What if China Implodes?
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I know, I know, I know. I’ve been talking a lot about China here on the program. And again, we talk about important issues and we try to make sense out of them for you. I’m glad to see some of the so-called wizards of smart are starting to come across to my side and see things for what they are. There was a story I wanna first hit on here where China’s Ministry of Commerce basically said that restoring stability and US-China trade relations is the best way.
To de-risk, which is a twist to a term that’s become popular in international politics. The word, again, this is from Wall Street Journal today, word has been used by US and EU officials as an attempt to position their countries as not completely separating from China in a decoupling scenario, but diversifying in areas where over-reliance on China poses
a risk and they said that the best way to de-risk is to return to the consensus agreed to by the two heads of state Returning US-China trade relations to a healthy stable development path. I don’t think it was healthy or stable Prior to you know, everything that was taking place and I do happen to agree With uh, you know donald trump’s position. I don’t think that the way that they handled it was the right way I think the terrorists didn’t make
any sense, not to mention the fact that towards the end of his presidency and was, you know, basically begging China to buy more of our soybeans for a certain period of time. But I do believe that I’m a big believer in free and fair trade. And that’s something we have to get back to. That’s something we have to get back to. We made the mistake and again,
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by CEOs and business leaders here in the United States to basically say, no, do whatever they want, open it up. Because again, they saw money, they saw dollar signs. They saw, gee, look at this country that is developing and more and more people coming into the middle class. And they said, we can sell our stuff there. We wanna sell stuff. We wanna sell LeBron jerseys in China. And I get it, but…
at what costs and this is part of the problem that we have in this country is unlike, I can go back to my little Roman Republic back when Rome was a republic they were very focused on not the short term but the long term 10, 15, 20, 30 years down the road and we’ve gotten away from that. Again, you got CEOs, executives and how they’re paid in stock and how the stock performs and everything is short sighted.
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Why don’t you take Markowski investments public? No fricking way. Okay. I’m not looking at next week, next month. I’m always looking down the road. And unfortunately, the way our politics works in this country, many of the politicians go along with this and they’re just looking for the next election cycle. And you need to be a good communicator and you need to be a good leader to explain this. And I think, you know, if you explain it the right way and you actually show some leadership and where it’s gonna pay off.
You say, you know what, this may not pay off in my term, but we’re looking to deal with this down the road and how it’s gonna make America stronger. And the way that we had done business with China was, again, not right, but there’s been blowback and pushback. And it just kind of showed how weak China actually was, that this whole, again, this de-risking situation that we’re not only we’re just doing, but Europe as well. Now, this column today in National Review is written by…
Michael Brendan Doherty. And again, this echoes many of the sentiments and things that we have been talking about when it comes to China. And we were first out there, and everybody, I gotta go to war with China. And that was basically the consensus. I gotta up the military and what’s gonna happen? They’re gonna invade Taiwan and certain countries over in Asia are gonna have to pick and choose. And I’m…
saying to myself, I’m not so sure about this. And again, yeah, China may decide to step in and take Taiwan. But again, I don’t think that that’s going to benefit them. I know a lot of bluster. We talked about the bricks here on the program. But let’s go to the reality on the ground in China. And whether or not should we be preparing with a conflict with China in Dordie’s
Or should we be preparing that the country might implode? Because both things are totally possible.
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China’s Belt and Road initiative. Again, this has kind of led to COVID, quite frankly. I can’t tell you how many daily flights that were taking place from Wuhan to Northern Italy, because Italy kind of signed on with this Belt and Road thing and allowed China to step in, ports, a myriad of other things, doing a ton of business. And they brought COVID over from Wuhan over to Northern Italy. And that’s…
That’s where it first hit Europe and it hit Europe hard. Basically, this whole Belt and Road initiative is falling apart.
It’s falling apart. China doesn’t have the muscle, doesn’t have the power, and many of these countries are learning what it’s like to do business with China, and they don’t want to do it anymore. China’s recently talked about this here on the program that as far as its population is concerned, it’s not doing too well.
Its population is shrinking. Talked about the one child policy, fertility rates there. In three years, between 2019 and 2022, China’s workforce declined from 774 million people to 733 million people. That’s three years. And that’s the popular, you want to equate that? That’s the size of Germany’s population. That’s a decrease and it’s continuing to drop.
Get it? So what’s happening now? China can’t even put out the lies that it used to in regards to its economic figures. They’re lying when it comes to their GDP. They’re not even putting out the numbers right now. They’re delaying them. The youth unemployment numbers, we’ve talked about that here. Now, so embarrassing they won’t even put them out. And this is interesting. He says, we have to remember.
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that China’s growth is coupled to a political party and ideology that is profoundly unattractive to the rest of the world. And again, this is Xi Jinping, okay? Yeah, they had the Chinese Communist Party. It wasn’t as bad. It wasn’t as bad prior to Xi Jinping.
United States, he said in this column, is the United States, we might occasionally do stupid stuff and push stupid ideas around the world about, you know, transgender nonsense, whatever it may be, where they’re not wanted. But the Chinese Communist Party is dedicated to a system of universal surveillance, political unfreedom, and Han Chinese racial supremacy that is not only repulsive, but basically inaccessible.
to the rest of the world. And again, that racial superiority, this is a historical thing. Again, I spent a lot of time as of late, you know, you gotta go back and take a look at the history of China and you’re gonna understand their way of thinking to some degree. China’s sudden belligerence, the centralization of control around one man in the CCP and its military buildup may be signs that the peaceful rise is nearing an end because China’s fall
has already begun. Chinese history is basically a repeated story of a nation that gathers itself from poverty, rises to nearly dominate all of Eurasia, and then inexplicably falls over as it succumbs to internal dissolution, leading it to be dominated by foreign powers again. Now, question that Doherty asks in his piece is, are we ready for these consequences? And these are some questions. Who’s going to buy?
all of our soybeans. US exports 153 billion to China, and we import 536 billion. What if those numbers start to crash? Who’s gonna make our stuff? We dealt with this. We saw a small glimpse of this during the supply chain issues during COVID and some of the problems that we had and how much more expensive everything has gotten. Delivery is being delayed.
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What happens, China starts falling apart and provinces in China are not getting along with one another. And again, this is a country that doesn’t have, be honest with you, they don’t have the natural resources that we do. They have to import a lot of that. Who’s gonna buy our debt? That’s another thing. What happens when all that US investment and Chinese development comes up?
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What happens if the, lacking the financial backstop? North Korea, again, China doesn’t keep North Korea afloat. North Korea is gonna fall apart. And what are you gonna have? You’re gonna have millions of people that are gonna be going across the border into South Korea, issue that needs to be dealt with. And he’s column ends, he said, I hope everyone who got serious about Chinese power in the last five years is also ready to study up on what Chinese chaos and dissolution can do.
Again, it is most certainly something to think about and it’s something quite frankly that you don’t want. You don’t want to have power vacuums. You don’t. Again, this is where I wish for there to be more of a conversation in regards to, I know it’s almost like a, again, this is from Kissinger. It’s a Westphalian ideal where you try to get some sort of balance. And I’m a big believer.
You know, nations that actively are doing a ton of business with one another. We are doing a ton of business with China. Again, you would think that the overarching, intelligent, rational thing is not to go to war, not to disrupt all of that. And again, we’ve got to see what type of leadership we have going forward. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.
