Every single "proxy" in the region is impacted by this situation much more than China. They import more of their energy, more of their oil, cant rump up purchases from russia, have practicaly zero reserves, dont have the institutional capacity to actualy reorient priorities internaly in a situation where oil cant get from the ME to SEA and more. Any planets allying successful "strangling" of Chinese oil imports cant happen without completely destroying other SEA and even Middle Eastern Economies at a faster rate than China's are. Especially considering most of these Countries have China as their number one trade partner.

And thats even assuming there is a proxy in the region willing and able to start serious shit with China and can , without direct US military involvement and shooting, do anything but annoy China (there isnt). Who ? South Korea ? No??? The Phillipines ?? Lmao ? Taiwan?? Taiwan starting crisis while the US is not a direct party in the shooting stuff is Chinas dream scenario militarily, oil shortages or not its over

Lots of pics of cool chinese platforms in Beijing streets in preperation for the 80th anniversary Victory Day parade. Someone covered armored vehicles bellow but it there are some other, arguably bigger stuff. Some never or rarely seen before.

Anti-Ship missiles YJ-15, ramjet compact supersonic?

YJ-17, waverider hypersonic glide?

YJ-19, maybe scramjet hypersonic?

YJ-20, biconical hypersonic/aeroballistic?

Air Defense systems convoy

HQ-11: 0:18 - 0:35, HQ-26/32 (designation still unknown): 0:43 - 0:59, HQ-22: 1:00 - 1:26, HQ-9: 1:29 - 1:46, HQ-19: 1:49 - 2:16, HQ-29 (designation still unknown): 2:20 - 2:50

Some new subsonic surface-to-surface cruise missile?

Some long range torpedo or a UUV ?

Another big ass UUV

Some loyal wingman thing and some combat UAV: 1 2

same big ass laser air defense system

and there are more stuff too. Maybe we should do a group watch for the parade

So with China apparently experiencing the greatest surge in household consumption the world has ever seen over the last 1-2 decades and being the biggest consumer market in the world for most goods, already outperforming in per capita sales of goods any other remotely comperable in income level country, how much faster should consumption be growing for China to solve all those oh so terminal weak consumption problems? Should consumption have been growning at double the rate of gdp somehow? Should they, on a per capita basis, already be consuming near level of the average american somehow instead of idk 60% as much? Should they be eating more , buying more cars and smartphones? They are already the largest market by far of just about any product (cars, phones, appliances, furniture, luxury etc) so should they be that by multipliers of 2-3 or 5 already?

Or should they aspire to spend similar amount of money on rent and healthcare on average to catch up ?After all Chinese household consumption numbers usualy come in at levels similar to retail sales, while household consumption in the US is ~2-3x retail sales. Thats because not only ar services (largely rent, healthcare and education) a much larger burden for the american and western consumer but they are also (mis)calculated completely differenty in the chinese national accounting system which is still of leninist origin leading to these numbers above been undercounts funnily enough for china, as are ultimetaly the usualy circulated very low numbers of consumption as a % of GDP. For that and other factors uniqe to China, apples-to-apples, China’s household consumption share is probably 50-55% of GDP, only a bit lower than world average.

Even so ,Is the CPC neoliberaly holding down Chinese household consumption by having it grow only 2+ times as fast as any other country over the years instead of uhhh 4 times ? Where should and would those numbers in those graphs be if not for the missmanagement of Chinas consumer economy by the CPC? At 300% ? At what level should and chinese HH consumption be for it to become a "consumer country" or whatever ?

Greek here. First of all dont take any information from non Greek non leftist twitter accounts cause it will cause disastrous confusion.

They are a purely opportunistic, leader centered party with no platform, no program and no organization. Laughable to even call them left. Led by a former Syriza politician. They were just promoted and pushed massively by the media as the non antisystemic opposition to the ruling party on the heels of the massive anti government sentiment and rage coming from the Tempi train disaster and the entire saga of corruption and criminality that included, successful piggybacking that public discontent. At the same time there was a big collapse of syriza through the last year. So them just yelling the loudest, taking whatever populist position is possible at every issue and being given pr constantly by the media and having large amounts of voters from left populist spaces available along with apolitic people that eat the narrative the media feeds them and pick "whoever tells it like it is" led to that increase.

A total unserious opportunistic mess of a party that is doomed to not exist in 5-10 years time and will be sure to lose against the ruling government , given life by how desperate and given up people are and through the machinations of maybe the most corrupt media and political environment in the EU

Im early on on my Mandarin journey but holy fuck is Mao accent thick as shit to the point of being almost unintelligible. Do modern Chinese understand everything he says without subs ?

Idk what to think but there are some utterly apocalyptic ideas floating from and around the administration and the surrounding hack economist and advisor sphere and they even get credible coverage and op-eds in mainstream financial publications and media in the last weeks. Especialy if things detariorate debt parameter wise , there is a Fed-administration crisis and/or the less insane Miran/Bessent plans A/B dont work or even have time to work. Stuff like the administration trying to unilateraly turn all US government bonds into 100 year bonds or taxing capital flows/capital controls. Can they be that suicidal towards the dollar hegemony?

And after all this the bond market is still doing its thing. 10 year yields up again and over 4.3%. Really started to set in on what trade war with China actualy means and the countries/investors remain shaky on if us dept is worth it. Maybe Trump did actualy break something

There was some news a couple of days ago of China issuing 2 billion in USD denominated sovereign bonds that surprisingly was treated negatively or as some capitulation to the USD. I feel like this is quite different

I see this as creating a small triangular financing mechanism to help offload from the USD collectively with the central fulcrum being a facilitation of $ for ¥ swaps. The end result is global south nations pay down USD denominated liabilities & export resources to China earning RMB.

Simply put Gulf (and others) countries have too many dollars, China sells them these bonds, China uses these dollars to fund poor countries (investments, imports whatever), Poor countries use dollars to pay debt, Poor countries and gulf countries sell their natural resources to China in yuan then China sells its technology to these countries in yuan. Saudi flushes out $, China gains real resources, poor countries less poor, net negative for the volume of $ being outside of US borders. Meanwhile Chinese sovereign bond buyers are also using these bonds as collateral for Chinese tech & infrastructure projects in Saudi Arabia and their respective home countries. For China it also represents a very slow conversion of excess USD and their own trade surpluses into physical commodities while creating demand for their own currency. These commodities will continue to rise in USD prices while falling in RMB prices. They will have to repay these bonds upon maturity eventualy but it will be with cheaper dollars as commodities reprice higher in tighter supply-constrained markets. So even in the long term there is another net loss of USD.

Another angle is that many coutries are facing double digit borrowing costs in USDs to rollover or service USD debts. China can stabilise these at rates almost identical to US Treasury rates , these bonds were issued at just 1 base point over UST! after all. Another net negative effect on dollar circulation and accumulation. It basicaly tries to flip the Dollar Milkshake Theory to its head. China could have used its UST for this without all this roundabout thing, sure. But China is maintaining/reducing its UST reserves slowly because it doesnt want to blow up the global financial enviroment and insert a ton of volatility . But the needs of many countries for USD liquidity are way higher than China's rate of liquidation . This bridges that gap and allows China to do smth

Since Russia's new icbm tests seem to be a bit hit and miss lately and with China's test recently its important to note that while the general public in the west seem to be under the impression that Russia’s ICBMs are the faulty and unreliable ones, it is the US that actualy fields almost exclusively positively ancient barely working missiles .

The Minuteman III is by far the world's oldest ICBM still in active use as part of a nation's nuclear triad. It was originally deployed in 1970 and only had a planned service life of 10 years. It's only still operational over 50 years later because of life extension programmes but at some point, a thing is so old that there's no life left to extend. The electronic components of that era basically don't exist anymore. So you'd not just be re-engineering the missile's design, you'd be re-enginering and remaking components from the very birth of the chip industry. It's an impossible task. Which basically means as these things break down there's no fixing them.

The former STRATCOM Chief had this to say about the situation:

“Let me be very clear: You cannot life-extend the Minuteman III [any longer],” he said of the 400 ICBMs that sit in underground silos across five states in the upper Midwest. “We can’t do it at all. ... That thing is so old that, in some cases, the drawings don’t exist anymore [to guide upgrades],” Richard said in a Zoom conference sponsored by the Defense Writers Group. Where the drawings do exist, “they’re like six generations behind the industry standard,” he said, adding that there are also no technicians who fully understand them. “They’re not alive anymore.”

People joke about questionable operational readiness of Russian ICBMs but in reality, Russia has significantly more modern ICBMs in service than the US and im not even gonna mention China's buildup in quantity and quality. It's the US that should be worried about the operational readiness of its ICBMs. This is especially prominent after the highly publicising failure of 2 of the US' Minuteman III tests last November. Sure, two missile tests worked in June (one barely) but given the recency of the previous failure, another failure would have spelled absolute disaster for the US' nuclear credibility so I'm sure extra care and attention to detail was taken in ensuring that failure was not even a possibility. Problem is its douptfull that the US even has the domestic capability to replace the land portion of its nuclear triad completely without it costing like 2 trillion dollars and taking 20 years. Sure the subs will always be there and they work quite well but its interesting to see what the US will done with its land based nukes. I highly doubt either the Democrats nor the Republicans will want to be seen as the party that says "our nukes dont work and we need 1 quintillion dollars to replace them " or just completely drop one leg of the US' nuclear triad, however unnecessary that leg may be.

One thing’s for certain and its quite funny, and that is if the US does not find significantly more money for its military, it will have to cut back on many aspects of its military it has up until this point taken for granted. Already, we are seeing budget constraints affecting every branch of the military in very significant ways. With the USAF being forced to rethink what it wants with quite literally one of its most important next-generation projects due to budget constraints. The state of the USAF tanker fleet is also less than optimal with them significantly cutting back on the number of tankers they planned on ordering this decade by half. Instead, the USAF wants to pursue a gold-plated stealth tanker solution called NGAS to enter service in the 2030s at the same time as all of their other commitments. God knows where they’re going to get the money for this.

The USN is also being forced to cut back on its own next-generation projects that are not limited to just F/A-XX as DDG(X) has also been running into issues. This is all in addition to F-35C procurement that is far less expedited than it should be. There is no money to expand shipyards and increase production in any significant way and submarine production is progressing at a glacial pace, with the US being unable to produce SSNs and SSBNs at the rate it needs to let alone produce surplus SSNs for Australia.

The US Army has also been forced to consistently delay replacements for aging platforms like the Bradley, Abrams, Apache, Chinook and so on. But, given that I highly doubt the US is going to be seeing any large land war with a major power any time in the near future, the US Army can get away with it much more than the other branches can.

"dont let history repeat itself"

Bruh you are 500 miles off of China and they havent colonized you once in 3000 years. Meanwhile you got got multiple times by western colonial empires from the otherside of the globe. The only history repeating itself is yall being colonized by the US, this time willingly

President Xi says we can have a little Maoism, as a treat

Xi meets with representatives of grassroots units applying 'Fengqiao model'

What is the Fengqiao model? Generaly speaking, a mass line based model developed and advocated in Mao’s era that directed the masses themselves at the local level to carry out the on-site “rectification” of “reactionary elements” in society promoting greater degrees of local self-governance and "decentralizing" class struggle. The “Fengqiao experience” ,named after Fengqiao Township, was the process of mobilizing the masses in order to “strengthen the dictatorship over class enemies.” Here is how the top Party leader of Fengqiao District at the time (early 60s) reflected back on it:

During the National People’s Congress in 1963, the minister of public security, Xie Fuzhi (谢富治), gave a speech called, “Relying on the Strength of the Masses, Strengthening the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, Transforming the Majority of ‘Reactionary Elements’ into New People” (依靠群众力量，加强人民民主专政，把绝大多数“四类分子”改造成新人). Xie’s speech made specific mention of the example provided by Fengqiao.

On November 20, 1963, Mao Zedong added his written instructions to the Xie Fuzhi speech, in which he said: “The example of Zhuji raised here is a good one — various regions should follow this example, expanding the work through pilot programs.” Before the Cultural Revolution, the ministry of public security released materials about Fengqiao, but the People’s Daily never reported on these. On December 21, 1977, the People’s Daily published the piece from the top Party leader of Fengqiao District quoted above. That piece was called, “Raising High the Red Flag of Fengqiao Erected by Mao Zedong, Relying on the Masses to Strengthen Dictatorship"

In the struggle against the enemy, arrest is necessary and proper only for a small number of class enemies; as for those you can choose to arrest or not, none should be arrested; you must mobilize the masses to carry out a struggle of reason, to deal with the enemies, carrying out on-site monitoring and rehabilitation, without the need to submit issues to higher authorities. This experience was affirmed and praised by the greater leader and teacher Mao Zedong.

Until recently, no top Chinese leader since Mao Zedong had ever been quoted publicly in the People’s Daily or other state media making remarks on the “Fengqiao experience.” But in 2013, marking the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s written instructions, Xi Jinping broke this pattern by issuing “important instructions on the development of the ‘Fengqiao experience’." But the focus and promotion of the model has increased considerably in the last few years.

In the report of the 20th National Congress it was clearly directed that that the "Fengqiao Experience" in the new era must be upheld and developed at the grassroots level of society and based on it the mechanism for correctly handling contradictions among the people under the new situation should be improved. To facilitate and regulate the expression of public demands, coordinate interests and safeguard rights.

In March 2023, Xi again emphasized the need to uphold and develop the "Fengqiao Experience" in the new era, improve the mechanism for correctly handling conflicts among the people under the new situation, and promptly resolve conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level and in the bud by involving the masses in the identification of elements ,practices or people that must be reformed. During the Hangzhou Asian Games, Xi made a special trip to inspect the Fengqiao Museum and affirmed the great historical and practical significance of the "Fengqiao Experience".

The other day, along with the meetup i originaly linked Xi met with like 4 heads of state (including the Australian dumbass) ,yet his meeting with cadre representatives of the "fengqiao model" was the frontpage news on the People's Daily and other state media over them

To end with some interesting (optimistic and with a bunch of assumptions) food for thought. The "common prosperity" project, lauded as the next stage in socialism with chinese chracteristics and specificaly its "pilot" in Zhejiang, aimed to be completed by the mid 30s, calls , among other things, for "adjusting income distribution" and "adjusting excessive income". No specifics have been given on how that wealth redistribution will be achieved but it is notable that county-level social conflict and dispute mediation and resolution centers have been also a behind the scenes focus of the "common prosperity" pilot in Zhenjiang and its also the province with the most developed and widespread grassroots "fengqiao model" system

Some continued and sustained strengthening of KKE (Communist Party of Greece) in the last 1-2 years happening. After getting good results in the last parliamentary elections earlier this year (~7.5%) they now poll at ~10% in the first time since who knows when . And that level of support has been pretty much confirmed in the local elections (for regional and mayoral authorities) where communist candidates recieved ~10.5% of the votes country wide if you aggregate and elected mayors in some pretty big cities/populous Athens municapilities..

Yeah they are still at best mid-bad on LGBT issues (tho improving at a very slow pace). Yeah their foreign policy positions are still only ~70% there with some ultra left analysis on China and a couple of other issues. Yeah they have other issues. But they are still a hardboiled Marxist Lenninist party with little to no compromise on their positions and historical analysis or messaging. Very well and stricktly demcent organized ,with deep roots and activities on the union sphere and increasing membership and young support. Pretty much immune to spooks , gladio like infiltration or demsoc turns.

Looking at the state of communist parties and movements in most of the west , at eurocommunism and in general the post war trajectory of most , youdont have that kind of party with that kind of support and organizational strength almost anywhere else. So despite its flaws i cant really complain too much and its a bright spot for sure.

Another positive is that with KKE at this level of strength any EU promoted anti-communist or even anti-protest legislative stuff (that we see start popping up more and more around Europe) is basicaly dead on arival and impossible to implement and will only strengthen it while if KKE was weakened and at like 4% they would have attacked already