World wars happened over resources. People are resources. China needs more of them. Russia invaded Ukraine because basically it needs more Russians; Russia has appalling demographic trends, but Russian face becoming a minority to non-Rus. China is extremely ethno-nationalist, as the people of Hong Kong discovered. Thousands of people, not of Chinese ethnicity, mostly of Indian or Malaysian ethnicity, but who had been in the territory for generations, found themselves stateless in 1997. We might pick on the Mao policy as the cause, but all three Chinese countries show similar, aging populations In fact, Taiwan is the oldest population followed by Singapore. Tensions within Han Chinese society will drive calls for unification of Chinese peoples. Not just Taiwan. But why no parts of Thailand, parts of Russia. As Chinese society ages, there will be effects on the workforce. That will drive development in robotics, probably giving them a technological advantage over societies that have less need to automate, such as the US, which still has plenty of kids to turn into factory drones. Automation of a society is incredibly expensive. China needs to stay rich literally for national survival. Without that revenue it can't innovate its way out of a demographic Gordian knot. So what happens if someone tries to stop that, such as forcing Chinese companies to leave certain countries, by effective trade blockades. Japan attacked the US because it thought the US was going to threaten its access to resources essential to its national survival. Wars never start for good reasons, and those who start wars are rarely in control of how it finishes. When the Kaiser invaded Belgium in 1914, did he think it might end with him in exile, and his country impoverished? When Hitler staged the incident on the Polish border in September 1939, did he think it would end with him blowing his brains out in the ruins of Berlin 6 years later. And so on. When America transitioned from a training mission in South Vietnam, they probably didn't think it would end with marines evacuating on the last Huey out of Vietnam 10 years later, 50,000 dead and a country that was split for a generation, and psychologically scarred for multiple generations. Russia is going to lose their war. They are not going to achieve their aims. They might call a halt to hostilities, but they won't have won anything. There is nothing worth anything in the decrepit statelet of the Donbass. Ukraine is guaranteed victory, if the definition of victory is that Ukrainians survive as Ukrainian. If China starts a war, chances are it won't end well for China, and it will probably be a terrible idea for China. But at that point, China will probably feel it had no choice. I suspect President Trump felt the same with Iran, if you go with Rubio's line that the Israelis were launching an attack unilaterally. So when I hear about demographic challenges in China, it doesn't fill me with hope, but with dread. China might lose a war, but the winners will likely not feel like they won anything.
Create an account or sign in to comment