08-26-2022, 04:25 PM
Recently I've been reading the works of the demographer and geopolitical polymath Peter Zeihan. In the interest of avoiding polemics and alarmist cries of Armageddon, I should start by clarifying that he identifies as a "Small d democrat". Sure, he is on the more libertarian end of the Dems because he likes things like free trade and making business deals rather than war, but none of his work covers anything to do with race, nationalism or anything else more talked about in social conservative circles. Most of his data comes straight from government statistics provided by the military, the BLS and various international geopolitical statistics, so, while those have those limitations (which he often talks in great detail about), little of where he sources his information would be biased in favor of my own views on various social issues.
With that out of the way, here are some stats from his various works that highlight why I was completely wrong about China:
1) China imports 85% of their energy, most of which has to pass through the Persian Gulf.
2) Xi Jinping has one of the most complete cults of personality in recent history. So much so that he has more or less executed anyone for providing even the most trivially inconvenient news. As a result, he no longer gets....any reasonably accurate news or updates on world events whatsoever.
3) China has less than a 1/3 the global average of arable land per capita.
4) China's military is an army of combat virgins, who haven't really seen any real combat since 1975 with the zenith of the Vietnam War.
5) As a result of the 1 child policy (and sex-selective abortions), China's breeding age population has the worst gender imbalance of just about any country in recorded history.
6) Even by their own estimates, recent data has conclude that they've overcounted their population by at least 100 million.
7) With regards to agriculture, China spends more per calorie of output than any other country on the planet.
8) The most liberal estimates claim that China's population will be cut in half by 2070 on account of how severe their aging crisis is. More recent estimates put that number as close as 2050 (ie, a net loss of....650,000,000 people in the coming 3 decades).
9) Wages in China have already risen 15 fold since 1999. That sounds great...until you realize it's driven primarily by severe labor shortages.
10) Of the few breeding age males and females they do have, their current cultural setup more or less isolates them, leading to even lower prospects for demographic recovery.
11) What little agricultural output they do have is dependent on chemical fertilizers of which they are by far the world's largest importer of.
12) Most of those chemical fertilizers arrive via, wait for it.....trading ports in the Black Sea.
13) Just because they are the archetype of a net exporter of manufacturing goods does not mean that they aren't a net importer of virtually all of the most important and expensive raw materials inputs required for production.
tl;dr: they...are...toast. More so that just about any great power of the last 500 years. What your takeaways from this will depend largely on your personal beliefs, but personally, I'm happy to watch those communist fuckers burn in hell where they belong, and you can rest assured, I will be grabbing the popcorn to watch this shit show for at least the next decade.
For those of you interested, Peter's four books are
- The Accidental Superpower
- The Absent Superpower
- Disunited Nations
and just recently
- The End of the World is Just the Beginning
In the meantime, if you want an example of what he talks like/how he thinks, he has several quality interviews on youtube, of which this is one such example (as you will quickly see, he handles this issue with a lot more compassion than I have any desire to).
With that out of the way, here are some stats from his various works that highlight why I was completely wrong about China:
1) China imports 85% of their energy, most of which has to pass through the Persian Gulf.
2) Xi Jinping has one of the most complete cults of personality in recent history. So much so that he has more or less executed anyone for providing even the most trivially inconvenient news. As a result, he no longer gets....any reasonably accurate news or updates on world events whatsoever.
3) China has less than a 1/3 the global average of arable land per capita.
4) China's military is an army of combat virgins, who haven't really seen any real combat since 1975 with the zenith of the Vietnam War.
5) As a result of the 1 child policy (and sex-selective abortions), China's breeding age population has the worst gender imbalance of just about any country in recorded history.
6) Even by their own estimates, recent data has conclude that they've overcounted their population by at least 100 million.
7) With regards to agriculture, China spends more per calorie of output than any other country on the planet.
8) The most liberal estimates claim that China's population will be cut in half by 2070 on account of how severe their aging crisis is. More recent estimates put that number as close as 2050 (ie, a net loss of....650,000,000 people in the coming 3 decades).
9) Wages in China have already risen 15 fold since 1999. That sounds great...until you realize it's driven primarily by severe labor shortages.
10) Of the few breeding age males and females they do have, their current cultural setup more or less isolates them, leading to even lower prospects for demographic recovery.
11) What little agricultural output they do have is dependent on chemical fertilizers of which they are by far the world's largest importer of.
12) Most of those chemical fertilizers arrive via, wait for it.....trading ports in the Black Sea.
13) Just because they are the archetype of a net exporter of manufacturing goods does not mean that they aren't a net importer of virtually all of the most important and expensive raw materials inputs required for production.
tl;dr: they...are...toast. More so that just about any great power of the last 500 years. What your takeaways from this will depend largely on your personal beliefs, but personally, I'm happy to watch those communist fuckers burn in hell where they belong, and you can rest assured, I will be grabbing the popcorn to watch this shit show for at least the next decade.
For those of you interested, Peter's four books are
- The Accidental Superpower
- The Absent Superpower
- Disunited Nations
and just recently
- The End of the World is Just the Beginning
In the meantime, if you want an example of what he talks like/how he thinks, he has several quality interviews on youtube, of which this is one such example (as you will quickly see, he handles this issue with a lot more compassion than I have any desire to).
ammosexual
reluctant millennial
reluctant millennial