How China's Military Views the United States

Also, an American working in China (for a Chinese company) typically does not get as much salary as they would make in the U.S. Except for teaching English, handling international law, and maybe doing some specialty engineering work, they don't need Americans. Their university system cranks out tons of capable workers, although I would argue that their engineering graduates often don't know what they are doing compared to ours (specifically, they don't know what they don't know, and that makes them potentially dangerous--our graduates figure pretty quickly from more experienced engineers that they don't know everything). Also, their brightest people do not go into engineering, medicine, or law; they go into finance to work for the government and decide which projects get funded and which ones don't. Becoming an engineer is a fallback plan.

 

China's green energy movement is actually hurting both Russia and Saudi Arabia. China is in a much more serious position than most of the rest of the world with regard to global warming. Most of its fresh water comes from snowmelt from the Himalayas, and that is slowly going away. In a couple more decades, the Himalayas are expected to lose their glaciers and their snow cover during the late summer/early fall. And the three major rivers (Yellow River, Yang-tze River, and Mekong River) that supply China with potable water will start to dry up. (They already basically emptied the aquifer outside of Beijing, which was the world's largest.) They also have a very limited production of oil from inside the country (in Gansu province). So China has been all-in producing and buying electric vehicles, which means lower imports of oil from Saudi and Russia.

China's green leap forward is a nightmare for Saudi Arabia and Russia

 

French President Macron kowtows to Beijing.

Macron has humiliated himself – and the EU

 

Somebody's photo-shopping skills are getting worse since Russia started losing the war in Ukraine.

 

Taiwan is getting serious about whipping China. They even have a uniform patch showing Winnie the Pooh getting his face punched in. (Taiwanese think that Chairman Xi looks like Winnie the Pooh. China's 2 million internet monitors are carefully removing any such imagery from Chinese websites.)

Photo catches Taiwan pilot with a patch of Winnie the Pooh getting punched in the face — a jab at China's Xi as Beijing ups the pressure

 

Macron seems to not only have taken a pro-Beijing stance, but an anti-American stance in China as well. He wants the EU to be a "third pole" in world affairs alongside China and the U.S. Whatever happened to standing up for freedom and democracy? Shouldn't he also be kissing up to Putin at this point? Should France set up concentration camps for the Uighyurs to help out their new friends? Maybe the French could occupy parts of Taiwan during the Chinese invasion and help out with executions or something.

Responsible members of the EU should spend more time persuading China to respect international law and human rights. They should find common ground with the U.S. to pursue these objectives, not get insanely jealous for being out of the spotlight and start cozying up to dangerous dictators to grab headlines. Macron needs to grow up.

Macron comments leave senior Taiwanese official 'puzzled'

 

The rest of Europe did not take kindly to Macron's commentary. Poland pointedly said, "We need more America in Europe", not less.

Analysis-Macron's aim of EU unity on China undone by trip fallout

Ouch. The truth hurts on that one. It's going to take more than a little beignets, croissants, and fine champagne to recover from that. Sacrebleu! Mon dieu!

In other words, get your own house in order before you go spouting off as an expert on how to do things and trying to run the show. (Isn't France the country that can't keep its historic cathedrals from burning down? Maybe Macron ze Clown should limit his speeches to the French way to preserve historic architecture.)

 

You sound like you've never been to China, or out of your basement, for that matter.

 

China benefited from a little espionage in building its first commercial jet. It also sourced 60% of its parts from U.S. firms. It will be a long path to success, however. After the first prototype of the C919 was built in 2015, only one plane was delivered to an airline between 2016 and now. It is half the price of the 737 and the equivalent Airbus, but does not travel as far.

How China Built a Domestic Airliner With Potentially Stolen American Expertise

 

Encircling Taiwan and winning a war with Taiwan are two different things. It is possible that China's ships would just be a shooting gallery for Taiwanese missiles if war broke out.

The U.S. doesn't recognize China's unlawful claims on the South China Sea, and sends in warships routinely to establish right of passage through the areas. Wouldn't surprise me if the U.S. flew warplanes over Taiwan in defiance of China's silly and pointless (and possibly illegal) exercise.

 

Macron's kowtowing to China may be due to economic reasons. France's economy is largely dependent on luxury consumer goods sold to China: France is described as a "fashion house with a country attached". If China stops buying France's luxury goods, the French economy collapses. And Chinese consumers can be very fickle.

The ‘dirty secret’ behind Macron’s kowtowing to China

One such company (LVMH) is worth about 20% of France's stock market.

 

China recovers from severe Covid outbreaks in December and January and gets its factories up to full production just in time for . . . a likely global recession. China's economy continues to take a beating. It looks like Xi mishandled the Covid situation there in every possible way that happened to damage the economy.

China's exports rise unexpectedly, but economists warn of weakness ahead

Who are they selling electric vehicles to? The U.S. does not import any vehicles from China that I know of. I can't imagine western Europe being all that excited about Chinese cars, either.