Here’s something no one is discussing yet it should be.
What will happen once China falls? Who would fill the political and economic vaccuum?
Personally I’d argue that the KMT would find a way back with the support of the US and Japan.
What do you think?
Falls in what way?
There’s a whole thread on China’s population bomb.
Back from where?
I think by fall, you mean if China falls on the world stage, which is very possible – a massive pullback from all the nice stuff they’ve built. They have a few boats to enforce the deals they’ve made tho, so those poor little countries won’t be off the hook. They also have a shit ton of coal, so even if they lose their ME oil, they will still have the lights on, which means their economy, which is rather enormous, will remain functional. They’ll still be a regional power.
I doubt the KMT and a tighter relationship with China is what the US or Japan wants, so IDK what you’re thinking there.
There is zero support for the KMT in China. Zero.
So even if the CCP does fall, which is what I’m getting from your post when you say China falling, the KMT won’t be the one to replace it.
If the CCP does fall without triggering a global conflict, which let’s be honest is the most likely scenario, China will most likely fracture into smaller countries, with the CCP or at least what used to be the PLA leadership still holding on to a good chunk of it.
China is huge, so unless the challenger is coming straight from the PLA, no opposition can take over the whole of the country in one fell swoop. I’m not even including Tibet, East Turkestan, and Inner Mongolia, as they would definitely break away if the CCP loses control.
Those smaller countries will likely vie for dominance for several decades until one side with stronger support from a foreign power manages to takeover the whole country.
It’s the “After long division there will be remainder, and after a long unity there will be division (分久必合，合久必分)” model in Chinese history. There is a chance that these smaller countries all find their place in the global economy and just exists in peace. I wouldn’t bet on it though.
If CCP falls people in China would have to worry about Russia the most. Other countries aren’t remotely interested in China at all.
I doubt history will repeat itself. If China does breakdown they won’t be forming any united country ever again. Maybe they will have an EU like union but not a single country. The rule based world order just doesn’t penalize small countries like before. There’s no reason for a small rich country to join a bigger poorer one.
Russia is not a threat to China.
Now it’s not, but a broken down China? Yes, it would be a threat.
I think it’s possible that the current regime or system of government will pass from the scene, but I can’t imagine what will happen after that.
I remember being puzzled about why China didn’t change regimes back when a number of other Communist countries underwent regime changes:
Revolutions of 1989 - Wikipedia
Instead, in China there was Tiananmen:
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre - Wikipedia
By the way, doesn’t China have a sort of hybrid economy now, one which involves a certain amount of private ownership of the means of production? I put the previous sentence in the form of a question because I know practically nothing about what goes on in China.
Why on earth would China “fall”? They’ve got some pretty major problems, but the chances of China going under before The West is goes culturally, intellectually and/or fiscally bankrupt is something close to zero. Personally, I worry more about the state of the US and Europe, and their likely pathways to implosion - not least because they look like they intend to take half the planet with them.
Taiwan isn’t going to retake the mainland. There was a brief period of history where they might possibly have done so (by stealth rather than military intervention) sometime in the early 1980s, but that window closed pretty quickly.
China (or Communist China) is facing some society destructive issues - from the likes of Evergrande going (chinese people’s savings are flushed down the toilet) to a demographic collapse, these would take down any society.
Taiwan alone might not - but with the support of the Japanese and Americans, they could be
Granted China might just be split into pieces with warlords everywhere and the KMT might just have a piece of China…just like it was pre-1940s.
What makes you put the US and Europe in the same bucket?
I suspect it will be like history repeating itself. Regional leaders taking power of different territories. This is how I imagine China breaks up which I would use rather than “fall”.
The vastness of China has always been one of its weaknesses. And I suspect it might be broken up as certain regions will continue to be wealthy and others not so much. It’s difficult for a central government to keep the ideology of “some people will get rich first” going forward with all the internal issues they are facing.
Good point - the wording is inaccurate.
Break up is a better way of describing it.
Local governments already have tremendous control. It’s not out of the realm if the central government gets dysfunctional enough that it just breaks up into regional governments that runs things anyways.
China’s economy is floating on a massive debtberg, and yes, they have some impending demographic issues. Same thing is true almost everywhere in the West. The difference is that most of the planet is in hock to China, either literally or metaphorically, so China is in a far stronger position to wiggle out of their current predicament than other countries. They have a lot of resources they can draw on that everyone else doesn’t.
I’m not particularly looking forward to WW3, so … no thanks. What on earth would be the point?
They’re in a different bucket. They racked up debt during 2020-2023 at such a breathtaking rate that the only possible outcome is a prolonged recession or stagflation. Couple that with a weird religious movement that’s sweeping through the West that seems to be crippling people intellectually and physically, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Nowhere near to the same extent - and there are many factors that make it a biiig deal in China. For example Chinese are forced to put their savings into real estate whereas in the West we can diversify.
Note: The US and Europe are not the same so by the West do you mean Europe?
Demographically the one child policy (only done in China) has been ruinous and the CCP leadership is trying to fix a nonfixable problem.
China can only wiggle as long as free trade is still a thing. With the increase in piracy and wars across the sea lanes - china is at greater risk than the US or Europe as they import most of their energy sources such as fuel and food.
The original plan for the US and Japan was to have a China on their side. The CCP has proven not to be that. IF at first you don’t succeed. Also do understand that this lack of WW is the historical exception and not the norm (thank you Pax Americana) so buckle up. 
The US racked up debt but the US dollar is the world currency. It is on a different level.
It doesn’t matter how “diversified” you are if your economy is basically broken. You can’t make money out of nothing, and real estate is as good a store of value as any other (assuming you haven’t bought an apartment made out of milk cartons and soybean waste, of course). At worst, you have a roof over your head - something the average European, at least, struggles with.
Where it matters, I would say the US and Europe are suffering from the same malaise: a belief in their own exceptionalism coupled with (oddly) a complete loss of faith in their own culture, extractive governments that have racked up debt far in excess of their ability to service it, weak governments that seem intent on sabotaging their own nations, and a general sense of despair. Fundamentally, we can’t get shit done. China, in contrast, still believes in itself, and hasn’t abdicated responsibility for its own future.
It was certainly ruinous, but I’m not sure it’s unfixable. The obvious solution would be to find useful things for older people to do - not necessarily to draft them back into the 9-to-5 workforce, but to keep them engaged in the economy in other ways - perhaps as consultants/mentors, or in social services, or as odd-job men and women. The fact that Westerners think this problem is unfixable speaks more to our collective lack of imagination and optimism than anything else - and we’d better watch what China does, and learn from it, because we’re only 20 years behind them. Birth rates are collapsing in both the US and Europe, and whereas China discarded the one-child policy about a decade ago, the West has no intention of making a correction, and doesn’t even acknowledge that it’s a problem.
Nobody’s going to shut down trade with China. China supplies the world, and that’s all there is to it. The US and Europe have largely sabotaged their own industrial base, and rebuilding it would be a long and painful process (not that anybody is even trying). China is locked into its pre-eminent position.
China is on their side, to the extent that there are any “sides”. Why people would imagine that China is going to subsume its own interests in favour of the US, though, is a bit of a mystery. Why on earth would they do that? Apart from the fact that it has been their stated, overt aim to become a world superpower and overshadow their (perceived) oppressors, they know perfectly well how the US behaves on the international stage. China has learned how to talk softly and carry a big stick. And you can hardly blame them.
There have been dozens of major wars since the end of WW2, most of them caused by the US, and almost all of them completely unnecessary. We (Westerners) have just been rather lucky they’ve been in other countries that nobody cares about.
Okay
1 - why is China’s economy broken? What happens to people when their savings are wiped out?
2- supply the world? Why was it able to? And nowadays after covid what do you think countries (like the US) are doing? Did you know that Mexico is our largest trading partner and that the US is bringing back manufacturing?
3 - we can think what we want. The US has exceptional geography, demographics (could be better but we have a replacement population at least) and global positioning.
4 - no not major wars. regional yes but not major. We will see major lol
Like what? They import most of their raw materials and their economy has thus far been based on cheap labor. A resource theyvhave failed to renew…
It isn’t broken. It’s overheating. I don’t think this is beyond the ability of the CCP to sort out - it’s one of the advantages of running a dictatorship without all that messy election nonsense.
The US economy is broken.
Because everyone else collaborated in China’s rise (and their own demise).
Circling the drain. The entire national conversation has been hijacked by non-issues, which means people aren’t just getting on with nurturing their institutions, or businesses, or their families. Instead, they’re just screaming at each other about racism or transphobia while everything slowly falls to pieces around them. China doesn’t suffer from this blight. Chinese people are still very highly motivated.
I’ve heard they supply a lot of pharmaceuticals 
You can’t just “bring back” manufacturing like planting a flower garden. Certain things have to be in place for it to happen, and the US doesn’t have those things.
Yeah, thing is, people have had enough of this shit. An increasing number of people just want to be left alone, and they want to leave other people alone. Nobody wants any more wars, and any politician who suggests a war with China will get very few votes.
China has an empire that supplies most of their needs, and they take a very pragmatic approach to trading. They’re not going to run short of fuel or food anytime soon.
The stuff they import comes from vassal states. And no, their economy isn’t based on cheap labour - they’re still manipulating markets like crazy, but their value is increasingly based on quality rather than just low prices.
It is not, it is shrinking
Laying flat, run philosophy
As long as they can import it, and pay for it
Well, some of it. They get a lot from places like Australia and the US…