Yellen in Beijing…
Meanwhile Xi tells military to deepen war combat planning…
Doom and gloom and contradictory news.
As we sift through news cycles, we can find clarity by looking at China’s actions. While China begs Yellen again and again to drop the China Tariffs, the PLA is preparing for conflict - worst of all, the Chinese population of all ages is being “primed to hate”. Wealthy Chinese are heading for the exits.
In 1999 when Rumsfeld was racing to negotiate a missile defense shield to defend America against a future Chinese Missile Attack, he saw with his own eyes the CCP’s mural in the government building depicting the Chinese invasion of Taiwan — which had yet to happen. It is ingrained in the psyche. China has since dealt successive blows against the U.S. and Allies through proxies and other means.
Recently we have seen China unleash a deadly virus on the world, and invade Hong Kong breaking the handover agreement, as well as invasion by proxy of Myanmar and Ukraine. China is deeply engaged in a battle on many fronts, and may feel that they are in too deep now to change course.
“An Act of War”
New York Times calls the silicon blockade against China an “act of war”. Obviously ignoring Chinese aggression for clickbait - the silicon shield is not an “act” on its own, but a “Response” to China’s escalatory behavior.
China hacks US government again:
Mexico, not China, is US top trade partner
Is Climate Change Policy a front for dealing with the Chinese Communist Party? The Cap and Trade strategy developed for Climate Change has actually been a good dry run for the lead up to the US-China Trade War and Post-Covid Trade strategy.
John Kerry in particular has a long history of dealing with aggressive Chinese Communist Party tactics, and Climate Change dovetails perfectly into the National Security discussions pertaining to Economic and Military preparedness.
At its core, Climate Change Policy could be considered China Containment Policy.
“Foreign trade faces extremely severe situation”
“Some countries’ forceful push for ‘decoupling,’ ‘severing [supply] chains’ and so-called ‘de-risking’ are human-made obstacles blocking normal commerce,” Li Xingqian, the head of the ministry’s external trade department, said in Mandarin, according to a CNBC translation.
John Kerry meeting in Beijing yields nothing…
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/19/china/china-xi-carbon-climate-kerry-intl-hnk/index.html
Xi is on the War path, its going to be hard to derail this train…
Of all things, apparently its China’s priority to stop Taiwan VP from visiting the US…
Beijing complicit in Ukraine invasion (not really news for those paying attention)
At 100 years old, Kissinger meets Xi in Beijing.
The historical “character arc” of US(Western Civilization) and China(Eastern Civilization) could be seen as spanning thousands of years going back to Ancient Greco-Roman Empire, Silk Road, and Proto-Chinese civilizations - from trade to colonization, slavery, and more - it’s almost like the US and China war is a clash of civilizations. The west might not view it this way, but the Chinese Communists absolutely do with emphasis on their “5,000 year history” even though their Genocidal Communist government existed only this century. Internal Chinese propaganda points to Chinese preparing for an epic full scale “unrestricted” war against the West - full of total brainwashing to a level not seen since Hitler’s & Goebel’s Nazi Germany and a re-written history.
It’s noted that even Oppenheimer in 1965 suspected the possibility that China’s “Unmuted Chinese Communists” and the U.S. would go the Nuclear War while Cold War tensions remained with Soviet Russia. In the 70’s as Nixon and Kissinger tried to open China to the world, the tensions were actually quite high and is partly why there was eagerness to “befriend” - not just to pull China away from a Russia alliance, but because the Taiwan question was weighing heavily and the reality was that the US was going to get into a nuclear war with China. Advisors would later note that the second most likely time that the U.S. would use nukes again, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would be against Chinese fleets at sea during a Taiwan invasion.
Wang, during his meeting with Kissinger, relayed a message that reflects Beijing’s concerns over American policy toward it: “Trying to transform China is impossible, and blocking and containing China is even more impossible,” he said, according to China’s readout.
China is speaking in absolutes…
China manufacturing continues to fall…
More escalation in the US-Chin trade war - decoupling continues…
- U.S. moves to ban certain investment in China suggest that Western allies may be learning from national security failings in Russia, analysts told CNBC.
- The White House on Wednesday announced a ban on some U.S. investment in China in sensitive technologies in the latest ratcheting up of Washington’s disassociation from Beijing.
For those interested, almost exactly a year later, the XB-1 is slated for first flight in the coming months. Whereas last year first flight was only a month away. 
They still claim production on the Overture will start next year (as of the beginning of this year, and I haven’t heard that pushed back). 
Forgot about that - I wonder if they are still pursuing the military variant.
Also another year later and China is still whining about the China Tariffs and begging for them to be dropped. The U.S. has since added more tariffs on China-made goods, and added new restrictions on certain foreign direct investment & semiconductors. The U.S. is expected to raise tariffs on Chinese TV’s (TCL) and other display panels in the coming weeks.
- The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index came in at 49.7 in August, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics released Thursday.
- Official data also showed China’s official non-manufacturing PMI falling to 51.0 in August — compared with 51.5 in July and 53.2 in June.
More Fed Rate hikes on the horizon to combat China’s economy. Inflation pressure on western consumers constricts spending money on Chinese made goods > leading to lower demand and lower Chinese factory activity > more Chinese unemployment.
US and China are still going head-to-head in an ever increasing escalation since the Trade War started.
China might try to “own it” and weaponize the collapsing Chinese Economy against the West.
Dire China trade data.
Also; as per China’s 400 Billion FDI investment in Iran in 2021, China has made headway on Oil and Gas infrastructure that can be moved through the strait of Hormuz.
The 50+ COSCO tankers with transponders turned off over the last couple years have likely been moving arms supplies by sea from China to Iran, stockpiling Hamas’ latest attacks against Israel.
5,000 Chinese Military Troops have been moved to Iran as “security to protect the oil & gas investment”. That’s 5,000 that we know of on paper…no way to know for sure - and that’s a still a big open question with regards to China’s Uighur prisoners, if China is brainwashing them and forcing them into fighting for the PLA or Chinese proxies.
As US-China trade data continues to crater the West is preparing for potential major conflict.
The Pentagon Report on the Chinese Military has really triggered China…
Columbia sportswear looking for factories in Central America…
Surprise meeting between Gavin and Xi — in my opinion this is a very very bad sign, and not the “thawing” that others are suggesting
“We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict,” Biden said at the start of the summit.”
“For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option,” Xi said in his opening remarks. “Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed.”
Xi told Biden a lot had happened since their last meeting a year ago in Bali. “The world has emerged from the COVID pandemic, but is still under its tremendous impacts. The global economy is recovering, but its momentum remains sluggish.”
Xi called the U.S.-China relationship “the most important bilateral relationship in the world,” and said he and Biden “shoulder heavy responsibilities for the two peoples, for the world, and for history.”
“For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option,” he said. “It is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other, and conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides.”
Seems no change in course, both sides are dug in…high likelihood of conflict.
China may have made a veiled threat that Supply Chains could be disrupted again by bringing up that we are still feeling the effects of Covid pandemic — and the timing is particularly important as we head into the new year with Elections in Taiwan and U.S. coming up — and November being the timeframe in 2019 when 3 Wuhan Lab researchers became ill and it was covered up.
Blinken and Sullivan look particularly stressed in the meeting - a sign that the situation continues to be grim.
“It was always ‘China plus one,’” he said, referring to the diversification strategy many businesses began implementing after Washington imposed trade tariffs on Beijing in 2018 to ensure they were not wholly dependent on Chinese suppliers.
Now “it’s like ‘plus-10’ and then China,” he added, with the latter down to providing half of Industry West’s products and being trimmed more.
“Survey results show that more than 60% of manufacturing companies reported insufficient market demand. Insufficient market demand is still the primary difficulty affecting the current recovery and development of the manufacturing industry,”
As noted back in 2020, China wanted to restrict supply in retaliation for the trade war, so the West retaliated by restricting demand on China, and used allies as force multipliers. Fast forward to present day - the strategy is working.
Reposting this Biden Chip-Ban article from October as it was the Dec 7th Pearl Harbor anniversary yesterday
And new articles speculating future Pearl Harbor attacks by China:
Italy, a key partner for China, has quit Belt & Road Initiative
This is a major blow to Chinese commercial and military ambitions in the region.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/08/china/italy-belt-and-road-eu-china-summit-intl-hnk/index.html
Anytime governments or businesses sever ties with China they should tell China that they “just want to promote mutual understanding”. That will sting the CCP pretty bad 