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I don’t know enough to form an opinion but there’s an entertaining geopolitics chap called Peter Zeihan who’s thesis is basically exactly what you’ve said.

He’s one of these folks who are really engaging to listen to and he uses a fun argument style like Simon Sinek where he presents stuff in a way that leaves you to put 2+2 together and feel smart about yourself when you think “aha! 4!” Just before he says “4”.

That argument style seems to be like catnip for me so when I recognise it I have to force myself out of the “well that’s obviously true” mindset I’ve fallen into and go spot check a few of the facts he shares during his opinions. Maybe about 1/3rd of them don’t hold.

It leaves me thinking he’s probably meaningfully wrong but like I say I don’t have enough knowledge to say for sure, just using a simple heuristic of “is this person’s argument consistent?”. I haven’t decided one way or the other, I just rate his thesis “caution, may not be true”

I consume a lot of Zeihan. He's a dramatic clickbait artist in many respects, but his "takes" are nonetheless often based in a lot of truth, just projected too quickly.

He's been saying China would collapse for quite a while, but only recently have I seen a lot of other geopolitical types go from poo-pooing him to essentially agreeing with him.

He still has a very strongly petrodollar/petroleum dominates the economy/alt energy isn't important, but a lot of that is because the tech churn in batteries/solar panels is so rapid. He doesn't really appreciate what sodium ion will bring to the table for example, he still thinks batteries can't scale because of limited cobalt and nickel, which is a two year old take.

He is still a bit too dramatic on open seas piracy/reduction of the US Navy, but I've seen him reduce that take. Really the open seas and global trade are going to disrupt because between Russia in Ukraine and China doing the Taiwan invasion, there's going to be a LOT of global trade disruption.

At this point I agree with his China take because it has four different fronts which are conspiring. Demographic collapse didn't cause Japan to completely fall apart, but demographic collapse + totalitarian incompetence absolutely can.

I also haven't seen as many rebuke videos of his China take, and the US and its megaconglomerates are definitely shortening their supply chain and re-shoring manufacturing already. The most public one is the fab act (which will also expose Taiwan to a higher risk of invasion).

> US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum

It's such an unrealistic comment. Have you seen the new Navy report in Congress? Have you seen the yearly Congress report about Chinese rocket capabilities from the last few months? Have you seen the results of the war games in the South China Sea, most of which were lost by the US?

"US Congressmen: 90% of US fighter jets in the Western Pacific will be destroyed within hours of a US-China conflicts by missiles. The military bases being mentioned are those in Japan, S Korea, Guam and Northern Marianas." [1]

> to say nothing of demographic bombs, the real estate / regional debt crisis, and the inevitable sanctions from a Taiwan invasion.

They are heavily investing in Sub-Saharan Africa because, based on IMF data, it will be the only region in the next few decades experiencing significant population growth. This region is their own 'China.' With increasing automation and a cheap workforce, demographics are not a significant problem. They just poured 53 billion USD into the real estate crisis. To receive sanctions for a Taiwan invasion, first, you need to invade it, and it's not in the short-term interests of either China or Taiwan.

> Don't worry about the shipbuilding. China doesn't have carriers. They don't have a navy that can leave shore more than a hundred miles or so.

Don't worry? If they destroy a US ship, it will take 5-10 years to rebuild it, whereas they will rebuild theirs in a year. This is also mentioned in reports.

Your entire comment is wishful thinking. China is not collapsing, and the data confirms that. [2][3]

1. https://x.com/Ignis_Rex/status/1791035870210085350

2. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/china-still-ris...

3. https://x.com/davidpgoldman/status/1792215020941565983

The problem with centralizing power in one person for too long, they get strange ideas about what's in their nation's interest.

1) you can't trust most of China's numbers. They are in full only-show-numbers-that-please-dear-leader mode. The tarriff war that is brewing between the US and China is about China doing some last-gasp production dumping before economic collapse, although that argument could admittedly be dressing up numbers that don't support their arguments of the pro-collapse geopoliticists.

2) China's rattling on Taiwan is very similar to the demographic motivations of Russia's invasion of Ukraine: both are suffering huge demographic collapses soon, so this is the last generation that the country can use for an offensive war. Yes, it is utterly stupid to take a demographic problem of a shrinking younger generations and KILL THOSE PEOPLE IN A WAR to exacerbate the problem, but strongmen just concern themselves with keeping their positions, not how the nation as a whole thrives.

3) Sub Saharan Africa? Like, that is 5,000 to 6,000 miles away? And an area that will become increasingly utterly uninhabitable due to global warming. The Belt and Road is a complete failure, again, because the infrastructure was poor and the payoff isn't there. The countries are just going to walk away from China, and instead of paying them back or restructuring (China won't restructure), they'll join a Western bloc against the Chinese.

Belt and road, for the reasons described about the complete inability to defend multi-thousand-mile infrastructure lines like pipelines and rail, is an impossibility to work in Asia. Even if the political and security challenges are solved (which requires a nice intercooperation and low-war world, which we are NOT headed for right now), it isn't even remotely economically viable.

4) Ultimately war games are meant to be lost. Because that drives the exigent threats to American hegemony that drive the near-trillion-dollar defense and intelligence budgets politically. Yes you don't want to underestimate the enemy, but look at what is going on with the Russian army under decades of totalitarian corruption and incompetence. China is headed down that path, but doesn't want to stop at a neo-western society like Russia has, they want full on North Korean dear leader control.

5) The fact of the matter is that China imports its oil through the Malaysian Staits/Straits of Malacca. Go look at the map. No matter how much shipbuilding China has, no matter how many cruise missiles, they won't get oil through there if the West decides to impose sanctions.

6) Finally, there's India. India of course hates China as well, and India is modernizing its military under Modi and it alone would jump at the chance to choke China in the Indian Ocean.

China is not collapsing overnight. It is not economic armageddon, these things are always slow slides. I mean, in theory it could because mass starvation at the hands of the communist party is in China's 20th century history, and it is actively occurring in North Korea.

The point is that the old world political economic order, and by order I mean stability and structure, not the illuminati evil control council "order", is over. Russia invading Ukraine, COVID disrupting supply chains, and China becoming aggressive and authoritarian ended that. That era, a solid 75 years between bipolar Cold War stability and unipolar post-Cold War is OVER.

Every five years that go by in China will decrease their military effectiveness by a substantial degree, because of authoritarian degradation in chain of command and corruption, because of demographic reductions and disruption.

1. It's not entirely accurate to dismiss all Chinese economic data outright. While there is a consensus that some data might be manipulated, international agencies like the IMF and World Bank, and multinational corporations operating in China, rely on a combination of official data and independent assessments to guide investment and policy decisions. Moreover, the idea of a "last-gasp production dumping" ahead of an economic collapse seems exaggerated when considering China’s consistent economic growth and its strategic long-term planning evident in initiatives like Made in China 2025. Have you read article I linked in Foreign Affairs?

2. I don't buy this argument, they only keep their positions because of the economy growth currently in China.

3. The claim that BRI is a failure and that Sub-Saharan Africa will become uninhabitable and thus, unimportant, overlooks the long-term investments and geopolitical influence China is garnering through these initiatives. The BRI has indeed faced challenges, but it has also led to significant infrastructure developments in participating countries. These nations may face debt issues, yet many continue to engage with the initiative because of the substantial economic benefits and the lack of alternative funding sources for infrastructure.

4. You haven't addressed the Congressional reports, which show that a US vs. China military conflict, including a blockade, does not have an obvious winner.

5. The vulnerability of China's oil imports through the Strait of Malacca is a well recognized strategic concern, often referred to as the "Malacca Dilemma". China has been actively working to mitigate this risk through various strategies, including the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), building pipelines through Myanmar, and increasing domestic energy production and diversification of energy sources. While a blockade of the Straits of Malacca would be significant, it is not an insurmountable obstacle given these mitigating measures.

6. While India might oppose certain Chinese actions, an outright confrontation is not a foregone conclusion given the potential economic and political costs. They do not want to escalate, which you can see based on agreement to use only sticks in border clashes.

> The point is that the old world political economic order, and by order I mean stability and structure, not the illuminati evil control council "order", is over. Russia invading Ukraine, COVID disrupting supply chains, and China becoming aggressive and authoritarian ended that. That era, a solid 75 years between bipolar Cold War stability and unipolar post-Cold War is OVER.

Fully agree.

> Every five years that go by in China will decrease their military effectiveness by a substantial degree, because of authoritarian degradation in chain of command and corruption, because of demographic reductions and disruption.

I'm not as optimistic as you are.

I haven't read the congressional reports. I am handwaving them away, but mostly because while China can be formidable in regional defense, they simply don't have power projection military technologies yet.

I don't remember the actual numbers, but Japan is heavily increasing its defense budget. This is significant because historically, unlike China/India, if Japan invests in its military, it produces a good military. Japan + India with funded modern militaries is a very legitimate counter to China. In particular India is a sleeping tiger that should be far more influential and productive.

India we won't give our top weapons. Japan we very likely will.

Energy diversity helps in many respects, China can mitigate domestic needs with EVs, solar, and wind, and I guess coal if they want to burn money.

But war and food need petroleum. Pipelines and rail are extremely vulnerable, a single raid can shut them down for weeks or months, they have fixed, limited capacity. If we were talking a 50 million population country, sure. But it's a goddamn billion+ frikking people, and not enough productive land to feed them.

India is a billion plus people, so if it wants to militarize, corruption and internecine ethnic relations be damned, they'll probably have one capabable of worrying China.

Everyone is arming up. NATO nations are reconstructing their military industrial complex in anticipation of Russia beating Ukraine.

I guess fundamentally I see China as a nation that is critically dependent on open maritime trade, and that world is basically over, partially of their own creation. The "Dear Leader" phenomenon is particularly troubling, particularly because Xi sets the stage in 10-15 years for a bloody succession and equally or more autocratic leader that assumes the strings of control.

Most "Dear Leader" countries start from a point of stagnation and then limp along under the repression. China is different, it went through a massive economic expansion due to free trade and relative free will, but now it will sharply regress. If it wasn't so dangerous, it would be fascinating to see what happens.

The Naval War College prof points out that historically continental powers overextend, and then collapse when their central government fails. China has done this something like 5 or 10 times in its long history. Both Russia and China seem to be in the overextension phase. She contrasts to maritime powers like the UK and US that don't need buffer states, and thrive with world trade, while the buffer state syndrome of continental empires inevitably leads to an autocratic paranoid country or corruption/decay.

Anyway, what do I know.

>Don't worry about the shipbuilding. China doesn't have carriers. They don't have a navy that can leave shore more than a hundred miles or so.

>The fact is the US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum (as in, fertilizer so ... most domestic food) shipments in Malaysia at will and ... China starves a couple months later.

The fact is that China do not have ships because they don't intend to do large scale invasions thousands of miles from home.

US Navy can't blockade China because the have enough missiles to destroy 100 times more ships. And they have the capacity to fab more than 1000 missiles per day.

I agree in many respects that the US surface fleet is basically obsolete against a power with a decent supply of antiship ballistics, but US nuclear submarines are an entirely different matter.

>> US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum

It can't, as long as China has atomic bombs and ICBMs to deliver them.

1) China won't care about the starvation of a half billion people. That's the totalitarian effect.

2) That is suicide for the CCP. They may be crazy authoritarian, but they aren't suicidal.

By the same justification, China won't invade Taiwan because we "have atomic bombs and the ICBMs to deliver them". But it's pretty inevitable they will.

The US 5th fleet can just stop policing the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and the various local peoples would hinder maritime traffic through piracy and ransom. Those can't be stopped with ICBMs.

But it can be stopped by other governments and it can be stopped by ship owners simply taking defense into their own hands. If prices are high enough.

Pirates can almost never fully cut off a shipping lane.

> The US 5th fleet can just stop policing the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and the various local peoples would hinder maritime traffic through piracy and ransom. Those can't be stopped with ICBMs.

While it would be a particularly horrific way to deal with the problem, the local people in the area of the Bab-el Mandeb strait and their capacity to interfere with international shipping can, in fact, be stopped with ICBMs.

> Don't worry about the shipbuilding. China doesn't have carriers. They don't have a navy that can leave shore more than a hundred miles or so.

They have 3 carriers and are rapidly building more. They have naval bases as far as Africa.

A lot more misinformation in your comment but it would take too long to correct it all.

> The fact is the US Navy can blockade China's food imports and petroleum

Yeah sure, just like Russian economy was supposed to fall in a few months after sanctions.

Russia has its own domestic oil supply.

China does not. It is that simple, basically.

China have access to Russia through land and they are building new pipeline that should start operating this year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altai_gas_pipeline

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-says-oil-pipel...

A single cross continental pipeline will not supply a nation of 1-point-whatever (statistics are in flux on a monthly basis) billion people.

Ukraine alone can take that out. Cruise missiles, sabotage, special forces, mercenaries. You don't even need to explicitly destroy it, Russians and Chinese build poor infrastructure.

Sarah Paine, a prof at the Naval War college really opened my eyes to this and the Belt and Road. Marine shipping is basically free. Keeping rail lines and pipelines intact over thousands and thousands of miles in Asia through desert wastes, mountains, tundra, and a half dozen politically iffy -stans is not a recipe for efficient trade logistics.

And China and Russia hate each other. Strange bedfellows, but would China want to rely on Russia for oil if it invades Taiwan and Russia has their country's oil supply in a firm iron grip? Putin? Nope nope nope.

> A single cross continental pipeline will not supply a nation of 1-point-whatever (statistics are in flux on a monthly basis) billion people.

As another comment in this thread has already mentioned, they have sufficient local production to fuel their war machine, while restricting other uses.

> Ukraine alone can take that out.

It's actually quite interesting. Are you aware that there is a pipeline running from Russia through Ukraine that pumps Russian gas to the EU? Ukraine earns $800 million USD a year from this. Then, they buy back that gas. Life is a little more complicated than it seems.

> And China and Russia hate each other. Strange bedfellows, but would China want to rely on Russia for oil if it invades Taiwan and Russia has their country's oil supply in a firm iron grip? Putin? Nope nope nope.

It doesn't matter whether they hate or love each other, the only thing that matters is interests. Stalin was called a dictator and a ruthless killer by the West, but when he changed sides, he was suddenly 'Uncle Joe.'

China will only invade Taiwan if the US forces their hand. In the short term, it's against their interests to invade Taiwan, just as Taiwan prefers to maintain the status quo. They know that if they invade, the US can say, 'You see? We told you. Look what they are doing' which would result in sanctions from the US and EU and lead to internal problems. Why would they do it? It's neither logical nor rational, and it goes against their culture. There's a Chinese saying: 'The wise win before the fight while the ignorant fight to win'.

To your point, China is no longer in the Western interest. That is what it is about. COVID has permanently changed the tenor of Chinese-based manufacturing. And the US Government is taking huge steps to start addressing its logistical dependence on China.

Now when I say that, I mean "in 5-10 years for some substantively detectible change" not "next month".

The United States/Americas is quite well positioned for resource independence since the Bakken Shale became so productive. They are globally dominant still militarily. The only weakness is the offshored manufacturing, and as I stated in a different comment, the world that supported China being the manufacturing center of the US is OVER. It died with Russia invading Ukraine, COVID disrupting supply lines, the autocratic power convergence of Xi. End of an era. 75 years of free seas trade "end of history" type thinking is over.

"US forces their hand" ummmmmmmmm what would the US do that would "force their hand"? That's a WEIRD comment. Of course the US is quietly and carefully going to draw down their manufacturing dependence over a decade. Of course China can trump up some Gulf of Tonkin incident or affront to provoke casus belli.

You are ascribing FAR too much intellectual stability to the Chinese government. The Chinese government is now an unopposed Kim-style autocrat. There is only what the dear leader wants, and the dear leader wants to be as Dear a Leader with capital letters as possible.

If invading Taiwan is what dear leader wants and it matches some false rallying war rhetoric that dear leader wants about "restoring China" as it demographically declines, then dear leader will do that. The CCP is actively crushing independent action by China's major corporations. They are installing "thought police" in every country, and the population is being subjected to higher and higher degrees of surveillance and control. This is not conducive to a functioning economy in the long run.

Oh, and as for your proverb: China has already lost the long run. They didn't establish themselves as a benevolent world power and construct their own political sphere. They do not have resource independence. Their demographics are collapsing. Their society is becoming closed, oppressive, authoritarian, and corrupt. And the world that powered their economic wunderkind of free open seas trade is ending.

BRICS by the way is NOT a sphere of influence. Russia and India hate China, South Africa is a western country by nature, and Brazil is an Americas country.

If you can explain how the long term economics of China will survive crushing authoritarianism, isolationism, and a sharp demographic decline, I'm all ears.

In general I don't disagree with your point. People can go to far on China in how powerful they are. But I think you are going to far in the other direction.

You have a lot of confidence in the US to implement smart long term thinking industrial policy. Despite the US having shown to be very bad at that for a long time.

For a country that can seem to figure out how to build a single high speed train line or figure out that having a subway makes a lot of sense.

While the other country builds high speed train lines all over the place and has many cities building more subways then all of the US combined.

We can look at EVs as well. China dominates the supply chain and production.

Yes the US

> If you can explain how the long term economics of China will survive crushing authoritarianism, isolationism, and a sharp demographic decline, I'm all ears.

Authoritarianism increases and decreases over time. China has been well functioning for a while now. Claiming that Authoritarianism is gone ruin everything they do is questionable at best. Our actual insight into China government internals isn't mostly guesswork. Specially as there is lots of evidence that US democracy isn't actually producing fantastic long term thinking.

China isn't actually isolated right now. And they wont be unless they make pretty fundamental mistakes.

The West in totality is also suffering demographic decline. Specially Japan.

Its kind of Ironic that the fear of 'overpopulation' pushed by idiot leftists intellectuals in the West was the greatest strategic weapon ever invented against China.

> They didn't establish themselves as a benevolent world power and construct their own political sphere.

They are increasing their influence in lots of places. And lots of other places are willing to go with the flow. One can imagine a future where Russia, Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan and many South East Asian countries become influenced by China over time. The same goes for Africa.

And places like UAE/Saudi and co aren't actually US allies in any meaningful way and would happily turn to China if they thought it gave them an advantage.

China doesn't need to lead them as the US leads NATO, but if they are all opposed to the 'Western Order' its gone be tough.

> They do not have resource independence.

But they do actually have control over lots of resources and refinement currently that would be incredibly hard for the West to be without. It would take very long for the West to produce sufficient amounts of these things. So I think in practice a divided market would be catastrophic for both sides.

Practically speaking the West does not have resource independence. And even best case, it would take decades to have it.

If China really wanted they could mass produce nuclear reactors and produce carbon fuel as needed. Its only a matter of investment. They have the Uranium/Thorium to do it. And if you do it at scale its not that expensive. If China were actually preparing for a serious war they would do this.

This leads me to think that China and the US will continue to rattle their chains at each other for decades to come with neither actually doing anything to throw over the apple cart.