Russian invasion of Ukraine

[DiegoDiego]

Sanctioning China would cause the West to meltdown in about a week. China has already won the economic war. 
All the West will do is invent more and more far fetched lies to try and deflect from the fact that a population that was mainly illiterate peasants a few generations ago are going to have a noticeably higher standard of living than the majority of people here. 

Manufacturing has been moving out of China for years now. It is however a very slow process so we're still in the middle of it. Chinese wages has been far outstripping productivity for the last decade and they just aren't competitive any more. Most major companies have already divested from China to some extent. Exports have gone from 36% of GDP in 2006 to 18.5% two years ago.

Couple that with their impending demographic implosion and you can make a decent argument that they won't win the economic war.

[Detournement]

2022 and people are still coming out with this stuff.

[Silvio Tattiescone]

27 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

Manufacturing has been moving out of China for years now. It is however a very slow process so we're still in the middle of it. Chinese wages has been far outstripping productivity for the last decade and they just aren't competitive any more. Most major companies have already divested from China to some extent. Exports have gone from 36% of GDP in 2006 to 18.5% two years ago.

Couple that with their impending demographic implosion and you can make a decent argument that they won't win the economic war.

Yup. Companies are getting out due to the impact on ESG ratings.

[DiegoDiego]

2022 and people are still coming out with this stuff.

Manufacturing wages in China doubled between 2012 and 2020.

The generation retiring in the next few years is roughly 170% the size of the one replacing them in the workforce.

China's future isn't looking particularly rosy.

[Detournement]

22 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

Manufacturing wages in China doubled between 2012 and 2020.

The generation retiring in the next few years is roughly 170% the size of the one replacing them in the workforce.

China's future isn't looking particularly rosy.

Compared to what? 

People have been predicting the demise of China for decades because what is now obvious truth is unpalatable to them. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Collapse_of_China

It's 21 years since this came out and the present demographic timebomb stuff is just more of the same. Given that the proportion of the population required to work to sustain an economy gets ever smaller and that China no longer has to effectively give away labour value to the West I think they will be fine.

 

 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Detournement

[highlandcowden]

1 hour ago, Detournement said:

2022 and people are still coming out with this stuff.

What,that the good old Soviet union are a shining beacon for the world?

[ICTChris]

Long article about the Russian military. I haven’t read it properly yet but seems pretty interesting.

https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-ill-fated-force-design/

[DiegoDiego]

Compared to what? 
People have been predicting the demise of China for decades because what is now obvious truth is unpalatable to them. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Collapse_of_China
It's 21 years since this came out and the present demographic timebomb stuff is just more of the same. Given that the proportion of the population required to work to sustain an economy gets ever smaller and that China no longer has to effectively give away labour value to the West I think they will be fine.
 
 

Predictions being wrong in the past doesn't preclude them from being right now. I'm also not foolish enough to predict something with 100% certainty, but I think it's more likely than not that China will be worse off relative to the USA in ten years than it is now.

You're right about the number of people required to sustain an economy, but technology has barely put a dent into the productivity of healthcare. With an increasingly elderly population that's a big worry, especially in a Confucian society which reveres older generations.

[welshbairn]

34 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Long article about the Russian military. I haven’t read it properly yet but seems pretty interesting.

https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-ill-fated-force-design/

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians seems to be the message. And that tanks don't survive long without infantry protection.

 

[strichener]

2 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians seems to be the message. And that tanks don't survive long without infantry protection.

 

Aye, but is it a tank?

[LongTimeLurker]

Lots on twitter at the moment about the apparent Ukrainian retreat in Severodonetsk actually having been a carefully set trap to lure Russian forces in. Didn't see that one coming if it turns out to be accurate.

 

[Mr Waldo]

48 minutes ago, strichener said:

Aye, but is it a tank?

 

[Silvio Tattiescone]

Estonia's PM - https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/03/estonia-russia-ukraine-war-kallas-baltics-nato/

 

Quote

FP: You’ve said before that “peace cannot be the ultimate goal.” Do you feel your stance is supported by other European countries?

KK: There are different [possible] ends to the war, and I think this is where the differences of opinion lie. For some countries in Europe, peace is the ultimate goal. Their mindset is that with peace, everything is fine. But we had peace after the Second World War, and yet the atrocities for my country started—the mass deportations, the killings. This will happen to the occupied territories [in Ukraine] and the people there, too. This needs to be understood. If the aggressor is not punished and we go back to business as usual, then everything will continue.
Nazi crimes were widely condemned after the Second World War, but Communist crimes never were. Actually, [Joseph] Stalin killed more people than [Adolf] Hitler did. If it is not condemned, you see the result: 70 percent of people are in favor of Stalinism in Russia. The history books in Estonia were rewritten after the Soviet Union collapsed, but they were never rewritten in Russia. So if people admire dictators, then there is no obstacle to becoming one or submitting to one.

She's right. I often think that while we think of the Nazi's crimes as abhorrent, the Russians had no problem with them. They were just pissed off at being the victims.  

[vikingTON]

Didn't take too long for full-blown Nazi revisionism to creep into the thread. 

It's also no surprise to see Estonia's PM subscribing to the hopelessly outdated Conquest school of thought on the Soviet Union (updated textbooks indeed!), and plays the victim card. No mention that Estonian nationalists played a key role in massacring their Jewish minority population on the Nazis' behalf in 1941: no doubt Uncle Joe made them do it though!

[LongTimeLurker]

When you read this the assumption would be that Russia doesn't need to worry about the longer range HIMARS capabilities:

but maybe this is the way they will still arrive and this explains some of the semantic gymnastics that appear to be happening above:

 

[DiegoDiego]

No mention that Estonian nationalists played a key role in massacring their Jewish minority population on the Nazis' behalf in 1941

Nobel prize whataboutery.

[LongTimeLurker]

Maybe I'm missing something but don't see anything in there that denies that the Nazi crimes happened and hence could reasonably be labelled full-blown revisionism.

Definitely a bit crass to talk about crimes starting after the war like that but it's maybe worth bearing in mind that Estonia had a relatively small Jewish population because it was outside what had been the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

It's more Latvians, Lithuanians and Western Ukrainians that are remembered for active participation in the Holocaust.

[HK Hibee]

On 03/06/2022 at 13:32, Detournement said:

Sanctioning China would cause the West to meltdown in about a week. China has already won the economic war. 

All the West will do is invent more and more far fetched lies to try and deflect from the fact that a population that was mainly illiterate peasants a few generations ago are going to have a noticeably higher standard of living than the majority of people here. 

The most important thing for China’s leadership is avoiding anything which causes social unrest. There is a social contract which is broadly continue to make us rich and we are ok about not having a say in how we are governed. 
 

this year they run a real risk of not hitting the economic growth required to keep living standards at same level.   
 

while China could probably survive sanctions if it invaded Taiwan it would be at a cost of lower growth and living standards and unless they were able to do it quickly the population might not like the impact of sanctions. There are plenty in the top of the CCP who are waiting for any excuse to unsettle Xi. 
 

And living standards, on average, are not as good as here. There is also more income inequality than here. 
 

summary. China hasn’t won the economic war and the top leadership  to be a bit careful about what it does if it wants to survive. 

[Carl Cort's Hamstring]

I think that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan seems pretty fanciful based on what's happened in Ukraine. The Russian military had recent combat experience in Syria, Georgia and Ukraine, was fighting on its own doorstep, had an enormous advantage in equipment, airpower and naval power and have still experienced a colossal disaster. 

The Chinese military haven't fought anyone for the best part of 40 years, apart from their own citizens. They'd have to cross 100 miles of open ocean, opposed by a reasonably large (if old) Taiwanese navy and a large, modern Taiwanese air force. I don't see how they could do it.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Carl Cort's Hamstring

[Guest]

On 04/06/2022 at 08:11, Newbornbairn said:

Estonia's PM - https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/03/estonia-russia-ukraine-war-kallas-baltics-nato/

 

Quote

FP: You’ve said before that “peace cannot be the ultimate goal.” Do you feel your stance is supported by other European countries?

KK: There are different [possible] ends to the war, and I think this is where the differences of opinion lie. For some countries in Europe, peace is the ultimate goal. Their mindset is that with peace, everything is fine. But we had peace after the Second World War, and yet the atrocities for my country started—the mass deportations, the killings. This will happen to the occupied territories [in Ukraine] and the people there, too. This needs to be understood. If the aggressor is not punished and we go back to business as usual, then everything will continue.
Nazi crimes were widely condemned after the Second World War, but Communist crimes never were. Actually, [Joseph] Stalin killed more people than [Adolf] Hitler did. If it is not condemned, you see the result: 70 percent of people are in favor of Stalinism in Russia. The history books in Estonia were rewritten after the Soviet Union collapsed, but they were never rewritten in Russia. So if people admire dictators, then there is no obstacle to becoming one or submitting to one.

There's a further paragraph to her answer not in the quotation there and in it she mentions Timothy Snyder. Possibly the world's most respected historian specialising in both Hitler and Stalin, Snyder says Hitler killed more than Stalin. Kallas claims the opposite, contradicting something so key to Snyder's work, yet then namedrops him a few sentences later.