Generational Dynamics World View News

[tim]

https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/china-sei ... china-sea/

China seizes Covid-19 advantage in South China Sea
China ramps up military drills and energy exploitation in contested waterway while US military bogged down in virus crisis at home

By RICHARD JAVAD HEYDARIAN
APRIL 1, 2020

Medical personnel arrive in transport aircraft of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, Hubei province, China February 17, 2020. Photo: AFP
MANILA – With the Covid-19 pandemic mostly contained in China and now wreaking havoc on the United States, security analysts are closely watching Beijing’s military moves in the hotly contested South China Sea.

In recent days, China has conducted military drills and deployed large-scale military assets to the maritime area while at the same time officially celebrating strides made in exploiting disputed energy resources in the fossil fuel-rich sea.

While some see China’s nationalistic messaging as a bid to rally its people during difficult Covid-19 times, others view the increasingly aggressive naval maneuvers as a bid to exploit America’s weakened condition to secure new advantage in the hot spot theater.

Rival Southeast Asian claimants are also in a compromised strategic position as they contend with worsening Covid-19 outbreaks.

The Philippines and Malaysia, both at territorial loggerheads with China in the sea, have both recently placed their administrative and commercial capitals under weeks-long, military-enforced lockdowns.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and top security officials including Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana are in self-imposed quarantines, with Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief General Felimon Santos Jr recently testing positive for Covid-19.

Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) shipmen during an operation in the South China Sea. Photo: AFP via Getty
The US, the long-term guarantor of the region’s law-based order, is now grappling with the world’s worst outbreak with nearly 190,000 cases, forcing the White House to implement extraordinary measures including the largest economic stimulus package in its history.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, has been mobilized to help combat the epidemic under the Defense Production Act, which allows the US military to provide critical health services, and produce and transfer desperately-needed medical equipment to civilian agencies and facilities.

China’s bid to opportunize on the Covid-19 crisis which originated in its Wuhan city has been on display on multiple fronts. On one hand, Beijing has launched a concerted attempt to reshape the pandemic’s narrative, including the bizarre suggestion by top Chinese officials that the US military planted the virus in China.

This has gone hand-in-hand with attempts to drive a diplomatic wedge between the US and its traditional transatlantic allies, some of which have recently committed naval vessels to US-led freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.

China has bid to highlight the US’s perfunctory travel ban on European virus-infected nations while it provided desperately needed medical equipment to worst-hit nations such as Italy and Spain, a gambit some are referring to as Beijing’s “face mask diplomacy.”

While trumpeting itself as a global leader at a time of crisis, Beijing is pressing ahead in expanding its strategic and economic footprints in the South China Sea.

According to China’s Ministry of Natural Resources, China recently conducted its most successful extraction of natural gas from gas hydrates both in terms of volume and production within a single day in a contested northern region of the sea.

The ministry trumpeted its “solid technical foundation for commercial exploitation” to become the first country in the South China Sea to exploit gas hydrates, mineral deposits at the bottom of oceans, by utilizing a horizontal well-drilling technique.

The production process ran between February 17 to March 18, just as the coronavirus epidemic began to ravage countries across the Western world.

China’s strides in energy development technology will likely only reinforce its bid to dominate, if not monopolize, vast untapped oil and gas deposits within its so-called ‘nine-dash’ line claim, which covers close to 85% of the South China Sea and overlaps with waters off Indonesia’s northern Natuna Islands.

In that direction, China has also recently conducted significant military drills in the disputed areas. These have included anti-submarine drills, held soon after the Pentagon deployed the US guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell in a freedom of navigation operation in the sea before the coronavirus pandemic hit the US mainland with full force.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has also flexed its naval muscles in the area through recent military drills led by the country’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. Those followed on aircraft-carrier-led drills in the northern portions of the South China Sea.

“Under difficult sea conditions in the early spring in the Bohai Strait, multiple J-15 fighter jets took off from the flight deck of the Liaoning and successfully landed several hours later, indicating the success of the technique rehabilitation training for instructors at Naval Aviation University,” announced the PLA Daily on March 23.

Commissioning ceremony for China’s new aircraft carrier the Shandong, Sanya, Hainan, China, December 17, 2019. Photo: Facebook
“Training for war preparedness will not be stopped even in the middle of the Covid-19 epidemic, and the training of carrier-based fighter pilots must continue.”

China’s mouthpiece media has gone as far as to portray its latest sea exercises as part of fighting the pandemic.

“[A]n aircraft carrier is a large warship with many people concentrated in its cabins, making it vulnerable to infectious diseases. Being able to successfully conduct related missions indicated that the Liaoning has done a great job in controlling the epidemic,” Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie told the state-sponsored news portal Global Times.

Known for its jingoistic headlines and editorials, the Global Times proudly announced, “China’s second aircraft carrier, the Shandong, also reported zero COVID-19 cases on February 17,” without specifying the latest situation.

The US, for its part, has not completely abandoned the crucial theater.

US Navy Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class Shelby Wilkes of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin fires a shot line to the Military Sealift Command replenishment oiler USNS Walter S. Diehl in the South China Sea, March 23, 2018. Picture: US Navy/William McCann/Handout via Reuters
A US Navy gunner on Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the South China Sea, March 23, 2018. Picture: US Navy/William McCann/Handout
The US Navy’s 7th fleet announced that its Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, the USS Barry (DDG 52), conducted its own live drills in recent days, launching a missile in the South China Sea while conducting freedom of navigation operations in the Western Pacific.

“The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry – DDG 52 launched a missile during a live-fire exercise and conducted combat information center operations,” announced the US 7th fleet on its social media platforms last week.

“[USS] Barry is underway conducting operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” it said, while neither are clearly on the maritime area’s horizon.

Follow Asia Times Financial for the latest news and commentary on Asia’s fixed income markets.

[John]

** 02-Apr-2020 World View: Deflationary spiral

> John, I have tried to read between the lines and I'm not good at
> it sometimes. Do you think we are still headed to an economic
> depression instead of uncontrolled inflation? Will we need
> millions of dollars to buy the rare loaf of bread in the coming
> months or will the bread be available but no one has any dough to
> buy it?

No, we're in a classic deflationary spiral, like the 1930s.

Even people who have money, or are given money by the government,
don't want to spend it, and so they're not pushing goods prices up.

Businesses that have money, or are receiving it from the government,
are not competing for employees, and so they're not pushing labor
prices up.

The velocity of money, which has been falling for 13 years because of
the 2007-2008 financial crisis, will plummet even further. This means
that money provided by the government in stimulus packages will
remain in bank accounts, rather than be used to buy goods beyond the
absolute necessities, so the prices of new tv sets and other things
will continue to fall, resulting in price deflation.

[Tom Mazanec]

China Is Preparing To Start A War With America
https://www.americanthinker.com/article ... erica.html

[John]

** 02-Apr-2020 World View: 58 / 80 Year Rule

> Regarding the 58 year rule....

> By year 80 almost everyone with adult memories of the previous
> Crisis are gone.

> By year 80, those who were kids during the previous Crisis would
> now be a rapidly shrinking pool of old people.

That's a good point, and a good way of looking at it.

After year 58, the generations of survivors of the previous crisis
war are all retired, and power is turned over to the younger generations
that grew up after the war.

However, after year 58, they're still around, and they can still wield
influence, if not direct control. However, they wield less and less
influence each year, as they die off.

By year 80, they would almost all be dead or doddering, so they would
have no influence left.

And that's why a new crisis war almost always occurs 58-80 years
after the climax of the preceding crisis war.

[John]

** 02-Apr-2020 World View: Purpose of lockdowns

Here are some responses to a UK web site reader:

> "I’m finding these lockdowns increasingly morally
> objectionable. So far I cannot point to one country where deaths
> rates are significantly higher than normal. I think Germany and
> Netherlands show the best example where this virus is only
> slightly more deadly than flu - by the end of this we will look
> back and say it probably was the same as flu. Except, that is the
> process we destroyed our economies and caused untold
> hardship."

At some level I sympathize with what you're saying, though for a
different reason. It's far from clear to me that the lockdowns will
do any good in preventing the worst. So why bother?

But the numbers really are worse. OK, if a million people get the
seasonal flu, then perhaps 1,000 people will die. If a million people
get Covid-19, then perhaps 5,000 people will die. So you might say
that's not enough difference to shut down the entire economy.

But the HUGE difference is in infection rate. If a person with
seasonal flu attends a big party, if he takes reasonable precautions
then he won't infect anyone. He won't be responsible for killing
anyone.

But if a person with Covid-19 attends a big party, then even with
reasonable precautions he may infect a dozen people, and one or two
may die. Hence the need for social distancing.

So the big difference is not in the death rate (which is bad enough),
but is in the infection rate. I strongly urge you to watch the
following youtube documentary:



** 1918 Spanish Flu historical documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDY5COg2P2c

This is the scenario that today's officials are trying to avoid.

The thing to focus on when you watch the documentary is the "social
distancing" mitigations that were used at that time, especially
during the second wave in the fall of 1918. These are almost
identical to the lockdowns being imposed today. However, did they do
any good? If I understand what the documentary is saying, then the
lockdowns failed in every city but San Francisco, where they were
imposed early and strictly enforced.

Incidentally, The stock market today is much worse off than it was in
1918. At that time, the S&P 500 P/E ratio was around 8, far below the
historic average of 14, indicating an undervalued market. Today, the
P/E ratio is above 20, indicating a substantial stock market bubble.

> "This seems especially true in emerging markets, I am
> very concerned with countries like India. How do we access the
> potential for violence and revolution?"

I think you're absolutely right. Modi's policy about migrant workers
in Delhi appears to be a complete disaster, and is causing a mass
migration similar to what happened in the 1947 Partition War. I do
not expect this to end well.

> "The comments boards in the UK still generally support
> the government, maybe they get away with declaring victory and
> move on, and the official inquiry into the debacle only comes out
> in a few years."

When a country faces an existential crisis, then the people put
politics aside and unite behind the government to fight for the
survival of the society and its way of life. That concept usually
applies to a war, but many people see the Covid-19 crisis as an
existential crisis, and so support the government.

> "In emerging markets where people are starving or
> being beaten, etc, this may not fly. Any view?"

Enforced lockdowns are really not possible where there is crowding and
poverty. A person who has to work every day to feed his family will
not be able to "self-isolate," but will have to go out and work, even
though it risks infection. And in a densely populated area, social
distancing won't really be possible.

> "How is Iran’s burn through working? I think Sweden
> and Brazil and doing something similar - any view on numbers
> there?"

Different places are employing different strategies. In the United
States, there are lockdowns in some states but not in others. I
believe that there are cultural differences.

• In some places, social distancing is occurring with little or
  no prompting, as in Sweden. But I expect that to change as the
  numbers of infections and deaths increase. We're approaching summer
  which may (or may not) slow the spread of Covid-19, so maybe Sweden
  will be able to hold off until fall, or maybe not.
• In Brazil, as I understand it, this is also the peak of the dengue
  fever season, and the two diseases are overwhelming hospitals. With
  winter approaching, this situation could worsen considerably.
  Bolsonaro seems to be betting that he can ignore the problem. I don't
  have the feeling this will end well. However, the silver lining is
  that Brazil's experience may provide the world with data on how things
  will go in the north in the fall, when the second wave strikes in
  winter.
• Other places, like the UK and US, are reasonably compliant with
  the lockdown guidance, and minimal enforcement is required.
• China, Iran and Russia are doing everything possible to hide the
  number of infections and deaths, and to find a way to blame the entire
  crisis on the US. In all three cases, it's believed that the actual
  number of cases is many times higher than is being reported. In
  China, numerous reports indicate that doctors are forced to re-label
  Covid-19 cases as something else. However, in the last week, China
  has shut down all movie theaters (again), and yesterday declared a
  total lockdown for Jia county in Henan province, which is north of
  Hubei and adjacent to it.
• In Iran, it's impossible to tell what going on since the
  government is lying about numbers, so the only information is
  anecdotal. However, satellite photos are showing huge mass graves,
  and Iran's state tv is saying that "millions could die."
• There are other places, like crowded refugee camps and crowded
  megacities, where local attempts will be made for "social distancing,"
  but the whole population might be quickly infected.

So that's a quick trip around the coronavirus world. Once again, I
suggest that you listen to the youtube documentary, and pay particular
attention to the containment, mitigation and social distancing steps
that were taken, and how they're the same as what's happening today.

[zzazz]

In terms of timing, the 58-Year Rule applies. A new generational
crisis civil war begins at the earliest 58 years after the genocidal
climax of the preceding crisis war. The probability of a war in year
58 is low, say around 20%. But each year after that, probability goes
up a little that a new war will begin in that year. So it might be
21% in year 59, 22% in year 60, and so forth. It's extremely rare for
a delay past year 80. (The specific values of the percentages would
require a bunch more research.)

US civil war ended in 1865 and no follow on civil war yet
French revolution ended 1799 and no follow on civil war yet
English Civil War ended 1651 and no follow on civil war yet

I think my skepticism is entirely reasonable.

[John]

** 03-Apr-2020 World View: 58-Year Rule

> US civil war ended in 1865 and no follow on civil war yet
> French revolution ended 1799 and no follow on civil war yet
> English Civil War ended 1651 and no follow on civil war yet

> I think my skepticism is entirely reasonable.

More accurately, the 58-Year Rule predicts that a country will have a
new generational crisis war 58-80 years after the climax of the
preceding crisis war. If the preceding crisis war was a civil war
involving two ethnic or racial groups within the same country, then
it's very likely that the next crisis war will be a civil war between
the same ethnic or racial groups.

Applying this to your three examples:

• The American civil war was not an ethnic civil war, but was
  actually a geographic war. There might have been a new North-South
  clash in the 1930s, but it was mooted by the Nazis and Imperial Japan,
  and the next crisis war was World War II.
• France actually had a very bloody civil war in 1871, called the
  Paris Commune.
• The successor to the English civil war was the War of the Spanish
  Succession (1701-09), where England was fighting France, and Scotland
  was an ally of France, so in many ways it was a partial replay of the
  English civil war.

In the case of China, there have been regular massive rebellions
(civil wars) at regular intervals for millennia. It is unthinkable
that the current Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is slaughtering
and enslaving Uighurs, which is torturing and killing Buddhists and
Christians, has somehow figured out the formula to become immune to a
new massive rebellion. It is 100% certain, and only the timing is in
question, but it won't be long now.

I've looked at literally thousands of situations in the last 17 years,
and I've found the 58-Year Rule to be highly reliable.

[John]

** 03-Apr-2020 World View: 'Ride it Out' (Herd Immunity) strategy controversy

There is a lot of controvery today over the economic shutdown, the
harsh lockdown and social distancing rules that are being laid down
today. In America, these mitigation rules have forced the closure of
millions of businesses, many of which will never be able to reopen,
and have forced job losses for tens of millions of Americans, many of
whom will no longer be able to provide for their families.

Many people are saying that the cure is worse than the disease -- more
people are going to suffer and die because of the economic shutdown
that would ever die from from Covid-19. Furthermore, they question
whether it's worth sacrificing civil liberties to shut down the
economy. These people say we should just "ride it out," and just let
the virus run its course. Even if more people die, the whole crisis
will end more quickly.

Many people support this policy, which is called the "herd immunity"
strategy. Both the UK and US governments have considered the "herd
immunity" strategy. Advocates say that this strategy will actually
save a lot of lives, because even if more people die from Covid-19,
fewer people will die from the economic destruction that the
mitigation strategies are currently being used.

However, there are also people on the other side. Earlier today I was
watching MSNBC, and people were criticizing Trump for killing people
by issuing guidelines but not enforcing a harsh nationwide lockdown.

I should begin by saying I'm not an advocate of any particular policy
for handling this crisis. I consider myself to be a "weather
forecaster," and using the Generational Dynamics methodology to
provide weather forecasts. As with all issues, I simply provide a
generational analysis of what is happening and what is going to
happen, just as a weather forecaster might predict a rainy day or
sunny day, without taking sides on whether rain is good or bad. The
reason why many people hate and shun me (and why many other people
follow me every day) is because my weather forecasts always turn out
to be right.

At Donald Trump's March 31 press briefing by members of the
Coronavirus Task Force he directly addressed the controvery. One
objective of that press conference was to hear from Anthony Fauci, the
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
who is currently considered to be superstar expert on the coronavirus,
and who appears on numerous tv shows giving expert opinion.

During one of his tv interviews, Fauci had said that even with the
current mitigation efforts, 100,000-200,000 people were going to die,
but without them over 2 million people would die and the health care
system would be overwhelmed. These numbers shocked a lot of people,
and created numerous media headlines, and so Fauci and another expert
Deborah Birx, were at the press briefing to explain them, and to
explain the concept of "flattening the curve."

So during the press briefing, Birx showed a lot of slides and graphs
and explained what was going to happen with and without mitigation.

The full press conference and slide presentations can be viewed here:



3/31/20: Members of the Coronavirus Task Force Hold a Press Briefing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2TRmlsmMNU

Transcript:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st ... iefing-15/

I should add that I've seen dozens of experts on tv since then, and
they didn't contradict Fauci's numbers, which had been supported in
detail by Birx. Attitudes are changing very rapidly, and in the last
three days, these numbers are no longer considered "shocking," but are
now "the common wisdom."

In his comments, Trump directly addressed the "ride it out" strategy,
and he explained at length why the US administration has rejected that
strategy. He also mentioned that the UK government considered the
same strategy and rejected it. Here are some excerpts from what Trump
said:

> "They’re very sobering, yeah. When you see 100,000
> people, that’s a — and that’s at a minimum number. ... [T]hat
> would be, you know, a lot of lives taking place over a relatively
> short period of time.

> But think of what would have happened if we didn’t do anything. I
> mean, I’ve had many friends, business people, people with great,
> actually, common sense — they said, “Why don’t we ride it out?” A
> lot of people have said. A lot of people have thought about it.
> “Ride it out. Don’t do anything, just ride it out and think of it
> as the flu.” But it’s not the flu. It’s vicious.

> When you send a friend to the hospital, and you call up to find
> out how is he doing — it happened to me, where he goes to the
> hospital, he says goodbye. He’s sort of a tough guy. A little
> older, a little heavier than he’d like to be, frankly. And you
> call up the next day: “How’s he doing?” And he’s in a coma? This
> is not the flu.

> So we would have seen things had we done nothing. But for a long
> while, a lot of people were asking that question, I think, right?
> I was asking it also. I mean, a lot of people were saying, “Well,
> let’s just ride it out.” This is not to be ridden out because
> then you would have been looking at potentially 2.2 million people
> or more. 2.2 million people in a relatively short period of time.

> If you remember, they were looking at that concept. It’s a
> concept, I guess. You know, it’s concept if you — if you don’t
> mind death. A lot of death. But they were looking at that in the
> UK. Remember? They were very much looking at it. And all of a
> sudden, they went hard the other way because they started seeing
> things that weren’t good. So they were — you know, they put
> themselves in a little bit of a problem.

> Now, Boris tested positive, and I hear he’s — I hope he’s going to
> be fine. But in the UK, they were looking at that. And they have
> a name for it, but we won’t even call — we won’t even go by the
> name. But it would’ve been — it would have been very catastrophic,
> I think, if that would have happened. [[Note: the name he's
> referencing is "herd immunity."]]

> But that was something that everybody was talking about, Steve,
> like, “just don’t do anything.” “Don’t do anything. Forget about
> everything. Just ride it out.” They used the expression, “Ride it
> out.” We would have had, at a minimum, 1.5, 1.6, but you would
> have had perhaps more than 2.2 million people dying in a very
> short period of time. And that would have been a number that —
> the likes of which we’ve never seen."

I think that one of the major issues is that the public would not
tolerate a "ride it out" strategy. If it were tried, Boris Johnson's
government would quickly fall and Trump would be impeached (again).
Many people in the public would implement mitigation policies in their
own neighborhoods, cities, states and provinces.

In fact, if you look at the 1918 Spanish Flu documentary that I
mentioned in an earlier message, there was a de facto "ride it out"
policy in effect in 1918, but there was still a lot of mitigation
going on, with policies put into effect by individual organizations
and local governments. So basically what I'm saying is that a "ride
it out" or "herd immunity" or "burn through" strategy cannot be
implemented because the public won't tolerate it, as soon as the
deaths start piling up.

There are even stories coming out of densely populated cities like
Mumbai or refugee camps, that people are taking "social distancing"
mitigation steps on their own. People are not willing to just stand
around, ride it out, and die.

Many officials are passionate about this issue, and I don't blame
them. A lot of people are going to be suffering because of the
economic situation, and a lot of people are going to be starving
because they no longer have an income.

[Guest]

We haven't been the same America since the 1980s was over. I for one don't want to go back to being a declining, ever increasingly third world garbage dump full of vibrant diversity. It's time to overthrow the social structure we've been forced under since the 1960s and reboot America back to its original form.

[FishbellykanakaDude]