Pull out of Ukraine

@LeopoldBloom I think your - well, the "Wests" 's - greater threat there is from China, and not necessarily by the heavy-going military might that seems all that the far poorer Russia knows.

@ArishMell It's a two-way street. China has invested heavily in manufacturing, and they need us to keep buying what they produce. An idle factory is a huge liability.

@LeopoldBloom Yes, it is; but I think they would find alternative markets if the USA, UK and European countries reduced their trade. Ironically some of the more specialised mass-production machinery they use, is manufactured in the West.

@ArishMell What alternative markets? Africa and Latin America aren't even remotely close to reaching the current demand from the US and Europe.

@LeopoldBloom Possibly not, and some parts of Latin America may in time be trading competitors to China in a limited way; but I think the Chinese system is such that it would respond to its own advantage, one way or another, to such difficulties. We need consider the one big advantage that our democratic nations lack: a cohesive, coherent, rigid system by which individual leaders are caretakers who come and go over long times, and which allows considerable patience and planning for decades ahead.

China may well know its Western markets could fade, but if so is quite likely to have considered its alternative strategies and markets. She wants to be the World's Top Dog; and so far is second and quite likely to succeed.

@ArishMell China has invested heavily in Africa and Latin America, to the point where it might constitute a form of colonialism through debt. The long-term strategy is to develop the emerging world's economy to the point where it can serve as a market for Chinese goods as well as outsourcing manufacturing as we have done in China itself.

And you're correct, not having to answer to popular concerns gives the Chinese government a huge advantage. For example, if they want to build a dam or run a railroad somewhere, they just do it. They seem to have solved the problem that has plagued past dictatorships, where the dictator succumbs to a cult of personality and spends more effort suppressing dissent than actually governing, and pockets the country's wealth instead of plowing it back into infrastructure.

@LeopoldBloom Yes, I think colonialism is very appropriate description, and like any mortgage or hire-purchase agreement the property is the lender's until the debt is fully cleared. China's choice of which countries is very careful too. No longer oil, but now based heavily on metal-ore and engineering-business wealth, so it can corner the markets in the finished metals if not all of the metal products as well.

For we all depend on metals for everything we do, use or own. That is basic, but maybe is it because it is so basic it is often overlooked despite the present talk of rare-earth ones for electricity-generators. Indeed, if you were to ask a large number of people at random which one metal element is fundamental to all, it would be interesting to see what proportion answers correctly. Fortunately it is a very abundant metal, very versatile, readily recoverable (though at high electricity or fuel cost) - and China has not grabbed all of its sources.

I think Chairman Mao's reign was very much a personality as well as Party cult, but looking back at what happened after his death, I can't help wondering if China opening up and becoming friendlier was all a long-term ruse to lull the rest of us into a sense of false security. Even if it wasn't, it certainly gave President Xi's government a huge advantage so he clamp down again without too many difficulties.

@ArishMell China is also putting those countries in debt by financing large-scale industrial projects that they have to pay off. And apparently, many of them are very poor quality.

@LeopoldBloom I suppose in those cases, quality is not important. China wants only political control.

I don't know Honduras' relationship with China but a few days ago it announced breaking diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and recognising only one "China". I learnt that only via a brief Press Association not in my local paper, and it did not go into details, so with no hint as whether it was a purely Honduran decision or under pressure or order from Beijing.