The CHN/ China thread

[Skybird]

A commentator over here noted yesterday that all men voted into the polit bureau have by no means the format to ever become a challenger to Xi in five years.

Go figure.

As important as Xi's third term is that his person and family has been enshrined into the constitution to be the focus and fixpoint of it and the state. The Xis are set to plunder and tyrannize Xina for generations to come.

And the Xinese? They let it happen, almost without any visible resistence at all.


Not Russia or Ukraine war or Putin is the world's greatest problem. Xina is. Washington has understood this. Europe not.

[Jimbuna]

^ As is so often the case with many dictators unfortunately.

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Chinese Media Says Beijing to Use 'All Measures Necessary' Against Taiwan

Amedia outlet affiliated with China's ruling party, The Global Times, published an editorial on Friday, saying that the nation will take "all measures necessary" to ensure its control over Taiwan.

The political status of Taiwan has remained a divisive geopolitical issue over the last several decades. China claims the island as its own territory and has been hostile toward foreign powers that do not recognize its claim. Many in Taiwan and abroad, however, view it as an independent nation. A recent poll found that 52 percent of Americans believe that "other countries should provide help to Taiwan" if it were to be attacked by China.

The Global Times is a daily tabloid news outlet published by People's Daily, a publishing outfit that is operated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Like other state-run outlets, the outlet's editorial page is frequently used to express the views and stances of the CCP.

On Friday, the outlet published a piece titled, "Talking 'peace' without 'one China' is inflaming war in Taiwan Straits." It was written in response to comments made on Wednesday by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in which he said that China was looking to put greater pressure on the pursuit of "reunification" with Taiwan.

"What's changed is this: the decision by the government in Beijing that that status quo was no longer acceptable, that they wanted to speed up the process by which they would pursue reunification," Blinken said at an event hosted by Bloomberg. "That is what has fundamentally changed."

In response, the tabloid's editorial admonished Blinken and the United States for such comments, which it said to be in defiance of Beijing's "one China" stance. It said that such comments were allegedly born out of a desire to gain political points ahead of the midterm elections in November, and an attempt to give signals of "Taiwan independence" to the country's government.

"The island's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities and secessionist forces have long been helpless addicts who can easily get high over the slightest 'false signal' concocted for them by Washington," the editorial said. "Once Washington fails to supply them with such a signal in time for whatever reason, they will feel flustered and devastated. They have already stepped on a desperate path to satisfy their need for 'political drugs' to hypnotize, deceive and cheer up themselves."

Furthermore, the editorial said any attempts to discuss peace in the Taiwan Straits without acknowledging the "one China" would incite future conflict in the region. It insisted that "Taiwan is a part of China, and the sovereignty and territory of China have never been divided."

The piece continued: "Using the excuse of seeking 'peace' to instigate war, Washington has long demonstrated its hypocrisy, and the truth has become clearer: It's the Taiwan secessionists and external forces, as well as the increasingly rampant US-Taiwan collusion, that are the perpetrators of destroying the peaceful environment across the Straits."

Newsweek reached out to the State Department for comment.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...b64848f68b5c09

[ET2SN]

Semi related:





I think this is a good call.
The Astute class is a good platform but it was near the end of its build cycle in the UK. Its also a good mix of regional-plus-blue-water capability.

[ET2SN]

[Skybird]

^ 00:18:18:
"The Chinese Strategic Rocket Force possesses the most advanced cruise and ballistic program in the world, not only advanced in terms of the technology, but also in terms of numbers. They just have more munitions than the United States can defend against. China's capability to attack or target US aircraft carriers or US base sin the region is significant, and the Unite dStates have access ot missile defences, but those are easily saturated in terms of the number of missiles that China shoots, and a number of them will definitely go through."

Heck, I know I predicted this and warned of this status being reached sooner or later already at the times around the 2003 Iraq war. The Chinese are a force of missiles; missiles, missiles ,and then more missiles. Its all about a rain of missiles.

And what did already Sovjet Admiral Gorshkov predict, amongst others? That the next war at sea will be extremely intense and ammo-intensive. And navy units at sea have very limited numbers of ammunition reserves. Means for the US the units will spend long time just being in transit from and back to bases.

You also have to add to their combat navy the armada of "coast guard" ships that are not included in that number of over 330 surface ships and submarines. And different to that of the US, these huge numbers of platforms are NOT scattered all across the planet, but will get strictly focussed on the combat theatre named the Taiwan war operation. Numerical superiority of the Chinese over the US and its allies will be immense. And this from a foe of almost equal technology level.

A loss of Taiwan, in whatever way: peacefully, blackmailed, or by war, to China, will be a desaster for the world, because due to the chip production of Taiwan ending up in hands of the Chinese, Bejing then has a dagger held at the throat of practically all the rest of the world, directly over the aorta.

Still, I am not convinced the US would engage in big war against China, if China does not start any war against Taiwan by also attacking Okinawa and Guam and any identified US Carrier Group in range.

The numbers aree simpyl against the US. I am not certain nanymore that access to the Street of taiwan to shuttle over troops can be denied to the Chinese.

What speaks against China is that its military may be over-confident, like the Russian was, leading to stupid decisions and commands proving to be suicidal for the chinese forces. But the Chinese are not the Russians.

The biggest pound the US can trump with, imo is not submarines or carriers or fighter bombers, but long range bombers. And the video indicates that somewhere, too.

[Skybird]

FOCUS writes on Bu(a)bble-Olaf's folcoristic recitation of ritualized phrases:
--------------------------

Scholz and Xi have same favorite word, but fundamentally disagree

China's President Xi Jinping and Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz have the same favorite word. The chancellor's short trip to Beijing now shows that the Chinese and Germans understand "respect" to mean something fundamentally different.

Xi Jinping speaks of "mutual respect" and of leaving "differences" aside. That says it all. The party emperor, who has just been crowned for life by his claqueurs, continues to do what he wants, more than ever before.

And he certainly won't let Olaf Scholz, the man who has been in office for less than a year, stop him. When Xi says "mutual respect," you have to translate that from the diplomatic to the real.

"Respect" is then what Chinese Xi demands of his interlocutor Scholz in this blatantly asymmetrical relationship between the two statesmen.

Xi has no problem with the fact that Germany has decided to be a democracy in which minority rights are respected.

Needless to say, Scholz is saying what needs to be said during this bizarre visit

It is Scholz, after all, who has a problem with China being a dictatorship where minority rights start by putting minorities like the Muslim Uighurs in concentration camps to "re-educate" them.

You know this from German history, its dictatorial part. "Respect" in Chinese means in "real": what we do as a consequence of system inequality is our business. Not you, in any case.

Of course, Scholz says on this bizarre visit what has to be said, namely: Human rights are "universal", therefore it is precisely not about "interference in internal affairs".

It just doesn't help that Scholz says this. Because such "respect" is China's foreign policy state doctrine. In other words: the red line that no other state leader in China is allowed to cross.

Because Scholz knows this, of course, the human rights sentences sound so dutiful, like a necessary message that has to be sent from Beijing to Berlin because morally driven people, such as the Greens, demand it.

What Scholz says in Beijing is folklore

Olaf Scholz says in Beijing that sanctions against members of the European Parliament "are not acceptable to us." And now? Does Xi lift the entry ban on Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, a profound China expert and therefore critic? Probably not.

Such things are simply folklore - a ritual that does not change the existing conditions. A rhetorical reassurance that one is on the right moral side after all. A phrase of affirmation that has no consequences.

Has Scholz just announced that as long as the European delegate Bütikofer is on the Chinese sanctions list, Germany will not allow any Chinese delegates to enter the country? Exactly, he did not, the chancellor.

But that would have been "political reciprocity" for once. There is a lot of talk about "reciprocity" now. What is meant is that if the Chinese are allowed to participate in European ports or in a German port terminal, German companies must also be allowed to participate in Chinese ports or at least port terminals. But that is exactly what the Chinese are not considering.

"Autarky" is China's goal

The German chancellor can demand as much "market access" and "protection of intellectual property" as he likes. The reason for the Chinese refusal to establish a "level playing field" with the Germans and the West as a whole, i.e. mutual equality, is the new Chinese development doctrine.

And Xi reaffirmed it at the CP Party Congress that has just ended. "Autarky" is China's goal. In other words, increasing independence from the West. Which is meant strategically and in no way speaks against globalization.

BASF is allowed to build a plant in southern China for ten billion euros, larger than the one in Ludwigshafen. However, not because it would be good for BASF. But because it is good for China.

From the Chinese perspective, the Chinese BASF plant is a piece of added prosperity for China. And a piece of Western technology transfer in a key sector, the chemical industry.

And Western high-tech is something the Chinese are particularly keen on. This is also clear from another example.

German and Chinese politicians use the same vocabulary, but charge it in completely different ways.

Standing next to Olaf Scholz on this Friday morning is outgoing Premier Li Kequiang. In an aside, he says - it's almost hard to hear - that China is still "a developing country" when it comes to climate policy. What does that mean? Translated from Chinese into the real thing:


Germany should please understand if the Chinese continue to focus on their economic development instead of climate protection. Germany should provide development aid in the area of climate policy.

The best way to do this is with what Germany does best: its engineering services. Which it is kindly making available to China. Because that serves everyone, namely the global climate.

Irony off. But, dear readers, you have to explain it this way. German and Chinese politicians use the same vocabulary, but charge it in completely different ways. What sounds like a fundamental agreement actually describes a fundamental disagreement. Take Taiwan, for example.


One-China policy means: If China invades Taiwan, Germany does: nothing.

Scholz says the German government is "concerned" about Taiwan. But Scholz also says the German government stands by the one-China policy. But the two are mutually exclusive; it is an internal German contradiction, because: One-China policy means that for Germany, too, there is only one China, namely the communist-ruled one.

And not two, in addition to the Red dictatorship also a democracy with a complete set of human rights. One-China policy means: If China invades Taiwan, Germany does: nothing.

What a violation of "value-based foreign policy": Germany supplies weapons to Ukraine because it defends "our freedom" against the Russians.

With Taiwan it would be exactly the same: Taiwan would also defend "our freedom" in case of a Chinese attack. But Taiwan may not be Ukraine.

Scholz hopes that everything will continue as it did with Merkel

Olaf Scholz hopes that, even if the world has gone haywire, everything will somehow continue as it did with Angela Merkel. But not even Germany's industry is convinced of that anymore; its top association, the BDI, is now "Team Caution" when it comes to China.

The Chinese government has just sealed off the Foxconn site, and people are trying to run away in droves from this, the largest Apple factory on earth.

Apple is now building its new I-Phone in India, a democracy, in a Taiwanese factory. Maybe that's the right answer.

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[Jimbuna]

I'm wondering if conflict ever took place, China might turn out to be as lacking in conventional military capability as Russia appears to be.

[Skybird]

They definitely have raised their numbers of modern equipment and modern platforms, zero doubt on that. One can also take it for granted that their real spending on defence is much bigger than the official, formal number given as their defence budget. Finally, they produce modenr stuff for less money than we do in the West, so the same 1 million coins buy you so and sio much in the West, but on the home-grown market of China (for military goods) it buys you so much more.



Their weakness maybe is that they are over-confident (which may make them less combat efficient but more prone to vote for war), and lack the experience to fight wars. But we can only asusj ethis, we do not know this for sure.



Their strength is numbers, no doubt on that, plus the many naval auxiliaries they have. Hundreds of these.



The Us has the edge in air power, quality and experience. But if that is eno9uzgh to fight superior Chiens enumbers - I dont beleive it a slong a sI dont see it.


Ther eis a agme chnager now, that is drones, autonomous drones, both air and sea, the ukriane war proves it. Soon we will see autonomous drone sion swarms. This trend poses a real and existential threat for the US navy's big multi-million and billion dollar warships. One of the many nightmare bscenarios I can imagine: cruise missiles sending fleets of autonomous drones with swarm AI into a diustant reigon where rhew swarm then will start to feats on what it finds there. a tnak batallion on the gporund. A carrier strike group. Defeating defence by "flooding", by oversaturating the defences with more attackers than the defenders can shoot down. Or canniosters of such swarm drones unsuspicously mounted on civilian container ships, in business containers, being send into a Western harbour, where the swarm then launches its attack.



Any attacker cna even hide the identy of the attacker. The components for building such drones can be internationally bought and collcted. Who build it, and where? Who is the attacker? The victim might never know.



I fear most people have not even started to fully comprehend what is coming at us from that direction.



Taiwan has all that chip production. German VW and BASF both invest two digit billions in new factories in China, with all technology transfer included, while reducing production in Germany. Bubble-Olag goes to Bejing and come sback with -. empt yhands. He has nothing to show up with, nothing, just cheap words. And the ukriane war is a display of what impoact drones have on modern warfare and how they throw old doctrines out of the window.

[Rockstar]

[ET2SN]

Taiwan is in the process of Off-shoring their chip Fabs to North America and Europe.

Their companies will retain ownership and profits, so look for the Fabs on the island to start exploding on the first day of a war.

Taiwan ain't dumb.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

Taiwan is in the process of Off-shoring their chip Fabs to North America and Europe.

Their companies will retain ownership and profits, so look for the Fabs on the island to start exploding on the first day of a war.

Taiwan ain't dumb.

They do it because Western governments more and more make it a condition they must comply with if they want ongoing diplomatic and other support against China. Because Western nations have realised that if Taiwan blows up or comes under Bejing's control or a sea embargo is implemented by China, the West's access to chips is screwed.


One maybe even can call it "dodging a war" - by not needing to support Taiwan in place anymore. The Taiwaense calcualtion was ot make the world depending on it so that it has no other choice than to come to its rescue in case China attacks. But the successful military defenc eof Taiwan is in doubt now, and would anyway come at the cost of massive, huge destruction in Taiwan.



We must get the chip production out of Taiwan. Not nice for Taiwan. Essential and vital for us.

[August]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Is that Walter Cronkite next to the Gipper?