ahead of the two immediately preceding administrations’ respective first years by a wide margin.
Actions related to vehicle emissions and COVID-19 safety measures provided the vast majority of these administrative burdens.
Additionally, in terms of executive orders issued during the first year of an administration, the 77 put forth by President Biden represent the highest number since the Ford Administration.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, and Russian forces seem to be making a slow, grinding advance on the strategic city of Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine. “Moscow has poured thousands of troops into its assault on Severodonetsk and its sister city of Lysychansk. The twin cities, straddling the Siverskyi Donets river, have been in Russian sights for months. They currently comprise the lone Ukrainian redoubt in the Luhansk oblast.” Taking Lysychansk will require Russians to cross the Donets, previous attempts at which have been disasterous for them.
Russia has succeeded in taking Lyman, but Ukraine has launched counterattacks against the Russian forces encircling Severodonetsk.
The Texas Association of School Boards is set to leave Its parent organization, the National School Board Association, according to records obtained by Texas Scorecard.
The National School Boards Association made headlines last year following their letter to President Joe Biden and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting federal intervention in local school board meetings and referring to concerned parents as “domestic terrorists.”
It has since been revealed that the NSBA leadership urged the Biden Administration to deploy military forces in an effort to prevent parents from attending school board meetings.
Since then, parents have been calling on the state organization—the Texas Association of School Boards—to leave the organization, as more than 20 states already have.
“Professor Fired Over Tweets Questioning BLM Movement Gets Reinstated, Awarded Back Pay After Arbitrator Finds In His Favor.” “An arbitrator has ruled that a University of Central Florida professor, Charles Negy, has to be reinstated.”
Who’s been funding the attacks on Elon Musk following his Twitter bid? Would you believe Bill Gates? Of course you would. “Would you believe what perfidy Ernst Stavro Blofeld is up to this week?” Why yes, I would. The biggest difference is that Blofeld has better fashion sense and never tried to inflict Microsoft Bob on the world…
I’ll take headlines from 1875 for $400: “Loving County judge arrested for cattle theft….Loving County Judge Skeet Jones is accused of livestock theft and organized criminal activity.”
Peter Zeihan is back with another provocative video (filmed at the Eisenhower Naval School) that suggests that China faces such massive problems that collapse may be imminent. “I see China with not just a demographic failure, but a failure of leadership, a failure of policy, an agricultural failure, and an energy failure, all at the same time. It is
entirely possible that this is the last year of the People’s Republic.”
Some of this (especially the demographic collapse) we’ve covered here before. Takeaways:
“China was already the fastest aging society in human history with the biggest sex imbalance. We already knew that their economic model would not match up with this demography this decade, we always knew that the economic collapse of China was coming.” And that was before we found China had over-counted their prime working age population by 100 million.
“I don’t see how China survives as a single political entity, much less a globally significant one. I don’t see how it survives this decade with these numbers, because this suggests that the Chinese population peaked back in 2003, and that Chinese economic efficiency probably peaked around the same time.”
Chinese labor is no longer cost-competitive with other Asian countries like Thailand or The Philippines, or Mexico. “This is the fastest labor [wage] appreciation in human history, including during the black death, including during all wars. So we’re looking at a 15-fold increase since 1999, [while] their labor effectiveness productivity is probably only increased by a factor of two, maybe three.”
“There is not an industrial process that is done in China that can’t be done in North America at a lower cost, because our labor is so much more productive, our energy is so much cheaper, our supply lines are so much shorter and you can produce stuff where people actually live.”
“The only reason we think of China as a major industrial player is because of the sunk cost of the preexisting industrial plant.”
“You don’t rebuild that somewhere else overnight. But it is happening. The United States is already in the process as its fastest industrialization, even faster than what we did during World War II.” That’s some mighty bold talk, but the U.S. population is roughly 2.5X larger than at the start of World War II.
“We probably need to double the size of our industrial plant in the next 5-10 years. That’ll be awkward, expensive, inflationary, but on the other side of it, we will have a far more insulated and secure supply chain system. The problem is just getting from here to there, and that is not a straight line.”
The Chinese plan has always been to let the Russians go first, just as a proof of concept. So their thinking was a fast war that conquers Taiwan in a matter of days, that imposes a done deal upon the world, and everyone just sucks it up and takes it, because China is too economically powerful to be challenged. And once you hold the territory, there’s no point in going to a broad scale war against the Chinese when it’s already happened. That’s always been their plan.
Oh my.
With the Russians, they have had every aspect of all of their planning for the last 40 years set on fire and burned to ash in less than a month. So number one it will not be a quick war, because Ukraine was one of the world’s less militarily competent countries in the first place…
I think this statement may have been true in 2014, but I don’t think it was true by the time Russia invaded. Ukraine professionalized and modernized their military with considerable help and guidance from western militaries, and developed a competent officer and NCO core (partially thanks to experience with the low-intensity conflict in Donbas).
…and they’re still holding out against the Russians. Taiwan has been preparing for this war since 1955. Taiwan has a moat. Taiwan has a nuclear program that started in 1974, so if we have a two-month accumulation of Chinese forces getting ready to push, the Taiwanese will see it because this is the only national security question that they pay any attention to, and they will make a nuclear device. And so the only way that the Chinese can even make an attempt on Taiwan is to text all of their soldiers at the same time and just say everyone get to the coast take a fishing boat with your buddies and start moving on Taiwan. They know it is going to cost them a million troops just to get there.
I find this scenario unlikely, and even less likely to succeed.
“Now they know from Ukraine that it’s not going to be a pushover. [Taiwan] is mountainous, it’s forested as opposed to Ukraine, which is flat and open.”
Then there are the sanctions:
Russia has many flaws, but they’re a massive producer of food and energy products. If you put the sanctions that we have put against Russia onto China, oh my. China imports 85% of their energy, 85% of that from the Persian Gulf, and they import 85% of inputs that are necessary to grow their food. So you would have an industrial collapse, a civilizational breakdown, and mass famine within six months, and then you would probably lose a half a billion Chinese over the course of the next year to famine.
Again, I think this is overstated, as there would be enough countries willing to break sanctions, and enough radical actions China could take (conquer Mongolia and parts of Siberia for farming, throw off all Pacific fishing limits, etc.) to avoid the worst case famine scenario. Not that they wouldn’t be in a world of hurt…
The one that has scared the Chinese the most are the boycotts. BP and Halliburton didn’t have to leave, they weren’t doing anything that was sanctioned, but the super majors and the oil services firms and countless other firms left on a moral imperative prompted by individual shareholders and consumers. And in China, the idea that the average Joe or Jane can influence policy is so antithetical to their mindset that they had no idea this was even possible, much less it was going to happen. So everything that the Chinese have based their system and their strategic policy on for the last 30 years has been proven in the last two months to be utterly wrong.”
My judgement of Zeihan’s analysis is that he’s more right than wrong, but has a tendency to overstate his case. Still, a worldwide inflationary spiral and energy shortage is the sort of thing that’s likely to destabilize a lot of governments worldwide, and China’s economy is built on more smoke and mirrors than most.
Stagflation is back, scammers continue to loot taxpayer money from the federal government, Team Global Warming continues it’s perfect losing streak, and dispatches from a deadly accordion war. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The U.S. economy shrunk by 1.4% in Q1. “Unexpectedly!” So now we’ve got stagnation to go with that soaring inflation, a key ingredient in the Biden Administration’s Welcome Back Carter cosplay. One more quarter of decline and the recession is officially at hand…
In June, the FBI got a warrant to hunt through the Google accounts of Abedemi Rufai, a Nigerian state government official.
Hello, I am Prince Abedemi Rufai. You are probably surprised by this email…
What they found, they said in a sworn affidavit, was all the ingredients for a “massive” cyberfraud on U.S. government benefits: stolen bank, credit card and tax information of Americans. Money transfers. And emails showing dozens of false unemployment claims in seven states that paid out $350,000.
Rufai was arrested in May at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as he prepared to fly first class back to Nigeria, according to court records. He is being held without bail in Washington state, where he has pleaded not guilty to five counts of wire fraud.
Rufai’s case offers a small window into what law enforcement officials and private experts say is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated against the U.S., a significant part of it carried out by foreigners.
Russian mobsters, Chinese hackers and Nigerian scammers have used stolen identities to plunder tens of billions of dollars in Covid benefits, spiriting the money overseas in a massive transfer of wealth from U.S. taxpayers, officials and experts say. And they say it is still happening.
Among the ripest targets for the cybertheft have been jobless programs. The federal government cannot say for sure how much of the more than $900 billion in pandemic-related unemployment relief has been stolen, but credible estimates range from $87 billion to $400 billion — at least half of which went to foreign criminals, law enforcement officials say.
Those staggering sums dwarf, even on the low end, what the federal government spends every year on intelligence collection, food stamps or K-12 education.
Keep in mind, this is just one government program.
Many who participated in what prosecutors are calling the largest fraud in U.S. history — the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money intended to help those harmed by the coronavirus pandemic — couldn’t resist purchasing luxury automobiles. Also mansions, private jet flights and swanky vacations.
Biden Administration creates unconstitutional Ministry of Truth to fight “disinformation,” i.e. truth and opinion that hurts Democrats. This is the lunatic running it:
For 20 Years, This Prosecutor Had a Secret Job Working For the Judges Who’d Decide His Cases.”
One of Ralph Petty’s victims is trying to hold him accountable, but she will have to overcome prosecutorial immunity.
Ralph Petty worked as an assistant district attorney in Midland County, Texas, for 20 years. Like any prosecutor, he fervidly advocated for the government. But he wasn’t just any advocate, because he wasn’t just a prosecutor. Each night, Petty took off his proverbial DA hat and re-entered the courthouse as a law clerk for the same judges he was trying to convince to side with him by day.
“A married English teacher at Langham Creek High School was arrested after allegedly sleeping with a 15-year-old student.” Spoiler for those thinking of clicking through for the pic: She’s no prize.
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: Bold new architecture project becomes ugly and nonfunctional.
In Kurokawa’s original plan, the Nakagin capsules were meant to be replaced every twenty-five years with updated iterations. That didn’t happen, in part because of the funding that would have required. Each capsule would have cost, according to some estimates, almost nine million yen, or about seventy thousand dollars, to repair. A single capsule couldn’t be removed without removing all those above it, so all units would have to be vacated and updated at once. Over time, the building fell into disrepair. Concerns about asbestos made the towers’ ventilation system unusable, and residents complained about mold and incessant leaks during rainstorms. The owners’ association first voted to sell the building to a developer, in 2007, but the firm soon filed for bankruptcy, throwing the building’s fate into uncertainty. Kurokawa, who had pushed for renovations, died that same year. By 2010, the towers’ hot water had been shut off. The building had become more a work of art than the dynamic architecture that Kurokawa envisioned.
“New York Democrats Aim To Tax Ammo To Fund Anti-Gun Research….New York Senate Bill S8415, which would add an arbitrary 5-cent tax per round of ammunition larger than .22 Caliber. Rounds smaller than .22 Caliber would be subject to a 2-cent tax per round. According to the bill, the tax revenue would go to the state’s Gun Violence Research Fund.” That would be unconstitutional with a capital “un.”
Lake Mead hit by megadrought. “After nearly half a century, the first intake is out of service and can no longer draw water. Water levels at the lake hit record lows this week, falling to 1,056 feet. Luckily, SNWA has two other intakes at much lower levels that are still operational.”
It’s been almost a month since we did the last general Ukraine-Russo War update, so let’s catch up. The biggest change is that Russia has given up on trying to take Kiev and has withdrawn all their forces in the northwest:
And here’s a timelapse map of the ebb and flow of the war:
Keep in mind the usual caveats (the map is not the territory, the difficulty of sifting truth from propaganda, etc.), but it does appear that not much has changed in the overall contours of the war since Russia’s withdrawal from the northwest. But ISW is reporting that Russia has instituted combined arms offenses, something we didn’t see much of during the opening stages of the war, and have reported minor but steady advances by Russian forces.
Here’s a roundup of war news, some of it several weeks old but potentially still of interest.
Storage tanks at a major oil depot in the Russian city of Bryansk exploded early on Monday. Was Ukraine responsible?
Before you answer, consider first that this is only the latest disaster to afflict Russian critical infrastructure near the Ukrainian border. Another oil depot on Belgorod was targeted by a Ukrainian helicopter strike in early April. Prior to that, Russian railway lines near the border were sabotaged. A Russian missile research center and a chemical plant also recently suffered explosions.
These incidents all appear to fit well with Ukraine’s military strategy.
Bryansk, 62 miles from the Ukrainian border, is beyond the range of most drone systems in Ukraine’s possession. Unconfirmed video from the Bryansk incident indicates the sound of a missile in the terminal attack phase. Considering this noise and Bryansk’s relative distance from Ukraine, short-range ballistic missiles may have been responsible. Regardless, the explosion will disrupt energy replenishment efforts for Russian military forces in Ukraine.
The explosion also dilutes Putin’s credibility in claiming that his war on Ukraine is not a war, but rather a limited “special military operation.” When stuff keeps blowing up in Russian cities, it’s hard to convince the residents of said cities that Russia isn’t at war.
That takes us to Ukraine’s evolving military strategy. With Russia forced to scale back its goals in the conflict, Ukraine has escalated its offensive operations in what’s known as the “deep battlespace.” This involves targeting of Russian logistics and command and control units deeper behind the front lines. Employing Western-provided drones and highly mobile small units, Ukraine is degrading and demoralizing Russia’s war machine.
It’s not a wild leap to expect that Ukraine is now applying these same tactics over the border inside Russia. This is likely a result of British training of the Ukrainian military.
Don’t start none, won’t be none…
More structure hits inside Russia:
Another video of derailed train carrying Russian armor, allegedly just outside of Bryansk pic.twitter.com/D8Nb1mB5Vp
The slickly produced video opens with an unlikely scenario. The year is 2023. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is the president of Belarus. And Belarus has been invited to join the European Union.
“Fantasy? Not at all. The war Vladimir Putin started against Ukraine gives us a unique chance to change history,” the narrator says. “Russia is already losing. And without our bases, railways, and borders, Putin’s defeat will be significantly hastened.”
The video calls on Belarusians not only to demonstrate against the war, but also to deny Russia the assets they need to prosecute it from Belarusian territory. “Blockade the aggressor at bases and supply routes. Deny them food, fuel, and freedom of movement,” it says.
In fact, this is more than a call for action. It is actually describing something that is already happening. Since Putin’s Ukraine War began on February 24, at least 52 Belarusians including 30 railway workers have been arrested on charges of treason, terrorism and espionage for disrupting the movement of Russian troops and military hardware, according to the Belarusian human rights group Viasna.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s autocratic regime in Minsk is so concerned with what has become known as “The Rail War” that it has also declared the Telegram channel of the “Association of Railway Workers of Belarus” an extremist organization.
This railway rebellion is the most dramatic example of how Putin’s war against Ukraine is changing the political dynamic in Belarus. Lukashenka’s slavish submission to Putin, allowing the Kremlin leader to use his country as a staging ground for Russia’s assault on Ukraine, has unnerved and angered this nation of 9.4 million people.
The only thing being Mussolini to Putin’s Hitler is going to get you is being strung up by your heels.
The Ukrainian battlefield of Putin’s War is incredibly lethal. In the sixty days since Putin’s three-to-four day invasion of Ukraine started, Russia has had 1,700 vehicles or major pieces of equipment destroyed and another 1,200 captured. Tanks losses numbered 560 destroyed and 214 captured, while losses of infantry fighting vehicles/armored personnel carriers come to 930 destroyed and 330 captured. These are not estimates; these are floor numbers that have been counted and geocoded. By the same methodology, Ukraine has lost at least 200 tanks destroyed and 70 captured, along with 790 infantry fighting vehicles/armored personnel carriers destroyed and 90 captured. No one really knows how many vehicles have been lost to combat damage or wear-and-tear….
By way of scale, Russia entered the war with about 120 Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG)) representing approximately 75% of the Russian Army’s combat power as well as the cutting edge of that power. Keep in mind that this is not a Russian Army affair; there is Naval Infantry from as far away as Vladivostok as well as troops of the Rosgvardiya, or the National Guard of Russia….
The tank losses alone represent all the tanks in 70 BTGs.
This lethality is why the Ukrainian government has been screaming for more weapons from anyone who has them. Not just munitions, like Javelin or Starstreak, but tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery.
Snip.
As incredible as it may seem, Ukraine now outnumbers Russia in the number of tanks on the battlefield.
Thanks to European resupplies, Ukraine’s military now has more tanks on the battlefield than Russia does two months into the war, according to the Pentagon.
The delivery in recent weeks of Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Kyiv from the Czech Republic and other European Nato allies has effectively eroded Russia’s advantage, experts have claimed.
“Right now, the Ukrainians have more tanks in Ukraine than the Russians do, and they certainly have the purview to use them,” an unnamed senior US defence official told reporters on Thursday.
Ukraine’s armed forces have previously claimed Russia has lost more than 680 of its tanks, the majority of which were destroyed, while some changed hands after being found abandoned.
So that’s from the Pentagon. May be true, may not be true. It’s possible Russia has cannibalized other units or (some two months into the conflict) refurbished mothballed tanks.
Talk about timing! This piece, published April 10, argues that Ukrainian anti-ship missiles will make the Black Sea unsafe for Russian warships.
The way I see it (and I am in good company), the Russians will not only be lucky not to be routed from all their gains made since February 24, but are at serious risk of losing the Donbas—Luhansk and Donetsk—and Crimea, as well as having most of their current army destroyed. Talk of some sort of possible Grand New Russian Offensive in the east seem fantastical to me and others who put the big-picture together: with which troops, and of what quality (what elite unites haven’t sustained significant casualties?), and with what equipment? Will it be the remaining equipment that has already proven ineffective and easily destroyed especially by Ukraine’s western-supplied anti-tank and anti-air missiles? The units shattered and barely functional or not functional that managed to escape from Ukraine’s counteroffensives? Non-shattered but non-elite units that have also been deployed for months and are still exhausted? Conscripts almost finishing their terms? New conscripts who have never seen combat??
Yet as major Russian ground fronts have collapsed, attention is drawn away from an area where, with not much additional assistance from the West or perhaps even with aid already just now promised, Ukraine can easily achieve a resounding victory that would combine massive substantive defeats for the Russians with tremendous symbolism and loss of prestige for Russia in addition to greatly affecting the way ground combat plays out in the south and east.
I am talking about the near-annihilation of the Russian Navy presence in the Black Sea, including almost the entirety of the Black Sea Fleet.
Snip.
Russia has cannibalized its other three fleets (Northern Fleet, Baltic Fleet, and Pacific Fleet) and its one flotilla (the Caspian Flotilla) to reinforce the Black Sea Fleet and support its Ukraine effort, and, with Turkey closing the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits to the Mediterranean in early March to incoming military vessels under the 1936 Montreux Convention, that Caspian Flotilla is the only possible source of reinforcements to what is in the Black Sea, coming in though canal from the Caspian Sea, as other possible reinforcements coming in from the Mediterranean are now blocked.
As far as sizable surface ships in the Black Sea, by mid-March there were only twenty-one, according to a “senior defense official”: just twelve naval-combat-focused ships along with nine amphibious assault ships, accompanied by numerous far smaller patrol and support boats and, of course, submarines that are harder to track.
But that total was before the daring Ukrainian strike on the morning of March 24, which mysteriously destroyed a large Russian amphibious ship, the now sunk Alligator class Saratov,docked in the eastern Ukrainian Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk. Two other large amphibious ships, the Caesar Kunikov and Novocherkassk, were damaged and fled the port.
So scratch one, Russia is down now to just twenty major surface vessels.
That is not a large number.
I had finished a version of this section before yesterday’s information that the UK and U.S. would be sending anti-ship missiles to Ukraine. But, for now, keep that low number of major Russian surface ships in mind when considering following:
For starters, as my old War Is Boring editor David Axe notes in detail, Ukraine has been developing its own anti-ship cruise missile, the Neptune, since 2013. It began testing in 2018, and has since tested successfully repeatedly. The system has a range of 174-180 miles (280-300 km) and operates as a sea-skimmer, flying low and close to the water to make it almost undetectable until just before it hits its target. It was scheduled to be deployed this month with a full division of six launchers, seventy-two cruise missiles (more than three for each remaining major Russian surface vessel), and accompanying radar systems. But Russia’s seems to have derailed this timetable, and it is unclear when it will be able to safely deploy its system and have it and its crews be operational. Details are few and far between as Ukraine obviously would want to keep Russia guessing.
Secondly, this must have been part of the discussion over the past month between Ukraine and NATO nations, and taking into account the issues with the Neptunes, NATO has been working to arm Ukraine with anti-ship missiles for weeks. Reports from early April indicated United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been keen to arm Ukraine with anti-ship missiles, that these would most likely be truck-mounted versions of its U.S.-supplied Harpoon missiles, its version having a range of 80 miles (128 km) and also capable of hitting land targets (Ukraine has actually been asking for these for some time).
Snip.
Russian Naval forces are hardly concentrating along the Turkish coast of the southern Black Sea: they are mostly, perhaps virtually all, off the coast of Ukraine to varying degrees in the northern half of the Black Sea or Sea of Azov, trying to offer support and, presumably, debating whether or not to launch amphibious assaults, particularly on Ukraine’s main port in its West, Odesa (the fact that they have not yet shows how confident they are in such an assault’s chances of success; Putin may not care much about throwing his soldiers’ lives away recklessly, but his larger naval vessels are expensive and take time to construct)…
Ukraine would have excellent coverage with many of these systems. For most of these systems, many, perhaps even all, of Russia’s twenty remaining large warships in the region—including Russia’s most powerful naval ship, the Slava class cruiser Moskva—are well within striking range from Ukrainian-controlled territory. Even if Ukraine will receive only Harpoons, though they have much smaller range than the Neptunes, they should effectively prevent any Russian naval assaults if the Russians are smart (but they are not). After such Harpoons would arrive, they would still secure Ukrainian coastline and push Russian naval operating areas far from Ukrainian-controlled coastal territory (unless Russia is stupid and keeps its ships within range, inviting their destruction) all while, presumably, the Neptune rollout, training, and deployment finishes, possibly in just a few weeks if the invasion has not derailed Ukraine’s timetable.
At this crucial moment, when Russia is desperate to turn the tide in the face of its massive failures, the soon-to-arrive unspecified anti-ship missiles have effectively killed any realistic Russian hope of a successful naval assault on Odesa or elsewhere on the Crimea-to-Moldova (where Russia illegally has some military forces in another breakaway region, Transnistria) corridor. These missiles will either prevent any assault from happening or virtually doom any would-be assault. This new round of aid with these anti-ship missiles has, thus, basically closed the gap between the Russians collapsing on three fronts and the Neptunes’ presumed deployment.
If (and hopefully when) Neptunes can be eventually deployed, a large portion of the entire Black Sea, including both the west and east coasts of Russian-occupied Crimea—where many of Russia’s naval vessels are based and resupplied—as well as the Sea of Azov, would be vulnerable.
A Russian warship that was damaged by an explosion on Wednesday has sunk, Russia’s defence ministry has said.
Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, was being towed to port when “stormy seas” caused it to sink, according to a ministry message.
The 510-crew missile cruiser was a symbol of Russia’s military power, leading its naval assault on Ukraine.
Kyiv says its missiles hit the warship. The United States says it also believes it was hit by Ukrainian missiles.
Moscow has not reported any attack – it says the vessel sank after a fire.
The blaze caused the explosion of the warship’s ammunition, Russia says, adding that the entire crew were later evacuated to nearby Russian vessels in the Black Sea.
How bad is the truth when the lie is “No, we screwed up and sunk our own ship through gross incompetence!”
Ukraine not only shot down a Russian Su-35 fighter, they recovered the long-range targeting system and are turning it over to the U.S. for analysis. And the Chinese use the same system…
Thread: “Where is the Russian Army artillery ammunition they are fighting their “Donbas Set Piece Battle” with?”
Congress is asking the Pentagon whether the Defense Production Act, or DPA, should be invoked to ensure supplies of Javelin anti-tank missile systems, as well as Stinger surface-to-air missiles, continue to flow to Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have used both of these weapons to great effect in their ongoing defense against Russia’s onslaught. At the same time, questions are growing about the U.S. defense industry’s ability to meet increased demand for these missiles, not just from Ukraine, but in the event that the U.S. military needs to acquire more of them quickly during a major future conflict.
“To produce more of the Javelins, Stingers – all the stocks that we are using and diminishing and running low on and our allies, as well – shouldn’t we be applying the Defense Production Act?” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing today.
This is a stupid question. Production for high tech weapons is dependent on a wide variety of high tech components, any of which might be from outside the country, and which might or might not have considerable production lead times. If they used custom, MilSpec chips, the wait time right now is about 26 weeks on average, and the fab may or may not be based in the U.S. Optical components may also have long lead times.
Another day, another Russian general whacked. “The authorities confirmed the death of the deputy commander of the 8th Army, Major General Vladimir Petrovich Frolov. About it informs press office of the governor’s office.”
Russian troops demoralized?
BREAKING: Demoralised Russian soldiers in Ukraine have accidentally shot down their own aircraft, sabotaged their own kit and refused to carry out orders, Sir Jeremy Fleming, director of the UK spy agency @GCHQ, will reveal in a speech in Australia on Thursday. 1/
It seems these Russian soldiers truly thought that. This entire war is being fought on propaganda – for false pretenses. Its not only Putin who doesn’t know what’s going on. This mayor, Ivan Fedorov, said the soldiers were completely unprepared and clueless.
well we’re here to help the Russian speakers snd he said 95% of us speak Russian and we’re fine. They said they heard that the World War II veterans of the town had been beaten in the patriot day and he said au contraire they’re venerated and there’s not very many of them left.
Putin’s call for more troops has not had the desired effect so far of inspiring Russians to enlistment offices. It’s certainly not convincing veterans to return for more of the “special military operation” non-war that Putin’s not winning, even if he isn’t quite losing it yet:
Yelena’s son, Pavel, was serving in the Far Eastern Amur region when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Almost immediately, his unit was sent to the front, and he served almost 40 days in combat. Then his unit was sent back to Russia to regroup, Yelena told RFE/RL’s North.Realities. When his unit was preparing to return to Ukraine, Pavel refused.
“If he doesn’t want to go back, am I supposed to push him, to tell him, ‘Grab your weapon and go,’” Yelena said. “Those who haven’t been there have no right judge those who have.”
Yelena’s son is one of a significant but unknown number of Russian contract soldiers who have refused to either fight in Ukraine in the first place or who have fought and do not want to return.
Lawyer Pavel Chikov, founder of the Agora legal-aid NGO, has written on Telegram that more than 1,000 military personnel and National Guard troops from at least seven regions have refused to go to Ukraine.
Monday’s front pages are dominated by stories of alleged atrocities carried out by the Russian military on civilians in Ukraine.
Under the headline “Horror in Bucha”, the Guardian reports mass graves have been found in the town north-west of the capital Kyiv, as well as evidence of the killing of civilians in the nearby towns of Irpin and Hostomel.
The attacks have led Ukraine’s foreign minister to brand Russia being as being worse than infamous terrorist group Isis, the Metro reports.
The paper says the atrocities were “evidenced in pictures too horrific to print”, including the public execution of handcuffed people and civilians who had been driven over by tanks.
The Daily Mirror leads with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s accusations that the deaths amount to genocide and that the Russian military was attempting an “elimination of the people” of Ukraine.
The paper adds the executions apparently carried out by retreating troops led to 300 civilians being killed in Bucha alone.
The Times reports world leaders have demanded Russian President Vladimir Putin should face more stringent sanctions and be prosecuted for war crimes.
The paper says its reporters visited the sites of two “execution-style” massacres in Bucha, where Russian troops were also accused of rape and of booby-trapping dead bodies with explosives.
Some 280 dead bodies were found littering the streets of Bucha, near Kyiv, after the Russians left. Video is graphic, be aware. pic.twitter.com/DBP4lSaB9e
“Exiled oligarch calls on other Russian tycoons to break with Putin. Mikhail Khodorkovsky says they must denounce the invasion of Ukraine if they want to be above suspicion of collaborating with the Kremlin.” Good luck with that, but I wouldn’t bet the hastily privatized collective farm on it…
Especially when they turn up dead.
It is not the same report as days ago, Vladislav Avayev on 18th April https://t.co/xWqkRPuiVf
Well, I didn't see this coming: the vice-president of Gazprombank apparently left Russia, joined Ukraine's territorial defense forces, called the war an international crime and claimed that the recent death of former Gazprombank deputy president Vladislav Avayev was a murder. https://t.co/cdHDO30sQf
“Russia’s 331st Guards Parachute Regiment is considered ‘the best of the best’, but BBC Newsnight has been tracing the casualties as the unit battles through Ukraine.”
You know my summary above about how Russia has abandoned Ukraine’s northeast? Well, they reportedly plastered Sumy with an artillery barrage today, so take all generalities with a grain of salt.
I totally want these:
Mriyas and Javelins: new Ukrainian toys. I bought a Mriya for my kid, because every child needs to have a Dream pic.twitter.com/h4hkfMVaEp
There more you start poking around online, the more you turn up reasons why China is screwed.
The first installment in this series was popular. Well, there’s a lot more reasons why China is screwed.
It’s screwed all the way down.
First up: Demographics:
Takeaways:
Remember all that talk of an “Asian Century?” Yeah, not so much.
“China will soon run out of people.”
China’s population pyramid is about to shift from a huge bulge of people in their prime earning years to one where that bulge is disproportionately elderly.
“Everything that made China what it is today has relied on a large, young, and productive workforce. Now, that workforce is about to succumb to biology just as every other generation has in every other country, ever.” Their demographic dividend is running out.
“China’s working-age cohort grew from 58% of the country in 1978 to 74% in 2010. But in less than twenty years, the UN predicts that number will be roughly back where it was in ‘78. By then, China will have twice as many seniors as children under 15.”
“Per capita wealth remains low, on the level of Mexico, the Maldives, and Kazakhstan. That means this mass of retirees won’t just contribute less to the economy, but will also require immense financial support — the kind China’s fractured pension and healthcare system isn’t remotely prepared for.”
“Unfortunately for China, the One-Child Policy has set the cultural expectation firmly at one.”
Replacement fertility: 2.1 children per woman. China’s official fertility rate: 1.6. “Yi Fuxian, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison [estimates] the true number at 1.18.”
“China’s preference for male babies means that between 2020 and 2060, there will be roughly 3 single men for every 2 single women.”
“China’s 2020 Census, [tallied] 14.65 million births the previous year — the lowest level since 1961.”
Japan, which is also aging, provides a best case scenario. “With a median age of 48.6, Japan is the 2nd oldest place on earth. Today, its share of the world’s manufacturing exports has fallen from 12.5% to just 5.2. Japan did not fade into global irrelevance. It’s still a great power. But it never fulfilled what once seemed certain: its rise to rival the U.S. as a superpower. And it never will.”
That’s part 1. Part 2 focuses on China’s out of control property market:
It starts off talking about the ghost cities, especially Ordos.
“Ordos does have an interesting story to tell. Just, not the one you might expect. The missing context, at the time, was far stranger than what the unimaginative pessimists concocted: Nearly all of these half-finished homes have owners — the vast majority of which have no intention of ever moving in.”
“All over China are millions of empty, some unfinished, but almost universally sold homes — not just in far-flung corners but also in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Over one-fifth of all urban homes — 65 million in all — sit vacant.”
China relied on “a surplus of cheap labor, which means, by definition, wages are low. You can only compete with the entire rest of the world for so long — and neither do you want to. Low-value manufacturing has long since moved South, to places like Vietnam, Laos, and Bangladesh.”
All the long-hanging fruits of infrastructure spending have already been built.
“Individually, Chinese consumers really don’t spend very much — just 32% of GDP — less than half that of the US, and far below countries like Japan and Germany. Worse, this number has actually been decreasing over time.”
“Chinese consumers are spending, but only on one thing, something not considered ‘consumption’: houses!”
China’s home ownership rate “is among the highest in the world — 90% — to much of the developed world’s mid-60s. It gets much weirder, still. If you can believe it, the majority of recent purchases have been 2nd and 3rd homes. In 2018, for instance, 87% of new home buyers already owned at least one.”
“Because the government tightly controls how much cash is allowed to leave the country, Chinese people simply don’t have a lot of options, and of them, housing is seen as the only sure thing.”
Also, given the sex imbalance mentioned above, for men, home ownership = marriage.
“For all of these reasons, prices have risen to extreme levels. In Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai, it takes 40 years of the average income to afford a home.”
Most are bought before construction even begins.
And here’s where the demographics above provide a double whammy. “The majority of homebuyers, meanwhile, are aged between 20-50 — precisely the segment China will soon lose.”
One huge reason for the bubble: Local governments using their control of land to balance their budgets:
They created what are basically state-owned shell companies called “Local Government Financing Vehicles”. They gave these LGFVs free valuable land, which they then used to take out loans that local governments themselves couldn’t. The trick is that because their debt is hidden, local governments appear far healthier than they really are, while at the same time, meeting the quotas set by Beijing. Following the 2008 crisis, LGFVs transformed from a little quirk of its financial system to the backbone of local economies. If these ‘financing vehicles’ default on their loans, or if housing prices fall too steeply, local governments now have just as much to lose as homeowners. If a local government stops taking out loans, it instantly loses over a third of its revenue, causing a different kind of doomsday. So while the central government may direct local officials to control their debt, the best they can really do is feign cooperation.
Flu Manchu only temporarily halted home price rises, and they’re still soaring.
“Solutions are far too costly to assume their implementation.”
There are a lot more videos of China suckage, but I’ll have to split this up and get to those another time.
Here are two videos where Peter Zeihan argues that China is screwed for many reasons, not least of which is demographics.
Takeaways:
One child per couple means that China is “the fastest aging society in human history, with the largest sex imbalance in human history.”
“They’ve run out of people of childbearing age.”
They were going shrink in half by 2100. “Then they realized that they had been overcounting people for some time.” Then new data moved the date moved up to 2070. And now they’re saying it will be 2050. “For that to be true, the Chinese would have overcounted the population by 100 million.” And all of those missing people are of childbearing age.
Their population actually peaked 15 years ago.
“We’ve seen a 12-fold increase in Chinese labor costs since 1991.”
“China isn’t getting rich, it’s getting old.” They’re facing demographic collapse within a decade.
Xi’s instituted a cult of personality, and silenced anyone capable of independent thought. “He knows that the country’s current economic model has failed. And he knows he can’t guarantee economic growth, and he knows he can’t keep the lights on, and he knows he can’t win a war with the Americans.”
Xi’s solution? “Naked, blatant, ultra nationalism. Ethnocentric ultranationalism of the Nazi style.”
At the top, they don’t care about keeping the lights on. “A third of the country is facing power rationing.”
“These are the sorts of things that you do if you know that the bottom’s falling out and there’s nothing you can do about it, and you have to shift the conversation to remain in power.”
“In China, money is a political good. It exists to serve the needs of the CCP.”
“All of the economic growth we have seen in China since 2006 is because of debt.”
Corporate debt is 350% of GDP, “making China the most indebted country in human history in both absolute and relative terms.” Every country that’s come within half of this has collapsed under the debt load.
I’m omitting discussion of how China is screwed on semiconductors (covered enough here), and also the possibility of invading Taiwan (this video was released late last year, before Russia invaded Ukraine).
“The Biden administration in bits and pieces is redefining strategic ambiguity, and it’s not clear to me what the endgame is here.” Well, there’s a whole lot that isn’t clear about the Biden Administration…
Zeihan thinks Biden might recognize Taiwan for a foreign policy win. Zeihan also thinks that both China and Russia are so weak we can wait them out. (Remember: Pre-Ukraine invasion.)
Zeihan dismissive of both Obama and Trump foreign policy.
“Joe Biden has been on the wrong side and the right side of every foreign policy decision the U.S. has made in the last 45 years, because he doesn’t have any core beliefs he tacks with the wind.”
Now let’s forward to March 24, where Russia’s colossal failure in Ukraine has actually made China even more screwed.
Takeaways:
The biggest damage that we are seeing from the Ukraine war (outside of Ukraine, obviously) is in China. Because in one month the Russians have pulled back the blinders on what has been a 50-year strategic program, the idea that China can come to global power with American sponsorship, with American indifference, that it can take Taiwan, that it can intimidate Japan, that they can dominate all of east Asia and yet not suffer economically at all. It was always ridiculous, but now it’s been shown to just be absolutely stupid.
No one can escape the power of global markets because of trade.
“The yuan is only traded internally because it’s the most manipulated currency in history. The euro confiscates bank deposits to pay for bailouts.”
Russia is the world’s second largest oil exporter, and it can’t export more to China because the pipes that go east don’t interconnect with the ones that go west. “The rail lines are already beyond capacity.”
In the west: “One way or another, those pipes aren’t surviving this year.” (Not sure that’s correct, but I’ve long thought that we should be seeing more structure hits inside Russia than we’ve seen thus far.)
“The stuff that goes to the Black Sea is in a war zone, so insurance companies will not give the indemnification that is necessary for vessels to operate in that area. So the only way a ship can go and dock it overseas right now is if a country gives its sovereign indemnification and takes all the risk.”
Primorsk, on the Baltic, is open. However: “Ship captains for the most part are refusing to go, and European dock workers are refusing to unload the cargo when it arrives. So that is still in use but not nearly as much, maybe a quarter of what it used to be before the war started.”
To get more oil to China: “You would have to build a fundamentally new infrastructure from the fields in northwest Siberia to Chinese population centers that is greater than the distance from Miami to Anchorage, most of which is through virgin territory that is very rugged. That’s a 10-year program minimum even with the Chinese building it.”
“We’re looking at the single largest removal of crude from the market ever, and in proportional terms it’s going to have a shock somewhat similar to World War II.”
We have insurance companies not doing it, shipping companies not doing it, dock workers not doing it and now Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Schlumberger have pulled out, and they do the technical work that makes a lot of this possible. All the super majors are gone, and we even have a couple of major projects out in Sakhalin that are probably just going to die because the Russians can’t make those projects work by themselves. Most of the oil and gas out of that goes to China, so we’re actually looking at an environment where the Chinese see reduced flows rather than increased, as Russia is just melon-scooped out of the market.
When the Russians fell under sanctions, everything that the Chinese thought was true about their future was laid bare as, at best, wishful thinking and bad analysis. So they are now looking east to the United States and west to the Russians in a little bit of a panic, because they are being tied indirectly to what’s going on in Ukraine. And they have now found out not only does the west’s and specifically the United States’ financial tools work very well, they now know they would work much better against China than against Russia, because at its core Russia is a commodities exporter, most notably oil, natural gas and food. China imports all those things, so if an equivalent sanctions regime was done against the Chinese, you’d have 500 million dead Chinese in less than a year from starvation.
Here I think he overstates the case, as there are a lot of emergency avenues a communist government could pursue to stave off starvation. Like invading Mongolia and turning it into emergency farmland. Which is not to so they wouldn’t have some starvation, especially in worse-case scenarios…
“The Chinese have always seen themselves as anti-American [well, the commies, anyway -LP], they’ve always seen themselves as anti-Western, anti-democracy and now they’re realizing that the mood of the man in the White House determines whether their country exists.”
As tight as the sanctions are, as big as they’re getting, they’re nothing compared to the corporate boycotts. Almost every single company that left Russia was under no legal requirement to do so, they just didn’t want to be associated with the war. And we’re talking about those ESG, social goody two-shoes mammoth companies like Exxon and Halliburton, who are now gone, and everyone else followed. So if that happened to China, you know that’s all of their investment that matters. That’s all of their technology transfers, that’s all of their end markets. This system, if it turned against China, would be far more damning than anything we’ve seen out of Russia so far.
I think Zeihan overstates the case a bit, and probably immanizes the timeline of crisis more than warranted, but the demographic and economic challenges China faces are very real.
Also keep in mind that no one in 1988 expected the Soviet Union to collapse as quickly as it did, either…
(@NoYardstick)