Posted on 02/17/2023 5:37:02 PM PST by SeekAndFind
David Archibald, an Australian scientist and analyst, counterintuitively argues that China is weaker than we think. I don’t agree with everything Archibald says, both factually and theoretically, but I thought his essay is interesting enough to bring to your attention.
The premise of Archibald’s claim that China is not as formidable as Xi Jinping makes it appear is summed up in a single sentence: “China has a lot of structural problems that make it a fragile state, a frail state and even potentially a future failed state.” Archibald makes five major points:
One: China’s demographic games have been disastrous. Mao, who believed in big battalions, deliberately encouraged massive population growth, which peaked at about 1.4 billion. The result is that China cannot feed its population. That continues to be true despite its one-child policy that has now left China in a demographic tailspin with an aging population that a smaller, youthful population must support.
Image: China’s military on parade. YouTube screen grab.
Archibald, who accepts that the population is still roughly 1.4 billion (rather than the low of 1 billion that I’ve heard), says that only a quarter or so of the population engages with the greater world. Over a third of the population is engaged in agriculture:
Another four hundred and twenty-five million are agricultural workers. So your average Chinese agricultural worker only feeds himself and two other people.
Bear in mind that in Western countries about 2% of the population are in agriculture and they feed the other 98%. Recently I visited a farm in Western Australia that produces 40,000 tonnes of wheat per year with three full time staff. So each of those workers feeds about 25,000 other people.
Moreover, says Archibald, China’s staple food crop, rice, is primarily hand planted on terraces.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Over the years I have seen a lot of PLA troops while living in HK and China. The thing that I noticed was that their uniforms never seemed to fit right.
Never underestimate your adversary.
That is why they are dangerous though. These problems are often blamed on others and wars start.
Perhaps, but for the life of me I have a hard time coming to the conclusion that they are.
“A counterintuitive take on the risk that China poses to the world: An Australian-based analyst contends that China is weaker than we realize”
Likely the same guy who PROMISED US that the Ruble was rubble and that Russia wouldn’t last a week, once we cut them off of SWIFT...whereas instead EUROPE is going into Recession next year, while Russia is NOT.
We have heard this for years.
I agree, but that can put it a dangerous.
I tend to agree with this. Not to mention that their soldiers are generally unwilling to fight because they are the only sons.
This is what I’ve always thought. Despite it’s great land area and large population, except for during the time of the Mongol dynasties it’s been something of a paper tiger, only able to pick on smaller, weaker countries at it’s peripheries but unable to become a true superpower and relying on bluster (and more recently the fact that it has the bomb) to get it’s way on the world stage. It seems to lack the ability to be a major industrial power and it’s people lack real cohesiveness, which is why it’s only been kept together by strongmen and various repressive regimes.
You should never underestimate your foe, but you should also not overestimate them to the point that you fail to see your own advantages.
Many people in government and the military industrial complex as well as our intel organs all have an interests in building up threats. We saw the same outlook during the Cold War.
China is not our friend and we should cease ALL business with the CCP. I have nothing against the Chinese people and we all seem to forget that they live under a despotic regime that treats them FAR worse than other governments in major nations. Less than 1% of the population there holds absolute control over the other 99%. The situation is the same in Iran and N. Korea.
China has a LOT of internal problems. We have a lot of problems too. However, when you objectively look at the problems we have FAR more ability to hurt them than they do us so why not use it?
I constantly read and see that we will be at war with China soon. CCP officials openly talk about how they will defeat us. If we accept that premise as being true, why are we still funding the PLA with trade? Why do we still allow exchange students? Why are we allowing them to buy property in the US?
Outside of cheap products at Walmart or via Amazon, what is the real advantage for the average American of having a 400 plus billion dollar trade deficit with a communist regime that is openly promising to destroy us?
Screw Wall Street..... it’s not their kids that will bleed and die in a war with the CCP. They were the ones who climbed into bed with the CCP and gutted American manufacturing. Bring your factory back or let the executives move to China but they can’t sell their products here. At some point we need to cease doing business with them! Period.
Do that and Xi will be replaced because the real power in China is no different than in the US.... $$$$ runs the world. Cost their “oligarchs” enough money and they will stop waving around their sword like an insecure teenager and THEY will rein in Xi.
Why wait? Let’s get it on now - stop all trade with China. If we can’t make it let the government grant loans to build factories here in the US. Yes, our debt sucks, but it would be cheaper than a full blown war and we won’t have thousands of caskets draped in flags made in China.
OK, they have a famine and 50 million die. That leaves 1.35 billion people.
I could be wrong...and I hope I am...but I believe that the people of East,and Southeast,Asia should expect their lives will soon become a lot worse thanks to the "People's Liberation Army" (and Navy...and Air Force),ill fitting though their uniforms might be. And that goes double for the people of Hong Kong,Taiwan and South Korea.
And I believe that the same will happen to people in the West within the next ten years or so.
Both China and Russia have relatively little arable land, for their size.
People could shut them down faster than our governments. Simply stop buying anything made in China. That would mean not buying much of anything for a year or two but that would cause their export economy to crash.
The problem was that the Chinese Army was a labor force more than an army. In some ways, the Chinese military is still designed to make money for its leaders. Being in the military is not a “good” job in China, a land where having a good job is very important.
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