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Comment by courseofaction | Hacker News Reader

America has very little manufacturing capacity, has lost its edge in batteries and power generation, and is soon to be behind on computing. They're politically fractured, losing all their allies, and no longer have a sustainable military advantage. If they decide to flex their aging muscles against China, they will be outproduced, and can't win in a single decisive blow unless they want to initiate a surprise full nuclear war. They're done. Corruption ate the golden goose, and the people cheered.

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You really have to ask the question "does all industrial production aid itself to war?" when making this determination.

Additionally, most people don't consider the Mexico factor. Presently some of the most talented machinists in the world live in Mexico manufacturing parts for American automotive (and other industries).

But, really, this comparison can only be proven in conflict - something both the USA and the CCP want to desperately avoid right now due to his economically coupled they are.

Just in time logistics has been a disaster for the American war machine.

Yes, productive capacity can be repurposed to support military goals - with organizations and technicians already in place.

Mexico has about 1/17th of the manufacturing capacity of the US - adds around 5.8%. America has a labor shortage in manufacturing, which is unlikely to be filled with foreign workers given the current crackdown on brown people. They're also annihilating their intellectual capacity by again cracking down on brown people, and defunding universities.

China is already leading the world in manufacturing and expanding rapidly, their universities are world class, and they have almost caught up in technology. Given their investments in education and strong culture of academic achievement, it's unreasonable to think they won't overtake the US in every domain in the next 3-5 years.

China doesn't have the resources to win a war.

The Malacca straits are to easily blockaded. China needs food imports and energy imports no matter how much alternative energy they build.

No, you can't truck or train it in over land.

They are still facing a massive demographic bomb. They're becoming increasingly authoritarian, which will begin to restrict their production efficiency. They may have a financial bomb as well.

Don't make the mistake that you think that India and Russia are going to be close allies of China.

Russia has extensive territories that China considers theirs historically. Likewise, India and China dispute many territorial issues.

The Malacca straits will certainly be important, but the US will have to reach past China and Chinese allies to the south to blockade it, and will be sitting ducks for drone and missile attacks (see the black sea fleet for a demonstration). China has heavily invested in submarines to avoid exactly this situation.

Authoritarianism in China has a significantly different flavor to US authoritarianism. The US is serving the goals of their dominant elite industries - finance and tech. China has an engineering culture amongst the elite, and is inclined to solve problems with productivity and megaprojects rather than handing money to purely extractive industries.

For an example of the difference between their flavors of authoritarianism and the outcomes they bring, compare their health care systems - the USA has one of the most expensive in the world at ~$14,500 per capita, and poor outcomes due to privatized corruption, while China's 14th 5-year plan has brought universal health care for approx ~$650 per person. China's average life expectancy is higher than the US's.

The US is, objectively, extremely corrupt, and is transitioning to authoritarianism to protect that corruption. China's authoritarianism achieves measurable goals, and has broad (though not universal) public support.

The USA will get curb stomped in a war. They just don't have anything but a massive military buildup from decades of pork barrelling unnecessary military contracts. Their population is sick and stupid. They have alienated their allies. They will lose.

> The US is, objectively, extremely corrupt, and is transitioning to authoritarianism to protect that corruption.

You have no idea what extreme corruption looks like if you think the US is it. (I will admit that it is becoming more corrupt, and that the corruption is tied to the authoritarianism.)

> Their population is sick and stupid.

Yeah... you're just ranting.

Not as corrupt as other countries is true. My rhetoric gets a little passionate, but is rooted in fact. Relative to their extreme wealth and political messaging, will 'very' corrupt do? 'Increasingly' corrupt, certainly. It's not tied to the authoritarianism, the health care system has been an international punchline for decades. The everyday systemic corruption (plus the 2008 bailouts) is in my opinion the cause of authoritarianism, the people were pushed to a populist.

Getting sicker: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6221922/

Getting stupider: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9

Obamacare is straight up porkbarrelling: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/apr/01/barack-oba...

The DoE's policy is to stop educating people unless it's profitable: https://www.propublica.org/article/education-department-publ...

I think we're going to see a substantial continual decline in both health and education outcomes as the system continues to be sabotaged, for money.

The most shocking part is qualitative though. As a non-American, having a conversation with an American about their politics is often stepping into a minefield of cognitive dissonance, patriotism, and blindness, from people who are otherwise wealthy and well-intentioned. Truly the most propagandized people. Such is the course of empire.

China's submersible fleet is probably going to be at the bottom of the ocean within an hour of shooting wars. They do not have a deep ocean Navy.

And which Chinese allies are you referring to, and you really think that they are going to host Chinese attacks on the US Navy?

There's been a lot of noise about China increasing their influence in the pacific, but now that I follow it up it's more limited than I thought.

China has approximately 250 times the shipbuilding capacity of the US. This infrastructure is integrated with military production. US-allied shipbuilding capacity in Japan and South Korea is within striking range of mainland China. I do not think it is reasonable to think that the US can win a sustained naval war against China, and how else would the US defend Taiwan?

https://www.csis.org/analysis/china-dominates-shipbuilding-i...

The US is no 2 in manufacturing output and way ahead of no 3.

>America . . . has lost its edge in . . . power generation

Energy costs are much lower in the US than in Europe or China. China is the world's largest importer of petroleum and of natural gas. In contrast, the US is self-sufficient in petroleum and natural gas.

China's petroleum comes by ship from the Persian Gulf and from Russia's European ports (since there is no easy way for Russia to get its oil to its Asian ports). Beijing's worry that something might happen to interrupt its long supply lines of petroleum and natural gas is why it has made a large risky bet on solar electricity. The US, which has more land with high solar potential than China, can sit back and wait to see how China's bet on solar will turn out before it makes big bets on solar.

It might be that the cost of electricity specifically is lower in China than the US. If so, that is because Beijing has prioritized building a lot of electricity-generating capacity. It engages in many such infrastructure project to keep its young men employed -- something Washington does not need to do because the US economy provides enough jobs without without Washington's spending on infrastructure projects (so Washington tends to spending on infrastructure only when the project clearly makes economic sense).

Beijing imposes tight restrictions on its citizens' ability to invest outside China, so Chinese individual investors, pension funds, etc, put most of their money into deposits into Chinese banks and into Chinese real estate. Most of the funding for infrastructure projects comes from these bank deposits and from borrowing. Governmental debt (including debt owed by state and provincial governments) is a higher percentage of GDP in China than in the US.

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