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Comment by chii | Hacker News Reader

> rise of the Eastern economic bloc

the exact same thing was said for japan when their economy boomed. Whether china falls to the same fate, or actually sustain and overtake the west, is yet to be determined. However, trump's policies aren't really helping (but in fact, is actually enabling them). By removing the US as a large consumer, the CCP could be forced to switch to internal consumption model instead, which both increases the standard of living of the people there, as well as decrease the reliance on exporting (so lower economic leverage).

Not to mention the west's economic policies are disparate between supposed allied countries - with friends like that, who needs enemies?

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A key benefit of being the world's factory is that factories are easier to convert to war time uses than banks and software offices are. Some kinds of software is clearly going to be important for the next world war, but a lot of the service economy is essentially dead weight. If China switches to an economy based on internal consumption it's likely that its industrial capacity will decline.

I've been hearing that China will hit a plateau, like Japan, for at least 20 years now... Meanwhile, China is now pumping out BEV trucks, affordable electric cars, sixth generation military jets, and nuclear aircraft carriers.

> China is now pumping out ... sixth generation military jets, and nuclear aircraft carriers.

They are not. They have some initial versions.

The thing about long distance navies is that they require lots and lots of oil. No matter if you have a nuclear powered aircraft carrier or not.

The most damage China can do to western interests is that they start some local war, which we disapprove of, and so we end up sanctioning and embargoing them, which means we lose their production. The end of mass production from China. This is how we killed the USSR and a bunch of smaller wannabes. It's just geography. USA and Europe have the most productive land and port access. Most access to oil to give us long reach. China is practically land locked because of the first island chain. Think of it as being surrounded by a thousand aircraft carriers with infinite fuel. They don't have enough oil domestically. Middle eastern oil is trivially interdicted.

> This is how we killed the USSR

i doubt that - the USSR killed themselves with their poor economic policies (as well as expensive wars they cannot really afford).

China on the other hand, hasn't made the same mistakes. They posture, they build military installations (such as those in the south china sea), but they haven't committed much, if at all, to an actual war. Not to mention their economic policies are vastly superior to the USSR's - sucking in western capital at the beginning, and now, to overtaking them.

China's lack of oil is an achilles heel, but not a very big one. And every day, they're closer to diversifying away from oil as an energy source. Not to mention having pipelines through russia and the much of asia minor to have land routes that aren't blockade-able.

The economic modal of china is irrelevant to how their geography makes them easy to blockade. I think you might have just misread what I was saying here. I was saying how they don't have a viable long game _if_ they choose to start a war that the west doesn't approve of. Because they are practically land locked like the USSR when compared to the west.

Nothing replaces oil as an energy source for military reach.

China is decades away from having any pipelines to north siberia where most of the russian oil is. There's really nothing practical even on the drawing board atm.

Pipelines are the easiest transport of oil to stop. Look at ukraine.

> I've been hearing that China will hit a plateau, like Japan, for at least 20 years now...

Chinese growth is slowing permanently.

GDP growth trend in 2000s was 10-12% p.a. In the 2010s it was 6-8%. In the 2020a expected to be 3-4%. This slowdown is structural, not cyclical.

China is aging faster than the west.

Real estate in China at one point represented 25-30% of GDP, but this model has collapsed.

Manufacturing remains strong, but is shifting upmarket, eg EVs, batteries, solar panels, robotics, semiconductors. China’s strategy is to move up the value chain faster than competitors can catch them.

Consumption is weak, but has strong potential.

China had high technological innovation, but political constraints are rising for them.

China’s growth will be more state driven, less entrepreneurial, but formidable in industrial capacity.

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