Miscellaneous News

GZDRefugee said:

Yes, I went over this before. The only remaining step is to funnel the materials that would have went to the west into accelerating PLA buildup, modernization and arms sales to proxies. This would give a prolonged window for bolstering military strength while the west is struggling with rationing stockpiles and developing alternative supply chains. Causing problems for the west (like Venezuela) forces them to deplete what stocks they do have. The result? Chinese military superiority in the west Pacific.

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You are not thinking big enough. This isn’t a game you can afford to play regionally.

Personally, I see this RE card, and the now inevitable application of secondary sanctions as also Europe’s final test by China to see if they can be cajoled into acting rationally in their own self interest, or if they are a lost cause of blind idiot slaves of America.

If Europe is prepared to nuke its own industrial and economic future to act as a giant smuggling front of RE for American MIC, then that’s beyond possible doubt level of proof for China that Europe will jump into WWIII on America’s side even if that is almost certainly going to be a literal suicide pact.

With that level of strategic clarify, I actually think China will unleash the Russians on NATO first if it looks like America is gearing up for an attack in Asia. The rationale is simple, if Europe is 99.99% going to join America in their planned war against China in Asia anyways, even if Russia steamrolling through Europe will only yield a 10% chance that America will honour Article 5 and directly join the fight against the Russians, that’s 100 times greater chance of China being able to avoid having to fight a near-peer war in its own neighbourhood and can break the back of American military power in Europe instead. So China can reign supreme in Asia without needing to first turn much of it into smoking rubble in the process.

And China really has NATO to thank for going to such great lengths to gift China this massive trump card. Because thanks to NATO efforts in Ukraine, China doesn’t do much need to convince Russia to attack NATO as China is probably the one who has held the Russians back this long from attacking. With a nod and promise of Chinese military industrial support and key PLA support forces, the Russians will absolutely jump at the chance to pay NATO back for Ukraine and all manner of past slights and wrongs as well as by the allure of annexing Europe for themselves.

plawolf said:

You are not thinking big enough. This isn’t a game you can afford to play regionally.

Personally, I see this RE card, and the now inevitable application of secondary sanctions as also Europe’s final test by China to see if they can be cajoled into acting rationally in their own self interest, or if they are a lost cause of blind idiot slaves of America.

If Europe is prepared to nuke its own industrial and economic future to act as a giant smuggling front of RE for American MIC, then that’s beyond possible doubt level of proof for China that Europe will jump into WWIII on America’s side even if that is almost certainly going to be a literal suicide pact.

With that level of strategic clarify, I actually think China will unleash the Russians on NATO first if it looks like America is gearing up for an attack in Asia. The rationale is simple, if Europe is 99.99% going to join America in their planned war against China in Asia anyways, even if Russia steamrolling through Europe will only yield a 10% chance that America will honour Article 5 and directly join the fight against the Russians, that’s 100 times greater chance of China being able to avoid having to fight a near-peer war in its own neighbourhood and can break the back of American military power in Europe instead. So China can reign supreme in Asia without needing to first turn much of it into smoking rubble in the process.

And China really has NATO to thank for going to such great lengths to gift China this massive trump card. Because thanks to NATO efforts in Ukraine, China doesn’t do much need to convince Russia to attack NATO as China is probably the one who has held the Russians back this long from attacking. With a nod and promise of Chinese military industrial support and key PLA support forces, the Russians will absolutely jump at the chance to pay NATO back for Ukraine and all manner of past slights and wrongs as well as by the allure of annexing Europe for themselves.

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Europe has no way to project meaningful force into the west Pacific. I'm not exaggerating when I say their flotillas will be ASBM fodder before they even reach the AO. The most they will do is write a flaccid letter condemning China for destabilizing the region.

Russia is serving its purpose well by maintaining a threat vector and bleeding European resources. It's in China's interest that the war in Ukraine goes on for as long as possible.

guys, guys, guys, turns out this may have just been a whoopsy daisie because of silly decentralised American democracy (never mind all of these sanctions and war plans designed to kill china), so now when rare earths for American military industrial complex?

regardless, the American regime mouthpieces are priming the people to be sent as first wave of the 1840s overtures.

I think China will pursue a grand export control global rules similar to WTO. Setup the rules for what can be export controlled and what not. Clearly military use can be export controlled but China will want hard ban on any kind of export control on commercial products.

I don't think it makes sense for China to simply go back to 2024 or even 2018 when it comes to US tech war. Now that they have fired the Rare earth gun, they will pursue something tangible, binding and global, applying to all countries.

Yes, some people want China to keep these restrictions and fight the trade and tech war all the way. But I don't think China wants that kind of economic desruption a full blown tech and trade war will bring for the Chinese economy.

I think China is using this weapon to force US and the west to agree to global rules on what can or cannot be export controlled.

tamsen_ikard said:

I think China will pursue a grand export control global rules similar to WTO. Setup the rules for what can be export controlled and what not. Clearly military use can be export controlled but China will want hard ban on any kind of export control on commercial products.

I don't think it makes sense for China to simply go back to 2024 or even 2018 when it comes to US tech war. Now that they have fired the Rare earth gun, they will pursue something tangible, binding and global, applying to all countries.

Yes, some people want China to keep these restrictions and fight the trade and tech war all the way. But I don't think China wants that kind of economic desruption a full blown tech and trade war will bring for the Chinese economy.

I think China is using this weapon to force US and the west to agree to global rules on what can or cannot be export controlled.

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You're right they clearly mentioned this in the PR release.

"The spokesperson stated that China is prepared to enhance communication and cooperation with all parties through multilateral and bilateral export control dialogue mechanisms, thereby facilitating compliant trade and ensuring the security and stability of global industrial and supply chains."

China to The West: Welcome to the Stone Age.

Almost all modern world stuff contains rare earth minerals, no matter it's made in China or not.

India to reopen embassy in Kabul after 4-year hiatus amid new Taliban ties

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India reopens embassy in Kabul, marking its first diplomatic engagement with the Taliban since their 2021 takeover.

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GZDRefugee said:

Europe has no way to project meaningful force into the west Pacific. I'm not exaggerating when I say their flotillas will be ASBM fodder before they even reach the AO. The most they will do is write a flaccid letter condemning China for destabilizing the region.

Russia is serving its purpose well by maintaining a threat vector and bleeding European resources. It's in China's interest that the war in Ukraine goes on for as long as possible.

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The European gambit is to attack that which the opponent must protect try to force America to commit to the defence of Europe, thereby scuttling their plans of a war in Asia at the same time, as not even Trump would be delusional enough to think he can win a two front war against China and Russia.

Even if America did go all in on a two front war, the European theatre would be a useful means of draining American resources and combat power from the Pacific. The bet is that whatever percentage of combat and industrial power China needs to invest in the west to put pressure on the European theatre would cost America a greater (potentially multiple times greater) percentage of their military and industrial power to balance off and avoid a total collapse of their European theatre.

The broader strategic calculus is that if Europe is going to commit to America’s fight no matter what, it’s better to strike at them sooner rather than later. Europe does possess sizeable industrial and populations inheritances. If given time to arm up and dig in, it would be a much more costly and difficult job to take them out than to strike at them immediately.

Additionally, much of Europe’s MIC and industrial production are or can be easily plugged in to supplement American MIC production. Even without access to new RE shipments from China, they will have sufficient consumer and dual use products in circulation that stripping RE from consumer products could potentially become a viable means of feeding western MIC production needs, at least in the short term for some advanced weapons. Attacking them early deprives America of that industrial capability and potential recycled RE pool to support and supply their own MIC production.

Finally, as the age old maxim goes that logistics is fundamental to long term military total victory. Taking Europe allows China and Russia to not only control the Eurasia world island, it also allows them to easily deny America access to resources in the ME and even Africa. Additionally, taking Europe allows China and Russia to threaten CONUS from both oceans and in both coasts. That will significantly weaken their naval and air defences compared to being able to rely on Europe as their secure rear and focus the lion share of their forces to the Pacific.

Sure there are risks to proactively opening up a new front and taking on a significant power, but those risks are massively mitigated by Europe’s puny standing military strengths and the near inevitability of them jumping in on America’s side no matter what given how thoroughly America has infiltrated and compromised their civilian, military, intelligence, media and corporate leaderships.

Finally, opening up the European theatre first opens the possibility of there being no significant military combat in Asia. It might be a modest or even slim chance, but given the potential monumental benefits, it’s well worth the gamble.

Chevalier said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1976693586571018586

guys, guys, guys, turns out this may have just been a whoopsy daisie because of silly decentralised American democracy (never mind all of these sanctions and war plans designed to kill china), so now when rare earths for American military industrial complex?

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It's fascinating how short American memory can be, I'm getting the distinct impression they already forgot Biden was in power last year and Trump has only been in power for 8 month. China started ramping up export controls in 2023 and has implemented new restrictions every few month in 2024, and not just on RE but graphite (2024) and solar manufacturing equipment (2023).

Americans looking to Trump for explanations for what they're suffering is almost like primitive humans trying to make sense of natural disasters by invoking mysticism, it's really hard to understate the sheer stupidity of Americans from the bottom to the top.