Cold War 2.0 or WWIII?

[Agema]

The trade is still a sizeable amount and will only increase if China's economy will also prioritize domestic growth instead of only exports. Also indirectly China supplies the bulk of industrial raw ingredients necessary for transshipment of half fabricates which is important for U.K.'s international trade. Probably a larger chunk of their export than marmite and cheddar. So they are very vulnerable on the supply side as well. Trade with the E.U. is also likely to decrease if they close the border for the simple fact paperwork and cumbersome customs processes will slow it down. Without an economic block it is simply impossibe to make unilateral trade deals with China that would make any kind of demands on the regime. Even the U.S. can't change China's policy much in terms of IP protection, access to Chinese markets and unfair competition due to state subsidies. Even tariffs on Chinese steel or whatever won't put a dent in the trade deficit due to the huge demand on Chinese production and supply.

Sure, the UK and Australia can't pressure China effectively, but China can't really pressure the UK (maybe it can Australia rather more) in return. There is basically nothing essential China can make that UK or Aus can't go through a middleman (e.g. Singapore) for, or acquire elsewhere. It's inconvenient, but the cost will be so small compared to the wider economy as to barely matter.

The UK's delusions about trade deals with anyone at all are a moot point - the government has deceived the population about all manner of things over Brexit and the country will pay the cost in due course. But it can feel quite free to move trade away from China to other places. There are no shortage of countries happy to make steel or widgets for the UK if China declines to with opportunities to invest in in return.

HK's special status is beneficial for China as well because of it's independent legal process enabling the settlement of disputes through neutral insurance companies. As a guarantee for international businesses to invest in China this is pivotal and the regime knows this which is why they have treated the HK protests with comparative silk gloves. They even went so far as to concede with the extradition treaty but the initial demands didn't suffice anymore for the protestors. Ofcourse China won't allow a provocation from Australia over this or allow the protestors for China to lose face. It needs both internal support and the trust from investors so it's a difficult balance. I guess technically Shanghai could take over HK as China's international trading hub but it's something they'll try to avoid at all costs.

China is obviously in the process of shutting down HK autonomy and integrating it thoroughly into the Chinese system. We could never imagine the CCP would permit an outpost of free capitalist democracy in its country's borders indefinitely, with the inherent challenge that presents. It's only taken this long because China needed to be strong enough to do it without too serious ramifications. HK used to be about 15-20% of China's economy, and it's now ~5%. That's a year's GDP growth, easy to suck up a spot of loss whilst pounding it into line.

It is simply bizarre to think this was not always coming. Look at what China has done in Tibet, or to Xinjiang. Damn right it's kids gloves stuff in comparison, but no-one can be under any illusion that HK is to increasingly know that Beijing is boss. What China wants is to hammer HK into line whilst retaining all the advantages that HK held compared to the mainland. The rest of the world should rightfully tell it to get lost.

 

[stroopwafel]

Sure, the UK and Australia can't pressure China effectively, but China can't really pressure the UK (maybe it can Australia rather more) in return. There is basically nothing essential China can make that UK or Aus can't go through a middleman (e.g. Singapore) for, or acquire elsewhere. It's inconvenient, but the cost will be so small compared to the wider economy as to barely matter.

The UK's delusions about trade deals with anyone at all are a moot point - the government has deceived the population about all manner of things over Brexit and the country will pay the cost in due course. But it can feel quite free to move trade away from China to other places. There are no shortage of countries happy to make steel or widgets for the UK if China declines to with opportunities to invest in in return.

I don't think it's that easy to switch manufacturers at competitive rates when profit margins are low. Some production have moved to Cambodia or Vietnam but they are hardly a competitor and not even a viable alternative for specialized production. Like I said chemical exports are hugely important for almost any western nation and the bulk of raw ingredients is supplied by China. I'm not even mentioning domestic economy here of which the vast majority of consumer products are also supplied by China. Chinese production goes through the entire supply chain you don't suddenly replace that. It wouldn't even be possible at efficient rates. Secondly middle-men are usually used to obfuscate who the seller is not the country of destination which is pretty obvious. It's not a matter of avoiding restrictions it's a matter of avoiding unfair competition which is simply impossible to do with a small country on it's own. For some countries the relationship with China is so one-sided they have to sell off state infrastucture to comply with their terms. The dependence on China is what drives the change in the entire geopolitical landscape.

China is obviously in the process of shutting down HK autonomy and integrating it thoroughly into the Chinese system. We could never imagine the CCP would permit an outpost of free capitalist democracy in its country's borders indefinitely, with the inherent challenge that presents. It's only taken this long because China needed to be strong enough to do it without too serious ramifications. HK used to be about 15-20% of China's economy, and it's now ~5%. That's a year's GDP growth, easy to suck up a spot of loss whilst pounding it into line.

It is simply bizarre to think this was not always coming. Look at what China has done in Tibet, or to Xinjiang. Damn right it's kids gloves stuff in comparison, but no-one can be under any illusion that HK is to increasingly know that Beijing is boss. What China wants is to hammer HK into line whilst retaining all the advantages that HK held compared to the mainland. The rest of the world should rightfully tell it to get lost.

Nah, I don't share that analysis at all. You put way too much emphasis on how China is some kind of bully who can't wait to unleash it's communist ideology on any apostate. The regime is actually very pragmatic and only employs the communist rethoric when it feels it's internal stability is threatened. Admittedly, this is quickly because of traumatic historic reasons but it's definitely not ideological. It is also the reason why China has no imperialistic ambitions. It simply wants to protect it's internal stability through economic growth and international trade but if necessary will also do so at any cost. Dissidents are 're-educated', militant minorities or those that challenge Chinese legitimacy are silenced through loss of autonomy or ambivalent legislation and the population itself is under constant surveillance. The regime is insecure to the bone. At the same time the regime knows in order to keep the peace it needs to provide constant economic growth which is why economic relations with the U.S. haven't escalated despite Trump's provocations(Xi always maintained his composure) and why even international business interests in HK is prioritized by the regime above losing face. This pragmatic approach(maintaining internal stability through rethoric and providing economic growth through mutually beneficial trade relations) obviously worked very well for China. Their hesitant approach to HK also shows how much weight the latter has on the former. This 'trust issue' is much more important than the comparative weight of the HK economy because it ofcourse forms the basis for further international investments.

 

[Agema]

Nah, I don't share that analysis at all. You put way too much emphasis on how China is some kind of bully who can't wait to unleash it's communist ideology on any apostate. The regime is actually very pragmatic and only employs the communist rethoric when it feels it's internal stability is threatened.

China is a bully.

Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but we're talking about Hong Kong, which is part of China. It is absolutely going to suppress Hong Kong, because a regime that stuff Uighurs into concentration camps and sterilises them, which has spent several decades brutally attempting to annihilate Tibetan self-identity and happily rolled the tanks into it's own Han majority when they got a bit itchy is absolutely going to carry that totalitarian mindset to a small (if affluent) outpost of its own territory. Hong Kong IS an internal stability risk in the mind of the CCP, because it offers an alternative governance structure that allows the population there to not do as they are told.

And when we say "part of China", bear in mind all the bits of the world that China doesn't currently own but thinks it should: e.g. Taiwan, the South China Sea, Senkaku Islands and, like I said, Mongolia if it thought for a minute it could get away with it. Mongolia declared independence from China in the early 20th century during a period of disorder, and it's abundantly clear (re. Tibet) that as far as China is concerned that sort of "independence" exists only as far as it is too costly for China to enforce otherwise. Never mind all its aggressive border activities with the likes of India. It's actions in the South China Sea are overtly militaristic and threatening - it provokes disputes and uses those disputes as an excuse to send in the navy, and then promptly slaps naval bases down just in case anyone might be confused.

China just isn't some sort of magic land immune from all the attitudes everywhere else in the world, which is to bend everything to its own self-interest. It's what every powerful country does, as and where it can. China is held back only because it's still got a lot of developing to do. As the decades roll on and China grows, it's only going to get more aggressively assertive.

Like I said chemical exports are hugely important for almost any western nation and the bulk of raw ingredients is supplied by China.

No they aren't. The UK derives ~75% of its chemicals from other EU countries - the EU is itself a massive chemicals supplier. China is just not a huge raw materials supplier. A lot of chemicals come from oil/gas, and that's more easily sourced elsewhere. After that there's all sorts of stuff like metals, sulfur etc., and China's not trying to buy up swathes of Africa because it's generally superabundant in those either. What China sells to the EU is overwhelmingly manufactured goods - electronics, machinery, clothing, etc. None of this stuff can't be acquired elsewhere. If there were not a single Chinese smartphone available in the UK, for instance, that would still leave consumers with a colossal range of choice.

In short, China and the UK aren't going to do anything against each other in trade if relations degrade, because neither's got leverage worth the effort. Sure, there'll be no super-duper deal, but there isn't now either, and it works okay.

 

[Eacaraxe]

In short, China and the UK aren't going to do anything against each other in trade if relations degrade, because neither's got leverage worth the effort. Sure, there'll be no super-duper deal, but there isn't now either, and it works okay.

Said bearing in mind the whole-ass modern history of China has been influenced and dictated by imports from the UK, and the associated historical-cultural baggage China has certainly not forgotten, I'm sure.

 

[Tireseas]

Seen a lot of nuclear exchanges in your life?

I don't need to. Fallout isn't just the name of a fairly popular RPG. The winds will likely disburse radioactive material across a large portion of Asia.

 

[stroopwafel]

China is a bully.

Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but we're talking about Hong Kong, which is part of China. It is absolutely going to suppress Hong Kong, because a regime that stuff Uighurs into concentration camps and sterilises them, which has spent several decades brutally attempting to annihilate Tibetan self-identity and happily rolled the tanks into it's own Han majority when they got a bit itchy is absolutely going to carry that totalitarian mindset to a small (if affluent) outpost of its own territory. Hong Kong IS an internal stability risk in the mind of the CCP, because it offers an alternative governance structure that allows the population there to not do as they are told.

And when we say "part of China", bear in mind all the bits of the world that China doesn't currently own but thinks it should: e.g. Taiwan, the South China Sea, Senkaku Islands and, like I said, Mongolia if it thought for a minute it could get away with it. Mongolia declared independence from China in the early 20th century during a period of disorder, and it's abundantly clear (re. Tibet) that as far as China is concerned that sort of "independence" exists only as far as it is too costly for China to enforce otherwise. Never mind all its aggressive border activities with the likes of India. It's actions in the South China Sea are overtly militaristic and threatening - it provokes disputes and uses those disputes as an excuse to send in the navy, and then promptly slaps naval bases down just in case anyone might be confused.

China just isn't some sort of magic land immune from all the attitudes everywhere else in the world, which is to bend everything to its own self-interest. It's what every powerful country does, as and where it can. China is held back only because it's still got a lot of developing to do. As the decades roll on and China grows, it's only going to get more aggressively assertive.

No one is disputing China has harsh policies in regard to Tibetan and islamic minorities. But at the same time it is looking at the situation in Europe and the U.S. and the regime will simply not allow such disorder within it's borders. China will go to extreme lengths to prevent dissidence but again this is also because of historic precedence that kept the country impoverished and humiliated centuries on end. It will prevent a repeat of that situation at any cost necessary. China has made very few historic claims other than protection of territorial interests. Any claim they do make stands in direct relation to it's security risks and economic interests. Former U.S. protectorates also rigorously reject an assertive China for obvious reasons but these are within context of strategic rivalry. It is impossible to have expanding economic interests not provoked by adversaries and then not have it balanced out by a military presence. The strategic rivalry is the very reason for joint military exercises between China and Russia in the south china sea for example.

You keep repeating how China is just waiting to take over all of it's territorial claims by force when reality is that China has been very restrained with military interventions or even with diplomatic provocations. Some policies have even been downright constructive like China's bilateral agreements with the Kim regime that kept North Korea's nuclear program in check. The belt and road initiative that will connect the entire Africa/Eurasian production pipeline. The dependence on international trade that lifted millions of Chinese out of poverty within a generation(an unimaginable accomplishment). Every aspect of it's economic and strategic policies is constituted on mutually benefical trade relations and internal stability. Just look at the patience Xi has with Trump no matter how many tantrums he throws. With the U.S. retreating from international institutions and withdrawing within it's own borders it also befalls to the E.U. and other countries within it's former protectorates to increase defense spending to prevent securty risks being exploited by Chinese assertiveness.

No they aren't. The UK derives ~75% of its chemicals from other EU countries - the EU is itself a massive chemicals supplier. China is just not a huge raw materials supplier. A lot of chemicals come from oil/gas, and that's more easily sourced elsewhere. After that there's all sorts of stuff like metals, sulfur etc., and China's not trying to buy up swathes of Africa because it's generally superabundant in those either. What China sells to the EU is overwhelmingly manufactured goods - electronics, machinery, clothing, etc. None of this stuff can't be acquired elsewhere. If there were not a single Chinese smartphone available in the UK, for instance, that would still leave consumers with a colossal range of choice.

In short, China and the UK aren't going to do anything against each other in trade if relations degrade, because neither's got leverage worth the effort. Sure, there'll be no super-duper deal, but there isn't now either, and it works okay.

Yeah, but guess where the E.U. gets the vast majority of it's raw ingredients. Industry/transshipment of these ingredients within domestic or intracommunal markets or export of half-fabricates to overseas markets(primarily mid-east and south america) constitute maybe 70% of a developed economies growth if you include aggregate activities(finance/banking/insurance etc.) with maybe 30% being consumer spending. Obviously China is looking for rare materials(primarily also coltan in Congolese mines) for the simple fact they are essential for the production of certain consumer items like phones. It are not just Huawei phones that are manufactured in China it are Apple's as well and even if they are assembled within domestic facilities they are still dependent on China for most of their parts.

You keep talking how China would be hostile to the U.K. if China wouldn't comply with their terms or how relations would degrade over a dispute but in reality this is anything but. The U.K. is dependent on China not the other way around. The regime is also more than aware it now alienated most of it's European partners.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I don't need to. Fallout isn't just the name of a fairly popular RPG. The winds will likely disburse radioactive material across a large portion of Asia.

That's not the same as what you were saying though. That's a matter of the environment being effected afterwards, you were talking about the actual exchange of nuclear arms between countries and other countries getting involved.

 

[Agema]

You keep repeating how China is just waiting to take over all of it's territorial claims by force when reality is that China has been very restrained with military interventions or even with diplomatic provocations.

No, China's had limited ability to be militarily aggressive in the same way the USSR and USA have because it's been a piss-poor country with a relatively small (%GDP) and low-tech military. That's not the same thing as limited will.

China has until recently merely been a regional power - but it has done all the sorts of things regional powers do. It's resisted in by the USSR/Russia to the north and west and the USA and allies to the east, but SE Asia it has long considered its playground. So, we've already mentioned a load of stuff China's been up to. Here's some more: Vietnam (China's invaded it), Cambodia (heavily backed the ultra-murderous Khmer Rouge), it funds militants in Myanmar, and so on. In fact, didn't it even threaten to invade the USSR at one point and deploy its whole army on the border?

Restraint, my arse. No, there's no reason to think China's going to be any less thoroughly unpleasant than any other world major power. They've already got plenty enough form to prove the point, and when they finally get a proper world class military, that'll get thrown around too, like every other major power since the dawn of time has done.

Yeah, but guess where the E.U. gets the vast majority of it's raw ingredients.

Not China, that's for sure.

Industry/transshipment of these ingredients within domestic or intracommunal markets or export of half-fabricates to overseas markets(primarily mid-east and south america) constitute maybe 70% of a developed economies growth if you include aggregate activities(finance/banking/insurance etc.) with maybe 30% being consumer spending.

Yes, but how does this relate to the EU and China?

You keep talking how China would be hostile to the U.K. if China wouldn't comply with their terms or how relations would degrade over a dispute but in reality this is anything but. The U.K. is dependent on China not the other way around. The regime is also more than aware it now alienated most of it's European partners.

Diplomatic relations are what diplomatic relations are. Diplomatic relations sure look a bit frosty, and getting frostier. I think I've already explicitly said, however, I can't see any huge reason the UK and China would enter some sort of trade confilct. There's not enough leverage over each other and not enough to fight over. From the UK end, I suspect the main problem will be US and EU pressure to side with them over China, which is a no-brainer for the UK if forced to choose. China's just not really got enough to care about the UK, it'll just send over those unbearably pompous diplomatic complaints. Because no-one beats China for massively pompous diplomatic complaints. That said, I'm not sure how else the UK is supposed to interpret China saying the UK faces "consequences" if it dares utter a peep over Hong Kong and China reneging on that whole treaty thing China and the UK mutually agreed 20 years ago. I suspect it's mostly by-the-numbers hot air, but it sounds quite bullying though. Like the sort of thing countries do when they want to throw their weight around.

There are no European countries medium to long-term dependent on China. If it stopped tomorrow there'd be a lot of pain all round, but the world would go on. China has been left to collect a lot of the world's manufacturing, but that is also likely to end. Already, covid-19 has made a load of companies (such as Apple) realise the risks of too much production based there are and are geographically diversifying. The EU and (probably) USA are already moving to encourage supply lines away from China.

 

[stroopwafel]

No, China's had limited ability to be militarily aggressive in the same way the USSR and USA have because it's been a piss-poor country with a relatively small (%GDP) and low-tech military. That's not the same thing as limited will.

China has until recently merely been a regional power - but it has done all the sorts of things regional powers do. It's resisted in by the USSR/Russia to the north and west and the USA and allies to the east, but SE Asia it has long considered its playground. So, we've already mentioned a load of stuff China's been up to. Here's some more: Vietnam (China's invaded it), Cambodia (heavily backed the ultra-murderous Khmer Rouge), it funds militants in Myanmar, and so on. In fact, didn't it even threaten to invade the USSR at one point and deploy its whole army on the border?

Restraint, my arse. No, there's no reason to think China's going to be any less thoroughly unpleasant than any other world major power. They've already got plenty enough form to prove the point, and when they finally get a proper world class military, that'll get thrown around too, like every other major power since the dawn of time has done.

You had to dig into the cold war era for these examples despite contemporary China's military being way more advanced. Why would it be aggressive when China was a developing nation with an outdated military only to be restrained in it's modern setting unless it had a major paradigm shift(ie Xiaoping's 'great leap forward'). Also wasn't it the west who repeated ad nauseum to 'free Aung San Kyi' only to sit idle when her administration offed the rohingya minorities? Way to have some double standards here.

Diplomatic relations are what diplomatic relations are. Diplomatic relations sure look a bit frosty, and getting frostier. I think I've already explicitly said, however, I can't see any huge reason the UK and China would enter some sort of trade confilct. There's not enough leverage over each other and not enough to fight over. From the UK end, I suspect the main problem will be US and EU pressure to side with them over China, which is a no-brainer for the UK if forced to choose. China's just not really got enough to care about the UK, it'll just send over those unbearably pompous diplomatic complaints. Because no-one beats China for massively pompous diplomatic complaints. That said, I'm not sure how else the UK is supposed to interpret China saying the UK faces "consequences" if it dares utter a peep over Hong Kong and China reneging on that whole treaty thing China and the UK mutually agreed 20 years ago. I suspect it's mostly by-the-numbers hot air, but it sounds quite bullying though. Like the sort of thing countries do when they want to throw their weight around.

There are no European countries medium to long-term dependent on China. If it stopped tomorrow there'd be a lot of pain all round, but the world would go on. China has been left to collect a lot of the world's manufacturing, but that is also likely to end. Already, covid-19 has made a load of companies (such as Apple) realise the risks of too much production based there are and are geographically diversifying. The EU and (probably) USA are already moving to encourage supply lines away from China.

You see international relations in terms of conflict and ideology instead of self-serving and opportunistic. Neither China nor the E.U. has anything to gain by disrupting the status quo. Western export economies rely on cheap production for their growth and domestic growth relies on cheap consumer products. Both in it's turn rely on Chinese manufacture. The bulk of ocean carriers is also Chinese with further investments in local ports and dedicated terminals. The entire supply and shipping infrastructure is maintained by Chinese companies if this would stop tomorrow it would not be 'a lot of pain' it would be the shutdown of the entire economic nervous system. The only means for Apple to 'diversify' is to move production to another low wage country but this would necessitate a ton more investment in accumulation of local expertise, oversight and production output than simple third party outsourcing. All the while not charging these costs to the end consumer and keep Apple shareholders happy. Ie this is just idle management talk for business as usual. Something that will never actually happen.

I'll put it even more bluntly and say China sustains the western economies. Espescially the developed northern ones that are largely dependent on industry/transshipment and exports. The covid-19 crisis was more damaging when it occured in China with concurring delay in production output and shipping than with the national lockdowns(the northern territories wisely kept the entire industrial infrastructure operational for this very reason). Not just a tiny difference either but post-covid China had an export and growth uptick of like 30% when the lockdowns in Europe were in full effect. It also made me realize that domestic economies could collapse due to politicians spending money like water but international capital and interdependent supply lines now provide the bulk of a country's wealth. No country is ever going to risk that for the simple fact that there is no alternative. The only other revenue left to mitigate some of that crippling state debt are shitty consumer companies that necessitate government(ie taxpayer's) buyouts not even one month in a mild crisis or the fucking tourism industry that countries can miss like a bad toothache.

 

[Gergar12]

Cold War 2.0, not WWIII since nuclear weapons, and all.

 

[Ravinoff]

I don't need to. Fallout isn't just the name of a fairly popular RPG. The winds will likely disburse radioactive material across a large portion of Asia.

Fallout is a terrible portrayal of post-nuclear effects, especially with the timeframe the games take place. And don't forget FEV did considerable damage too. Realistically speaking? By the time Fallout 3 takes place (200 years postwar), D.C should be back to being a tidal swamp surrounded by old-growth forest. Nature bounces back fast once humans stop fucking with it, and most fallout radioisotopes will have undergone several cycles of exponential decay in 200 years (strontium-90 and cesium-137 are some of the longer-lasting ones, but still have half-lives of ~30 years).

There are a bunch of other factors involved in calculating just how bad fallout conditions will be, of course, but a regional exchange isn't an apocalyptic event. India and Pakistan would be using fairly primitive and relatively small warheads too, dirtier by yield but much closer to the ones dropped on Japan than the megaton-class weapons of the Cold War period.

 

[Agema]

You had to dig into the cold war era for these examples despite contemporary China's military being way more advanced. Why would it be aggressive when China was a developing nation with an outdated military only to be restrained in it's modern setting unless it had a major paradigm shift(ie Xiaoping's 'great leap forward'). Also wasn't it the west who repeated ad nauseum to 'free Aung San Kyi' only to sit idle when her administration offed the rohingya minorities? Way to have some double standards here.

That's a pretty poor straw man. My point is not that China's international dealings are worse than the West, but that they are no different now, and will be no different in few decades when China is very likely to be an even more powerful player. China will back murderous dictators at it suits China, fund insurgents helpful to itself as it suits China, threaten sanctions as it suits China, and eventually - when it has the capability - it will make its military threats global as it suits China.

That self-interest is likely to be in ways oppositional to our own: China will seek to supplant Western influence and control global resources for itself, and that will be in many ways bad for us. China is, unmistakeably, handing out threats and attempting to punish disagreement. It hit Australia with a load of tariffs merely for calling for a thorough investigation into covid-19. Yeah, that's right: China is the origin of an illness that fucks the world, and they still don't think other countries have a right to demand explanations.

You see international relations in terms of conflict and ideology instead of self-serving and opportunistic.

No, I really don't. I think self-interest is the primary driver of international relations, with ideology to a much lesser extent. But that self-interest will necessarily drive forms of conflict. It's funny, because in a previous thread a month or two back, you were the one banging on about ideology as a driver of international relations, not me.

Neither China nor the E.U. has anything to gain by disrupting the status quo. Western export economies rely on cheap production for their growth and domestic growth relies on cheap consumer products. Both in it's turn rely on Chinese manufacture. The bulk of ocean carriers is also Chinese with further investments in local ports and dedicated terminals. The entire supply and shipping infrastructure is maintained by Chinese companies if this would stop tomorrow it would not be 'a lot of pain' it would be the shutdown of the entire economic nervous system. The only means for Apple to 'diversify' is to move production to another low wage country but this would necessitate a ton more investment in accumulation of local expertise, oversight and production output than simple third party outsourcing. All the while not charging these costs to the end consumer and keep Apple shareholders happy. Ie this is just idle management talk for business as usual. Something that will never actually happen.

Will never happen? It's already happening (one link per word). The West is diversifying its manufacturing needs away from China to other countries, and diversification is as basic an economic and business principle as any. China nearly screwed the European steel industry by overproducing and dumping, with European countries ending up having to protect theirs. The USA and EU were already concerned about China - the USA more visibly, re. Trump - but Chinese expansionist aggression and covid-19 have merely emphasised the point and accelerated the process. It was all okay when China was a weak, developing country that looked like it could be prised further away from the then-USSR, but now it's a major player that is attempting to supplant Western interests with its own globally, so things need to change for self-protection. And they are.

The West and China will almost certainly retain reasonable pragmatic relations even as the West ensures it can meet its needs tolerably without China and disputes increase from China's growing influence. If the US-China trade war demonstrates anything, it's the reluctance of any major trade blocs to engage in extreme action because everyone loses more than it's worth. There will be tariffs, impeded investments - a few hundred million here, a few hundred million there.

 

[stroopwafel]

That's a pretty poor straw man. My point is not that China's international dealings are worse than the West, but that they are no different now, and will be no different in few decades when China is very likely to be an even more powerful player. China will back murderous dictators at it suits China, fund insurgents helpful to itself as it suits China, threaten sanctions as it suits China, and eventually - when it has the capability - it will make its military threats global as it suits China.

That self-interest is likely to be in ways oppositional to our own: China will seek to supplant Western influence and control global resources for itself, and that will be in many ways bad for us. China is, unmistakeably, handing out threats and attempting to punish disagreement. It hit Australia with a load of tariffs merely for calling for a thorough investigation into covid-19. Yeah, that's right: China is the origin of an illness that fucks the world, and they still don't think other countries have a right to demand explanations.

It's not a straw man when your entire argument is based on conjecture. Just as you continue to do now. It's not within China's interest to make empty threats ie case in point the 'trade war' and Trump's erratic behavior. Like I said before China is very sensitive to any foreign inquires into the regime's competence because it sees it as a threat to it's internal stability which is well known in foreign relations which is why such overtures are cheap provocation techniques for media manipulation. Why not take it up through diplomatic channels? The regime should have taken more drastic measures to clamp down on the horrendous animal abuse and disgusting wet markets but after initial denial it did everything to turn the tide and try to contain the virus even publicly publishing it's genome shortly after the outbreak. It shut down it's ports and entire cities and even reached out for foreign aid. Let's not be naive here and pretend Australia's intent for a 'thorough investigation' is sincere instead of a smear campaign to damage the regime. Publicly calling the regime out is just something you can't do if you want anything accomplished with them.

No, I really don't. I think self-interest is the primary driver of international relations, with ideology to a much lesser extent. But that self-interest will necessarily drive forms of conflict. It's funny, because in a previous thread a month or two back, you were the one banging on about ideology as a driver of international relations, not me.

Can't remember but it was probably in a different context than contemporary economic relations.

Will never happen? It's already happening (one link per word). The West is diversifying its manufacturing needs away from China to other countries, and diversification is as basic an economic and business principle as any. China nearly screwed the European steel industry by overproducing and dumping, with European countries ending up having to protect theirs. The USA and EU were already concerned about China - the USA more visibly, re. Trump - but Chinese expansionist aggression and covid-19 have merely emphasised the point and accelerated the process. It was all okay when China was a weak, developing country that looked like it could be prised further away from the then-USSR, but now it's a major player that is attempting to supplant Western interests with its own globally, so things need to change for self-protection. And they are.

The West and China will almost certainly retain reasonable pragmatic relations even as the West ensures it can meet its needs tolerably without China and disputes increase from China's growing influence. If the US-China trade war demonstrates anything, it's the reluctance of any major trade blocs to engage in extreme action because everyone loses more than it's worth. There will be tariffs, impeded investments - a few hundred million here, a few hundred million there.

Subsidised imports and selective access to Chinese markets as well as IP violations have been a point of contention for decades now which is why an economic block like the E.U. is so important because only with some weight can you make any kind of demands. And China has slowly been opening up it's markets as a result.

Also 50% of iphones are manufactured by Foxconn with an additional major future output by Luxshare-ICT which is the same company that owns the diversification site in Vietnam. Apple only deepened it's economic footprint in China with the country accounting for almost half of it's 800 production facilities. Chinese production even upscaled now to semiconductors, optical parts and advanced materials which would end it's reliance on U.S. suppliers and is one of the reasons of the trade war.

No country simply can't compete with China on production and manufacture and any diversification is mostly for close access to lucrative untapped domestic markets not as any reasonable alternative for the global supply chain. There is simply no stopping this train.

 

[Agema]

It's not a straw man when your entire argument is based on conjecture.

My argument is no more based on conjecture than yours, because you no more know the future than I do. But I'm confident that the example China has already set is an indicator of its future attitude, and it's history clearly demonstrates its willingness to engage in interference, sanctions, military aggression and other heavy-handed pressure. You simply cannot reasonably deny that.

No country simply can't compete with China on production and manufacture and any diversification is mostly for close access to lucrative untapped domestic markets not as any reasonable alternative for the global supply chain. There is simply no stopping this train.

Lots of countries can compete with China to produce goods for the West and already to some extent do: Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. American countries will be able to, and with some infrastructure development, Africa can also be tapped for manufacturing. It is merely a matter of investment and will. It is unlikely China will be completely replaced - that much population is a huge amount of capacity - but certainly enough to considerably dampen Chinese influence.

 

[Tireseas]

That's not the same as what you were saying though. That's a matter of the environment being effected afterwards, you were talking about the actual exchange of nuclear arms between countries and other countries getting involved.

No, I said it wouldn't be contained. Nuclear fallout is an effect of a nuclear detonation and would drift along the upper atmosphere for quite a distance and cannot be contained within the conflict zone. Multiple counties would be feeling the short and long term effects of radiation exposure.

And all of this presumes it's a single use of a nuclear weapon without any other human responses. A full volley between the countries would dramatically increase the radioactive debris in the air and the size of the cloud tail. It would be disastrous and, depending on who's in power, could pull other countries into the conflict.

Fallout is a terrible portrayal of post-nuclear effects, especially with the timeframe the games take place. And don't forget FEV did considerable damage too. Realistically speaking? By the time Fallout 3 takes place (200 years postwar), D.C should be back to being a tidal swamp surrounded by old-growth forest. Nature bounces back fast once humans stop fucking with it, and most fallout radioisotopes will have undergone several cycles of exponential decay in 200 years (strontium-90 and cesium-137 are some of the longer-lasting ones, but still have half-lives of ~30 years).

There are a bunch of other factors involved in calculating just how bad fallout conditions will be, of course, but a regional exchange isn't an apocalyptic event. India and Pakistan would be using fairly primitive and relatively small warheads too, dirtier by yield but much closer to the ones dropped on Japan than the megaton-class weapons of the Cold War period.

I didn't say it was an apocalyptic event, nor did I even say it would be like the game (which is named after the real after-effects of a nuclear explosion, which is what I was referring to).

 

[Eacaraxe]

No, I said it wouldn't be contained. Nuclear fallout is an effect of a nuclear detonation and would drift along the upper atmosphere for quite a distance and cannot be contained within the conflict zone. Multiple counties would be feeling the short and long term effects of radiation exposure.

And all of this presumes it's a single use of a nuclear weapon without any other human responses. A full volley between the countries would dramatically increase the radioactive debris in the air and the size of the cloud tail. It would be disastrous and, depending on who's in power, could pull other countries into the conflict.

The problem with this is, after effects don't matter. The decision to counter-launch is made when a launch is detected. The point of MAD is not to wait and see which way the missiles are going because launch facilities are priority targets.

I didn't say it was an apocalyptic event, nor did I even say it would be like the game (which is named after the real after-effects of a nuclear explosion, which is what I was referring to).

The hilarious thing about that, is despite Fallout as a series being cheeky, trope-y, and derived more from Cold War-era fiction than the potential reality of nuclear war...Fallout 4's depiction of a nuke going off is actually one of the more accurate in gaming, not to mention lore-accurate. You can reverse engineer its approximate yield based on how long it took the shockwave to reach Vault 111, and its effects on the site in both the game's prologue and after. If I remember right, my math put it in the 50-75kt range for an approximately 1-2psi overpressure at 1.8 miles -- absolute low end for nukes in the Fallout universe, but still lore-accurate especially taking into consideration nukes in the Fallout universe are always depicted as ground bursts. Ground burst in a hilly area, the people at Vault 111 actually would have been protected from the thermal pulse.

 

[Hawki]

China warns citizens of 'arbitrary' searches in Australia and upgrades travel warning

Tensions between Australia and China have been escalating on various fronts this year.

www.sbs.com.au

So now we're officially in tit-for-tat accusations of tyranny.

...awesome!

 

[ralfy]

 

[Agema]

So now we're officially in tit-for-tat accusations of tyranny.

...awesome!

Let's just say I'd trust the Australian justice system a great deal more than I would trust the Chinese justice system.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

What about another civil war? Politically we’re getting increasingly divided it seems, and a omewhere down the road it may reach a breaking point. The left and right seem to have mutated into the worst extremes of a busted spectrum.


We need a reset now more than ever. Anytime I see people like George Soros behind the scenes pulling strings it makes me think maybe Trump’s not so bad.