Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by philcrocket | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

philcrocket

For people who don't believe this is a problem or that it's purely a conspiracy theory I recommend you read:

Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

There's other great resources out there too. But watch out, the rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one..

View on HN

This article sums it up pretty well, although a bit too short:

The New China Challenge Stems from Beijing’s Old Ambitions

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/new-china-challenge-ste...

China has made it a goal to subdue Taiwan by 2049, one hundred years anniversary of PRC, which is rejected by the current President of Taiwan.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Taiwan...

And clearly China wants to do much more than incorporating Taiwan, given their more assertive foreign policies, both within the current international frameworks (United Nations, World Health Organization), and outside of those frameworks (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Belt and Road Initiative).

For a very very brief overview of some goals announced by China (dominate production of key technologies by 2025, build a world-class military by 2035, be a superpower by 2049), see a short summary in Section 3 of the Introduction of this proposal:

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/global-strategy-2021-an-alli...

Overall, the proposed strategy to counter China suggests working with other democracies to out-compete China in military and innovation, while cooperating with China on common interests (public health, climate change).

> the rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one..

(In the rabbit hole right now. Eye opening. Would recommend.)

How do China's ambitions stack up with their upcoming demographic changes? This is often framed as "Will China growth rich before it grows old?":

* https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-18091107

* https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2095326/opini...

* https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/china-is-very-li...

On a related note, while some may think that this is a consequence of China's one-child policy, a reasonable argument can be made that the policy was actually completely unnecessary: the fertility rates had already started plummeting for the 15 years prior to it being announced due to urbanization and other factors:

* https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/october/china...

* http://blogs.reuters.com/data-dive/2013/11/18/chinas-one-chi...

> the fertility rates had already started plummeting for the 15 years prior to it being announced

Another article supporting this statement, on Chinese demography [1][2]. You may find it interesting.

[1]: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/chinese-demography

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25558016

> How do China's ambitions stack up with their upcoming demographic changes?

Personal take: As long as Xi is in power, China’s ambitions are unlikely to scale back (at least on the surface), for otherwise it would be his failures.

For example, after Xi set the goal to clear poverty in China by 2020, even after COVID, China did not give up on the goal, ignoring if achieving the goal on surface is sustainable:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-...

Silent Invasion is also excellent.

> that it's purely a conspiracy theory

Who's saying that? The Biden-China things which seem to be being explored is a conspiracy theory, as in an unsubstantiated theory about an alleged conspiracy, but I don't think anyone is under the impression that the Chinese getting up to stuff is a conspiracy theory.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com