The American diplomat is right.. China cheats, so diplomacy is just a facade to them anyway... it's a game to be mastered and won.
When it hits a decline for 5 years in a row then we're on to something, but 5 months is NOTHING but a hiccup.
It's a fairly severe hiccup when you are a manufacturing economy, and you just emerged out of severe Covid restrictions to a terrible economy highlighted by poor performance in manufacturing and a nearly collapsed real estate sector. Especially when your wealthiest customers no longer trust your motives.
The factory shut downs were more a result of foreign nations NOT buying their goods than the "risk" of getting that flu... They had NO choice but to temporarily shunt some factories and sectors.
China also overreacted during the pandemic and shut down a large percentage of businesses that had employees working together, as they were walling off towns and locking down everything. The main problem occurred after Russia invaded Ukraine, and Europe and the U.S. realized that China is likely planning on invading Taiwan, and they decided to "decouple" their economies from China.
I think the distrust with the lack of disclosure early on covid ran deep to go along with the supply interruption and Taiwan.
Millions of Americans have been targeted by Chinese-sponsored hacking groups. They are mostly public officials and people critical of China's policies, so China may be fishing for information that can be used to blackmail or silence them. Millions of Americans caught up in Chinese hacking plot - US (yahoo.com) Luckily, I am pro-China.
I tend to think that the Covid disclosure issue gave China some bad press as well as some enmity from American consumers, but that only caused a small disruption in sales for China (compared to their manufacturing difficulties during Covid). I'm sure that U.S. importers continued to try to import from China. Memory (or clearer understanding) of the Covid issue may have contributed to the reaction in 2022 when Russia invaded and China supported Russia and continued to insist on their "right" to take Taiwan by force.
China's long-term economic prospects are described as being between "mediocre" and "grimly dispiriting" by the British. For some reason, the Brits were unhappy with the Chinese government hackers going after their politicians. Another detail: China's population is expected to be cut in half by the year 2100. Their retiree population is expected to increase by a factor of six or so. Yikes. They might be a charity case by the end of the century. Too late, China wakes up to the threat from within
China gets screwed on a port they built in Peru. The Peruvians have decided that China's Cosco does not get exclusive rights to the shipping container port. China invested $1.3 billion on building the port. Chinese Port in Peru Faces Surprise Challenge to Business Model
I suspect the Pentagon knows that transgressing China’s near seas would be a death trap … Former US submarine captain sounds alarm over China's deep sea miners
What do you consider near sea and why would it be a death trap? The article discusses mapping the bottom which could be pertinent but usually isn't for submarines. Also discusses temp and salinity profiles which are important, but change constantly (you map those at the start of prosecution).
China’s backyard, AKA: anywhere in the region where the US Navy might approach were China to invade Taiwan. In any case, top brass appear to alarmed and hopefully they’re the saner heads in Washington.
Still not sure where the death trap comes in to play. Not mentioned in the article you posted or the brief video in the article. Maybe it is in the book? He isn't the top brass, he is a former sub CO, no longer active duty. Sharp guy no doubt, but he isn't the top brass in washington although his work is probably read by some, especially his articles in Proceedings. From the article, seems like the issue is the US opposition to the Law of the Sea treaty. Not sure why we are one of the few countries that haven't ratified it, seems like some Republican senators are the hold up. Again, I don't know a lot about the treaty.
The U.S. has sent an aircraft carrier group through the Taiwan Strait before, and nothing bad happened. Is that near enough? Or does the carrier have to run aground on Chinese soil to be considered "near"? Third Taiwan Strait Crisis - Wikipedia The Death Trap would be opened if China fired upon the U.S. ships, and China would quickly find itself in the trap.
China has built a mockup of a key section of Taipei at a desert training site to prepare for the invasion. Might be interesting to know if Taiwan has built a mockup of the same area to prepare to defend it. China built a mock-up of key area in Taiwan's capital city at a desert training site, satellite images show
China has a migrant worker problem. These workers that have helped build China by traveling wherever they were needed to work are not allowed to have a retirement. China does not have enough money to fund their retirement. They do have enough money to increase military spending by 7%, but not to pay for migrant worker retirement. Migrant workers who helped build modern China have scant or no pensions, and can't retire
