Generational Dynamics World View

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(10-10-2021, 07:01 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: *** 11-Oct-21 World View -- Tensions heat up between China and Taiwan

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Taiwan celebrates 'Taiwan National Day'
  
• China sends hundreds of fighter planes and bombers into Taiwan airspace
  
• Xi Jinping is running out of time
  
• China's disastrous one-child policy produces harsh consequences
  
• Taiwan's friends -- America, Japan, Australia, India
  
• The Beijing Olympics
  
• When will the Chinese Communists invade Taiwan?
  
• Moving
  

****
**** Taiwan celebrates 'Taiwan National Day'
****


Isabel Zhang was born in mainland China, while her husband James Xu is Taiwanese.  The Australian couple are worried about their respective families in case of war (Australian Broadcasting)

On October 10, 1911, the Wuchang Uprising began, launching the Chinese
Revolution and forming the Chinese Nationalists, led by Sun Yat-Sen.
He created the Republic of China based on his "Three Principles of the
People," developed in 1905 -- nationalism, democracy and welfare.
Later in the century, the Chinese Communists, led by Mao Zedong,
defeated the Chinese Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, in the
Chinese civil war that climaxed in 1949.  Chiang Kai-shek and the
Chinese Nationalists fled to Formosa and formed the nation of Taiwan.
On Sunday, October 10, Taiwan celebrated the anniversary of the
uprising that led to the Republic of China.

Beijing prefers to celebrate its own China National Day on October 1,
which commemorates the creation of the People's Republic of China in
1949.  The Chinese Communists hate Taiwan's National Day, and this has
led to dueling rhetoric.

Taiwan celebrated with huge parades highlighted by military equipment.
Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen said the following:

   <QUOTE>"We will do our utmost to prevent the status quo from
   being unilaterally altered.

   We will continue to bolster our national defense and demonstrate
   our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that
   nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for
   us.

   The path that China has laid out offers neither a free and
   democratic way of life for Taiwan, nor sovereignty for our 23
   million people."<END QUOTE>

It's obvious that Chiang Kai-Shek failed to unify China except against Japanese aggression, and then only to recognize a shared enemy in Japan. His Nationalist Party was in no way democratic, but it was also pathetically weak and corrupt. China was honeycombed with warlords who had control, often despotic, of large sections of China, and their only dispute with the Communists was that the Communists would not let them keep the loot from their corruption. Constraint of the Communists depended upon the warlords, and one after another of those failed after the withdrawal of Japanese occupation which itself created a vacuum which the well disciplined Communists  filled outside of the urban areas.

Of course, China was an economic nightmare of poverty and chaos in which no semblance of Sun Yat Sen's principle of welfare could reign. It is clear that Chiang Kai Shek was unable to offer any one of Sun Yat Sen's three principles of nationalism, democracy, or welfare. Driven completely out of mainland China, the nationalists retreated to a rump state in Taiwan which was unsuited to an amphibious attack by Mao's Communists. The Nationalists could not hold Hainan, also a significant island, but close enough for a primitive navy to support an amphibious assault.

The Chinese Communists were able to achieve national unity, but they never could achieve democracy. Welfare? China remains a dog-eat-dog economic order. China is a conservative dream for many in the West for having no welfare state.

Quote:****
**** China sends hundreds of fighter planes and bombers into Taiwan airspace
****

During the past few days, the Chinese Communists have sent hundreds of
fighter planes and bombers into Taiwan airspace.  China's state media
explained this aerial invasion in this way:

   <QUOTE>"According to statistics from Taiwan island, the PLA
   has sent warplanes into the island's "airspace" in 198 days so far
   this year. Such a number reflects that the PLA has carried out
   wide-ranged and profound operations to familiarize itself with
   battlefield conditions, with a large number of PLA Air Force units
   having experience flying close to the island. Once the order to
   attack is given, the PLA's pilots will fight as "experienced
   veterans." ...

   The PLA is forming a siege of Taiwan with a show of strength as it
   did in Beijing in 1949. There is no doubt about the future of the
   situation across the Taiwan Straits. The initiative of when and
   how to solve the Taiwan question is firmly in the hands of the
   Chinese mainland."<END QUOTE>

Well, that's an interesting historical comparison.  They're relating
the "siege" of Taiwan to a siege that the Communists used to defeat
the Nationalists in 1949.

While Taiwan has become a functional society with a multiparty democracy, prosperity characteristic of Western Europe, and a solid welfare state and achieved Sun Yat Sen's Three Principles of the People, the People's Republic has become an economic power by abandoning Socialism and has developed a strong navy and air force. The PRC has long sought to have an Anschluss with Taiwan and has developed the military force to make resistance futile.

At the same time, the PRC has gotten away with the worst economic features of capitalism and the worst political features of a Marxist regime. People know enough to not challenge the authority of the Chinese Communist Party, which to its credit has abandoned socialism and any dream of exporting Maoist ideology. It has abandoned the "of the Proletariat" part of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as a rationale for dictatorship. The dictatorship remains intact, and the current leadership has begun to restore the Personality Cult that weakened for a while. It's back, and no matter what the ideology, it is destructive. If I see a personality cult obnoxious and dangerous if it revolvers around a bumbler like Donald Trump, then just think of how obnoxious and dangerous it is with Xi Jinping. 

China has essentially a capitalist order closer on economic principles to Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher than to Maoism but with no semblance of democracy. For capitalism to work the capitalist order must prevent the destructive speculative bubbles of the sort that led to catastrophic meltdowns of the sorts that we Americans experienced in 1929 and 2008. China is getting hit hard now with its own "Too Big to Fail" enterprises such as American nightmares as banks that had lent heavily to the speculative boom in real estate. Yes, it is possible to have a long-lasting boom in real estate so long as the actors such as developers invest small and lenders are proscribed from participating in the upward valuation of real estate that borrowers enjoy. In the development of suburban housing in America, lenders simply recycled mortgage payments and low-yield savings accounts into subsequent loans while meeting administrative costs and turning a profit for bankers that could fare well on the volume of mortgage loans. It's only when the lenders went into giant projects that visionary entrepreneurs (including bankers that tried to become developers) that a speculative boom could become destructive.

We all know that there are related activities that must be kept separate. My favorite example is that even though physicians, pharmacists, and undertakers are involved with the end of clients; lives, it is best that the activities of physicians, pharmacists, and undertakers be separate. It's best that a physician not have an economic interest in the demise of his patient and that an undertaker not be involved in medical decisions. That's the most blatant. The American political system long kept retail banking, investment banking, and insurance separate because of the potential corruption of coordination in potentially-lucrative activities that could combine power and irresponsibility. In general, capitalism works best when economic interests who can do grave harm in coordination for the maximization of profits are kept separate. Just as democracy requires the separation of powers, workable capitalism depends upon the dispersal of economic power without which economic activity gravitates to entities that are not only Too Big to Fail but also Too Corrupt to Save.

Evergrande looks like an entity both Too Big to Fail and Too Corrupt to Save. When things start to go wrong there is no obvious choice except to start anew after punishing the bad actors. The People's Republic of China has one measure that the United States does not have for dealing with spectacularly-corrupt people who do economic crimes, and that is the death penalty. The optimum might be a more dramatic means of achieving death for people who did the most shameful stuff like operating a Po9nzi scheme. Seppuku, anyone? Of course, that is an obsolete part of the medieval leftover of a country that should not be confused with either China or the USA.

Quote:So the Communists say that the purpose of sending hundreds of
warplanes over Taiwan is to allow their pilots to gain experience and
become "experienced veterans."  There are two possible interpretations
of this.  One is that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is imminent, and
the other is that the current incursions are merely practice for a
future invasion to occur sometime in the future.

The rest of the world would be offended if the aerial forces of the USA did something like that with Cuba, and rightly so.

OK, the ultimate solution would be that the PRC started to adopt characteristics of Taiwan as a workable democracy with a sound economic system that has appropriate regulation to prevent gigantic frauds and a welfare system to protect the vulnerable. Then the distinction between Mainland China and Taiwan would become as politically irrelevant as the distinction between the German Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic after the DDR became a genuine democracy in the aftermath of its one free election.

With a leader as erratic as XI, anything is possible, and much of what is possible it horrible.

That the Communists intend to invade Taiwan is certain.  China has
repeatedly declared the intention to invade Taiwan and annex it to
China.

Quote:Last week, as the hundreds of warplanes were threatening Taiwan,
Communist leader Xi Jinping said the following:

   <QUOTE>"Taiwan independence separatism is the biggest
   obstacle to achieving the reunification of the motherland, and the
   most serious hidden danger to national rejuvenation. ...

   Reunification through a peaceful manner is the most in line with
   the overall interest of the Chinese nation, including Taiwan
   compatriots. ...

   No one should underestimate the Chinese people's staunch
   determination, firm will, and strong ability to defend national
   sovereignty and territorial integrity. The historical task of the
   complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled, and
   will definitely be fulfilled."<END QUOTE>

"Peaceful" incorporation? As in Austria in 1938, or Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania in 1940?

I am fully satisfied that the People's Republic of China has the ability to project military force anywhere in the Pacific Basin in the event that anyone in the Basin does something truly stupid, like persecuting any Chinese diaspora from Perth to Bangkok to Los Angeles. Yes, even Los Angeles, as any American government that would mess with its Chinese community would do bad stuff to plenty of others. I don't see anything like that happening for now but who knows what a racist demagogue who makes Donald Trump look like an ill-behaved Maine Coon Cat in contrast to what  a man-eating tiger could do.

(John, I am surprised that as fussy as you are about current or former Presidents as Biden and Obama for deeds that violate your version of political orthodoxy I am astonished that you are blind to the dangers of Trump-style demagoguery, egoism in power, contempt toward dissidents who lie within the range of a recurring orthodoxy in American politics, and overall cruelty. You are free to see the liberal side of American politics as soft on Communism and excessively indulgent on personal behavior that fosters individual poverty and prevents maximal growth which would occur in an America full of industrial sweatshops.
 

Quote:****
**** Xi Jinping is running out of time
****

Xi's problem is that, in many ways, he's running out of time, mostly
for generational reasons.

Until the 1990s, the Nationalists ruled Taiwan, and most Taiwanese
believed that it was only a matter of time before Taiwan would be
reunitied with the mainland, although many would have demanded that
the Nationalists govern the reunited country.

Since then, the survivors of the 1940s civil war have died off, and
new generations have grown and come to power.  A major turning point
was the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which the citizens of Taiwan
watched with horror.  This led to the rise of the nominally
pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose leader is
the current president Tsai Ing-wen.  As the new generations have come
to power, and young people displace old people, more and more people
oppose reunification.  In recent years, Beijing's brutal treatment of
Hong Kong has reinforced this opposition.  According to polls, fewer
than 10% of the people today favor reunification, and many of those
would agree to reunification only if mainland China became a
democratic country, something that's not going to happen.

So Xi Jinping is running out of time in Taiwan, but he's also running
out of time on the mainland.  Younger generations are increasingly
nationalistic and xenophobic, and are demanding that Xi Jinping stop
stalling and take action in Taiwan.

It is also thirty-two years after the Tienanmen crackdown. It is unfortunate that China did not undergo the democratization that central and Balkan Europe and for a limited time and extent Russia underwent. A democratic China would solve a huge number of international problems while creating none. It is hard to know what the mass sentiment in China is because of the tight control on Chinese media. The Chinese Communist Party is a secretive clique those upper leadership has serious rifts that it can cover with ritual. I think you agree with me that if the PRC were to ever democratize, the rump Republic of China would become irrelevant.  Both would have Sun Yat-Sen as their political icon for nationalism, democracy, and the general welfare of the Chinese People. The Republic of China would have as much political validity as the DDR in September 1990.

Quote:****
**** China's disastrous one-child policy produces harsh consequences
****

The one-child policy, adopted in 1979, has been a disaster for China.
Women who had unapproved pregnancies could be violently dragged from
their homes and forced to abort and be sterilized.  If an unapproved
child was born, then the child could not be registered, and
essentially did not exist, so could not get schooling or other social
benefits.

The policy accelerated the aging of the population, and a decline in
the working-age population, which threatens economic growth.
Furthermore, with fewer children, fewer elderly people could be cared
for by their children.  In 2015 there were eleven working age Chinese
for every retiree. By 2050, if not earlier, there will only be two for
each retiree.

In addition, parents often aborted girl babies, since they wanted
their one child to be a boy.  The result is that millions of young
males have been unable to find a wife, and so females are enticed or
coerced (kidnapped by criminal gangs) to become wives of Chinese men
who have no other options, which is raising tensions with China's
neighbors.

The result is that the number of elderly people is growing, while the
population as a whole is shrinking.  This puts a strain on the
country's pension system, and creates a constantly shrinking labor
force.  China is already finding it difficult to fill many difficult
jobs, including jobs in the military, resulting in lower GDP growth.

The one-child policy may have had unintended effects. The intended effect was to allow China to limit is population growth so that it could more easily meet the needs of food and could dedicate more of its economic activity to industrialization. An unintended effect is that it ensured that China would not have so much cannon fodder for war as was the case for the USA around 1860, many European countries in 1914, or Iraq and Iran in the 1980's. Other countries have had to adjust to a shrinking labor force, and such is not so much a social disaster as is a large number of young people with no viable means of supporting themselves.

People with only one child are in less position in which to see war as an opportunity, I could tell you about one of my ancestors who lost three sons in the American Civil War. I'm guessing that they took the money from enlistment and saw themselves using it for settling on the Western frontier.

Son W died in early childhood. Sons O, J, and L went off to war and died of wounds or disease. Daughter E did go to Deadwood, Dakota Territory, and became a real-life "Miss Kitty" and died young. Son C managed to get out west to what is now Idaho, and it is not clear what happened to him. Son A, who was too young to enlist, became an attorney and a long-career judge near Pittsburgh. Son T became a successful small-town banker.

I am guessing that the family cut off daughter E as a scandal. O, J, and L didn't fully spend their war bonuses, but A and T obviously took advantage of the windfall in a world with more opportunity than before the Civil War than before. C? I have seen nothing about him after a Census report of 1880. (The Census of 1890 was destroyed in a fire).

Quote:There are other domestic problems facing Xi Jinping.  The collapse of
Evergrande is spreading and could have far-reaching consequences,
including outside of China.  (See "25-Sep-21 World View -- China Evergrande construction firm heads to default"
)

Internationally, China is facing criticism about its brutal crackdown
on the free press in Hong Kong, China's arrest and enslavement of
millions of Uighurs, and illegal belligerent actions in the South
China Sea.  The Chinese Communists have made it abundantly clear that
they don't care at all what others think of them, and what
international laws they violate.  What we're seeing is the
millennia-old Chinese culture saying that the rest of the world are
barbarians, and are to be treated as donkeys, with no purpose except
to serve the Chinese Communists.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. --
Proverbs 16:18, KJV.

The ancient Hebrews were onto something, were they not? OK, pride is in practice arrogance and is difficult to distinguish from the haughty spirit. It seems universally true irrespective of time and culture. The ancient Greeks had their mythology to explain such, as with Icarus, and came to much the same conclusions about human character as did the Hebrews.

Maybe someone can inform me on what Lao-Tze, Confucius, and the Buddha have to say about arrogance and its contribution to ruin. I can tell you of one country to which I have ancestral connections -- many -- and they would have been wiser to heed Proverbs instead of Mein Kampf.

Quote:****
**** Taiwan's friends -- America, Japan, Australia, India
****

According to analysts, China would prevail in an invasion of Taiwan,
although Taiwan would inflict a great deal of damage on China at the
same time.  However, that assumes that Taiwan would fight Taiwan
alone.

By the way, to my knowledge nobody supports China's invasion of
Taiwan.  Cambodia and Pakistan are close allies with China, but I'm
not aware that they or any other country would join China in an
invasion of Taiwan.

However, there are several countries that are likely to help defend
Taiwan.

The most obvious friend is the United States, and it's debated
endlessly whether the US would defend Taiwan, or would just stand by
and allow Taiwan to be swallowed up by China.  My personal belief is
that this would constitute a "generational regeneracy" event
(regenerating civic unity behind the president), and we would be at
war with China within a few hours or days.

America has been helping Taiwan to defend itself, mainly by providing
weapons systems.  In the last few days, it was reported that about two
dozen U.S. troops have been deployed to Taiwan for at least the last
year to train local military forces to bolster the island's defenses.
The special operators have worked with Taiwanese ground troops and the
Marines have worked with maritime forces on small-boat operations.

Taiwan has other friends, most notably Japan.  As I've been writing
for years, China has been thirsting for a war with Japan in revenge
for the atrocities (chemical warfare, rape of Nanking) committed by
Japan on China during World War II.  Furthermore, and nationalism and
xenophobia have increased in both countries, and there are now signs
that the Japanese are thirsting for a new war with the Chinese.  It
shouldn't take long for both thirsts to be quenched.

One trigger for a Japanese war with China would be a Chinese invasion
of Taiwan.  Although Japan has a "pacifist" constitution, in 2015 the
law was reinterpreted to permit Japanese forces to defend an ally
(Taiwan or the US) as "collective self-defense," provided that Japan's
government determined that the war was a security threat that
threatened Japan's own survival.  For example, the Japanese might view
the invasion of Taiwan as a stepping-stone to a planned invasion of
Japan.  (See "28-Jun-21 World View -- Japan's plans for defending Taiwan from an attack by China"
)

Beyond Japan, there is also the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue,
linking the United States, Japan, India and Australia, This grouping
does not have any military commitments, but it will hold talks to
"hold China accountable."

The same countries would align with China if it were obliged to turn against North Korea. If you think China is bad, then just think of how horrible and reckless North Korea is, A nuclear warhead fired over China even if its final destination were the USA would be an act of war against any country (including Russia and Canada if within the trajectory).

India is a major power. Japan is a sleeping tiger as a power, analogous in some ways to the USA in the 1930's. I could see Indian leadership aligning with the Uighurs due to the large Muslim population in India.

Quote:****
**** The Beijing Olympics
****

The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing will begin on Friday, February 4,
and end on Sunday, February 20.  This is an interesting milepost in
the discussions of a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

On the one hand, the Olympics games are a matter of enormous
prestige for the Chinese Communists, and they would not want to
besmirch the games by an untoward event, like a major war.  This suggests
that any planned invasion of Taiwan would have to come after February 20.

On the other hand, it's expected that there will be substantial
boycotts of the games, for two reasons.  One reason is that China is
actively committing genocide, ethnic cleansing and enslavement of
millions of Muslim Uighurs, and many people will boycott in protest.
The second reason is that China kidnaps and jails foreigners without
charges in order to gain political advantage, in a policy known as
"hostage diplomacy," and many people want to stay away from China for
fear of being held hostage to some political dispute.

I expect China to be on its best behavior during the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Even Nazi Germany toned down the antisemitic rhetoric in 1936.

Quote:****
**** When will the Chinese Communists invade Taiwan?
****

Xi Jinping and Tsai Ing-wen both upped rhetoric this past week, in
celebration of the "National Days" for China and Taiwan, respectively,
with China going much farther by launching hundreds of warplanes to
fly over Taiwan.

There is enormous and growing pressure on Xi Jinping to do something
to solve the Taiwan problem.  However, I agree with those analysts who
say that Xi cannot risk an invasion at this time (or at any time,
really) because the results would be too unpredictable and potentially
catastrophic.  So you have the "pressure cooker" analogy, where you
don't know when the pressure will be too great, but you know that the
pressure has to blow at some point.  Or maybe you prefer the "straw
that breaks the camel's back" analogy where you know that if you keep
piling on straw, then eventually a straw will break the camel's back,
though you don't know in advance which one.

As I've written in the past, crisis wars begin with a chaotic
unexpected event.  World War I began because a 12-year-old high school
student decided in 1914 that it would be fun to shoot an Archduke.  WW
II began in 1937 because a Japanese soldier had to pee and got lost in
the woods.  Those wars were a complete surprise, even to the
belligerents.  That's how WW III will begin.  It will be totally
irrational, insane and unexpected, and it could happen any day.

...at a time of its choosing. The Chinese Communist Party seems to have control of the armed forces, which is very different from the reality in Japan in which the armed forces had the real power in politics in the 1930's. I expect the PRC to not do anything rash that would weaken a government unlikely to react rashly. An adversary like Donald Trump is more likely to find himself in a very bad situation because the PRC might want him defeated politically so that his successor would be more likely to consolidate political authority while ignoring a fait accompli. If I am most likely to pick a time, then it would be if Japan gets a Trump-like leader (less likely than in America, because racist populism is very much on the insignificant "lunatic fringe") or if Joe Biden's successor (2025 should the GOP take the House, Senate, and the Presidency( if the President should be a fire-breathing, militant right-winger full of himself.  If the Chinese can't recognize the arrogance of their leadership and the danger that such implies, then they can understand that in other countries. Hypocrisy is a norm in human nature.

Yes, I am glad that Donald Trump is no longer President, China might have already seized Taiwan by now just to embarrass Donald Trump.