Over the years I've written a lot about China because I've read a lot about China, and I think Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies published in 1997 had a lot to do with perking my interest there, and more so his views on why patterns keep repeating in so many different societies worldwide.
China's history is large, complicated, and well studied by the Chinese. I've often said those who've read much about China's history often know what they're going to do, and while not always, most of the time why. It's just absolutely no one knows when or where they're going to do it.
Nothing about China is ever as it appears, including their economy. Their human rights record is abysmal, their conduct with their neighbors is appalling, and internationally illegal.
While
all the economists, pundits, and politicians were lauding China's
economy the bug man was saying it's all smoke and mirrors, for almost 20
years now, and it's become obvious that's true to the experts as well.
Imagine that. Think about this. If the bug man could see that almost
20 years ago, how could the highly educated and knowledgeable experts
not see it?
On October 26, 2024 John Mauldin published his weekly Thoughts From the Front Line with this piece, Broken China noting the growth and the transition to the lack of growth and why, their massive debt, their banking system that's in effect a department of the government, their property development default issues, their centralized economic schemes, their demographic problems and the housing issues:
“China has a bigger problem lurking behind all those empty apartments: even more homes that developers already sold but have not finished building. By one conservative estimate, that figure is around 10 million apartments.“…......One recent estimate, from the research firm Rhodium Group, put the real estate sector’s entire domestic borrowings, including loans and bonds, at more than $10 trillion, of which only a tiny portion have been recognized.”
The real issue in China is the CCP's desire to remain in control at all costs:
........maintaining the party’s power is always top priority in a Communist system. To some degree, this requires keeping the population happy and comfortable. Hungry people, even relatively uncomfortable people, are generally less cooperative (note sarcasm). But if push comes to shove, regime preservation comes first. Xi’s predecessors demonstrated that with the “Cultural Revolution” and later Tiananmen Square.
All this is going to reduce willingness to invest in China, and this new N. Korea and Russia embrace is an illusion. They're all going broke. N. Korea is working overtime to provide military equipment Russia needs and is incapable of producing themselves, which I think is a long term tell on Russia's state of affairs, along with the fact were seeing what was considered to be the number two military power in the world unable to defeat the number 22 military power in the world for over two years and a half years.
Communist Cuba's entire power grid has collapsed. After Russia stopped funding Cuba in the 80's and Venezuela wasted all their money supporting socialist nations, and went broke, Cuba had to rely on it's own resources, and they failed. Their taxpayer base is pretty much non existent, and they're not only lacking energy, they're lacking all the basics, including food.
Repairing their grid is going to be more than difficult since they didn't even create it in the first place, the Russians created it in the early 1970's, and they never properly maintained it after 1980 when the Russians turned off the tap and the Soviet Union collapsed, and the US embargo made it difficult to get material, but I think that's way over played. It's estimated it will take $10 billion dollars to bring it up to snuff, and that's the equivalent of "10 percent of the country’s gross domestic product". And they don't have it. It will be interesting to see if Russia, China, Iran, or N. Korea come to their rescue, especially since Cuba is such a strategically important nation. But is irritating the United States with such a smoke and mirrors game worth ten billion dollars to them?
How about converting to solar? Well, they're incapable of creating such a system, and what private enterprise with that capability would be willing to invest in Cuba, as they're notorious for nationalizing businesses.
Russian, China, and all the rest of that cabal may throw some money at them to infuriate
the American war hawks, but that's all smoke and mirrors, they can't
afford Cuba now any more than they could afford Cuba decades ago, and
it's much worse now. The more they throw away supporting Cuba, the
sooner they go broke. The left screams about Batista, but under him
Cuba was better off than many European nations at that time. Was he a
thug? Sure, but compared to the horrors the Castro cabal imposed on
Cubans he was a humanitarian.
Cuba is unfixable unless they overthrow the communists and embrace America, and that goes for Venezuela also, but it's not happening no matter how their nation is swirling down the sewer being turned into a criminal controlled state, just like Haiti, and Cuba will end up the same way.
There's all this scary talk about BRICS, and again, I think it's all smoke and mirrors, as Antonia Colibasanu notes:
For leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the annual BRICS summit is an excellent opportunity to present a vision of a world in which the United States does not lead. And yet, each summit confirms that the grouping has no function other than to promote lofty rhetoric and symbolic gestures.
They want to create an economic system to overcome the American dollar, and America's ability to impose restrictions on trade with countries who like Russia attacked Ukraine, and those who support them. But these are all economic losers, and guess what? They have no idea how to do it. There was a lot of rhetoric but no new economic multilateral model offered that could possibly match what already exists, and the potential for mutual beneficial cooperation is a dream, kind of like a nightmare, and one thing I think all these countries have come away with is the understanding BRICS isn't about mutually beneficial multinational cooperation, it's all about what's beneficial for China and Russia, and mostly China, and the question is does Putin grasp that, or is it he's in so much trouble over his invasion of Ukraine, he has no choice but to embrace this folly. One more thing. If they actually did work something out, who's currency would they use?
Did you know there was an Organization of Turkic states? Yeah, me neither, and before all this it didn't really matter, but for the first time
the met this last weekend in Istanbul. Okay, so what? Well, no one's
saying it so I will. Supposedly this is all about industry, science,
technology, and innovation, and I'm sure it was, but I believe there's a
behind the curtain factor here. This is a push against Russia, or at
least a warning. Why? Look who the members are, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan with Hungary and Turkmenistan
as observers. Most former Soviet satellites who very often are going
their own way whether Putin likes it or not, and Turkey is playing a
dangerous cat and mouse game with the west and with Russia.
Turkey is part of NATO, but not the European Union, and wants to play both sides in this Russo/Ukrainian War.
Turkey is asking to be fully "admitted in the Russian-Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, where it is a dialogue partner, and to BRICS, while successfully contending with the Iranian (actually another Turk) Ali Khamenei and the Saudi Muhammad bin Salman for the leadership of the Islamic ecumene and claiming the spiritual leadership of the Organisation of Turkish States. Turkey is whatever it needs to be. Turkish, Muslim and Asian, but also European and Western. Part of the developed world, but also part of the Global South. A strategic component of the American Empire, but also a potentially lethal threat to the superpower’s hegemony. In essence, Turkey is itself and its interests. And it is in the light of this banal reality that Ankara will calibrate its moves in the Ukrainian game".
In the end Turkey want's to crush the US,
enfeeble Russia, and become the overriding power in the Middle East.
That's not going to happen, because Turkey is a mess and no one trusts
anything Erdogan does or says.
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