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Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

RangerRay said:
That’s why we need to be judicious in how we talk about our political rivals. Overheated rhetoric can turn into violence pretty quick.

That goes for both sides.
Click to expand...
Agreed. When one side is too vociferous and insulting then the moderates will gravitate to the other side.

"if yer not fer us yer agin us" thinking is dangerous.
 
OldSolduer said:
Agreed. When one side is too vociferous and insulting then the moderates will gravitate to the other side.

"if yer not fer us yer agin us" thinking is dangerous.
Click to expand...
Problem is, both sides can be vociferous. Partisans become even more radicalized, moderates stay quiet.
 

China’s Strengthening of Nuclear Submarine Capabilities Alters Power Dynamics.​


On June 27, 2024, China demonstrated its unwavering commitment to enhancing its nuclear submarine capabilities, despite encountering challenges such as the serious accident in October last year involving a Type 093 nuclear submarine. The incident resulted in the tragic loss of 55 Chinese Navy personnel.
In recent years, China has vigorously built up its nuclear capabilities, constructing numerous missile silos in the northwest, clearly preparing for contingencies in the Taiwan Strait. Originally, China thought 300 nuclear warheads would suffice to deter any major power, but the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw millions of deaths in the US while maintaining social stability, altered Chinese perceptions. The US’s restraint during the Russia-Ukraine conflict has provided China with significant insights. According to a mid-June report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China’s nuclear arsenal reached 500 warheads in January this year, a significant increase of 90 from the previous year. It is estimated that China actually possesses over 1,000 nuclear warheads.
The Pentagon’s annual assessment of China’s military power, released last October, noted that the PLA currently has 60 submarines, including six strategic nuclear submarines, six nuclear attack submarines, and 48 conventionally powered submarines. By 2035, the total number of Chinese submarines is expected to reach 80.

armyrecognition.com

China’s Strengthening of Nuclear Submarine Capabilities Alters Power Dynamics

China’s Strengthening of Nuclear Submarine Capabilities Alters Power Dynamics
armyrecognition.com armyrecognition.com
 
From The Economist:

China’s leaders face miserable economic-growth figures​

The jingxi hotel in Beijing is known for its home-made yogurt—and for hosting some of the most important meetings in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. These gatherings include the “third plenum” of 1978, which confirmed Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power and the opening of China’s economy. From July 15th-18th, the country’s leaders met for another “third plenum” in this closely guarded venue. With luck, they savoured their yogurt. Because outside the hotel walls, the economy was again turning sour.

Figures released on the opening day of the meeting showed that the economy grew by 4.7% in the second quarter, compared with a year earlier. The number was both weaker than expected and slower than the previous quarter’s figure, when growth seemed to be stabilising. It puts the government’s official growth target for this year—around 5%—in doubt.

Beneath the headline figure, things were even worse. Nominal gdp, unadjusted for inflation, grew more slowly than the adjusted figure. The gap implies that prices across the economy continue to fall. In fact, by this measure, China has suffered its fifth quarter of deflation in a row.

Since China’s housing slump began in mid-2021, economists have feared that the world’s second-biggest economy might follow in the footsteps of Japan, which suffered two lost decades of deflation after asset bubbles burst. By some measures, China is a fast follower. Japan did not enter the fifth quarter of its deflationary spell until the end of 1995, over four years after its property market peaked. In Japan the pattern of falling prices persisted, with few interruptions, for another 18 years.

In both Japan then and China today, deflation is a symptom of lacklustre demand. China’s retail sales, for example, grew by only 2% in nominal terms in June, compared with a year earlier. Vehicle sales shrank by more than 6%. The slump in property rumbles on. Even the push to finish half-built homes, one of the government’s priorities, seems to have lost momentum. The amount of floor space completed by developers in June was almost a third less than a year earlier.

Just as deflation reflects weak spending, it can also cause it. Firms will hesitate to borrow and invest if falling prices mean that the money they must repay is worth more, in real terms, than the money they borrowed. In response to slowing credit growth, China’s central bank could cut interest rates. But it worries that lower rates would weaken China’s currency and erode the profitability of its banks. The central bank’s recent announcements have instead focused on refinements to its policymaking apparatus, helping it prop up bond yields and keep interest rates in a narrower range. It has been more active in sharpening its tools than using them.

Could policy signals from the third plenum come to the rescue? In recent days official media have presented Xi Jinping, China’s ruler, as an “outstanding reformer”, much like Deng. A communiqué on July 18th vowed to “place reform in a more prominent position”, “actively expand domestic demand” and “give better play to the role of the market mechanism”. But these pronouncements may not be convincing enough to lift the mood. The party routinely promises to boost consumption and honour private enterprise. The problem is that it also periodically cracks down on successful firms and forswears consumer-friendly handouts in times of distress. Ultimately, confidence is low not because policy signals have been absent, but because they have been mixed.

Some reforms could even make the country’s cyclical problems worse. Local governments, for example, need new sources of revenue to replace dwindling proceeds from selling land. One answer could be an annual tax on the value of property. However, introducing such a tax would be perverse in the midst of a property slump. Another possibility is expanding China’s consumption tax, which falls mainly on luxuries, like jewellery, and sinful goods, like booze. Yet such a tax would only further depress weak retail sales.

Over the next few days and months, China’s leaders need to keep this balance in mind. Long-term reforms following the plenum must be sweetened with further stimulus spending in the short term. The Jingxi hotel’s yogurt reportedly tastes even better with a sprinkling of sugar. ■
 
Well, well, well - looky who's headed over for a visit ....
www.canada.ca

Minister Joly to visit the People’s Republic of China

The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today announced that she is visiting Beijing, People’s Republic of China, on July 19, 2024, at the invitation of Wang Yi, China’s Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
www.canada.ca www.canada.ca
globalnews.ca

Canada’s Joly visiting China after years-long rift - National | Globalnews.ca

Joly says she wants to take a pragmatic approach in finding common ground, and her visit follows Canadian officials calling Chinese interference Canada's greatest strategic threat.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca
"Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly to Visit China" (CHN embassy, Ottawa)
 
The Bread Guy said:
Well, well, well - looky who's headed over for a visit ....
www.canada.ca

Minister Joly to visit the People’s Republic of China

The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today announced that she is visiting Beijing, People’s Republic of China, on July 19, 2024, at the invitation of Wang Yi, China’s Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
www.canada.ca www.canada.ca
globalnews.ca

Canada’s Joly visiting China after years-long rift - National | Globalnews.ca

Joly says she wants to take a pragmatic approach in finding common ground, and her visit follows Canadian officials calling Chinese interference Canada's greatest strategic threat.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca
"Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly to Visit China" (CHN embassy, Ottawa)
Click to expand...
Probably to grovel at the feet of the Chinese leadership apologizing for our harsh racist views of Chinese people.
 
Good2Golf said:
Maybe she’s going over to get the instruction package for running the Canadian October 2025 election? 🤷🏻‍♂️
Click to expand...
Just speculation here as I’ve very little knowledge about diplomacy and politics on the international level:

Is Xi and his gang misogynistic? If so they won’t take her seriously. Mere speculation on my part.
 
Edward Campbell said:
From The Economist:

China’s leaders face miserable economic-growth figures​

The jingxi hotel in Beijing is known for its home-made yogurt—and for hosting some of the most important meetings in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. These gatherings include the “third plenum” of 1978, which confirmed Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power and the opening of China’s economy. From July 15th-18th, the country’s leaders met for another “third plenum” in this closely guarded venue. With luck, they savoured their yogurt. Because outside the hotel walls, the economy was again turning sour.

Figures released on the opening day of the meeting showed that the economy grew by 4.7% in the second quarter, compared with a year earlier. The number was both weaker than expected and slower than the previous quarter’s figure, when growth seemed to be stabilising. It puts the government’s official growth target for this year—around 5%—in doubt.

Beneath the headline figure, things were even worse. Nominal gdp, unadjusted for inflation, grew more slowly than the adjusted figure. The gap implies that prices across the economy continue to fall. In fact, by this measure, China has suffered its fifth quarter of deflation in a row.

Since China’s housing slump began in mid-2021, economists have feared that the world’s second-biggest economy might follow in the footsteps of Japan, which suffered two lost decades of deflation after asset bubbles burst. By some measures, China is a fast follower. Japan did not enter the fifth quarter of its deflationary spell until the end of 1995, over four years after its property market peaked. In Japan the pattern of falling prices persisted, with few interruptions, for another 18 years.

In both Japan then and China today, deflation is a symptom of lacklustre demand. China’s retail sales, for example, grew by only 2% in nominal terms in June, compared with a year earlier. Vehicle sales shrank by more than 6%. The slump in property rumbles on. Even the push to finish half-built homes, one of the government’s priorities, seems to have lost momentum. The amount of floor space completed by developers in June was almost a third less than a year earlier.

Just as deflation reflects weak spending, it can also cause it. Firms will hesitate to borrow and invest if falling prices mean that the money they must repay is worth more, in real terms, than the money they borrowed. In response to slowing credit growth, China’s central bank could cut interest rates. But it worries that lower rates would weaken China’s currency and erode the profitability of its banks. The central bank’s recent announcements have instead focused on refinements to its policymaking apparatus, helping it prop up bond yields and keep interest rates in a narrower range. It has been more active in sharpening its tools than using them.

Could policy signals from the third plenum come to the rescue? In recent days official media have presented Xi Jinping, China’s ruler, as an “outstanding reformer”, much like Deng. A communiqué on July 18th vowed to “place reform in a more prominent position”, “actively expand domestic demand” and “give better play to the role of the market mechanism”. But these pronouncements may not be convincing enough to lift the mood. The party routinely promises to boost consumption and honour private enterprise. The problem is that it also periodically cracks down on successful firms and forswears consumer-friendly handouts in times of distress. Ultimately, confidence is low not because policy signals have been absent, but because they have been mixed.

Some reforms could even make the country’s cyclical problems worse. Local governments, for example, need new sources of revenue to replace dwindling proceeds from selling land. One answer could be an annual tax on the value of property. However, introducing such a tax would be perverse in the midst of a property slump. Another possibility is expanding China’s consumption tax, which falls mainly on luxuries, like jewellery, and sinful goods, like booze. Yet such a tax would only further depress weak retail sales.

Over the next few days and months, China’s leaders need to keep this balance in mind. Long-term reforms following the plenum must be sweetened with further stimulus spending in the short term. The Jingxi hotel’s yogurt reportedly tastes even better with a sprinkling of sugar. ■
Click to expand...
Right now they are pushing EV's into Western markets to maintain export and GDP numbers and to crush Western EV makers. My guess is that Chinese EV's are going to lose their sheen very quickly with poor quality, poor support and a bad habit of catching on fire.
 
The Economist worries about China's intentions:

----------​

Why is Xi Jinping building secret commodity stockpiles?​

Vast new holdings of grain, natural gas and oil suggest trouble ahead​


Over the past two decades China has devoured enormous amounts of raw materials. Its population has grown bigger and richer, requiring more dairy, grain and meat. Its giant industries have been ravenous for energy and metals. In recent years, though, the economy has suffered from political mismanagement and a property crisis. Chinese officials are adamant that they want to shift away from resource-intensive industries. Logic dictates that the country’s appetite for commodities should be shrinking, and shrinking fast.

In reality, the opposite is happening. Last year China’s imports of many basic resources broke records, and imports of all types of commodities surged by 16% in volume terms. They are still rising, up by 6% in the first five months of this year. Given the country’s economic struggles, this does not reflect growing consumption. Instead, China appears to be stockpiling materials at a rapid pace—and at a time when commodities are expensive. Policymakers in Beijing seem to be worried about new geopolitical threats, not least that a new, hawkish American president could seek to choke crucial supply routes to China.

Trump trade​

The fear is warranted, for China is dependent on foreign resources. Although the country is the world’s refining centre for many metals, it imports much of the raw material required, ranging from 70% of bauxite to 97% of cobalt. China keeps the lights on thanks to imported energy. It has a lot of coal, but its deposits of other fuels do not match its needs, forcing it to bring in 40% of its natural gas and 70% of its crude oil. China’s dependence is most acute for food. In 2000 almost everything citizens ate was produced at home; today less than two-thirds is. The country imports 85% of the 125m tonnes a year of soyabean it uses to feed its 400m pigs. Its reliance on foreign farmers is near total for coffee, palm oil and some dairy products.

Aware of this, China started building up “strategic” stockpiles of grain and defence-related minerals at the end of the cold war, which it then added to at the peak of its economic boom with stocks of petroleum and industrial metals. Three recent events have prompted more stockpiling. In 2018 President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on $60bn-worth of Chinese exports to America, forcing China to retaliate by slapping duties on American soyabeans. Next came covid-19, which disrupted supply chains and raised the cost of materials. The war in Ukraine then inflamed prices and showed America’s will to use embargoes against even large foes.

Now Mr Trump, who makes no secret of his desire to hobble China, has a decent chance of returning to power. America could start by restricting its own food exports to China, which have rebounded since Mr Trump’s departure from the White House, and lean on other big suppliers such as Argentina and Brazil to do likewise. It could try to influence countries that sell metals to China, including Australia and Chile. And most of China’s commodity imports are shipped through a few straits and canals that America could seek to block for Chinese vessels by, say, posting military ships nearby.

China seems to be readying itself for a more hostile environment. Its preparations start with scaling up infrastructure required to stash supplies. By contrast with America, where strategic reserves are government-controlled, in China stockpiles also take the form of private tanks, silos and warehouses, which officials in Beijing have access to in times of crisis.

Since 2020 China’s crude-storage capacity has increased from 1.7bn to 2bn barrels. The location of many such sites is secret, but satellite imagery suggests that known ones have grown fast since 2022, says Emma Li of Vortexa, a data firm. Similarly, the capacity of underground gas caves grew six-fold between 2010 and 2020, to 15bn cubic metres (bcm); the target is to reach 55bcm by next year. China is also building a dozen or so tanks to hold liquefied gas along its coast. JPMorgan Chase, a bank, forecasts that total gas-storage capacity will hit 85bcm by 2030.

China is now filling these facilities. In another sign of increasing caginess, state statisticians have stopped releasing data for stocks of many commodities. Yet there are ways to approximate the degree of concern. America’s Department of Agriculture forecasts that, by the end of the current growing season, China’s stocks of wheat and maize will represent 51% and 67% of the world’s, up five to ten percentage points from 2018. These are thought to be enough to cover at least a year’s demand. Stocks of soyabeans, China’s biggest agricultural import, have doubled since 2018, to 39m tonnes, and are projected to hit 42m tonnes by the end of the season.

Copper-bottomed​

More striking still has been China’s effort to stash away metals and fuel. By estimating the amounts of copper, nickel and various other metals that China could have credibly consumed and comparing it with total supply, Tom Price of Panmure Liberum, a bank, finds that the country’s inventory build-up since 2018 has been sufficient to cover at least 35% to 133% of its annual demand, depending on the commodity. By the end of spring China also had 25bcm of gas in storage, enough to meet 23 days of consumption, and up from 15 days’ worth five years ago. Parlsey Ong of JPMorgan Chase expects that this cover will reach 28 days by 2030.

Crude stocks, meanwhile, have risen by an average of 900,000 barrels a day (b/d) since the start of the year, estimates Rapidan Energy, a consultancy. At 1.5m b/d, the filling rate was fastest in June, suggesting acceleration. This has helped China’s inventory near 1.3bn barrels, enough to cover 115 days of imports (America, by comparison, holds 800m barrels). The stash will continue to grow. China has told oil firms to add 60m to stockpiles by the end of March. Rapidan reckons reserves will grow even faster, with China adding as much as 700m barrels by the end of 2025.

This stockpiling is worrying Americans, and not just because it could fuel inflation by raising commodity prices. The supplies China is after are exactly those it would need to survive a protracted conflict, perhaps as it blockades Taiwan. “When you juxtapose that against China’s military build-up, it starts to be very concerning,” says Gabriel Collins, a former analyst at America’s defence department. For now, the evidence suggests that Xi Jinping’s hoarding is more likely to be a defensive measure, since it is not yet on a scale required for him to be secure in a hot conflict. American officials must hope that does not change in the years to come. ■

----------​

The last para is the worrying part.
 
Have to wonder how a protracted Ukr/Rus conflict that is eating up NATO stocks plays into this as well.
 
If China is stockpiling commodities it’s an indication they mean to do the West - us - harm either economically or physically or both
 
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