What is the plan for the massive unemployment in China when it decides to not sell lots of goods/sanctioned by the white and wanna-be white world?
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
- Start date
Develop global south markets?
Not sure, but quality labor is easily reabsorbed elsewhere (similar / parallel industries) whilst the government is sure to introduce policy measures and schemes to help those affected. There will be a reduction in average earnings, but nothing that will 'break' society.
At that point Russia and China would be effectively an island outside of the western system, so all the more incentive to get aligned countries into the new system, develop their markets and infrastructure to be able to support the type of market China needs, etc.
If there is risk of armed conflict then military production will need to ramp up, possibly absorbing experienced talent from adjacent industries and leaving a vacuum to fill.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
There will be no mass unemployment.
If the war is successful and short, there will hardly be any disruption to production and employment.
If the war is long and hard, they can re-train as China transitions to full war economy and/or the new military related jobs that will be created in industrial quantities.
Depending on how the war goes and escalates, there could also be monumental demand for anti-ballistic defences and even underground nuclear fallout cities.
The options are basically limitless.
Western options, on the other hand, will be extremely limited as their entire industrial supply chain basically crumble overnight. Hence the greatest threat and risk to China from such a war is the west going desperate psycho mode and threatening nuclear blackmail. Hence the need for ABD and nuclear fallout survival options.
If some other country sanctions China while China is defending itself from US' aggression war, that country has committed an act of war and would also be part of the battlefield.
Inside China itself, regardless of which countries are the aggressor parties, there would be a complete reorientation of industries, with major workforce mobilization, both for civilian and military purposes. You'd be left with many empty civilian jobs as people are instead helping with the war, so I strongly doubt unemployment would even be a thing at all.
Chinese response to a Taiwan invasion would perhaps, among the things we have seen in real life, most closely resemble the Covid-19 response. I don't mean lock downs in the cities (except within Taiwan), but the government is going to call up a ton of resources, civilians will set up funds to contribute, industry will be mobilized to create response equipment.
As the initial shock of the first US offensive has been blunted, China would likely attempt to form a coalition to impose economical blockades on US, with the goal of preventing US' replenishment by cutting off electronics, civilian goods and pharmaceuticals.
To totally cut off US, China would need to reach out to the other global sources of electronics, in particular South Korea, but perhaps spanning as far as EU countries as well. There would be an ultimatum to cease dual use goods supply to America, on the grounds of UN's law against invasion wars.
If that ultimatum is not obeyed, China will have to use even more people to man land fronts. Plus at this point, the creation of Ukrainian style "workshops" will arise in earnest, in addition to China's regular massive automated weapon factories. Such workshops would produce smaller drones, cluster warheads, mines etc, suitable for being lobbed a short distance on the Korean border (or inside Taiwan, if American/KMT soldiers still hold onto a foothold), rather than the true blue high end cruise missiles made in large government factories. That will take even more employment.
Tldr: undermanning jobs is a much larger risk than unemployment
My uncle runs a textiles factory in Suzhou, producing oven mitts, mattress casings, and the like. During COVID, they retooled and retrained the entire assembly line to produce PPE in about 3 weeks.
There's no need to transfer labour or production when it can adjust to war footing so quickly.
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The US top military official said that US can win vs China in a Taiwan scenario, but it will take a whole nation effort. He was speaking at the Aspen Security Forum. A whole nation effort means all out war. A Taiwan scenario might likely be over well before that point. What makes me happy is that even the top US commander knows that a conflict with China will be very difficult for the USA. They are not living in an invincible USA delusion.
They are still being delusional. Or trying to salvage their own credibility. Even the news article says "claims".
do you have any understanding of how war works? war will always cause a shortage of manpower.
The most wishful thinking is that somehow China would not have planned for this far in advance. This is a country that expected to be nuked by the US and USSR, and no doubts expects full US and vassal participation in a Taiwan scenario. Expecting this much, obviously economic shockwaves would not be a surprise.
People seem to have forgotten how F’d up things were during Covid already. Like not being able to fix cars for 4-6 weeks, empty shelves at stores, etc. Replacing the workforce of China will be difficult if not impossible for the west. As we recently saw, SK and Taiwan are quite dependent on migrant labour, they cannot easily fill the gap on their own. India, which has a large population, does not have a strong skills inventory.