How China's Military Views the United States

China desperately wants to have control over the diaries of Chairman Mao's secretary, who died in 2019 (at age 101), so they can edit the history of China properly and not have any embarrassing facts revealed. One small problem, though. The secretary's daughter, under his direction, donated them to Stanford University (he was concerned that his diaries would be burned). His widow, almost certainly acting as a front for the current government, is asking for them to be returned.

Diaries of Mao's secretary at the center of a legal battle over the history of modern China

 

China has a limited amount of time (a decade or two, maybe less) to invade or attack whichever country they want something from. As the population ages and women refuse to have children, the numbers of men in their 20's will reduce. And that is the age group you want for an invasion or attack force, trained and led by people in their 30's and 40's and 50's. And if China wants their economic "miracle" to have any chance of continuing, they will need a fair number of younger men to work in industry as well as agriculture.

 

Most countries have short memories. The ones with investments or personal ties to Taiwan will stop doing business with China for a while, until they see other countries with minimal ties to Taiwan continue to do business with China and they realize that having a short memory improves their economy. Money talks . . .

 

Population will not be a determining factor in any of the wars that China is contemplating off their east coast (it would be if they ever thought about fighting India). But the economic implications of the war would certainly have to be considered.

They will struggle to fill all the factory jobs in 20-40 years, and that will be a problem. Sending a large group of young people to war might take bodies out of the factories (especially if the war drags out longer than expected), which will take money out of the national coffers, which they will need to pay for an expensive war. I don't know that any of the countries that China is thinking of attacking, outside of Taiwan and their semi-conductor industry, will compensate China for the costs of the invasion. China might still do it for "national pride" and to settle some old scores.

 

So, to sum up the idiocy: the U.S. should be wary of entering into a canal-digging competition with China, newer subway stations look better than older ones, and China knows more about taking care of Pandas than people in Memphis, TN. Only a moron would conclude from these three posts that China was in some way better than the U.S.

By the way, here is an updated version of the subway station photo. Looks pretty good for something that is 106 years old. Why don't you get back to us when your Chinese subway station is 106 and show us what it looks like.

 

A good article on the balance of power between the U.S. and China. Long story short, China peaked after the first year of Covid, and has been heading downhill ever since. Chairman Xi deluded himself into thinking that China's rise would automatically continue, and that was not the case. Between Covid and their property crisis, the Chinese economy was hit hard. Xi added to the misfortune by suggesting that China might invade Taiwan in the near future, causing China's wealthiest customers to de-couple their economies from China. And China keeps reminding the world of that threat every time they use their military to intimidate one of their regional neighbors, like the Philippines.

Tipped Power Balance: China’s Peak and the U.S. Resilience

 

China's submarines are not a nice place to be in peacetime, much less war. The Chinese refer to the subs as dragon palaces, because of a legend of a dragon that lives at the bottom of the sea. What's wrong with the subs? Basically, everything. Air quality is poor, the sub is very noisy, low quality lighting, high vibrations, tasteless food, poor medical care available, etc. Sailors can't sleep and often develop mouth ulcers and back pain as they slowly go blind and deaf. Basically, they probably have conditions approaching WWI submarines (or earlier) for quality of life on board. It's no wonder that only the worst military school students are chosen as officers for submarine duty, and they are frequently diagnosed as mentally unstable.

Looks like they did not steal the entire design package for western submarines.

A rare look at the lousy life aboard China's 'Dragon Palace' submarines

 

Oil prices are down because of China's weakening economy. No one is constructing buildings in China. Few people are taking vacations.

Oil prices face pressure from slow China demand and inventory rise - Reuters poll

 

China's latest computer chip manufacturer goes belly up. Not a very large company (400 employees), but unusual in that the Chinese government was not able or willing to continue funding it, even though China is trying to expand its chip manufacturing capabilities.

Chinese chip start-up Xiangdixian collapses amid cash crunch and legal woes

 

IBM bails out of China, citing poor economic conditions, leaving 1,000 unemployed.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/27/business/china-ibm-layoffs-us-tensions-intl-hnk/index.html

 

Taiwan's president says that if China wants to take back Taiwan, it should first take back the land it signed over to Russia in 1858.

If China wants Taiwan it should also take back land from Russia, president says