Generational Dynamics World View News

Discussion of Web Log and Analysis topics from the Generational Dynamics web site.
Guest

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by Guest »

Guest wrote:
John wrote:** 25-Nov-2019 World View: Hong Kong's Carrie Lam speaks

At Monday 9 pm ET = Tuesday 10 am in Hong Kong, I watched Hong Kong's
leader Carrie Lam live on tv give a brief speech about the disastrous
elections.

If I understood her correctly, she's decided how to react to the
massive election loss: She's going to appoint a commission to
determine the root cause why there are pro-democracy demonstrations.

I didn't hear a word even acknowledging the pro-democracy concerns, or
any word of compromise. Instead, there will be a commission whose
foregone conclusion will be to absolve the government and the CCP of
any responsibility.

I said that I didn't know what the CCP was going to do, but I could
guarantee that whatever they did would make the situation worse, and
it looks like we're on our way. Incredible!
I have relatives in Taipei. I would like to ask the writer of this blog (and any others who read it) how long an interval would there be between a violent crackdown in Hong Kong and an invasion of Taiwan? This is a serious question.
I would like to add that some local media say an invasion is imminent, but I don't think these people really know anything. The same people said we would be invaded in 1997.

richard5za
Posts: 893
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2008 10:29 am
Location: South Africa

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by richard5za »

I would like to add that some local media say an invasion is imminent
Both Hong Kong and Taiwan are regarded by the CCP as Chinese territory so there is a linkage
I wonder what will eventually happen in Hong Kong? If CCP past behavior is the guideline it will be a heavy handed response. And then what will that create? Pro-democracy freedom fighters have a history of support. Could this be the start of regional war?

John
Posts: 11478
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:10 pm
Location: Cambridge, MA USA
Contact:

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by John »

** 26-Nov-2019 World View: Hong Kong and Taiwan
richard5za wrote: > Both Hong Kong and Taiwan are regarded by the CCP as Chinese
> territory so there is a linkage

> I wonder what will eventually happen in Hong Kong? If CCP past
> behavior is the guideline it will be a heavy handed response. And
> then what will that create? Pro-democracy freedom fighters have a
> history of support. Could this be the start of regional
> war?
The CCP thugs really don't care about anything except themselves and
their Mandate from Heaven, so they're baffled by the Hong Kong crisis,
especially since the recent elections shows that most of their working
assumptions have been dead wrong.

China's history is filled with massive anti-government rebellions, and
many of them were triggered by religious movements. That's why the
CCP is so hysterically paranoid about religions. That's why they
beat, torture, rape and jail Christians, Buddhists and Muslims, and
sometimes even Daoists.

The Taiping Rebellion (1852-64) in particular was led by a Christian
convert who believed that he was the son of God and the younger
brother of Jesus. The rebellion began in the south and spread north.
Hong Xiuquan became the very charismatic leader of the God Worshipping
Society, in a domain of southern China called Taiping Tianguo
(Heavenly Kingdom of Eternal Peace). He gained thousands of followers
as his word spread, leading to the massive Taiping Rebellion. The CCP
is VERY well aware of that history. They're also well aware that
Mao's Communist Revolution anti-government rebellion started in the
south and spread north.

So that's the history that the CCP thugs are dealing with. Xi Jinping
would happily just flatten all of Hong Kong if he thought that would
keep him safe. But doing anything so brutal would risk triggering an
anti-CCP rebellion in southern China. Furthermore, both Donald Trump
and the US Congress are tying Hong Kong human rights to US-China trade
and sanctions, and the Chinese are increasingly desperate for a trade
deal. This infuriates the CCP thugs who say that Hong Kong policy is
the internal affair of China, and that the barbarians in Washington
should never dare to criticize the leaders of the Master Race.

So I'm in agreement with those analysts who say that the CCP will NOT
send in the army -- since the army can't accomplish anything anyway
that the local police can't accomplish. As things stand now, it's the
Hong Kong police, rather than the CCP, who are receiving international
criticism, and the CCP would like it to remain that way.

However, in my opinion, the CCP would change its policy in a
nanosecond if there is any sign that the protests in Hong Kong are
spreading to the mainland in southern China. This is the real fear of
the CCP thugs, and so they're content to treat Hong Kong protests as
the "new normal" for the time being.
Guest wrote: > I have relatives in Taipei. I would like to ask the writer of this
> blog (and any others who read it) how long an interval would there
> be between a violent crackdown in Hong Kong and an invasion of
> Taiwan? This is a serious question.
Guest wrote: > I would like to add that some local media say an invasion is
> imminent, but I don't think these people really know anything. The
> same people said we would be invaded in 1997.
Hong Kong and Taiwan are really two completely different situations,
since Hong Kong is officially a territory of China, while Taiwan
is viewed internationally as an independent nation, despite the curses
of the CCP thugs.

Then there's also the problem there would be no military response if
China's military started smashing Hong Kong since, after all, it
is officially a territory of China. On the other hand, Taiwan has
a mutual defense treaty with the US, and a military invasion of Taiwan
would almost certainly lead to a war with the US.

So the two situations are completely different, and a violent crackdown
in Hong Kong would not necessarily lead to an invasion of Taiwan at
all.

However, any sort of internal rebellion on the mainland would change
the CCP calculation, and lead to diversionary invasions of Japan and
Taiwan. If you're looking for a time interval, I would guess several
months after the internal rebellion began.

utahbob wrote: > You might find this interesting. As the saying goes "follow the
> money." How to Conduct Business with Chinese Companies That See a
> Dark Future By Dan Harris on November 13, 2019
> https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/11/ho ... uture.html
This is a very interesting article, because it shows how China's
economy is falling apart at the edges, and as Higgie always points
out: "While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the
capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently."
In the case of China, this would be one of China's massive internal
rebellions, and this would lead quickly to an external war as a
diversionary tactic.

utahbob wrote: > John, good analysis on your comment dated Tue Nov 19, 2019 2:02
> pm. Worse case scenario, it would be like Budapest in 1956 before
> the UN would try to declare a ceasefire for evacuation of
> foreigners.

> This is just my opinion, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is
> pretty vulnerable to fail due to more internal than external
> forces. I would like to state that the CCP is the latest version
> of the Mandarins that has ruled China for the past thousands of
> years. Only 6 to 7 per cent of the Chinese population are members
> of the CCP. This segment of China will fight tooth and nail for
> the CCP.

> One of the more telling facts is the amount of money and energy is
> spent to control its population versus spent on the People’s
> Liberation Army for external defense. It has an army of occupation
> (The People’s Armed Police), information control (Great Fire Wall)
> and surveillance and coordination apparatus (Ministry of State
> Security) with its neighborhood dragnet, digitized “social credit”
> systems and other enforcement systems. The mass detention system
> is getting its first run with the Uighurs and I would bet soon
> other ethnic minorities such as the Mongols, Tibetans, Tajik,
> Korean... will get their turn unfortunately.

> A significant inflection point will be the breakdown of the
> information control system. It is crumbling already due to the
> lack of trust, creditability and cynicism. Chinese people are
> trying to move money out of China or move out completely. I have
> seen this personally.

> Personally, I think there will be war, but not between the US and
> PRC. The general US population is war adverse and a civil war in
> China will not be an existential threat to the US if contained
> within the borders of China. The only action with the US military
> will be the conduct of a Non-combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO)
> from Shanghai, Shenzhen, Dalian and other major cities with
> concentrations of Americans and Westerners.

> John you stated in your book that the odds are tilting to a PRC
> versus Japan knife fight, but I think a warmup will be easier for
> the PRC to go after Taiwan or Vietnam. It would be easier for the
> PLA, PLAF and PLAN to get operational experience. Japan would be
> bloody and you said and I agree, the US would stand behind
> Japan. It would be less like for a USA/PRC conflict over Taiwan
> and/or Vietnam.

> You might find this interesting:
> https://twitter.com/GregPoling/status/1 ... 1458026496 I would
> bet a Sam Adams winter lager that this has been war-gamed by PACOM
> already.
Fantastic! This is a really great analysis.

The only thing that I would add is that you may be assigning too much
rationality to the CCP. The strategy of a "warmup" war is not
realistic in a generational Crisis era, when people are highly
nationalistic and xenophobic, and do not have the patience for a
"warmup." At the first sign of any military clash of any kind, the
nationalists in China would be calling for a full-scale invasion of
Japan and Taiwan, and things would start to move.

John
Posts: 11478
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:10 pm
Location: Cambridge, MA USA
Contact:

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by John »

** 26-Nov-2019 World View: China's nationalist anti-Japan propaganda
John J. Xenakis wrote: > In one sense it's only a symbolic victory. The district councils
> only control such things as parks and taxicabs. They are not as
> powerful as the city's Legislative Council, which controls the
> citywide government.
Warren Dew wrote: > Which is why, as you point out, the Chinese government will try to
> stay out of things unless the unrest threatens to spill over into
> the mainland, or, I would add, unless Carrie Lam's goverment
> starts entertaining thoughts of independence.
Lol!
John J. Xenakis wrote: > However, any sort of internal rebellion on the mainland would
> change the CCP calculation, and lead to diversionary invasions of
> Japan and Taiwan.
Warren Dew wrote: > What would this be diverting from? If there were actually an
> internal rebellion, the rebels wouldn't be diverted because of an
> external war, and the government wouldn't want to divert loyalists
> from staying loyal. An external war with Japan or Taiwan would be
> far more likely to start because Japan or Taiwan intervened to
> extract their nationals or protect their interests.
It's not exactly an unheard of practice for a military leader to
divert forces attacking him to start fighting another enemy.

This is a subject area that I researched a very great deal for my
book, which is not surprising since the book is titled "War between
China and Japan."

Some brief excerpts:

The student pro-democracy protests that led to the Tiananmen Square
massacre in 1989 frightened CCP officials, who realized that being
pro-democracy meant that the young people were becoming increasingly
contemptuous of communist ideology.

That wasn't the only thing that happened around that time. On
December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and all the former
Soviet republics became independent self-governing nations.

Arguably, the collapse of the Soviet Union was more traumatic to the
CCP than even the Tiananmen Square massacre. Suddenly, the leadership
of the CCP were staring death in the face, as they considered the fact
that something like the Tiananmen Square protests could force the
Chinese Communist Party to collapse as well. Ever since the Bolshevik
Revolution, Russian communism had always been the role model for
Chinese communism. If Russian communism could collapse, then so could
Chinese communism.

In the 1990s, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics began to take on
a whole new and far darker and more sinister meaning. The CCP
leadership became increasingly paranoid, and began seeing ghosts.
Centralism was still in play, but democratic centralism was gone. The
"right to make criticisms" was gone, and any criticism of the CCP
leadership could lead to torture, rape and jailing.

Religious persecution surged, as we described in detail in earlier
chapters. The Buddhism-based Falun Gong movement was and is
particularly targeted, after millions of people became practitioners
of their form of meditation. The CCP has increasingly cracked down on
Christianity and even Daoism, for fear their practice could lead to
overthrow of the CCP.

When any country is preparing for war, it's necessary to educate and
motivate the public to prepare them for war. China has been
conducting a vitriolic anti-Japan propaganda campaign since 1989, the
time of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The student pro-democracy protests that led to the Tiananmen Square
massacre in 1989 frightened CCP officials, who realized that being
pro-democracy meant that the young people were becoming increasingly
contemptuous of communist ideology. The CCP decided to replace
indoctrination of communist ideology with indoctrination of Chinese
nationalism.

The CCP launched the Patriotic Education Campaign, a propaganda
campaign designed to restore the legitimacy of the CCP government,
according to University of Victoria (Canada) sociology professor Min
Zhou:
> "The propaganda has been carried out through both the
> educational system and the mass media. It is promulgated not only
> in the form of school curricula (especially officially-sanctioned
> history textbooks), but also in the form of broadcast media,
> films, museums and memorials. ...

> Although everyone in China can be subject to nationalist
> propaganda, the Chinese youth have been singled out as the main
> target group. Accounting for a large part of this nationalist
> propaganda, patriotic education is incorporated into the entire
> process of education from "kindergartens all the way through the
> universities" .... Nationalist propaganda focuses on restoring
> national pride and eliminating national humiliation. China’s
> official media and its education system propagate nationalism
> through repeated emphasis on China’s humiliation and victimhood
> caused by foreign powers over the past two centuries.

> Within this discourse, a particular emphasis is placed upon
> China’s suffering at the hands of aggressive Japanese
> imperialists.... Japan figures prominently in China’s nationalist
> propaganda. One essential component of this propaganda is the
> historical memory of Japan’s wartime atrocities and its apparent
> lack of sincerity in coming to terms with this
> history."
This anti-Japan propaganda campaign is continuing, and is pursued
vigorously today as part of China's preparation for war with Japan.

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2) Paperback: 331 pages, over 200 source references, $13.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732738637/

Guest

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by Guest »

An external war with Japan or Taiwan would be far more likely to start because Japan or Taiwan intervened to extract their nationals or protect their interests.
What does this mean? It's a rather broad statement. Any Japanese or Taiwanese national arrested inside of China is on their own. The Japanese are not going to launch a commando raid to break their citizens out of jail. "Protect their national interests"? What does that mean? Defending their homelands from an all out invasion? This statement means nothing. This guy doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. He is just making noise. Throwing everything against the wall, and if anything sticks he'll claim he's a visionary.

HK forever

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by HK forever »

'So the two situations are completely different, and a violent crackdown
in Hong Kong would not necessarily lead to an invasion of Taiwan at
all.'


The neutralization of Hong Kong would implode the Hong Konger economy and mortally wound mainland China. Neutralization really means the mass deportation of native Hong Kongers to other parts of mainland China, probably the ghost cities or the labor camps in Inner Mongolia or some other godforsaken depopulated part of China that only convicts and nomads live in. Hong Kong would then be flooded with CCP loyalists and their offspring. Hong Kong would lose its autonomy (whether officially or unofficially really wouldn't matter). Foreign investment would leave en masse and never come back.

This, of course, would leave China bankrupt, embargoed by the West, and most likely unable to feed itself. Massive civil unrest would engulf the mainland. China would have nothing to lose and invade Taiwan hoping to unite the country. That would fail and China would descend into genocidal civil war.

So, while a crackdown in Hong Kong might not necessarily lead to an invasion of Taiwan, i think the chances are much greater than you reckon.

Guest

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by Guest »

The Titanic is going down, and I'm at the bar drinking something expensive. Fuck, yeah.

utahbob
Posts: 138
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 8:10 am

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by utahbob »

John, you are probably right about the Chinese: “The strategy of a "warmup" war is not realistic in a generational Crisis era, when people are highly nationalistic and xenophobic,” (** 26-Nov-2019 World View: Hong Kong and Taiwan) conflict to work out the kinks in their military. Unlike the Germans and Soviets in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Italians in the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-36) and Russian with the Finns in the Winter War, the Chinese (CCP and PLA) would pull the trigger early. The axiom of “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy” is true (I know from personal experience ;) will apply to the CCP and the PLA to their horror and dismay.
It seems to me the East Asians has a tradition of trying to spring military surprises covered with deception coupled with failures of the Intelligence Community. A small minority of America is very familiar with Pearl Harbor, Tet Offensive, and 9/11. That is why US Forces Korea motto is “Fight tonight.”
It would not surprise me to see the PRC pick a fight/help their communist brothers in the DPRK to blood their forces and weed out the slackers/non-performers who rose up the ranks due to corruption or patronage/party loyalty. That would be a low cost/risk operation with not much international blowback unless the Kim Family Regime goes total sociopathic and lets special devices spill instant sunshine. Kill the chicken to scare the monkey, as the Han would say.

utahbob
Posts: 138
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 8:10 am

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by utahbob »

Here is a good source on Chinese economic news. Dr. Pettis is pretty solid and is a daily read for me. His bio: Finance Professor, Peking University, and Senior Fellow, Carnegie-Tsinghua Center.
https://twitter.com/michaelxpettis
Have a good Thanksgiving!

utahbob
Posts: 138
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 8:10 am

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by utahbob »

Two things that I saw that makes me go "ummm":

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/ar ... t-collapse
“‘The only force that can defeat China is from within. No exterior force can.’ On October 2 this year, the Communist Party’s leading journal of political theory, Qiushi, published in full a 2018 speech by President Xi Jinping, highlighting in stark language China’s coming challenges as the People’s Republic enters its 71st year. Indeed, in 2020, China’s primary economic risk is most likely to come not from the trade war, but from its inflated property market.”
“‘Black swans’ and ‘grey rhinos’ dominated China’s financial lexicon this year. Few in the population know what they are but most know what they mean. They mean fear. China’s property market is the grey rhino, overfed on massive liquidity steroids. One injection was the massive stimulus introduced in response to the 2008 global financial crisis. Another injection was from the six consecutive interest rate cuts in the 12 months to November 2015. Awash in liquidity, Chinese stock markets took off too, but by late 2015, the bubble had burst and the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index tumbled about 50 per cent from its 2015 peak. Real estate, however, partied on.”
“Zhongnanhai’s worst economic nightmare is a Japan-style collapse. Despite Xi’s caution that ‘houses are for living in, not for speculation,’ China’s real-estate market value has risen to twice the size of the G7 economies combined. At US$65 trillion, it is almost five times China’s GDP in 2018, and more than 10 times China’s stock market capitalisation. In 2019, China’s property bubble is being pricked – on both the supply and demand sides.”
“Since 2017, conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group, the flagship of billionaire Wang Jianlin, has dumped US$25 billion in assets to keep afloat. More recently, major developer Soho China is looking to sell all core commercial properties in Beijing and Shanghai worth US$8.5 billion. The grey rhino is panicking. Trade conflicts can always be addressed by recalibrating global trading routes over time. But China’s economic dream will be over if its property bubble bursts, Japan-style. All bubbles come to an end; the question for China is when and how.”
Personal analysis: The economic trends are the results or quantified metrics of crappy demographics and resultant policy.

If you want worst-case scenario for Hong Kong, here is the Mullahs of Teheran giving you a seek peek:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwy ... -shut-down

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 41 guests