How China's Military Views the United States

China develops a new technology for making advanced microchips. This will take some of the teeth out of western sanctions. The only other country that uses this exact technology is Dutch company ASML. One wonders if China came by this technology through hard work and research, or industrial espionage.

China cracks advanced microchip technology in blow to Western sanctions

 

The Zero Covid policy was more extreme than reckless. Overly cautious, if anything.

Opening up was foolish, only because they were trusting Chinese vaccines that didn't work very well. They refused to import western vaccines that did work well.

 

If panic arose in Covid, then there was a Covid. Covid certainly goes a long way towards explaining all the deaths around the world. In some places like Italy during the original outbreaks, 10% of the people who caught Covid died from it. If that shouldn't cause panic, it should certainly cause severe concern and heightened awareness of the problem. When is the last time a western country's population saw a highly contagious illness with 10% or greater fatality rate? The 1300's? A 10% fatality rate is getting uncomfortably close to a game a comrade might be familiar with, Russian Roulette.

 

An interesting article that claims that historically, the side with the most ships (almost always) wins. I don't know if I agree with that assessment, especially as it applies to modern times (and technology). Two things that China may not have an answer for: U.S. submarines, and aircraft carriers that can send up dozens of stealth aircraft carrying thousands of pounds of missiles or bombs where each plane might be able to disable or sink multiple ships, if it gets through the Chinese defenses.

And the Chinese advantage in total number of ships is not that great (15-20%). The article states that the U.S. did not have the technology that Japan had at the start of WWII, and only defeated Japan by producing more ships (especially aircraft carriers) in 1943 and 1944. A bit simplistic of an analysis. The U.S. had broken the Japanese codes early in the war, and Japan had no idea. This gave the U.S. a decisive advantage at Midway. The U.S. also had better battle strategy, as Japanese battle plans were overly complex. And the U.S. advantage in shipbuilding, demonstrated in 1943 and '44, was not 15-20% greater than Japan's--it was massive. The U.S. had two aircraft carriers for the Battle of Coral Sea (170 planes), and 35 carriers (1700 planes) for Leyte Gulf. The author admits as much when he says that Japan built 18 carrier-equivalents to the U.S.'s 144 during the war. But the war was already on its way to being won by the U.S. before the additional carriers arrived on the scene: Japan could not replace lost pilots and maintenance crews to keep up their ability to fight effectively (hence, the Marianna Turkey Shoot).

The U.S. could lose to China in a sea battle, especially if it occurred close enough to the mainland to engage China's land-based missile batteries, but it would otherwise be unlikely.

Expert's warning to US Navy on China: Bigger fleet almost always wins | CNN

The U.S. Navy will probably quote this article repeatedly to ask for more money to build more ships, but I don't think it reflects the modern reality.

 

Bill Gates has decided that a stronger China is good for the world. I'm not sure how he can claim that with a clear conscience, and I do not know if he is really that ignorant. He wants to see China have more of a say in how the world is governed. How can you trust a country that (my top-10 list):

1) Believes in traditional Chinese medicine, which requires large numbers of African and Asian animals to be killed (to the brink of extinction) for imaginary medical benefits. This includes killing of sharks by fishing for them, cutting off their dorsal fin (for expensive shark-fin soup), and dumping the shark overboard to die. The rest of the shark is worth nowhere near as much as the dorsal fin, and takes up too much space on the boat.

2) Makes territorial claims on property owned by its neighbors, and threatens to use force to enforce those claims or take neighboring countries for their own.

3) Has the world's largest ocean-going fishing fleet, and violates all manner of international laws to overfish oceans around the world, and uses military-type ships to prevent other countries from fishing in their own waters while their ships are fishing there. In their eyes, if they can access a fishing area, all of the fish in that area belong to them.

4) Sends so much pollution into the air that they pollute the west coast of the U.S.

5) Contributes to global warming by burning more coal than any other nation.

6) Steals technology at an incredible rate from other countries through state-sponsored cultural programs, and refuses to respect I.P. rights of companies from other nations.

7) Violates human rights of people routinely, including the Uighurs in western China. They also operate police stations inside of other countries to threaten and intimidate Chinese citizens abroad. The Chinese government has shown no understanding of "rule of law".

8) Spends huge amounts of money building a modern and dangerous military, even though no country is threatening to invade them. Then they use their military to intimidate neighboring countries to get what they want.

9) They illegally converted a barrier reef into an island, and then converted the island into a military base. Both actions are clearly defined as illegal by international law.

10) Uses corruption (bribery) to persuade third world countries to go into debt in exchange for a public works project like a railway or city center.

I like the Chinese people as much as anyone, and I'm glad they are no longer starving or having their landowners and professors routinely killed, but that does not mean they should get a free pass on all of the atrocities their government commits or their bad practices. And they certainly should not be encouraged to be more "successful", if that means expanding these bad practices.

Bill Gates says the rise of China is good for everyone and that Beijing needs to ‘play a stronger role in world governance’ (yahoo.com)

China needs to be able to think beyond their own benefit before they can be trusted with global governance. And they need to prove that they can follow rules before they start creating the rules. Gates philosophy is akin to promoting a criminal into the position of police chief, just because the person is a really successful criminal. I would rather turn over world governance to New Zealand and Canada. I get it that it feels more democratic to give the countries with the world's largest populations a bigger voice in how the world is governed, but that it only true if they can be trusted to make decisions that benefit the whole world and play by the rules.

Maybe Gates needs to use some of his money to improve his own country and make America politically stronger.

 

It is interesting that the reason given for China's continued interest in Taiwan is so the Chinese government is not a victim of its own propaganda campaign. They have so worked up the nationalism in the Chinese people that losing Taiwan completely at this stage would de-legitimize China's government and might cause it to collapse.

 

China continues its role as a world leader.

China continues to lead world in counterfeit and pirated products: USTR report (yahoo.com)

 

China decides it needs a corn mill only 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, home to U.S. intel, surveillance, and drone technology units. They claim it is not for spying. The Chinese typically do not eat corn or corn meal products. I am speculating that they will use binoculars, listening devices, and drones to improve their corn meal.

Chinese corn mill in North Dakota deemed ‘significant threat’ by US Air Force (yahoo.com)