War is the health of the State. China’s communist state between Mother Nature and Command and Control graft ridden economy is doing badly. On the other side of the Pacific though the Democrats leadership is staunchly pro-China in backchannel way —the law firm of Doug Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris represents China. Hunter Biden and the Big Guy helped China for bribes and of course drug money laundering in US banks from Fentynal profits continues with Toronto Dominion Bank and soon to be revealed US banks, the need for an Enemy targets China. https://features.csis.org/global-forecast-china-challenge/
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chinese-offices-emptier-now-during-peak-covid-lockdowns-economy-crumbles
Companies are trying to reduce costs, and this has “led them to be more prudent in their office leasing decisions”, Leung said, citing rental reductions in lease renewals. This environment remains “challenging” in China, Leung added, with the overall vacancy rate expected to continue to rise this year and rents forecast to fall by 8 to 10 per cent year on year.
Said otherwise, absent massive, constant stimulus China - like the US - simply can not function in its current parameters, and the result will be constant overcapacity-driven deflation across every sector until the government finally capitulates and injects the next several trillion in stimmies.
Part of the problem is new supply, said John Lam, head of China property research at UBS. According to Colliers, in Shanghai alone there were almost 1.6mn sq metres of new prime office space will be completed this year, this is the highest level of new supply in the past five years.
https://johnmenadue.com/beyond-us-hegemony/
is difficult to understand why Senator James Patterson and “dewy eyed” Defence Minister Richard Marles think of China as part of a threat environment. There is a remarkable agreement between these two defence mavens from the opposite sides of politics that has a common source.
Our understanding of the darker foundations of US thinking about the US-China relationship is obscured by the public utterances of presidents, politicians and public policy commentators. This is the froth and bubble of policy, but it does little to reveal the foundations of this visceral fear of China.
Written by one of its founders, UNIT X – How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War is an account of the Defence Innovation Unit ‘X” which provides some insight into the real foundations of this fear of China. It provides useful clues to the thinking that has captured Patterson and Marles.
The book is an unabashedly self-congratulatory survey of American supremacy. It reeks of the same thinking as the outdated white man’s burden because the author positions the US as a global saviour. There is a zealotry that defines the American civilisational mission that goes beyond the simple concepts of hegemony.
Hegemony, like colonialism, is about control. The foundations of this narrative in UNIT X is the belief that China and the world should become a clone of the US.
What makes this account notable is that it is sprinkled liberally with details of meetings and direct access to the most senior defence decision-makers, including Secretaries of Defence Ashton Carter, Jim Mattis, Leon Panetta, and with President Donald Trump in the oval office. It places this embedded thinking above the level of mere misinformed opinion.
At its core, this is a discussion of new and better weapons. It’s also a tale of the seduction of Silicon Valley where the promise of rapid payment overcomes all scruples and erases the infamous injunction to “do no evil”. It shows how the Department of Defence became a Silicon Valley sugar daddy.
But of more interest is the way the discussion is peppered with asides that reveal the foundations of anti-China thinking.
We learn that American activity is always benevolent. UNIT X pleads for a return of conscription to show the younger generation the real military and to counter the (false) narrative of Abu Ghraib torture and rendition.
It consistently denies legitimacy of the Chinese Government and implies that President Xi Jinping is self-appointed.
It is an in-depth survey of a new software industrial complex that is in many ways more vicious in its warfighting objectives than the 2,000 pound bombs used in Gaza. More vicious because it celebrates the destruction of the modern sinews of civilisation. Of course, this is only applied in a just and righteous way. If China and others are thinking the same way, then their motives are evil.
==https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-ministry-says-china-lacks-ability-invade-has-other-options-2024-08-30/
TAIPEI, Aug 30 (Reuters) - China lacks the ability to "fully" invade Taiwan as it does not have the equipment, but is bringing on line advanced new weapons and has other options to threaten Taiwan, such as inspecting foreign cargo ships, the island's defence ministry said.
China, which views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, has ramped up military and political pressure over the past five years to assert its claims, which Taipei strongly rejects.Will the Chinese go to war? https://thediplomat.com/2024/08/china-isnt-poised-to-invade-taiwan-but-beijing-might-benefit-from-that-perception/
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-august-30-2024
The People's Republic of China (PRC) flew 32 military aircraft over the Taiwan Strait median line while ROC President Lai Ching-te was in Kinmen County to commemorate the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. The PRC possibly used the flights to signal its opposition to Lai attending the commemoration ceremony. Kinmen is a group of Taiwan-controlled islands with a large military garrison roughly 3 kilometers from the coast of the PRC. Lai gave a speech in Kinmen County on August 23 during a commemoration ceremony on the 66th anniversary of the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1958, when the PRC unleashed a heavy artillery barrage against Kinmen. The PRC flew 32 aircraft across the median line for two consecutive days from August 22-23, marking the largest number of PLA aircraft median line crossings in August.[1] The PRC also flew two military drones around Taiwan on August 23. The PRC has used similar flights to signal its disapproval of political developments that express or support Taiwan’s sovereignty, including PLA sorties into Taiwan’s de facto Air Defense Identification Zone.
Jake Sullivan met with Xi. https://www.ksn.com/news/politics/ap-china-and-the-us-will-plan-a-biden-xi-call-in-the-coming-weeks-the-white-house-says/
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-alternative-order-xi-jinping-elizabeth-economy
By now, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambition to remake the world is undeniable. He wants to dissolve Washington’s network of alliances and purge what he dismisses as “Western” values from international bodies. He wants to knock the U.S. dollar off its pedestal and eliminate Washington’s chokehold over critical technology. In his new multipolar order, global institutions and norms will be underpinned by Chinese notions of common security and economic development, Chinese values of state-determined political rights, and Chinese technology. China will no longer have to fight for leadership. Its centrality will be guaranteed.
So there you have it in a nutshell. An election year that is a must win for Democrats who are sick and in bed with a sick Tiger. What if indeed. Before WW1 pundits insisted war between European states was impossible due to trade and Dynastic kinship. Wrong.
More importantly, Taiwan manufactures all of Invidia's (US) semiconductors as there is no US domestic production due to offshoring. Watching that dog and pony 'free market' show lately? Pelosi portfolio visits? Magnificent men in their high-flying machines...
Picked up America Against America by Wang Huning , who is the brains behind the throne in Mainland China.