1. China’s economic growth has slowed down in part due to a
harsher, longer Covid shutdown. China also has a demographic crisis, partly a legacy of the now curtailed One Child Policy, with too many
elderly people compared to too few people of working age. China’s population
(over 1.4 Billion people) is too large for new workers coming into China to make
a difference. In any case China does not want other people particularly not Muslim people from western China increasing proportionately against the current 92% of Han Chinese.
Australia in contrast has a small enough population (26.8 million)
people for immigration of new young Australians to make a difference. Since the white Australia policy was abolished 50 years ago we don’t have major concerns over the racial mix of immigrants. In proof of that after immigrants from England the 2 largests sources of immigrants into Australia today are India and Mainland China.
What do ya think?
2. China is producing more vehicles overall than the US, Japan, India and South Korea combined. China is producing more Electric Vehicles (including Teslas) than the rest of the world combined. Chinese cars used to have inefficient engines and be of poor quality, but now are high quality at cheaper prices. All MGs, new London Taxis and many Mercedes, Volvos (China owns Volvo and Lotus), Audis and BMWs are made in China. India's owns redoubtable Land Rover and may be able to revive the long ailing Jaguar. What do you think?
3. In an attempt to wedge the ruling Labor Party and the urban trendy Greens Dutton is creating mischief in advocating nuclear energy. In the years Dutton was a Coalition minister the Coalition never advocated nuclear generated electricity. In his No campaign
against renewables he is advocating Small Modular (nuclear) Reactors (SMRs) for
electricity. Australia seems on track to rely 95% on renewables for power
(wind, solar, batteries and hydro). So SMRs might only be needed for 5%
capacity. SMRs are undeveloped technically and there are no commercial ones.
Federal laws ban power reactors. Public acceptance? Politicians are always nervous in suggesting reactors be built in their electorates - so they never do. Existing power lines? Delays? No nuclear waste dumps in Australia. Any thoughts?
4. Humanitarian Disaster in Gaza and Israel. Even if Hamas started it is true...is Gaza turning into a 300 people a day death camp? Dirty water borne diseases Cholera and Dysentery may become the biggest killers as the people of Gaza (being denied fresh water) are forced to drink dirty stagnant water.
5. Oscar Wilde quotes that are True or False?
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are
looking at the stars.”
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
“One should always be in love. That is the
reason one should never marry.
“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”
"I am not young enough to know everything."
"To
live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."
"Everything in moderation, including
moderation."
“Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.”
“It is the spectator, and not life, that art
really mirrors.”
“There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.”
“The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.”
11 comments:
Pete
I will have a go at commenting on 1 and 2. In fact, I think point 2 (China’s impressive EV production capacity) partly answers question 1 (how will China’s economy turn out).
Overall, I think China’s economic growth rate will continue to slow, as it has been doing. There are many reasons for this including demographics, increased military spending, and self defeating policies. Wolf-warrior diplomacy scares neighbours into finding new trading partners. Debt-trap diplomacy (all those developing countries with un repayable debts) is good for forcing countries to let you have naval bases, but lousy for getting any return on the money loaned.
Likewise with “belt and road” projects. Financially they look fool hardy. Funding the projects the world bank feared to touch just because they led back to China was risky. If economies like Pakistans do not take off, again that capital will not get a return. Grandiose real extate development ventures also look in trouble.
However growth stalling does not mean collapse. China prior to Xi had built a huge productive capacity that is not lost. It might enter a decade or two of stagnation, like Japan in the 90s. But those factories already built will still continue producing, and all those products will still keep being sold world wide. In fact they are so integral to the world’s economy there is little choice. Who has the productive capacity to replace them? Nobody. It took China decades to build, and it would take other countries decades to rebuild.
So I think predictions that China would grow to some dominant super panda are overblown. But it won’t get any smaller.
Hi Anonymous at 10/26/2023 9:52 PM
I'm hoping slower PRC economic growth might inhibit the PRC from expensive, PRC economy damaging, trade partner alienating activities, like invading Taiwan.
But alternatively Dictator Xi may see a Taiwan invasion
as a useful nationalist girding distraction from slower economic growth.
Xi's (not yet imprisoned) critics might even hint at slow growth being due to Xi's poor economic and political management, at their peril.
Pete
It is ironic your reference to the fate of Xi’s critics and poor economic management. Yesterday former Chines Premier Li Keqiang was reported to have died of a sudden heart attack. Li had only been eased out of the Politburo in March 2023. Heart attacks happen but Li was only 68 years old, seemingly in good health and a non-drinker. Bad luck?
The irony is because Li was recognised as a brilliant economist and a political moderate who had visited Australia several times. He was well liked. However his views on economic policy were opposed by Xi and he was pushed aside.
That being said, history isn’t promising for countries with slowing economies to be disuaded from attacking neighbors, in fact, as the Falklands and Ukraine both demonstrate, autocratic leaders of slowing economies sometimes initiate attacks to distract their people from the slowing economy.
The good news for countries like Australia is that the odds of China being so powerful they can dwarf the rest of Asia in the future are declining.
Hi Anonymous at 10/28/2023 8:52 PM
Yes former Premier Li Keqiang's final relationship with the Great Xi became frosty at best https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Keqiang#Relationship_with_Xi_Jinping .
SUBMARINES
Russia's Ukraine War-time need for economic assistance (by way of China being the major? buyer of Russian oil/gas) may also involve Russia bartering high tech Nuclear submarine inventions to China. This may make China's future Type 095 SSNs and 096 SSBNs much more formidable than otherwise.
In that sense China may become more powerful militarily.
The up-shot may be a much greater USN need for SSNs than the US anticipated when its aging leader, Biden, entertained the notion of selling 3 to 5 Virginias to Australia.
Regards Pete
Pete
Yes that is certainly a risk for AUKUS SSN supply to the RAN. It would only take one nervous US president between now and 2032 to 2038 to cancel our SSN purchase. You would have to say that risk is high, with presidential elections due in 2024, 2028 and 2032 to occur before AUKUS SSNs are transferred.
I have previously expressed the view that French SSNs might be preferable as a more affordable option. They increasingly look a less risky option as well, with a construction start possible far sooner than the not yet designed SSN AUKUS.
Hi Anonymous at 10/30/2023 10:52 PM
Yes the USN's (wanting many more SSNs for self use) influence may prevail upon possibly 3 new Presidents, through to 2032, to kill off the Virginia offer to Australia.
Also the US may not want to give Australia access to America's most sensitive SSN technologies held in the US, but also in key US tech shared with the UK. This includes US VLS and new reactor tech the UK SSN-AUKUS will rely on. This may not only kill off the Virginia offer but also effectively prevent the UK selling SSN-AUKUS to Australia.
FRENCH SSNs
One major problem with France's latest Barracuda SSN is the lack of VLS. VLS permits upgrade to Ballistic and much more potent emerging Hypersonic Land Attack Missiles that Australia might rely on as a conventional (or even nuclear) deterrent against China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barracuda-class_submarine_(France)#Specifications
Even if a Barracuda design were modified to take VLS its narrow 8.8m beam places a major limit on how long/high an Australian Ballistic or Hypersonic land attack missile could be.
Regards Pete
Hi Anonymous at 11/01/2023 1:20 AM
Australia "immediately" building any SSN, having lost submarine building expertise in the last 20 years, with no experience building nuclear subs would be far more complex and prolonged than the over-ambitious, 15 year, build of the Attack class.
France is opposed to selling/helping Australia to build Barracuda SSNs.
And as I said the beam of this SSN, at 8.8m is too small for the longer ranger missiles fired by VLS.
Cheers Pete
G'day Pete!
Not Volvos (Volvo Cars) - those are still made everywhere, most recently with a new plant in Sweden. Volvo's owner, Geely is quite unlike say Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (which owns the MG brand) and runs the unit with a light touch. In any case, MG died ages ago, and SAIC not insensibly bought it up. I don't believe very many of the original MG engineers went over - by contrast, Volvo Cars still operates as it always has (sadly on awful Ford engines rather than proper, reliable Volvo engines)
The Chinese ICE car industry is inextricably linked to global trade because the actual ICE powerplants are mostly made in other countries, where ICE technology is superior. The PRC's industrial strategy is to try and encourage investments into the Chinese battery-electric industry in the hope that it leapfrogs other countries, obviating the need for catching up in ICEs. In general, this has been the Chinese technology development strategy.
China's flagging economic growth is simply the "find out" phase after the "f*** around" phase. A broad range of problems were not properly addressed, including COVID, poor domestic investor confidence, over-reliance on asset appreciation for cashflows, and poor "information" in the credit and financial system. Almost no social safety net, winner-takes all market, etc. have all badly dented domestic consumer confidence (no-one is coming to save them) so everyone chooses to save. Without reliable domestic investment opportunities, middle class people bought houses in the hope that they would appreciate; now that they're badly depreciating, wealth has taken a hit. Wealthy people and political elites "bring their wealth overseas" (to Singapore... the most CCP-influenced place on eEarth is also the safest place from the CCP... how's that for Party self confidence?). What to do? Honestly, what would you do?
In fairness, the place was always a mess to run and I do not envy Xi and gang at all, who surely face threats to their lives from every angle. It's just a feature inherent to China, and I am not sure a different political party, say the KMT, would have done much better overall.
What is Belt-and-Road? It was a sop to SOEs who had been hit by Xi's "cleaning house", to keep them alive - limits of power, selectorate and all that stuff. Easy low-quality projects as life-support, externalise the externalities overseas, sell it on fantastic returns projections and then collect money regardless of realised returns or ability to pay, and hope those backwards third-worlders don't realise it and ransack their presidential palace (spoiler alert: they are not so stupid are they?).
-retortPouch
G’day Pete! Cont’d:
On the Israel issue, some say attacking Hamas will only make the problem worse. While it is true that blindly bombing Gazans will only intensify discontent, it's not like there are no intermediate options which can successfully dismantle and destroy an embedded terrorist/insurgency movement. Even if destruction is impossile, there are still worthy intermediate objectives, like destroying their combat power, and killing terrorists specifically to make a point. We should hope that this is true, and we should be grateful if it is true: that there are less destructive ways to respond to terror attacks, because if it were not true, then the Israelis will have only the maximally violent recourse to an intolerable crime.
The velvet glove is better than the mailed fist.
Fortunately, the British (and Commonwealth Forces like the Australian and Commonwealth African infantry; thank God for the sacrifice of those young National Service boys!) showed the way in Malaya and Borneo during the first Emergency. COIN campaigns are won by separating the insurgents from the populace, who are often intertwined by blood ties. Sensible administration and swift control will be necessary. This thing should not be run as a war but as a campaign of pacification. (It is much easier for me to say it than to do it).
Then there is also the political aspect, both domestic and int'l that operates upon Israeli responses. It's all very complex. This post is much too long and I have spent too long on it.
-retortPouch
Thanks retortPouch at 11/01/2023 6:21 PM
For your huge comment on the Chinese car industry.
Yeah, I was wrong about ownership of Volvo Automotive. Its still in Swedish hands, including the advert where a sexy Swedish chick says "Volvo"!
This is not my area of specialty, but I'd retort :) overall that China is very much part of the Globalized International Manufacturing System (cars and all) with increasing emphasis on Electric Vehicles (EVs).
Its very complicated eg. Tesla's "Gigafactory Shanghai" is a huge part of the Tesla car empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Facilities and I believe China is the world's largest source of the basics of Lithium car batteries, servicing most non-Chinese EV builders.
Meanwhile rising labor costs in China may divert more ICE car production to cheaper labor countries, like other foreign companies do in Southeast Asia (eg. Thailand). See "Most of the vehicles built in Thailand are developed and licensed by foreign producers, mainly Japanese, American and Chinese" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_Thailand
Cheers Pete
Hi -retortPouch at 11/01/2023 6:21 PM
If only Gaza was a nice isolated problem like the small ethnic Chinese settlements in the Malayan countryside. After 90% of the Chinese were effectively placed in barbed wire enclosed camps - which then permitted cordon and search operations by overwhelming numbers of Commonwealth forces against very small bands of Chinese insurgents.
OR
a fleet of professional soldiers, SSNs and aircraft carriers could liberate an isolated Falkland islands defended by unwilling Argi draftees.
But the Gaza problem is more like Northern Island.
- Although instead of a minority of Catholic IRA insurgents Gaza is 98% potential Hamas and other insurgents,
- already heavily armed with arms resupply via Gaza to Egypt tunnels and via Gaza's beaches with the Mediterranean
- with Arab States and Arab Individuals and Iran prepared to spend $Billions/per year on new weapons for Gaza insurgents.
Simple :(
Glad I live in Australia...
Regards Pete
Post a Comment