Agreed, though there is smart, cunning and intelligent. I think he’s cunning, and while he’s not stupid, I don’t think he’s nearly as smart as people make him out to be. I think this whole genius thing, and how the west (and his own people) think of him is way, way overblown. But, yes, he is like a mafia don. It’s actually a lot like how the PRC is run by the CCP…same kind of thinking and same kinds of actions. And same sorts of echo chambers, that just tell the folks at the top how wise, smart and capable they are. And also that reality is what they say it is.
Was that because he was one of the few allowed to live and retire to his dacha instead of being forecefully deposed? And still be alive today, at that, despite continual criticism of Putin?
It’s more that he managed to wind down the USSR peacefully at the cost of his own personal power. Imagine if Putin had been in charge back then? There probably would have been a WWIII.
IMHO, Ukraine is going to become a Rorschach Blot: People can draw multiple conclusions from it. Or, more like blind men feeling the elephant.
There will be hawkish factions in China who will argue, “Russia was much weaker than we are, so even if they did badly in Ukraine, we can do well against Taiwan, and an island can’t be resupplied as easily by foreign allies.” There will be dovish factions who will point out that islands are much harder to invade than Ukraine, which shares a direct border with Russia.
There will be those who will argue that if the USA couldn’t bring itself to intervene directly against a weak Russia, it wouldn’t against China - but then those will argue that Taiwan is geopolitically more important than Ukraine (such as having a much bigger economy and also a lot of chips.) There will be those who will argue that the US will be even more war-wearied after Ukraine (despite not having intervened) and have less stomach than ever to fight a war over Taiwan, and also have refocused back to Europe rather than Asia.
You could draw a dozen conclusions/arguments out of Ukraine to support any viewpoint post-war.
That is always the case with any event. Certainly, this will be no different.
I don’t think this will be the real hinge of the issue. Basically, what I think the Chinese will be debating is if the west would do similar things to them, economically, and what effect that would have. And if the west did…could they survive (they being the CCP)? As to the military aspect, certainly that will factor in, but, again , my WAG is that those who really understand the military will draw the conclusion that China would have a very rough time invading Taiwan without the overuse of unrestricted air attacks (i.e. attack aircraft and missiles)…something that Russia has, thus far, not gone to. That will probably give them some pause as well.
As for the US…I’d say that along with the factors you gave, there is also the fact that, in this case, we not only do have a defense treaty (of sorts) with Taiwan, but also we have a rather long relation with them, as opposed to the US’s history and relationship with Ukraine. Then there is the US’s who has been pushing, rather hard, for sanctions as tough and hard as the Europeans will take…and the Europeans actually going for many if not most of them.
Certainly, there will be those in Beijing that will draw whatever conclusion they are predisposed to, but it would be really, really hard to handwave away the west’s reaction to all of this, especially the US’s reaction and think, yeah, we could do this without real consequence or backlash.
They have been building up their amphibious forces something fierce last 5 years.
The focus on Taiwan is masking that one of Chinas strategic aims (along with Russia’s) is the de-dollarization of the global economy.
After the Russia sanctions that’s going to get a renewed emphasis.
As well as their navy and conventional missile forces. They have also pre-staged a ton of stuff in the invasion logistics locations they would be using and have made arrangements to commandeer commercial sea transport for troops. They could do it, though it would be costly…even if the US doesn’t step in and even if the US and west don’t hammer them with sanctions and trade embargo.
Absolutely they have been trying to do this and after the sanctions that Russia has already gotten, both countries are going to redouble their efforts. Also, to move international banking to something they control, instead of the west. It will be interesting to see if they can pull it off. I don’t know enough about international banking and decoupling from the dollar to speculate, but China thinks it can do it so I guess we shall see.
Worry less about about Chinese and Russian stategy, this seems to be the policy of a substantial block of the US HoR.
All those precipitous debt ceiling negotiations. And one day there won’t be enough adults in the room and the US will go over the edge. Then the bond market will have you for lunch. You can’t claim global reserve currency status and regularly threaten to default on debts. No more printing cash to pay the credit card. The world banks move to using a basket of currencies as reserves. Be a good thing overall, even eventually for the US. But the transition will be traumatic.
It might happen sooner than that. Lots of Central bankers and Finance Ministers are being asked right now “can what was done to Russia, be done to us” and answering “yes sir/ma’am.”
Which means everyone is suddenly interested in exploring alternatives. Which do exist, they just aren’t that substantial, widespread and easy to use. Right now.
It will be King Cotton in the 21st century.
Indonesia’s official position is that the treatment of Uighurs is a China internal matter and that they will not meddle. Of the Muslim majority countries, more have come out in support of China than against.
Ocean freight rates are set by competitive bidding. What I think you’re referring to is UPU postage rates which China historically had an advantageous rate on but this was already ended by the Trump administration.
All of which could change, given the right advertising and a few (possibly) manufactured incidents.
The administration got the UPU to vote on the subject but they largely voted to keep things as they were. There was only a minor adjustment made.
Trump swapped Navarro out with Lighthizer and they never resumed the effort.
I see it more as Russia being a tiger that ends up in a zoo cage. Is the tiger able to kill the zookeeper if he wishes? Yes. But the tiger needs the zookeeper to bring him food every day. So the tiger might be strong but the zookeeper controls the relationship.
If the western world maintains its sanctions, Russia is going to find itself dependent on China. But China won’t be dependent on Russia.
For the US, China is cheap factory labor. For Russia, it’s just an added shipping cost; they have their own cheap labor (especially, now).
Russia is largely self-sufficient and they have enough sources remaining - India, North Korea, Iran, etc. - that I don’t think they have any unique need for Chinese aid. It’s not like Cuba and the Soviet Union.
The difference is China already has the factories where the cheap labor is working. They can start sending manufactured goods to Russia tomorrow if they wanted.
Russia would have to spend a decade or two building up a similar infrastructure. And that would be assuming they somehow had access to the same kind of foreign investment that China had back in eighties and nineties.
Russia also has its own factories producing all the same stuff. Most Russian imports are from Europe, to have the newest and coolest fashion, wines, and cheeses. These are all things that they can, at the end of the day, live without.
The one exception to that is that their computer industry relies on foreign products. Despite what China might say, Taiwan is not a part of China. And outside of Taiwan, most other semiconductor development is not on the side of Russia.
But again, Russia does have their own companies doing it, as does India.
Russia also has a long history of industrial espionage. From what I know of the KGB, I’d guess that they spent more time stealing technology than they did trying to fight for land in South America during the Cold War. Communism probably gained traction during that period less through KGB influence as through the simple promise that Communism would give the lowest class the ultimate power.
If they turn their mind to getting their own technology up-to-snuff, you can expect a lot of internal wikis to get vacuumed up from Silicon Valley and over to Russia - if they haven’t already done it.
It’s difficult to put a smartphone in every hand but, in terms of goals like being able to hack the Central Bank of China, you just need to be able to build one very large and very fast computer. For purposes of being annoying, you don’t need to match the production capabilities of the West, you just need to be able to keep a line of national projects up-to-snuff.
For Russia China is even more the main customer for their main products: natural gas and some other resources that China can use.
Russia can build its own chip foundries (have to significant degrees) and can make enough consumer products to meet its demand. But their economy relies on exporting natural gas more than anything else. They are not self sufficient.
Their economy has gone from one being entangled in the economy of the rest of the world to a largely domestic-only economy. They don’t have most exports but they also don’t have most imports and don’t need to pay for them. All of their government debt, they can basically ignore - I mean, what could someone do to them, to convince them to hand money over? All of their businesses’ debt, the same.
The economic change is so vast that it’s basically nonsense to classify it in any way. It’s like comparing the economy of Span in 1300 to the US economy today and saying that Spain is clearly fubar given how small their GDP is and how little trade they’re doing.
Really, it comes down to the practical effects of the loss of foreign trade and foreign markets. Whole segments of the economy are redundant and other large segments are insufficient. They’re going to need to rebalance their entire workforce.
But it is a free market, within the borders. That will happen on its own. Their products will become worse, the rouble will decide on a particular value that makes sense within their territory, and life will go on. They’ll see the world outside advancing, and they’ll march along with less to ooh and ah at. Some research would say that they might be happier without all the modern technology and a simpler, less connected lifestyle.
The next few years - assuming that Putin stays in power - will be chaotic but production will shift, supply lines will adapt, and they’ll continue on. The money will adapt to the reality on the ground.
Russia is not in the same ballpark as China when it comes to manufacturing products. China’s manufacturing base is approximately twenty times the size of Russia’s.
China’s customer base is far larger.
Of course it is. That’s a function of them manufacturing more products.