You can trust him on geo politics but on internal politics not so much.
peter Zeihan 2020
- Thread starter Cherico
- Start date
You can trust him on geo politics but on internal politics not so much.
Eh, geo is still questionable. Too. And I see there were comments I didn't respond too. Shoot. I'll see if I can get back to those later.
So, how many people are we thinking want to fuck over China at any and all costs, and has the actual means? We have the onion of political action.
1) Pay them off. How many countries are going to deny Chinese money?
2) Special operations: you fuck with their ships, they fuck with yours, fine your companies, excetera.
3) Gunboat diplomacy: a ship launches cruise missiles. This is within China's capacity quite easily.
4) Aggressive special operations: the state's opponents get better funding, "Oh look such and such warlord was drone striked, how sad.
5) Actual military, boots on the ground operation.
How many people make it past escalation stage 2? How many make it past stage 2 without pissing anyone else off besides China?
@Cherico : it actually takes quite a lot of ordinance to sink a large ship, at least of the conventional easily acquired types. TOW missiles would do very little. Ukraine is the, what, 4? largest navy blockading a country in a war zone. Insurance isn't going to cover blockade running a fairly close blockade, because its a near 100% risk.
Any sort of low level pirate operation is not going to be anywhere near as risky, and thus actually insurable, just as ships were insured against Somali pirate attacks. If you had 1,000 pirate attacks per year and each one cost $100 million in damages or ransoms, that's a $100 billion dollars in expenses per year. However, international ship born trade is something like $20 trillion, so $100 billion is 0.5% of the value of shipped goods. Even the value of international shipping falling 90% to $2 trillion means that kind of massive pirate activity is still only 5% of the value shipped.
Shipping can survive quite a lot of piracy and keep going. If 10% of the price of foreign goods shipped has to go to pirate protection money, that would change some operations, and would make things more costly, but, well, everythings gone through a 10% price rise this year too, without collapsing everything.
History Learner
Well-known member
I think @Cherico hit on what I was trying to get through in a sense; you both don't like his domestic American political projections, but need to realize his priors there will also shape his views on geopolitics at large. Take, for example, the duopoly he holds on China and Japan, in that he says both are dependent on export economies and sea trade to survive, yet somehow Japan magically survives both while China doesn't. It only makes sense when you contextualize as a Liberal world thinker, the "power of Liberal Democracy" (Almost in a religious sense) will overcome all obstacles and somehow bless Japan with the ability to survive the exact same problems as China without any of the benefits of the latter.
The difference between Japan and china is one of geography.
This is a map of China.
Between themselves and the international market is a series of island archapelagoes which are hostle to it,
(A lot of this is china's fault)
In order for a slow moving tanker full of oil from the middle east to get to china it must first leave the south chinese sea.
Japan, Philipines and Taiwan are the first group of hostle islands that the chi coms have pissed off. Once this tanker gets pass them they now much go through the straits now their going past vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia all countries that have beef with them because of their claims. After they get through this they must go past India. India has more of a naval focus and can match china on manpower and by the way also has claims against china.
Once they get past india that oil tanker must pick a side in a centuries long knife fight and now must get back through past all of those hostle countries, and in a world full of expensive oil forcing the tanker to stop and taking the oil for yourself and fucking a rival to do so makes sense when no one is protecting global trade.
Japan meanwhile has full pacific access and can more easily get oil from Canada, the US, mexico and south america yes at a higher price but there arnt any islands that can block that path. They also have worked hard to repair their relationship with Australia, the philipines, indonesia, vietnam and malasyia and are a part of that security pact which means they can leverage that to secure their oil resources.
If China had played a smarter diplomatic game this wouldn't be as bad, but the chinese communist party has made a whole host of bad decisions that are coming home to roost all at once. So their going to have a bad time.
History Learner
Well-known member
The difference between Japan and china is one of geography.
This is a map of China.
Between themselves and the international market is a series of island archapelagoes which are hostle to it,
(A lot of this is china's fault)
In order for a slow moving tanker full of oil from the middle east to get to china it must first leave the south chinese sea.
Japan, Philipines and Taiwan are the first group of hostle islands that the chi coms have pissed off. Once this tanker gets pass them they now much go through the straits now their going past vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia all countries that have beef with them because of their claims. After they get through this they must go past India. India has more of a naval focus and can match china on manpower and by the way also has claims against china.
Once they get past india that oil tanker must pick a side in a centuries long knife fight and now must get back through past all of those hostle countries, and in a world full of expensive oil forcing the tanker to stop and taking the oil for yourself and fucking a rival to do so makes sense when no one is protecting global trade.
Japan meanwhile has full pacific access and can more easily get oil from Canada, the US, mexico and south america yes at a higher price but there arnt any islands that can block that path. They also have worked hard to repair their relationship with Australia, the philipines, indonesia, vietnam and malasyia and are a part of that security pact which means they can leverage that to secure their oil resources.
If China had played a smarter diplomatic game this wouldn't be as bad, but the chinese communist party has made a whole host of bad decisions that are coming home to roost all at once. So their going to have a bad time.
83% of Japanese crude oil imports are from the Middle East, they're using the exact same SLOCs as China uses. If we take Zeihan's analysis at face value, then most of those Southeast Asian nations are not going to be friendly for much longer, but will instead become pirate infested havens in effectively failed states. One of the core features of his current analysis is that no one, not even the United States, is going to be in a position to protect the sea lanes and associated commerce beyond a regional level. What happens to Japan when China operates raiders out of Burma? Cambodia? Iran? The list goes on.
Unlike Japan, however, China has better geography in that it's not an island forced to import everything it needs, and can thus import overland and avoid those pirates and high shipping rates Zeihan frets about. Earlier this year they agreed on a $117 Billion deal in gas and oil with Russia, so both are definitely aware of the possibilities and move to counter-act them. We see the same deals being possible in agriculture too; Russo-Ukrainian grain can be diverted to China, same for inputs like phosphates for domestic farming. Russia can effectively supply all the material inputs China needs.
China's ratio of exports/imports, and who those go to, is also interesting. Very few of its food staples, for example, are actually imported.
China is the single most over leveraged country in human history, and once again they have a whole lot of crisis's hitting at once. Their fucked. Their economy is enron on steroids and its only a matter of time until that all blows up. Granted a lot of us will be fucked as well but it will fuck them over the most.
Japan as I said can more easily access both the middle east and the americas and hasnt' shit the bed on diplomacy, and their navy is one of the best navies in the world and is a full blue water one.
History Learner
Well-known member
How much of China's debt is owned domestically? That's the really main key statistic you need to consider when talking about these things.
Japan imports on the same sealanes China uses and has a Navy inferior in every aspect to China's; both in raw ship counts, capabilities, and age. Experience is harder to quantify, but China has been no slouch there either, particularly in Anti-Pirate operations. The PLAAN has three full aircraft carriers, Japan has none.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
Interesting perspective.
What do you know about the performance track record of those aircraft carriers, particularly with launching and recovering aircraft?
True, but as long the CCP has the PLA, it can ward off most threats.
good at getting rid of former PMs
they've untested.
this is NOT the IJN that bonked USA on head and bonked them a few more times before Midway
still, China ain't doing so well.
This I can tell you, as a Chinaman, though I'm not born in China nor living there right now.
its essentially two untested forces, except one is much larger than the other
as for quality, we have no idea until the missiles start flying and guns start shooting.
Floridaman
Well-known member
I mean the soft target for China is the three gorges dam. Blow that, and you wipe out a number of major cities.
I guess that comes down to: are we talking Chinese shipping will be fucked by random pirates, in which case having an aircraft carrier able to launch planes is really all that's necessary to gunboat diplomacy rogue actors in line, and china can obviously build enough ships to do such patrol work to keep pirate numbers within manageable levels, even if they might be higher than now. Policing does not require all that high quality of ship.
Or are we talking about world war: China vs Japan, where a whole host of issues will decide that rather than whether a Chinese aircraft carrier puts out 50 sorties a day or 30 sorties a day?
Or the more pertinent question: is China scary enough that Taiwan or Japan would instigate a war by trying to blockade Chinese shipping? Is the contention that that would be a safe thing to do?
What exactly are we imagining happening here?
History Learner
Well-known member
Overall, pretty good in the last few years and getting better, as the U.S. admits officially. As good as we are? No, but they don't have to be when Japan doesn't have any carriers at all.
Peter returns to Breaking Points to talk about Japan:
TL;DR:
-Japan is all about continuity, making sure everyone is on the same page
-No making sure everyone on same page, civil breakdown happens
-Japan is trying to hold the line, because of demographic decline, bad relations with neighbors, need to import resources
-No super big cultural change since surrendering in 1945
-Abe correctly assessed global situation and moved Japan to thinking strategically in post-global era, only did half good job restarting their economy
-Abe bought Japan a spot in America's inner circle during Trump admin
-Japan will destabilize status quo in Asia
-Japan is second largest navy and 3rd largest economy in Asia (US is #1)
Not much new here, but a good video to pass around if anyone asks you about what's up with Japan.
TL;DR:
-Japan is all about continuity, making sure everyone is on the same page
-No making sure everyone on same page, civil breakdown happens
-Japan is trying to hold the line, because of demographic decline, bad relations with neighbors, need to import resources
-No super big cultural change since surrendering in 1945
-Abe correctly assessed global situation and moved Japan to thinking strategically in post-global era, only did half good job restarting their economy
-Abe bought Japan a spot in America's inner circle during Trump admin
-Japan will destabilize status quo in Asia
-Japan is second largest navy and 3rd largest economy in Asia (US is #1)
Not much new here, but a good video to pass around if anyone asks you about what's up with Japan.
AnimalNoodles
Well-known member
Floridaman
Well-known member
Yeah which I pointed out later on, thing is in Taiwan’s case if they get invaded them it would make sense as a target, think of it like a budget version of MAD.
Well, except it has no deterance value. Hitting it just gives unlimited justification to carry out the war, since once done it can't be done again. Its an all downside move unless it would meaningfully help win the war.
AnimalNoodles
Well-known member
and who would carry out this atrocity?
Floridaman
Well-known member
Taiwan presumably, they do have missiles capable of hitting it, and since they don’t have nukes it would work as a limited MAD scenario.