Geopolitics in the 2020s.

[Tutankhamen]

It'll be interesting to see what Farage and the Brexiteers make of three million Hong Kongers arriving.

[renton]

14 minutes ago, dorlomin said:

This is the first time you have even hinted you would be opposed to the PRC crushing Taiwan's democracy. 

Now talk about Indian and Japanese ships. The ones the Chinese themselves discussed as quoted.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_092_submarine

Launched 1981

You said they were a diesel sub and surface escort navy. They are a fully tooled up nuclear power with a larger fleet of nuclear submarines than the UK or France. 

The US navy will be the only one more powerful than it in a couple of years, if not already. 

If there backyard was important to them, they would have built land based aircraft with the money. 

This is about the PLA's ambitions for expansion of influence. 

On your first point there, I wasn't aware I needed to be so prescriptive. Yes, I am categorically against the notion of the PRC crushing Taiwanese democracy. I am categorically against their supression of democracy in HK, I am categorically against their supression of Tibetan sovereignty. Might that reframe the discussion?

They have, by the looks of those wiki links, 8 active SSNs, one more than the RN will do once all 7 Astutes are built and the last Trafalgars retired. Are the chinese units qualitatively any good? Are their crews well trained? Is the doctrine of operation sound?

I said that their main strengths are in surfaceescorts and diesel subs, it is, it makes sense for them to be so in this time.

The US Navy, if it deploys 5 odd carrier groups in the Pacific is such a massive over match, qualitatively and numerically for the current PLAN force that you don't even need to think about regional allies. 

 

[Guest JTS98]

8 hours ago, Detournement said:

They've went from 88% poverty to 2% in 40 years. 

If you believe their figures. Believing China's figures is seldom wise.

[Guest JTS98]

3 hours ago, Detournement said:

It's nice that Dormolin has replaced his Corbyn bitterness with anti China xenophobia.

Everyone needs a crutch. 

 

I'm not sure where you see xenophobia on this thread.

Calling criticism of a government's position and actions 'xenophobia' is simply a cheap way of closing down discussion.

I think the ruling Party in China is one of the most dangerous political forces in the world at the moment. Perhaps the most dangerous, on a number of levels. That's nothing to do with xenophobia, it's politics. I see nothing xenophobic from the poster you mention either.

This is an interesting thread. Try not to turn it childish.

[LongTimeLurker]

Slavoj Zizek's take about China being dangerous because it shows economic prosperity and democracy don't necessarily go hand in hand in the modern world is always worth a listen. Tends to go down like a lead balloon with Americans like Noam Chomsky, who prefer to think that their brand of western liberalism has some kind of manifest destiny and generally agreed with Francis Fukuyama's take on things after the Berlin Wall came down.

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by LongTimeLurker

[Detournement]

12 hours ago, JTS98 said:

That's nothing to do with xenophobia, it's politics.

Famously two completely unconnected phenomena.

[NotThePars]

Zizek and Chomsky both suck in different ways but I have to give it to Zizek for at least being funny

[dorlomin]

7 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Slavoj Zizek's take about China being dangerous because it shows economic prosperity and democracy don't necessarily go hand in hand in the modern world is always worth a listen. Tends to go down like a lead balloon with Americans like Noam Chomsky, who prefer to think that their brand of western liberalism has some kind of manifest destiny and generally agreed with Francis Fukuyama's take on things after the Berlin Wall came down.

 

This is a comparison of the GDP per capita for China, Russia, India and RoK. 

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=CN-KR-IN-RU

Autocratic regimes can be very good at catching up with advanced technologies. They know where the efforts need to be placed as others have done all the innovating. This is why the likes of Germany and USA were able to rapidly catch up with the technologies of UK in the second half of the 19th century. Why Japan and RoK were able to develop so quickly in the second half of the 20th.  When you see the success of railways in Britain you can built up your own by cribbing the designs. Same with motor cars and washing machines. 

China has lifted people out of poverty. But so did the USSR and other states. Its turning from low wage mass production for others and knocking out copy cat designs into "OEM", that is building the innovation that will drive advanced economies forward. China now faces what is called the Middle Income Trap, that is where you get rich enough that your labour costs go up, but not enough of your economy transitions to high end and innovative manufacturing\services etc. This is what happens to most developing countries. Brasil and South Africa are often the poster children here. Brasil for example has a big chunk of a very high tech industry. Embraer is a world leader in small jets. But that is just one company with about 20 000 employees. Its not really enough to lift Brasils 200 million into developed world life styles. 

China has a huge plan to break out of it. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025

But here we get into how much can a state facilitate true innovation, or do they end up spending lots of money on white elephants that someone in power sees as a way to get themselves noticed and promoted up the party ladder. Its a very deep question as some cases it works but often it does not. There have been many attempts by states to break into industries like passenger jets, microchip manufacturing, artificial intelligence and so on where they have sunk large amounts for little gain. There is a reason most Chinese tech giants have little penetration in the west (TikTok and Huwai aside). 

China's problem in the low cost manufacturing is India, Indonesia, Vietnam and so on all having plans to follow their path and under cut them. While the more liberal capitalist states have their resources allocated by more purely financial considerations, they will through financial and human capital on where they think it will get a return rather than some foggier ideas of national prestige. 

There is not "this works" and "that does not" but many think there are serious limits to how far an authoritarian state can go in terms of innovation. Russia is an excellent example. Excellent human capital in terms of education in the late 80s, all the state power to back industries you could wish for. But it stagnated and collapsed. It still does not come close to exploiting its human talent and education system.  It has an authoritarian, anarcho capitalist type set up like China. The liberalising of the Deng, Zemin, Hu Jintao era may be something akin to lighting in a bottle. Xi's turn to more authoritarianism may harm this. 

These are really big questions being played out in front of us over the coming years. 

[ICTChris]

Enough of this China pish. Let’s get back to some good old fashioned conspiracy theorising, Mossad referencing, Mullah baiting, nuclear plant exploding geopoliticking!

https://news.sky.com/story/coincidence-or-attack-what-is-behind-the-six-curious-incidents-in-iran-12021907

In hindsight playing the banter card in a story that includes a hospital being blown up with 20 deaths is maybe a bit much. Also, I think due r decades of sanctions Iran has problems with maintenance and safety anyway and combined with Covid etc that could explain some of this. But worth noting.

[Detournement]

The USSR collapsed because the Nomenklatura decided they wanted to be oligarchs. The citizens of the USSR overwhelmingly voted for it to continue in a 1991 referendum but that was ignored by Yeltsin and co.

If there is a middle income trap it only relates to being a vassal state of the USA and the limits that places on domestic capital and politics. That obviously doesn't apply to China and the not all at racist idea that the Chinese aren't creative enough is absurd. 

 

[Guest JTS98]

On 05/07/2020 at 00:15, dorlomin said:

China's problem in the low cost manufacturing is India, Indonesia, Vietnam and so on all having plans to follow their path and under cut them.

Good post. And I think this is the crux of the matter that informs a lot of what is happening in SEA at the moment.

China is trying to bully the region into allowing Chinese control of manufacturing in these countries and this is the motivation for a lot of the South China Sea nonsense that we're seeing from China at the moment.

When the 1MDB scandal was kicking off in Malaysia, the Chinese government tried to essentially bribe the Malaysian government with wire taps and email intercepts from the Hong Kong offices of the media organisations involved in the scoop. China's long-term aim here is the elimination of under-cutting in SEA. It didn't work in Malaysia because Najib was exposed as corrupt and booted out.

The Party needs to radically rethink its regional policy before it can genuinely aim to go global. For all the bluster, China is in many ways a regional laughing stock.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

Interesting that China is now saying it plans to make moves to stop Hong Kong residents leaving to live in Britain. This is perhaps the most significant story in the news at the moment as it has unbelievably far-reaching consequences for everyone in the world.
Can China manage to legitimately sell the idea that it can stop its nationals choosing of their own volition to move to a democratic country of their choice? This would set a precedent that allows states to effectively imprison their population. The DDR lives!
Practically, this will involve China making quite convoluted changes to the law. For example, they might be able to stop Chinese nationals moving directly to the UK, but how can they stop them moving to the UK after they've moved to Singapore or Malaysia or France etc? Huge implications for state control of the banking system and individual assets if this happens.
Not to mention the geopolitical relationships that would be put under strain if, for example, Singapore or Malaysia or France told the UK it wasn't going to allow Chinese nationals to move and take their assets to the UK from their territory because China told them not to. There's the beginnings of a war there.
Also, what does it say for the future of The Party in China and its legitimacy as the government of China (which was established only by violence, remember) if they resort to basically imprisoning their citizens? This is one of these political moves that China may think makes it look strong but will actually highlight its weakness and the challenges it faces in controlling what is claims as its territory.

They don't need to do anything as extreme as that. The organisation I work for, and thousands of others in the UK and elsewhere, is reliant on Chinese-manufactured components; if that supply chain is interrupted, even temporarily, then it could seriously undermine economies still reeling from Covid-19. Sure that would also adversely affect China, but I reckon even the prospect of such upheaval would concentrate minds as to just how passionate folk are about the politics of HK.

Sent from my MotoG3 using Pie and Bovril mobile app

[dorlomin]

1 hour ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

They don't need to do anything as extreme as that. The organisation I work for, and thousands of others in the UK and elsewhere, is reliant on Chinese-manufactured components; if that supply chain is interrupted, even temporarily, then it could seriously undermine economies still reeling from Covid-19. Sure that would also adversely affect China, but I reckon even the prospect of such upheaval would concentrate minds as to just how passionate folk are about the politics of HK.

China has done things like that over the years. For example they cut supply of rare Earth elements to Japan a few years back. But they have picked so many fights there is now a bit of a movement to reduce dependency on China. 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/08/national/politics-diplomacy/tokyo-china-us-relations-business/

America is doing the same thing. You already have increasing political risk from Xi's crack down in China including arresting a couple of Canadian executives in the Huwai dust up. Adding the risk of your in China portion of the supply chain being cut due to diplomatic problems will pace pressure on some to "derisk". They are the worlds largest manufacturing economy but for not so specialised components there are good reasons to start going elsewhere. 

India has just banned a whole raft of Chinese apps. 

https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/04/this-week-in-apps-india-bans-chinese-apps-apple-freezes-game-updates-in-china-ios-developer-backlash-continues/

That is one hell of a market to get frozen out of. Especially as India has an eye on pushing local replacements. 

They can block UK supply chains. But many other countries would be taking note. 

[Detournement]

The coup in Bolivia last year was the most depressing event in a long time. It made it clear that 99% of people anywhere near power in the west would walk over dead indigenous bodies for cheaper lithium. 

This election has the potential to be a rare bright spot in world politics but the USA might still do something awful. 

[NotThePars]

Sunny Hundal attempting a mea culpa on calling the coup wrong and then claiming the left were more wrong for recognising what was going on without months of denying reality was a good laugh.

[Detournement]

Last summer the Guardian kept on running strange stories about the cost of the new Presidential building in Bolivia which made it obvious a coup was coming. They also ran a few stories equating Morales and Bolsonaro which shows they will print whatever they are told. 

More worryingly Novara and Jacobin both published anti Morales pieces in the lead up to the election which destroyed their credibility for me. 

[Detournement]

No elections allowed unless the Neolibs can win. 

[Detournement]

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/july/colombia-s-disappeared?s=09

37 grassroots political leaders have been murdered in Colombia in 2020. 

[Ray Patterson]

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, but this is well worth a watch about our changing world. It's a bit long, but well worth it. Although in the title, it's not really about the Donald.

 

[Detournement]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/bolivia-coronavirus-toxic-bleach-chlorine-dioxide

The Guardian printing a made up AP story that MAS are encouraging people to drink bleach. 

Funnily enough it's anonymous!