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> China has one formal alliance.

This is a geopolitical trope about 20 years out of date. Don’t be surprised when dozens of African and Asian countries choose China over Western interests if push comes to shove.

> Don’t be surprised when dozens of African and Asian countries choose China over Western interests if push comes to shove.

And don't be surprised if they don't. Even if China has a lot of frenemies on its border in Asia, every country in Asia has some fear over China, and this often pushes them to improve their relationship with the USA (e.g. Vietnam). Even Russia and North Korea have some antagonism with China. None of their relationships are particularly strong.

> This is a geopolitical trope about 20 years out of date.

I don't think. China hasn't done much to court soft power in the last 20 years beyond a some loans for infrastructure made by Chinese companies. They still are inwardly focused.

1. China has been building out their railroad net for years now, both internally and reaching outwards

2. Those synergize with the loans. They are not "some" loans

3. Cultural exports have been going on for a while, though it has not been as successful as South Korea or Japan

4. China has been seriously wooing back Western-educated citizens to head R&D in a variety areas, for the past ten years or so. Quality-of-life, career advancements, respect and social status exceeds that of staying in the West. That's more the sufficient to successfully bring expertise back.

5. China has been adding more people into the international computing and network standards community. They are starting to influence that.

6. China has been developing its naval power. While it has yet to field a fully operational carrier group, its drone carrier program is probably further along than the US Navy

7. China needs to secure a supply of crude oil, since they are a net importer. The SE Asian shipping corridor, of which the Taiwanese strait anchors one end of it, is going to be hotly contested.

8. Along with some other countries, China has been involved in creation of an alternate world reserve currency. That is not yet successful as far as I know.

I think the general nationalist sentiment among Chinese citizens is along the lines of, "we were once a superpower, why shouldn't we be again?". And, the culture tends to be more amendable to thinking generationally; that is, the benefits may not be realized in this generation, but that's ok.

Among other things, right now I don't think Quality-of-life is particularly high if you run the risk of suddenly being locked down in place or thrown in a covid hospital (friend of mine went through both, sounded very unpleasant indeed)

Ya, China's Zero COVID policy has reversed this trend for sure. It isn't just getting lockdown that people are worried about, but the inability to freely travel without a long quarantine at the end of the trip.

TBF China hasn't got a lot of choice. They do not have a highly effective vaccine. Millions of people in China would die if COVID were allowed to spread. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I'm not advocating that millions of people die in a vacuum, but millions of people risking death so that the other billion people in China could live a normal life is at least worth considering the trade-off.

The median age of a Covid death in the US, with its obese and unhealthy population, is around the average life expectancy with some room for error. I can't imagine that China fares worse in that regard.

The Chinese government would likely consider letting COVID rip through the population if they could survive the consequences of an overwhelmed health system and the numbers of dead.

So that's what is surprising to me, because I figured the CCP had a fairly tight grip on power and is in no danger of being overthrown. My naive guess as an outsider was that it's face-saving for those at the very top - to make an about-turn now would be embarrassing and an admission of defeat. And that only a few specific heads that would roll, but the government itself would remain largely intact

> TBF China hasn't got a lot of choice.

I wouldn't doubt that this is true. But individuals can make choices, especially mobile techies.

> 7. China needs to secure a supply of crude oil

Wonder how that's coming along. I'm sure those African countries will stand up for China even when they can't get any oil.

Would Russia not be a more natural source of this? I know they're not exactly best pals but China is maybe one of the closer countries to Russia outside of Belarus and Syria rn.

I wonder how they would pay for it. The world market operates in US dollars so presumably they'd have to set up some kind of bilateral arrangement and I doubt Russians would accept Yuan.

Yes they would. Russia was one of countries working with China to create an alternate reserve currency. (https://coercioncode.com/2022/07/25/russia-and-china-announc... ) Sanctions on Russia over Ukraine is accelerating this.

This isn’t the first attempt. Yuan is already increasingly held by central banks (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/dollar-v...) but I was thinking of a composite currency that included the Yuan. I don’t remember the article talking about this

Also keep in mind that Russia is not a part of OPEC, though they had historically worked with OPEC until the sanctions over invading Ukraine.

Oil and other trade between Russia and China has increased since sanctions against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Despite the unfavorable terms for the loan, I hear that the Chinese are regarded well in those countries.

> beyond a some loans for infrastructure made by Chinese companies.

You say that like it's not a big deal, but it is. The Belt and Road initiative precipitated major shifts in geopolitics.

I don't think the Chinese have bought as much goodwill as they think they have, and right now many of those loans are going south fast, so it will be a real cost.

I see China's soft power quite a bit differently. China has an increasingly large presence throughout all of Asia. There are obviously the government initiatives but in many ways the non-governmental stuff is far more visible. 1.4 billion people + rapidly growing middle class = Chinese are absolutely everywhere. Chinese tourists are playing an increasingly large role in the economies of nations throughout Asia, even including Japan with whom China has poor relations. There are also large numbers of students from China that are living/studying abroad (Gaokao), and so on.

This is all creating an increasing intermingling of cultures and economies that's improving relations in a meaningful way. It's easy to discount this sort of stuff, but I think it is what really changes the world in the longterm. When people themselves are able to change their own views gradually over time, without effort at "directing" them, those resultant views tend to be quite difficult to ever change. It's in this domain that we were once unrivaled.

Asian countries do not dislike Chinese people and culture: they have had large communities of Chinese immigrants for a long time, they don't mind the tourism and like the students as well. But that says nothing about whether they like the Chinese government or not: be it the Communists, Nationalists, or Qing dynasty, that's where the friction begins.

It's not even exclusive to developing nations. For example, Portugal tends to side with China.

China sends a pile of money to Africa. But there is a growing disillusionment with their investments.

For example, they would promise to develop infrastructure in exchange for mineral rights. So they move in a large number of Chinese, creating zero local jobs. Then they mine out the resources as fast as possible and move out.

And right after that, the infrastructure invariably falls apart.

They can only screw so many countries before everybody catches on.

Zimbabwean here: our elite will take money from whoever will give it and make nice noises and when the time comes to pay it back in some way that involves and actual cost to themselves..........will find the next donor.

The Chinese (and any other country) will only get out of Africa that which they can demand today quid-pro-quo. There won't be any loyalty.

100% the pattern I saw in other countries too; Mozambique, South Africa. No reason to expect a different trend further north

Here, the carrot is more money of course.

And the stick is sanctions, and then regime change/military action/etc if other countries don’t protest too much.

This has worked pretty well for the US for the last 70ish years. The same playbook can work for China, they are betting.

Zimbabwe has faced sanctions regularly - it's of little interest because it doesn't really disempower the elite.

Pakistan's airforce works closely with Chengdu Aerospace Corporation - the JF-17 Thunder [0] being their flagship product. That said, even Chinese flagship aerospace manufacturers also depend on IP transfers from Russian firms like Klimov and UEC Saturn. Also, most companies require some amount of IP transfer and collaboration because of how complex Engine design, Body design, etc are, as well as the fact that collaboration incentivizes collaborating countries to purchase these weapon systems. Aerospace, cybersecurity, enterprise partnerships, weapons systems - it's all the same business model.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAC/PAC_JF-17_Thunder

China also has a security agreement with the Solomon Islands. While a tiny nation in and of itself, the use of the islands by the Chinese navy allow for quite a bit of force projection into the pacific. It would be very hard, for instance, for the U.S. to use their navy to defend Australia or Taiwan.

Australia is kind of a fortress, just by being so physically far away from most places. All the important population centers are far to the south, so the north becomes a continent sized staging area for battle

The international airport in Honiara is called “Henderson Field” and not whatever name the Japanese gave their airfield. Based on historical precedents, it might be premature to say that a naval base in the Solomons means game over for Australia.

No one knows how a military conflict between China and Australia would end. I can’t imagine it helps Australia to have a major naval military installation between Australia and one of its major allies however.

I don't imagine it would either, which is I assume why someone said something pointed to the government of the Solomons. Maybe someday, but for now China isn't really in a position to try to rebase outside the First Island Chain without permission.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/14/solomon-island...

US was near tier1 technologic autarky post war until 90s, it had unrivalled STEM talent pool (by virtue of others having relatively very little) as well as FP tools to constrain foreign high tech competition while feeling her own via favourable immigration / brain drain policies. US crushed JP semi in 80s, but chose not to continue crushing other east asian tech ambitions / indy policy in 90s-10s because it was deemed acceptable cost of feeding alliances in era of US primacy. Now US is desperately trying to reshore semi and other strategic supply chains now that she realized sensibly that interconnected world is increasingly not secure, especially in potential future frontlines of allied soil. Ultimately what likely will prevent US from recreating tech soveriengty according to analysis is lack of talent - domestic doesn't produce enough, nor can current immigration policy close gap.

> especially important in evaluating China

Not particularly. PRC doesn't need alliances to leech off, because she has the demographics headroom to generate massive talent and governance power to systematically build academic / R&D / S&T institutions to harness said talent to be directly competitive with US + co. Mostly indigenously with big bux programs to recruit critical foreign talent and espionage to fill gaps. There's a reason PRC is rapidly catching up to tier1 tech levels on almost every sector within the last 10 years now that it's producing comparable STEM talent than ALL OECD countries combined, with lagging indicator of # of PhDs undergoing similar explosion that will ultimately drive PRC to tier1 levels. PRC has the most prospects and extremely strong advantages going forward simply because it will have the most skilled workers working off a relatively comprehensive industrial/tech chain and can souly focus on achieveing technologic sovereingy without stepping on toes. Unlike US whose has to balance providing advanced allies both security and prosperity. It's increasingly unable to do the former in PRC's back yard and now the latter is being harvested/reshored to US soil

As for PRC's neighbourhood... was US at height of primacy threatened by Cuba / South America? There was some fucking around and finding out. Folks in the neighbour hood can see which way the winds are shifting. PRC's growing power has already pushed most of region into neutrality and hedging, while actual US alliances are giving nothing but platitudes - very little concrete actions that actually boostered US defense position within 1st island chain. Also PRC has massive blue water navy with expanding replenishment fleet, it just doesn't choose to project outside of 1st island chain much, but it does regularly. Aleutian Islands this week.