It's all about China

[Kriegsspiel]

Longread of the day is this transcript with Peter Thiel and Mike Pompeo discussing China. Interesting throughout.

On the subject of selling weapons to China, I just watched a China Uncensored video (here) that talked about how American companies get around the ban on selling technology to the Chinese military by selling it to "private" Chinese companies, who then work with the Chinese military.

[I Shrugged]

As Doug Casey says, all China needs to do, in order to become World Number One, is not screw up. Not do anything stupid.

Let's face it, they own us.

[Kriegsspiel]

k

[boglerdude]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py7ew8zeIVE
How living in China changed my view on Trump and US politics: Californian native

Normalizing lockdowns

[Kriegsspiel]

Zeihan on Chinese population peaking.

[Kriegsspiel]

Another interesting link on Chinese demographics: Andrew Batson

[D1984]

Another interesting link on Chinese demographics: Andrew Batson

Agree with the general tone and facts of this article but one quick caveat/quibble:

Mr. Batson seems to imply that the lower-than-replacement fertility of northeast China in particular (and of China in general) is in large part due to strict enforcement of the one child policy and its demographic aftereffects. But if we look at Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore (especially if using CIA or OECD data instead of just Singstat data on that last one) we can see that all have experienced record low--and in some cases at or near 1.0--TFRs despite not having the disadvantages China has (to wit, not having a "One Child Policy" and also the whole "not being a repressive Communist dictatorship" thing); their TFRs are either similar or somewhat lower (or in some cases much lower) than even the (actual) TFR data from China (by which I mean assuming China's real not-cooking-the-data TFR is closer to 1.25 or 1.3 than 1.4 or 1.45)....and this is despite financial and/or tax incentives in many of these countries to have more children.

Why do these countries all have such low TFRs and why can't they seem to do much about it (not that the US has any right to boast in this regard....in early May 2021 the preliminary US TFR data for 2020 came out and IIRC it was at just over 1.62......which is the lowest since we have been keeping accurate records starting in the 1920s and is a dramatic decline from the roughly replacement 2.07 or 2.08 TFR of as recently as 2008)?

[Kriegsspiel]

Well, I'm not certain on the reasons for the demographic problems China is facing, but I think it's clear that they're going downhill.

[pp4me]

I was surprised to learn that despite everything you see nowadays with the "Made in China" label and the impressive cities they have built, they still rank very low in worldwide income statistics. According to this website

https://worldpopulationreview.com/count ... by-country

they rank just behind the Dominican Republic with a median household income of $6180 per year, or barely more than $500/month.

[Kriegsspiel]

This clip, from China Uncensored. The part about collecting data on pregnant women with tests developed in conjunction with their military? Yowzer.

[Kriegsspiel]

The Semiconductor Heist Of The Century

Arm is widely regarded as the most important semiconductor IP firm. Their IP ships in billions of new chips every year from phones, cars, microcontrollers, Amazon servers, and even Intel's latest IPU. Originally it was a British owned and headquartered company, but SoftBank acquired the firm in 2016. They proceeded to plow money into Arm Limited to develop deep pushes into the internet of things, automotive, and server. Part of their push was also to go hard into China and become the dominant CPU supplier in all segments of the market. . .
link

Interesting times.

[dualstow]

The Semiconductor Heist Of The Century

Arm is widely regarded as the most important semiconductor IP firm. Their IP ships in billions of new chips every year from phones, cars, microcontrollers, Amazon servers, and even Intel's latest IPU. Originally it was a British owned and headquartered company, but SoftBank acquired the firm in 2016. They proceeded to plow money into Arm Limited to develop deep pushes into the internet of things, automotive, and server. Part of their push was also to go hard into China and become the dominant CPU supplier in all segments of the market. . .
link

Interesting times.

(also from the article) Despite formally being fired, Allen Wu has remained in power. He ousted executives that were loyal to Arm. He has even hired security paid for by Arm China that reports to him. This security has kept Arm out of the Arm China offices.

Very interesting indeed.

Kind of messily written, but I got the gist. I looked at the wiki page for ARM too. It will be interesting to see how the Nvidia deal goes.

[dualstow]

There's a paywall, but I read a Foreign Affairs article about China seizing Taiwan in 3-5 years. Never thought this would happen in my lifetime. Xi wants to make sure it happens in his lifetime.

[Mark Leavy]

There's a paywall, but I read a Foreign Affairs article about China seizing Taiwan in 3-5 years. Never thought this would happen in my lifetime.

I can see that happening. And I don't think the US has the stomach to enter an all out war with China to defend Taiwan, even considering the dependency that the US has on the Taiwanese semiconductor industry.

I think China would provide a false option to allow the US to save face and the US would take it.

Interesting times.

[glennds]

There's a paywall, but I read a Foreign Affairs article about China seizing Taiwan in 3-5 years. Never thought this would happen in my lifetime.

I can see that happening. And I don't think the US has the stomach to enter an all out war with China to defend Taiwan, even considering the dependency that the US has on the Taiwanese semiconductor industry.

I think China would provide a false option to allow the US to save face and the US would take it.

Interesting times.

A turn of events like that will make for some interesting conversations between the US and Japan.

[Smith1776]

As someone coming with a Chinese family I must say the CCP's efforts to erode human freedoms in the country are truly disturbing.

On the OTHER hand, if the Canadian government had implemented this kind of ban when I was growing up I'd probably have a PhD and an olympic gold medal by now.

ccp.jpg (448.42 KiB) Viewed 5138 times

[Xan]

When I initially saw that, I thought "they're going to take over the world and nobody can stop them".

There's no way we could implement such a policy here, other than it being done by individual parents (which frankly would be a great idea), and I think it's going to work. We're going to be drooling slobs addicted to video games and they'll be out achieving things.

[Smith1776]

When I initially saw that, I thought "they're going to take over the world and nobody can stop them".

There's no way we could implement such a policy here, other than it being done by individual parents (which frankly would be a great idea), and I think it's going to work. We're going to be drooling slobs addicted to video games and they'll be out achieving things.

So true. Say what you want about chinese collectivism, but it seems to me that the chinese have an easier time getting everyone to march in the same direction. Yes, that is dangerous to individual liberties and freedom, but the economic, military, and existential threat from the machine that is china is real.

[D1984]

When I initially saw that, I thought "they're going to take over the world and nobody can stop them".

There's no way we could implement such a policy here, other than it being done by individual parents (which frankly would be a great idea), and I think it's going to work. We're going to be drooling slobs addicted to video games and they'll be out achieving things.

They aren't going to take over anything if they can't get their TFR above 1.30 or 1.31 (and apparently it's still falling from there despite the new three-child policy).

I don't see the problem with video games (although I don't play them myself). From some of the comments on here it makes it seem like everybody in the USA and the rest of the Western world is a video game addict who never does anything else. For example (and just off the top of my head), which country brought us the MRNA vaccines, Tesla, the Internet/World Wide Web, the smartphone, Boston Dynamics' robots, Deepmind/AlphaGo and other high-end AI software, etc? Was it China? If their tech industry is so world-beating and advanced vs the free world's why exactly do they keep trying to copy/steal our IP....wouldn't the rest of the world be trying to steal/copy theirs instead?

America (and the rest of the free world) have certain advantages. A collectivist society (and this applies not just to China being Communist/totalitarian/authoritarian but to--and I admit this is a stereotype and not true in the case of each and every individual--but to what seems to be the mindset in Asian countries/cultures in general) that encourages harmony, groupthink, deference to existing authority, and conformity and isn't as favorable to risk-taking, doing your own thing, being willing to stand out from the pack, and being willing to try new/innovative ways of doing things will be at a disadvantage to a society that is more open to them.

I'd honestly be more worried about either:

A. China deciding it's better to start a war (over Taiwan or otherwise) in the next 3-10 years while it still has a large enough military-age male population vs the US/Taiwan/our allies i.e. before most of its population is too old to be prime military material, or,

B. China using its authoritarian system to simply outbreed us (the US and the free world in general) in terms of raw human intelligence; IIRC studies have shown that from roughly 57 to 80% of IQ is inheritable. If China disallows anyone with an IQ of less than, say, 130 from having kids (and conversely, forces/conscripts/outright bribes a certain percentage of its women to be surrogate mother broodmares of 15 or 20 super-intelligent kids over their breeding lifetimes.....note that this would also go a long way towards solving their TFR issues) and we don't, in five or six generations the difference could be rather stark......

[glennds]

A. China deciding it's better to start a war (over Taiwan or otherwise) in the next 3-10 years while it still has a large enough military-age male population vs the US/Taiwan/our allies i.e. before most of its population is too old to be prime military material, or,

This assumes the next major war will be fought using military manpower and weaponry.
Read the book or watch the documentary The Perfect Weapon which lays out a compelling case that the next war will be a cyber war.

[dualstow]

Hey, don’t knock video games. Those players are are future drone operators. ;-)
I haven’t played since the 80’s myself.

There's a paywall, but I read a Foreign Affairs article about China seizing Taiwan in 3-5 years. Never thought this would happen in my lifetime.

I can see that happening. And I don't think the US has the stomach to enter an all out war with China to defend Taiwan, even considering the dependency that the US has on the Taiwanese semiconductor industry.

I think China would provide a false option to allow the US to save face and the US would take it.

Interesting times.

The article was very convincing. There are all kinds of things they can do. They can spend a lot of time in the Strait without attacking, and one day they’ll make their move after we’re exhausted. It could be largely bloodless.

[vnatale]

A. China deciding it's better to start a war (over Taiwan or otherwise) in the next 3-10 years while it still has a large enough military-age male population vs the US/Taiwan/our allies i.e. before most of its population is too old to be prime military material, or,

This assumes the next major war will be fought using military manpower and weaponry.
Read the book or watch the documentary The Perfect Weapon which lays out a compelling case that the next war will be a cyber war.

That was exactly my reaction after I read the above. Thanks for writing a response far better than I would have.

[vnatale]

Hey, don’t knock video games. Those players are are future drone operators. ;-)

A few years ago I asked someone who moved into the highly lucrative profession of being a crane operator if the job required a lot of physical strength.

He said no. An average woman could also do it (as opposed to those professions where there are almost no women due to the physical strength demands).

He surprised me by telling me that those who are good at video games would be good at his job.

[Kriegsspiel]

I can see that happening. And I don't think the US has the stomach to enter an all out war with China to defend Taiwan, even considering the dependency that the US has on the Taiwanese semiconductor industry.

I think China would provide a false option to allow the US to save face and the US would take it.

Interesting times.

The article was very convincing. There are all kinds of things they can do. They can spend a lot of time in the Strait without attacking, and one day they’ll make their move after we’re exhausted. It could be largely bloodless.

Another good video from China Uncensored touches on a few things. First, a Reuters article mentions that Chinese spies in Taiwan could launch a decapitation strike to take over the island.. so maybe bloodless. At least for the Taiwanese, and at least at the start But, if America tries to defend Taiwan, they may have the ability (electronic warfare/cyber or, not mentioned in this video, missile swarms) to incapacitate our ships*, which would probably not be bloodless.

The video also talks about another semiconductor company that China is attempting to buy, but the Committee On Foreign Investment in the US might block the deal since they're both on the NYSE. The economic warfare is heating up on the semiconductor front!

*Two recommended novels on futurewar with China: 2034 by Stavridis, and Twilight's Last Gleaming by Greer. I thought Twilight's Last Gleaming was the better of the two.

[glennds]

I can see that happening. And I don't think the US has the stomach to enter an all out war with China to defend Taiwan, even considering the dependency that the US has on the Taiwanese semiconductor industry.

I think China would provide a false option to allow the US to save face and the US would take it.

Interesting times.

The article was very convincing. There are all kinds of things they can do. They can spend a lot of time in the Strait without attacking, and one day they’ll make their move after we’re exhausted. It could be largely bloodless.

Another good video from China Uncensored touches on a few things. First, a Reuters article mentions that Chinese spies in Taiwan could launch a decapitation strike to take over the island.. so maybe bloodless. At least for the Taiwanese, and at least at the start But, if America tries to defend Taiwan, they may have the ability (electronic warfare/cyber or, not mentioned in this video, missile swarms) to incapacitate our ships*, which would probably not be bloodless.

The video also talks about another semiconductor company that China is attempting to buy, but the Committee On Foreign Investment in the US might block the deal since they're both on the NYSE. The economic warfare is heating up on the semiconductor front!

*Two recommended novels on futurewar with China: 2034 by Stavridis, and Twilight's Last Gleaming by Greer. I thought Twilight's Last Gleaming was the better of the two.

For some more info on the US semiconductor dependency on Taiwan, and the fragile nature of the semiconductor supply chain in general, here is the recent segment from 60 Minutes on the topic: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/60minutes-2021-08-29/

I did not realize that the most advanced chip business goes from companies like Apple to Taiwan not solely for cost reasons but because the capability to produce the most sophisticated chips does not even exist in the US, from a knowledge base standpoint. The Intel CEO concedes so in the interview. Could you imagine the effect if the Taiwanese semiconductor industry was cut off or rationed like OPEC of the 1970s?