Hi, folks!
It's time for "No-Shit Time", with Uncle Joe.
Q: Uncle Joe, can the Chinese take Taiwan militarily?
A: No fucking way, Ike. The Chinese military has NO combat experience against a foreign power more recent than 1979.
Q: What about all those planes, and tanks, and sailors marching around in choreographed fashion on their carrier?
A: Just because you have the equipment and the dancing troops, that doesn't equate to any sort of combat experience, and especially experience in the combined-arms environment. BIG fucking difference between doing little landings on your own coast and launching a large seaborne invasion against defended shores, in the face of hostile enemy surface and sub-surface naval forces, and in the face of robust air and air defense assets. You just don't wing such an invasion. The Chinese simply don't have the experience to carry out a successful invasion of Taiwan.
Q: What about cyberwarfare?
A: Yes, that can happen, but the Chinese are likely to get worse than they give. Won't be just Taiwan fighting them in that realm, but the US, Japan, and maybe others.
Q: Uncle Joe, you keep saying China has problems we should be real fucking glad not to have. Care to mention them, again?
A: No sweat, pal. First is demographics. China is getting old before it gets rich. And let's not forget how the one-child policy is now coming back to bite China in the ass with fangs of steel. Remember, a ton of female fetuses were aborted, and some female infants killed. Net result is you have millions of horny guys with nearly ZERO chance of finding a wife. And you also have the potential for one, maybe two rice-winners to have to support themselves, any kids they may have, and as many as four in-laws. No shit. Second, China is not evenly developed. Go thirty miles, if that far, outside your cities and you've gone back fifty years. Not only that, but China's west is only patchily developed. Third, got problems feeding everyone the diet they want, which is a more Western-style diet, with a good deal of meat. China only has so much good farmland, and some of that's been ruined by various government fuckups. Still apparently dealing with African swine flu, which kills those oinkers dead, no can eat them. China buys a great deal of food, primarily meats/poultry and grains, from other countries. They buy a lot from the USA; that lets us have our hands around their nuts on the food situation. Fourth, as is now being seen the debt bubble is bursting. For a very long time, the Chinese economy has been humming along due to exports, and the Chinese Communist Party supporting failed state enterprises and businesses. In short, more of a house of cards than might be imagined.
Let's see how much debt China has. Total domestic debt is 280% of GDP. Add foreign debt and total debt overall is 290% of GDP. I ain't making this shit up, sports fans.
archived 16 Sep 2021 22:39:51 UTC
archive.md
www.bofit.fi
Yes, the USA has a pretty fucking huge national debt, but it's only about 130% of a much larger GDP.
The U.S. national debt was over $29 trillion in 2021. In 1930, it was just $16 billion. The biggest impacts have been defense spending, recessions, and the pandemic.
www.thebalance.com
archived 28 Oct 2020 05:17:29 UTC
archive.md
And here's a ranking of world GDPs.
This list contains projected GDP (Nominal and PPP) of top 50 Countries/Economies in current prices of year by IMF alongside their world rank, % share in world economy, gdp growth rate and gdp per capita.
statisticstimes.com
Just saying.
You should ask just what China is going to do when the debt bubble finally explodes for good, and when the credit and housing bubbles follow them. What happens when the world economy slows down and demand for Chinese goods softens? Gonna have a shitload of Chinese out of work, and as I understand it China has no unemployment compensation system or Social Security system as we know them. Not so good, people.
China also must spend a great deal of resources to stifle and quash dissent. The CCP is terrified of uncontrolled dissent. Got a lot of people censoring their various communications services in real-time, not to mention censoring publications, films, TV, etc. Got a lot of paramilitary troops out there, ready to suppress riots.
The Chinese need to basically watch all their borders. They don't get along with India too well, or with Vietnam. North Korea is a drain on China. Vietnam is problematical. Taiwan is a problem. Russia says some nice things but keeps China at something of an arm's length. Add their Uighur problem, including the concentration camps, and China has plenty on the plate in that regard.
If I could reduce things down to a sentence or two, I would say China hasn't the margin to survive major economic perturbations, which will bring a cascade of bad consequences. Am sure this shit keeps some people in Beijing awake nights. Not saying the USA is perfect - no way, but we overall are rather more, and more evenly developed, than China, we need not worry about hostile borders, and our military still has a lot of combat experience, including combined arms experience. We've simply developed much more margin to survive national-level fuckups. Our biggest problem right now is an incompetent and paralyzed regime in Washington. If we had competent, active leadership in Washington China would be much less of a concern.
Take some time, stop playing with yourselves, look into all this stuff. Good information, from a variety of sources, is your best defense against dumbassed mainstream media talking heads verbally masturbating.
