How China's Military Views the United States

China has a new policy with regard to nuclear weapons. Their policy prior to Chairman Xi becoming a belligerent dictator was to have enough nuclear weapons so that a moderate number of them would survive an initial strike from a foreign country and be used to wipe out 4-5 of that country's largest cities. The new philosophy is to have enough nuclear missiles to "launch on warning" so that they would launch before confirming that there are actually inbound nuclear missiles. The U.S. and Russia have this philosophy. It has a much higher level of risk of catastrophe and leaves a much smaller margin for error.

China is accelerating its production of nuclear weapons and missiles to carry them. They had 200 a couple years ago, reached 400 in 2022, and they are aiming for 1,500 in 2030.

The world just got a lot more dangerous.

 

Don't be absurd. A much more accurate statement would be that countries that would like to take things from other countries by force are tired of being restricted in their actions by the United States, with China and Russia being two of the most guilty parties. I am fairly certain that virtually every country in Europe is glad that the U.S. exists and has bases in positions to protect them (from Russia). And most countries in Asia are glad that the U.S. protects shipping lanes and international standards that China and pirate groups would like to violate. Most countries in the middle east are glad that the U.S. has been willing to support peace and stability in the region. No country is going to agree with every single decision or action of the U.S., but they agree with most of them, and certainly the important ones. In the absence of the U.S., China and Russia would be picking their teeth or wiping their ass with all of the other countries of the world right now.

 

China's computer chip shortage is approaching desperation levels. They consume over 75% of the world's chips, but produce about 15%. A woman was caught smuggling chips into China in a fake baby bump.

China’s chip shortage is so bad a woman was just caught smuggling semiconductors inside a fake baby bump

 

The U.S. will not be sending computer chips produced here to China. We don't currently make much in the way of computer chips, although we will be ramping up production in the next few years. China has the technology to manufacture 20% of the chips they need (15/75% of the world's total). So they have the option, if they can figure out how to make the machinery, to expand their own production. We aren't preventing them from accessing or producing computer chips entirely. We just aren't going to make it easy for them, and we are going to try to limit their access to technology for producing high-tech computer chips.

I don't know how well the embargo will work, once multiple U.S. manufacturers start producing chips and sending them internationally. Someone will smuggle them into China.

The difference in the two cases is that Japan was not a major supplier of anything the U.S. (or Europe) needed before WWII, except for maybe silk, which was rapidly being replaced by nylon in some applications. This is more of a case of a Chinese customer restricting their access to technology that they have put to military use as a potential hostile actor on the global stage. With Japan, we restricted their access to a key raw material to their industrial production that Japan had no ability to produce internally. And, of course, we started the oil embargo AFTER Japan had already invaded China and Indochina, so it's not like Japan was peaceful at the time.

I would also argue that China pursuing a monopoly on rare earth metals was detrimental to global cooperation and fair competition in the battery / solar panel industries. The U.S. didn't go to war over that.

 

China continues to refuse to accept western vaccines, as Xi appears to view the successful vaccines as a threat to his dictatorship. Surprising at this stage of the pandemic that he is unable to recognize the obvious benefit of bringing in western vaccines, and would put national pride (in failed Chinese vaccines) above the lives of the citizens of China. He is doubling down on stupidity to push a false narrative, rather than participate in the international community like virtually every other nation has.

China's Xi unwilling to accept vaccines despite threat from protests, U.S. official says