China's Economy is All Smoke and Mirrors

Maskirovka was the term used as a Russian doctrine of military deception. I has evolved as a doctrine to "mask" and deceive in every political endeavor.  Russia may have created it, but the Chinese have refined and mastered it.

 By Rich Kozlovich

For years I've taken the position China's economy is all smoke and mirrors, and we're seeing that play out now, China's broke, and getting more broke.  The Biden administration is as nuts as was the Nixon administration. How hard is it to grasp that any financial stability accorded to China is funding our own destruction? 

If Trump wins, that will end. 

They've just closed thousands of restaurants in China as a result of their economic problems.   Central planning at it's worst!  A Maoist economic philosophy that failed when Mao was alive, and will fail with Xi as China's Maoist emperor. His military isn't like Mao's, it's a bit semi-independent, is filled with corruption and incompetence, he's afraid of them, so he doesn't dare cut their budget, and just as it did for the USSR, that will help bankrupt them.

There's all this talk about how many more ships China has now, but more ships is no longer the answer.  Drones and laser weaponry are now the answer, that's the wave of the future, so the more they spend on their navy the better, the sooner they go broke. 

Xi Jinping demands Communists bend international law to China’s will.  They've already   ignored decisions over control of the South China Sea.  China's penchant for bullying South East Asian nations is backfiring, and after Trump collapses their economy, these coalitions between Japan, who wants to improve maritime capabilities of four ASEAN States as a reslut of China's criminal actions in the South China Sea, which involves South Korea, and Vietnam, India.  Australia, is now committed to enhancing their naval presence in support of the Philippines against Chinese incursions.  

The  President of the  Philippines has decided transparency over their clashes with China will expose the criminal behavior of China, and their Coast Guard is "embedding local and international media in its patrols. In other cases, the Philippine coast guard itself has released photographs and videos of Chinese harassment, including of one notable incident in which a Chinese vessel directed a military-grade laser beam at a Philippine ship, temporarily blinding the crew."  All of which will put China in an untenable position, militarily and economically. 

China is demanding, '“Stronger consular protection” which is Chinese political code for complaining about foreign governments cracking down on Chinese espionage operations"', and they've even set up secret China police stations in America, and around the world, monitoring Chinese citizens claiming these "stations" were set up to provide services for Chinese citizens living abroad.  It's clear these are illegal international spy cells set up to intimidate these immigrants, and it's worked.

Stealing intellectual property rights especially involving "dual-use technologies such as quantum computing, big data, semiconductors, 5G, advanced nuclear technology, aerospace and artificial intelligence. It is developing or acquiring key technologies through investment in private industries, talent recruitment programs, academic research benefiting the military, intelligence gathering and outright theft. Crucially, the fusion approach enables more civilian entities to undertake classified military research and development as well as weapons production."  Not to mention spying on average Americans via the internet, to attain personal information, and there's a lot more.

Their demographics is a huge underrated problem, and it's not only involving age, it involved ethnics. The ethnic Han dominate China, and the rest of the ethnics in China hate the Han, and both the Han and the other ethnics believe the government is illegitimate, though they believe it quietly. Due to their one child mandates, the abortion of girl children was massive creating a mismatch in the male/female adult population.  That's not the foundation for a happy society.

The "happiness factor" is ignored by governments because they don't have a clue what happiness means. The reason for that is happiness is as difficult to define as defining "fair". What's fair? Who wrote the Book of Fair? No one, and it's been my observation that fair is usually defined by who's ox is being gored. And that's pretty much the same for happiness.

While China's leaders are growing increasingly aware of the unhappiness permeating their  society, what they're doing to ameliorate the unrest is not only not been working, it's made it worse.  Purges and stricter laws are exacerbating the problem, and it's making people acutely aware of the weaknesses in the system and the lack of competence in the leaders, and the younger generation isn't impressed with slogans and speeches. 

Things that would have worked when their economy was in better shape won't work now, and now Xi and his myrmidons are clueless. 

Their internal market is crashing, so what do they do?    They pour money into Africa, to the "promised" tune of  $50.6 billion in Chinese loans, aid programs, and corporate investments for Africa over the next three year", money they don't have and may not be able to deliver on. They further promised to "open China's tightly controlled markets to 33 African nations and said China will bring at least 30 “green energy” projects to Africa, ostensibly creating a million jobs. Chinese infrastructure projects have a long history of reserving their best jobs for imported Chinese managers and professionals", and that's not going to set well with these African leaders, and the fact is Africa is an unstable mess, and that's not going to change. Africa is a bad investment

It's been stated China's loans to poor nations are a debt trap to force them to bend to China's will, and that is an absolutely accurate description.  But this is a double edged sword.  The problem for China is what happens, if or when, these nations default?  What can they do about it?  Not much, and then they'll be stuck with unrecoverable debt, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars they can't afford to lose.

On its tenth anniversary, is China’s Belt and Road reaching the end of the road? January 13, 2024 Probably not, but China is discovering a lot more potholes than it anticipated and, from the American perspective, that’s not a bad thing....

China's has been consistently dropping prices on it's export products because they're in desperate need  of international buyers, and let's get this right. If they're not able to sell to America, they're doomed.  All this "deflation", and in China's case it's called "extended deflation",  causes "real estate slumps, stock market downturns, loss of investor confidence, weaker exports, less consumer demand, and China is already suffering from excess supply and insufficient demand, causing serious financial strain.........Reversing the trend becomes more difficult the longer it lasts. "  

It's not going to reverse, China's economy is heading into the toilet, even if Trump isn't elected, and if anyone has any doubts, take a look at what they did to Hong Kong.  That's China, you may wish to review

Now, having said that, does anyone besides me see that same kind of pattern of "real estate collapse, stock market downturns, loss of investor confidence, loss of consumer demand, and massive financial strain" playing out in America?  

This is a video everyone needs to watch, and make no mistake, America, we have a problem!