Deterrence is never guaranteed, especially when facing an irrational and desperate declining superpower. The risk of losing one’s existing prestige and status is much greater incentives to fight than trying to gain something one never had. It is for this reason why conservatives whites in America fought against every attempt to pass civil rights laws guaranteeing racial equality for a 100 years from the Civil War until 1965. And it is for the same reason why it is so hard to tax the rich in liberal democracies with institutions that tend to protect existing elites and power bases. Apply such logics to international politics, it is why Britain would fight so hard to prevent the rise of Germany through a national strategic gamble (joining WWI) whilst overlooking the US. In sum, status quo powers (both domestically and international politics) tend to fight to the last tooth and nails to preserve their privileges even when their realistic material power could no longer support their desires. Compromise would mean losing everything bit by bit and fade into the flood of history.
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
- Start date
Fine, China should just give up then.
Do you know under what circumstances a nuclear war would break out?
The answer is that a nuclear war would only break out if one is assured of protection from a nuclear attack. Therefore, the "Golden Dome Project" was created for this very reason.
Trump is trying to convey to Americans the idea that they are immune to the threat of nuclear war, a belief that will lead some warmongers to take risky actions, using this radical approach to pressure China. China simply displayed a large number of hypersonic missiles and ballistic missiles with global reach to easily shatter Trump's illusions.
When facing death, many things can be given up. Power, status, money, and wealth are fleeting. Living a decent life is what most people choose.
There are never any guarantees. If people are suicidal, then they are suicidal, and we will all die together. That's the way it's always been since the Cold War days, and the way it will always be. Such is MAD.
I must say, while I hold you in high regard, I cannot agree with this viewpoint. The European and American markets are crucial trading partners for China. This is not because China is weak, but precisely because China is the world's largest industrial nation. Its production capacity has far surpassed that of all industrial entities that have ever existed in history. Even without being fully mobilized, this immense capacity has already made China the factory supplying the entire world. If China relied solely on domestic demand, it would be insufficient to absorb such massive industrial output. What China needs now is, on one hand, to expand the scale of its domestic market demand, and on the other hand, it requires greater market access from Europe and the United States. When the initiative shifts to China, the vast disparity in production capacity could swiftly overwhelm Western markets with Chinese exports. This would force Western nations to become dependent on China—the world's factory—across all sectors, including high technology. China would then secure complete dominance in every industrial domain.
Whos Ma Chen and that org "Independent Chinese Pen Center"? Is it like an NGO/ "free press" group?
Who cares. The only thing important is such hanjians exist.
Not that I’m advocating for China to just discount trade with Europe and the US but given China’s current level of development it absolutely could absorb all its industrial capacity domestically if it wanted to. There are still lots of people who could use newer nice things in China who could absorb excess capacity if you just made it cheap it enough for them. It would just be less financially efficient to run the economy that way.
As a graduate majoring in International Trade, I would say that international trade exists because it improves the situation for most of the participants.
China is not only the world's largest exporter but also the second-largest importer.
This means that we still have a significant demand for some manufactured goods or intermediate products from Western countries to meet our own consumption needs and to supplement the supply chain on the production side.
However, as time goes by and technology advances, China's demand for foreign industrial manufactured goods will gradually decline. By then, China's demand will only be for raw materials and agricultural and livestock products, and such trade will not allow Western countries to maintain their current affluent lifestyles.
This is the essence of the China-US conflict that we see. However, before this conflict is resolved through one side's victory or some form of win-win outcome, China and the West both have strong trade dependencies on each other. That said, I would say that China is the side with a lower degree of dependence, after all, we can sustain ourselves at a level of living comparable to that of the 2000s if not 2010s.
China is not only the world's largest exporter but also the second-largest importer.
This means that we still have a significant demand for some manufactured goods or intermediate products from Western countries to meet our own consumption needs and to supplement the supply chain on the production side.
However, as time goes by and technology advances, China's demand for foreign industrial manufactured goods will gradually decline. By then, China's demand will only be for raw materials and agricultural and livestock products, and such trade will not allow Western countries to maintain their current affluent lifestyles.
This is the essence of the China-US conflict that we see. However, before this conflict is resolved through one side's victory or some form of win-win outcome, China and the West both have strong trade dependencies on each other. That said, I would say that China is the side with a lower degree of dependence, after all, we can sustain ourselves at a level of living comparable to that of the 2000s if not 2010s.
When you look into the details China’s trade dependency with the US is basically almost nothing now thanks to the effect of 8 years of trade wars.