China has been the preeminent civilization for most of recorded history* (Iran, Israeli)

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by Phil P
...Russia will collapse at some point in the next hundred years from their own stupidity and China would be poised to control much of Siberia, which has just as much or more potential than warm Canada.

Originally Posted by ohio_peasant

......
Highly unlikely. Russia came close to collapsing at multiple times in its history... for instance in 1918-1922, and around 1600, before the advent of the Romanoffs. And before that, when being [partially] conquered by the Golden Horde. Russia has a habit of hunkering down, in a highly diminished and degraded condition, at great cost of suffering of its people... only to eventually spring back. Contrast this with, say, France or Germany... which have had histories of being utterly defeated in warfare, occupied and administered by enemy forces, and yet, maintaining a general standard of living at fairly high level.

Sometimes history just doesn't matter.
Springing back when your women bear five children each is different from springing back when your women only have one child.

Never before in history has a country faced a natural demographic collapse at the same time they are losing some working age people in a war, and others as they leave the country to avoid war.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by Listener2307

Sometimes history just doesn't matter.
Springing back when your women bear five children each is different from springing back when your women only have one child.

Never before in history has a country faced a natural demographic collapse at the same time they are losing some working age people in a war, and others as they leave the country to avoid war.

We should be careful to avoid twisting the observable trends, to comport with our favored belief system. If we’ve convinced ourselves that low fertility rates are morally, culturally and socially devastating, then we’re going to seek with particular vehemence, societies with endemically low fertility rates, as examples of coming failure. Then we’re going to sift through the roster of such societies, looking for those that are particularly poorly governed… and then winnow down that smaller roster, to those who are particularly afflicted by some disaster or crisis right at the moment.

Russia’s decline is likely, because its occasional spurts of ascendancy, were themselves odd and improbable. Why would the 1930s USSR, wracked by Stalin’s harrowing mismanagement and cruelty, somehow emerge as a superpower, just a decade later? In a similar way, why would say for example Portugal, a tiny country without many resources, emerge as a global leader in intercontinental exploration? And yet it did… until it didn’t. Portugal’s decline in the early 1500s may have been lamentable for the Portuguese, but it wasn’t unexpected. The really unexpected thing, was that Portugal rose as an outstanding exploratory power in the first place. So too, it was unexpected, that a semi-feudal backwater – Russia – rose from said backwater status in the late 19th century, to superpower – in the span of one human lifetime.

For a person born during the Brezhnev years, who would have been maybe in college when the USSR collapsed, and who is well into middle-age currently, it’s entirely possible to experience in what remains of said person’s lifetime, a receding of Russia’s prominence, to say that of France (but probably not quite, that of modern Portugal). Would that be collapse? Maybe. But it won’t be because Russian women aren’t popping-out enough babies. It would be because Russia would recede back into its natural state, as a middling power poorly geographically sited, and buffeted by pressures that it can’t control.

[cdnirene]

I found this article interesting:

The Chinese Dream is dead because China's Gen Z is flat broke, and they have the receipts to prove it

To date, more than 300 million Chinese people have viewed a forum thread titled "My real savings at 26" on the Twitter-like Weibo platform. Insider saw hundreds of posts in which people shared screenshots of their bank statements, claiming to be 26 and flat broke.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by ohio_peasant

We should be careful to avoid twisting the observable trends, to comport with our favored belief system. If we’ve convinced ourselves that low fertility rates are morally, culturally and socially devastating, then we’re going to...................

I don't see where anyone has said that.
We have seen where total fertility rate is now crossing below the point at which population remains stable. We have seen where the total fertility rate has been dropping for a very long time - many generations, in fact.


But that's all. Very few people make a claim that it may be morally devastating, although the resulting population decline will destroy some economies. China, since it has an export based economy and 30% of their GDP is attached to their own real estate activities, will be hit very hard and will be unable achieve the status of world's leading economy.

That's about all we're saying.

[jetgraphics]

FWIW - "fertility rates in decline" are not a reflection of development, but of socialism. Non-socialist countries have maintained their high birthrates, prosperity notwithstanding, especially Muslim oil rich countries.
Socialism's penalty on parenthood will have severe repercussions.

[MKTwet]

Chinese fertility rates is not a huge deal, it's overblown because we depend on Chinese cheap labor and a portion of their labor will cost more as birthrate decline. But just like any other countries even ours eventually they need to transition to automation and less dependency on cheap labor. This is why China is heavily investing in Africa and America isn't welcomed there. We haven't done anything for them.

China is forward thinking because the government plays an active role in development of tech and industries where the US government is backwards because before anything happens they find ways to regulate and tax before technology is mature.

Crypto is being officially recognized and regulated in Europe now and China is now seeking to do the same while the SEC here does nothing but hamper, stall, and force regulation to stop crypto. The next move will be that US government will try to stop AI because it will kill jobs and anytime the US government stops tech it moves overseas and we fall further behind and have to play catchup.

China is rolling out new battleships every month we don't have that capability. From a resource constraint to regulation and bureaucracy standpoint the US is slowly dying because we spend enormous amount of resources making it hard for real businesses especially technology be successful with innovation. While we keep printing money to help only the services industry to produce more fake money.
The US economy is only good at printing and leveraging fake money. We can't compete with China in the long run if the government keeps stifling innovation.

[Listener2307]

No one is more dependent on cheap Chinese labor than the Chinese themselves. Their export based economy is beginning to unravel as labor expenses rise.
The impending demographic decline is very important and will be the single most important factor in China's future.
China's navy is, as one writer points out, "Beautiful, Spacious, Airy and Totally Harmless". Most of their navy was not designed for world travel and lacks both crew and fuel for world wide activities. The Chinese submarine is so noisy it sounds like a cow dragging a bicycle through a creek, according to navy analysts.
No one in the world is producing battleships - and haven't for decades - and China is certainly not rolling out "one per month".
China invested money in corrupt 3rd world countries who are consistently unable to make payments. China will end up with expensive infrastructure in countries that have no hope of success. Sort of like an expensive department store in the worst part of Chicago. Or a railway in Pakistan.

China is very good at bluster.
They are a fraud. And they will now decline.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by Listener2307

No one is more dependent on cheap Chinese labor than the Chinese themselves. Their export based economy is beginning to unravel as labor expenses rise.
The impending demographic decline is very important and will be the single most important factor in China's future.
China's navy is, as one writer points out, "Beautiful, Spacious, Airy and Totally Harmless". Most of their navy was not designed for world travel and lacks both crew and fuel for world wide activities. The Chinese submarine is so noisy it sounds like a cow dragging a bicycle through a creek, according to navy analysts.
No one in the world is producing battleships - and haven't for decades - and China is certainly not rolling out "one per month".
China invested money in corrupt 3rd world countries who are consistently unable to make payments. China will end up with expensive infrastructure in countries that have no hope of success. Sort of like an expensive department store in the worst part of Chicago. Or a railway in Pakistan.

China is very good at bluster.
They are a fraud. And they will now decline.

Fifty years ago I was working at a Navy research facility in Carderock, MD where they worked on various aspects of underwater sound. There are underwater microphones known as hydrophones which may be lowered from ships to hear things in the water, such as whale sounds, or the sound of a ship's propeller. We tested these at a very deep lake in a western state because lakes, when compared to ocean environments, are sonically quiet while oceans are very noisy.

These hydrophones can be permanently placed in the ocean to listen for ships and submarines. Every ship and submarine has an acoustic fingerprint unique to that vessel's propeller, thus we know which Russian subs, by name, are patrolling along our coasts, or when they leave their home seaport. One of the reports in the news this week is that U.S. Navy hydrophones picked up the sound of the ill-fated Titan submersible as it imploded. If Chinese ships and submarines are sonically noisy we will hear them, and if hostilities occur one of our subs will dispatch a killer torpedo to destroy them.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate of young Chinese workers is about 20% and may worsen, a harbinger of rough sailing ahead.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Fifty years ago I was working at a Navy research facility in Carderock, MD where they worked on various aspects of underwater sound. There are underwater microphones known as hydrophones which may be lowered from ships to hear things in the water, such as whale sounds, or the sound of a ship's propeller. We tested these at a very deep lake in a western state because lakes, when compared to ocean environments, are sonically quiet while oceans are very noisy.

These hydrophones can be permanently placed in the ocean to listen for ships and submarines. Every ship and submarine has an acoustic fingerprint unique to that vessel's propeller, thus we know which Russian subs, by name, are patrolling along our coasts, or when they leave their home seaport. One of the reports in the news this week is that U.S. Navy hydrophones picked up the sound of the ill-fated Titan submersible as it imploded. If Chinese ships and submarines are sonically noisy we will hear them, and if hostilities occur one of our subs will dispatch a killer torpedo to destroy them.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate of young Chinese workers is about 20% and may worsen, a harbinger of rough sailing ahead.

By coincidence, 53 years ago I was in Seattle closely attached to NSRDC (Naval Ship Research and Development Center) through the hydrofoil program. I was copilot of the world's largest hydrofoil, AGEH -1
Amazingly, the crew of that ship - about 15 of us - have remained in contact or found each other. It was the best years of our lives, although we did not know it at the time. We still have reunions, although there are few of us who can still go.


Because of the speed of our vessel, our concern was cavitation. Hydrophone listening devices were placed around Puget Sound to try and record our sonic print. It was amazing! The 300 ton hydrofoil, driven by two, 30,000 HP jet engines at over 40 knots made so much noise it virtually cancelled out everything else for miles including the USS Long Beach. We chose the day Long Beach arrived because we (A) wanted to compare signatures, and (B) wanted the attention ourselves as we flew in circles around her...


I have remained fairly well informed regarding naval matters for all these years and do not believe China could raise the slightest threat to The US. The hydrophones you mentioned have been used constantly to tell us what Russian ships are passing by.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by Listener2307

By coincidence, 53 years ago I was in Seattle closely attached to NSRDC (Naval Ship Research and Development Center) through the hydrofoil program. I was copilot of the world's largest hydrofoil, AGEH -1
Amazingly, the crew of that ship - about 15 of us - have remained in contact or found each other. It was the best years of our lives, although we did not know it at the time. We still have reunions, although there are few of us who can still go.


Because of the speed of our vessel, our concern was cavitation. Hydrophone listening devices were placed around Puget Sound to try and record our sonic print. It was amazing! The 300 ton hydrofoil, driven by two, 30,000 HP jet engines at over 40 knots made so much noise it virtually cancelled out everything else for miles including the USS Long Beach. We chose the day Long Beach arrived because we (A) wanted to compare signatures, and (B) wanted the attention ourselves as we flew in circles around her...


I have remained fairly well informed regarding naval matters for all these years and do not believe China could raise the slightest threat to The US. The hydrophones you mentioned have been used constantly to tell us what Russian ships are passing by.

NSRDC tested hydrophones at Lake Pend Oreille near Coeur d'Alene, ID because it's deep and quiet. The tapes made of those sounds were classified and shipped back to Carderock by Brinks Armored vehicles. My warehouse at Carderock stocked the blank Ampex tapes and shipped the blank tapes to ID for trials.

Another tale from my days at NSRDC in Carderock, MD was when we brought in a 93-foot-long scale "model" of a hydrofoil. It was made of aluminum at a boat yard in Tacoma, WA. We flew it from McCord AFB to Andrews AFB and it was the largest single piece of cargo, by cubic displacement, ever flown in a USAF C-5a cargo plane. The scientists at Carderock mounted it on stands then subjected it to around the clock shock, vibration and pounding to see about metal fatigue and other hazards. The staff also got involved in testing semi-submersible platforms and other ways to lift boat hulls out of the water to reduce drag, etc. Somewhere I have pictures . . . not sure I want to show the one of me on the tarmac at Andrews wearing my full disco gangster outfit of polyester double knit chocolate brown bell bottoms with white pinstripes and two-tone platform shoes. Not a good look these days . . .

Sounds like our paths sort of crossed .... like ships in the night. I met my wife at Carderock, got married in the Navy Chapel in DC and here we are 49 years later. We were civilians, but both of us worked for the Navy and her father had been in the USMC so the Chaplain said he do the service.

Back on topic regarding China, we should avoid the mistakes we made in Vietnam and talk to them. A lot. Then talk some more. If we had done that with Ho Chi Minh in 1945 when we helped him force the Japanese Army out of his country we may well have avoided two disastrous wars in Vietnam, the French war that ended in 1954 and the American war that ended in 1975.

China has a long history, we can learn a lot from them and share mutually beneficial efforts. They should be our partners in advancing humanity and prosperity, not an opponent or combatant.