How China's Military Views the United States

Tik-Tok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance have been up to some bad things, besides the non-stop idiotic challenges they promote. Due to privacy laws, they are not supposed to share or broadcast data they collect on the platform. However, the Communist Party of China wants access to that data, so they maintained a backdoor channel to the data. Other issues include stealing copyrighted data (who saw that from a Chinese outfit?), programming fake users to help squeeze more money out of investors, and creating software that removed videos from competitors' websites.

Fired ByteDance Exec Says China Exerted ‘Supreme’ Data Control (yahoo.com)

 

Does I-4 have a lot of traffic? Do airports have a lot of people going through them? Do a lot of people use the N.Y. subway system?

Do a lot of people use high-speed rail? Not on most routes. The trains on many, if not most, HSR routes run 50-80% empty. I have taken the HSR in Taiwan, which is a crowded island with large population centers (1-4 million people per city), and it was typically 80% empty (one time it was only 60% empty). I have seen HSR trains in Germany, some with 3-5 passengers per car. Was that money well-spent? Of course not.

Profit by itself is not the key to an infrastructure investment decision. You have to compare an investment to the alternatives, and do so wisely. Every single HSR project ever proposed in the U.S. has wildly over-inflated ridership estimates to try to get the project approved.

Infrastructure investment is only worthwhile if people actually use it. Otherwise, it's a big, shiny boondoggle.

I actually do support high-speed rail in the U.S., just not everywhere. You need a string of large cities that aren't too far apart in a nearly straight line through relatively level ground. That mostly describes the D.C. to N.Y. corridor (237 miles, I believe, and at least 30 million people in that corridor). That includes D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, and New York. There are some elevation changes, but nothing too drastic. If this HSR route functions like it should, then we can consider expanding it to Boston in one direction, and possibly Detroit and Chicago in the other. If the trains don't fill up, then HSR will NOT work in the U.S. Cut your losses and move on. Why commit to any other area that might or might not work, instead of just committing to the area where it would have its best chance of being successful?

Added benefit of HSR between NY and DC? It provides relief to the most congested air corridor in the world. Want to amplify the utility of the HSR system? Put the train stations in the international airports of these cities. Why? Because HSR is meant to both replace (domestic flights) and integrate with (international flights) airplane traffic, and because it has all the things you need for a major transportation option, like airport security, rental cars, large parking lots, city trains, taxis, buses, hotel shuttles, etc. It also cuts the cost of the HSR system.

 

A joke that made a punchline out of China's army caused a Chinese comedian to lose his career and cost the company employing him $2 million in fines, plus it cannot ever do a show in Beijing.

What was the joke?

Something about him watching his dogs chase a squirrel, and not quite being able to catch it. His review of the dogs' performance was "Fine style of work, capable of winning battles". It's the exact same phrase that Xi Jinping used to describe the Chinese Army after seeing them practice, and has become a well-known patriotic (or nationalistic) phrase in China.

The joke that cost $2 million: China imposes huge fine for comedian's army-themed quip | CNN

Note 1: China's Army must be extremely fragile to be destroyed by one joke. I thought they could probably take 3-4 jokes before they completely collapsed.

Note 2: China is probably not ready for comedy yet. They obviously aren't finished with tragedy.

Note 3: If China's military is this fragile, they don't stand a chance against Taiwan.

 

Twelve countries are on the verge of bankruptcy after falling for China's scheme of loans for Chinese infrastructure projects. The list includes nuclear power Pakistan and rare earths producer Mongolia. Since other countries also loaned money to these countries, the concern was that China might figure out a way for the country to be forced to pay China back first. The Chinese loans, which required secrecy on the part of the victim country, also required the victim to keep a percentage of the loan in a special bank account used to pay China back first.

Many of the Chinese projects are falling apart or were useless to begin with (China built an airport in the prime minister's small hometown that gets more use from wandering elephants than airplanes).

If China doesn't want their loan to look like a loan, they simply engage in foreign currency swaps with the victim nation while charging high interest rates. A loan goes against the balance sheet of the victim country, while a currency swap does not. When the balance sheet looks bad enough, other countries stop doing business with a country with poor credit risk.

This seems to be masterminded not by the central Chinese government, according to the article, but by overly-aggressive individual banks that have a greenlight from Beijing to participate in China's Belt and Road Initiative.

China's loans pushing world’s poorest countries to brink of collapse (yahoo.com)

 

China has been thinking about all of the possible military uses for their balloons.

China boasts spy crafts could be used as weapons against enemies: report (yahoo.com)

 

China's economic recovery during its re-opening is more of a sham than a reality. Revenue growth was actually only 1.5%, versus the 8% assumed by Wall Street analysts. Corporate revenue is slower than GDP in 20 of 28 sectors. Youth unemployment is at 20%. Women are not having children in significant numbers. Debt service consumes a third of disposable income. Savings as a percentage of GDP are only a third what it is in the U.S. (which is not known for saving money). Their economic model since 2008 was primarily based on government stimulus and debt, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Not surprising that China wants to prevent western investor access to Chinese market information. And guess what? A new Chinese Covid infection period is expected in the near future. A lot of bad news across the board.

China's economy has turned rotten and its reopening boom is a 'charade,' market expert says

 

The year is currently 2023. (I know it may seem like it's still 2020 in your parents' basement, but it really is 2023. Try to keep up.

The economic situation of many countries is much different post-pandemic vs. pre-pandemic. And China mismanaged the pandemic more than almost any other country, even though they had the most fore-knowledge of what was about to happen compared to the rest of the world. So that's why I posted an article that's actually relevant in 2023 in post #732.

 

China's state-backed hacker group successfully hacked into the U.S. military installation in Guam. They are looking to be able to disrupt communications between the U.S. and the Guam base in the event of war.

Chinese spy hit on US military base sparks fears of communications blackout