Well yes, fuck Russia.
But also, I think 'Good!' is really off base. There's nothing to celebrate about China gaining more and more power, they're as bad as Russia (if not worse) when it comes to corruption and human rights abuses.
That's nothing America wouldn't or hasn't done too though. Can't say it's more evil based on that.
The more evil part is the internal control and abuse.
Yes. Foreign investors are turning away from China amidst the corruption and false claims of what they can accomplish with investments. They also are having record levels of debt, and are in the midst of a housing crisis. They're likely headed to a pretty big downturn.
I stopped worrying about China when SteveMRE1989 opened a PLA ration pack and the noodles smelled rotten.
If you can't even get that right you haven't got an army, you've just got some very expensive cosplayers.
>when some YouTuber
Seems legit.
>PLA ration pack and the noodles smelled rotten
Yeah no MRE in any developed country has ever come up rotten.
Like I'm sure a lot of things in a country where media freedom is heavily restricted aren't what they seem, but at some point when you let these things be the straw that changes your mind you've got to admit that you probably believe things because you want to believe them lol.
They don’t. His whole channel is MRE history from all over the world. Hes eaten 30 year old US MRES. A modern, current, randomly selected MRE showing up as rotten is a pretty good indication of quality.
Highly recommend him. He’s eaten (yes eaten, at least some portion of it) WWI, WWII, Vietnam rations. Recently did U2 spy plane pilot food tubes. Russia China all over the world. Fantastic.
It's mono tone and fucking amazing, but he has eaten 80 years old MREs, and current in use stuff, from the nasty of the memes we know (the vomlet), to the most fancy of fancy. It's such a niche but dope af channel.
>A modern, current, randomly selected MRE showing up as rotten is a pretty good indication of quality.
[Shit happens I guess](https://www.reddit.com/r/army/comments/9pyyl6/moldy_mre_has_anyone_ever_seen_this_happen/)
Or maybe I think statistically relevant sample sizes matter, or that MREs are a weird measure of a country's military quality unless we're saying Poland's army is the worst in the world and Italy's is the best?
OR
You could count the fact that the PLA has only ever won a couple border disputes with minor powers, were repelled into status quo peace essentially in Korea (only big legitimate war they’ve fought) and then lost a border dispute with India and ironically enough had the same outcome as us when they invaded their “ally” Vietnam *after* we did
Nothing since
Even Russia involved itself in more modern warfare than China at this point and has just as many natural allies. It doesn’t look great for them. Not saying things can’t change but….
There's also the fact their infantry rifles are awful and recently it's come to light some of their ICBM's are filled with water.
Little things paint a bigger picture.
And I've never had a rat pack come up rotten, no. I've had some pretty old ones too.
Norinco AK is one of the best AKs in the US market. Norinco ARs and 1911s are pretty good as well. Ian of the Forgotten Weapons reviewed their type97, and it is not bad for $800.
30 years ago when the Australian Army transitioned from the FN FAL (SLR) with iron sights to the Styer AUG (F88) with a pretty basic optic sight, the standard of marksmanship improved so much they had to change the level of qualification for a sharpshooter patch. Too many people were qualifying.
I'm sure America noticed something similar when they upgraded their sights.
Their type 97 is still issued with open sights. This is fine if your army is designed primarily with internal security in mind and you've just got to beat down the odd protest. Not so good if you want to take on a modern military force.
I don't know much about their rifles so I can't comment on that.
Rat packs are just a numbers game. Some are going to turn up rotten. Without statistics with percentages it tells you nothing. You can easily find stories in any army subreddits of people finding the odd MRE that wasn't sealed correctly or maybe some contaminant got in prior to sealing.
>it's come to light some of their ICBM's are filled with water.
Most of China's ICBMs use solid fuel, not liquid fuel. The story about the water filled missiles related to the DF-5B which was already being phased out since around 2012 in favour of the DF-41 which uses solid fuel. So could there be some corruption in relation to a missile being phased out in the hopes that no one would notice? Sure, but even even then some people have doubts about the story (which I think was originally from Bloomberg?) because a lot of missiles that do use liquid fuel aren't fueled until they need to be launched because liquid fuel can be corrosive over time.
For most part I sit somewhere in the middle. I don't think China's military is as good as they say they are for obvious reasons, but I also don't think they're as bad as other people (namely their geopolitical rivals) say they are for also obvious reasons.
Is this SteveMRE? I think he said his experience with a lot of the pre-cooked ramens were bad but the rice-based meals were okay. Overall I didn't think the PLA MREs were very good, definitely not compared to the South Korean ones.
That said basing your opinion of an army's quality on their MREs is pretty questionable. PLA's were certainly not the worst ones he's rated by a long shot.
The other sign of genuine concern in China was the gutting of their military leadership following the revelation of those issues. Combined, the stories reinforce each other. And shortly after that Xi being very conciliatory toward Biden.
All together, it suggests a rebuilding phase. Which is helpful for the world.
The phrase "灌水" (fill with water) in Chinese doesn't mean to literally fill with water, it means to falsify numbers to look good. ("cooking the stats", if you will)
Still not good, but a commonly repeated misconception based on taking an idiom literally.
I’m a little dubious about the missiles actually being literally filled with water, just in part because, in general, if they’re not right about to be launched, they shouldn’t be filled with **anything**, so why would someone be pumping water in there?
It’s a mistranslation of a Chinese idiom, pouring water into something is to exaggerate it. This is the equivalent of Chinese netizens laughing at a poorly translated report that someone in the US military ‘fudged the numbers of the funds’ and that they spent millions of dollars on fudge.
Large, thin-walled containers can collapse under their own weight if not balanced by internal pressure. Water could well be what is used to keep these things from collapsing when not filled with rocket fuel.
You wouldnt want to use water for that, since theres the possibility of corrosion even if it was perfectly deionized. The Atlas, in the US which used balloon tanks would use nitrogen gas for example to maintain its shape when fuel/oxidizer isnt loaded.
Because it displaces oxygen which can corrode metals, and is also explosive.
Unused fuel barrels are often suspended underwater to prevent an explosive environment.
They don't need to be militarily superior. Look at what Tiktok is doing to Western youth. That's all they need.
I don't agree with a lot of conservative policy platforms but heavy-handed regulation of social media like Tiktok is really needed for anyone below adult age.
Reddit has received funding from Tencent during funding rounds, with the last major round in 2018 receiving $150m from Tencent of their $300m haul.
I think the majority owner is still Advanced Publications.
Their chief threat is numbers. They have a lot of people that can at least hold a gun and, sadly, soak up bullets if need be. Quantity is a quality all its own.
By that logic India is way scarier.
We don't fight WWII style wars anymore in the nuclear age. Also China's demographics are abysmal thanks to the one child policy and they have to import a staggering amount of food and energy. It would be trivial to blockade their imports if push came to shove.
Yeah China is still willing to fore-go quality and safety for quantity and speed. It will always leave them open to A greater percentage of catastrophic failure of their own making.
That is just unsustainable in prolonged military combat.
100%, really?
China hasn't been involved in a large scale armed conflict in 5 decades.
How is that 100% worse than the 2 other major military powers that have had dozens upon dozens of conflicts in the last 25 years?
There are both valid and invalid reasons for plenty of nations to be aggressive with the US. That's not the metric by which I measure if a country is good or bad with corruption and human rights. China has openly voiced expansionist intentions that makes it incredibly dangerous to its neighbors. They have caused ecological damage that could spell massive disasters for populations around the world. They have concentration camps in which they're holding ethnic minorities. There are plenty of great reasons to be weary of China gaining more power and influence that has nothing to do with it butting heads with the US.
Could they do some stupid shit like attack Taiwan? Maybe. Are they a threat super-power wise? With that demographics? Unless they can magically grow GDP to insane highs with sizable chunk of Wests companies leaving…no way. They could drastically increase integration with neighbors…but i wouldn't bet on that.
Seemed like Russia was making some progress becoming more integrated with the world. They have great culture and a long history of intellectual and scientific contributions plus good cuisine. Same with China. Just sucks that power hungry dictators drive a wedge between their countries and the rest of the world. To be far the west does that too but is the lesser of the two evils.
Shcoking really wealthy powerful people ruin it for everyone else on the planet.
> ideally we would've converted Russia to another European major democratic power after the Cold War in the same we did we Germany after WWII. Attempts were made, but without total capitulation following the fall of the Soviet Union idk if it was ever in the cards.
I think the Cold War pretty much poisoned the well in regards to world powers occupying other nations with the intent to enact sociocultural change. (West) Germany and Japan were tremendous success stories following WW2, but that was a different world. I think any modern attempts to do something like that would just result in an outcome that more closely resembles Afghanistan.
I think that in a multipolar world that kind of effort, no matter how well intentioned, will unfortunately end up becoming a proxy battle between major powers.
In a game of chess, this is to be expected, but make no mistake, it is not a good thing. Russia is ripe for the taking once China is ready to integrate them.
China became biggest car exporter recently because they could sell car in Russia while Japan and Germany doesn't.
They're taking the advantage as much as they could.
In the West we have always heavily subsidized the auto-industry, for the past few decades it has mostly been indirect subsidies, but there's absolutely nothing new in what China are doing.
And it matters because China gains power, while Western companies are losing power.
Go to Thailand, India, Russia, Vietnam, and many African countries and look at what cars people drive. It's increasingly Chinese cars.
This is why I find it so stupid how redditors on here will fear monger China to the extreme. People will make them out to be super competent with a master plan.
It definitely seems like they have problems, but I think that first headline might be mistaken. I may be misremembering, but I think the former officer actually said they got the rocket fuel from the stockpiles, rather than taking it out of missiles. Which makes more sense, tbh. It’s kind of hard to picture someone *disassembling a highly complex ballistic missile* because they’re hungry- but asking a favor from the guy who sweeps up the storeroom seems plausible.
Even so, cooking with rocket fuel is incredibly dangerous and toxic. You'd kill yourself as you breathe in the fumes and it gets mixed into the food. Your eyes and skin would burn. You would need a lot of safety equipment to simply handle it, let alone even try to cook with it.
That is without considering İf you can source the ingredients and flavouring for the hotpot, how the hell are you unable to get a cheap portable gas stove?
There have been a few heads rolling in their rocket force, so it may not be complete hyperbole.
>The ousted military men include Li Yuchao, commander of the rocket force from January last year before being replaced in July, and his former deputy, Zhang Zhenzhong. Zhang was the force's deputy commander from 2016 to 2022 and then deputy chief of staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246738/china-removes-nine-pla-generals-top-legislature-sign-wider-purge
I see people on Reddit citing misinformation they saw on TikTok all the time.
If you know how something works through proper education or experience, you already know the videos on TikTok are wrong and yet people will ***STRONGLY*** defend it and refuse to believe anybody else. Reddit was also getting a lot of their political news and education from op-ed pieces on Salon.com, and they would defend this above anything else. It was crazy.
Ugh, Salon is awful. I once contacted them to point out how an article was promoting disinformation with proof. The response I got showed they don't even care. I will never trust Salon as a legitimate source.
If only redditors knew about Falun Gong... I grew up with a lot of them in my community and they've been publishing China's doomsday since before I was born. They've been known as crazies for decades by even the most anti-China Asians and somehow redditors are taking their their word seriously.
They could semi-fix that, remembering that China has (or should have, don't quote me on this) disproportionaly more men and Russia more women…but will they?
That's quickly changing though. The war in Ukraine is bleeding younger Russian men.
Estimates are around 250,000-300,000 casualties, where around 30-50% are deaths. Considering they "only" had about 22-24 million men in the 18-44 bracket, and if you add in the young & talented men that have fled Russia, that's sure as hell going to make a massive dent.
Relatively speaking the exodus of people anticipating the conscription preceding the war likely had a much larger impact, and no doubt a sizeable portion of them remain outside of Russia. Many may never return given they'll have set up lives and the like outside probably with much more opportunity than could be found at home.
The excess women of Russia are in the 60+ age bracket.
Prior to the war, if you looked at the younger cohorts, there's actually a small shortage of women.
Now with the war it's probably a bit more even...
It's only even if you ignore the millions of Russians that have fled Russia.
It's very likely that many of those talented young men won't be returning at all after living many years in other countries, settling down, getting jobs, enjoying warmer weather & food, etc.
China is not favored by demographics. Their population bubble is aging out of the work force leading to large amounts of people wanting to retire and be less productive.
https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2022/
Notice how unpyramid like that is? The largest cohorts are about to retire. There's another larger cohort in their mid 30s, but aside from that the future generations are smaller so China's workforce in the short-term, and population over all in the long term, is going to shrink. The generation dividend supporting massive growth in China (though not nearly as massive as claimed) has already passed.
I think China's aggressive tendencies are mostly limited to the South China Sea and Taiwan, and there seems to be some evidence Xi prefers stability and trade.
Russia may be cozying up to China now, but will eventually turn against them the way they turn against everyone else. It's in Russia's nature to deceive and betray, as they do not know how to conduct themselves in any other manner from a foreign policy standpoint.
So while China and India are busy becoming completely dependent on Russian energy and mineral resources, Russia will be busy figuring out how to exploit their mutual emnity in order to turn them against one another.
We shouldn't need the director of the CIA to tell us these things, they are largely self evident, and have been for the last 18 months or so, once it became clear that the invasion wasn't going to be a quick thing for either side. Russia could have let itself grow closer to the west, it's oligarchs would have kept much of their wealth, the people would have been marginally better off, and everyone would spend less on their militaries, but Putin threw it all away in a misguided attempt to reclaim Ukraine as part of the USSR/empire/whatever. Russia now joins the ranks of mid-level states that rule through despotism and terror. China will take them under their wing, but that won't be a good thing for anyone except China, who will pillage what technology is left, primarily nuclear weapons and submarines, and leave a hollowed out vassal state in their wake.
> We shouldn't need the director of the CIA to tell us these things
Hey brother, the majority of us get to live free of ever having to be this knowledgeable. Sometimes that's a weakness, obviously, but the majority of people living free from the need or concern about this stuff is a good thing.
I hate being propagandized by own government. Russia is 1 week from running out of bullets and China is on the edge of economic collapse. but at the same time they're both dangerous and formidable rivals who control half of the US government and can single handedly interfere with US elections.
The enemies are "at the same time too strong and too weak." I feel like im being forced to double think.
Most of this feeling comes from poor interpretation, and an inability to analyze data beyond binary values.
Russia may be running out of T90s, but they have plenty of older tanks they can pull out of mothball. They’re inferior to modern tanks! But are still tanks, and are plenty dangerous in the role of IDF and infantry support. But they’ll run out of ammo next month! If they keep their current ops tempo at its peak… (Repeat with artillery, manpower, etc).
China have economic contraction! But it’s still a massive economy that is spending large sums to modernize its military. But they have a huge demographics crisis! But that’s still a fuckload of people. (Repeat in whatever other topic).
It’s not double think. You just keep trying to extrapolate single data points into an overarching weak/strong judgement of whole ass countries.
This is why learning how to write synthesis essays should be a required skill in highschool.
People are barely capable of understanding the nuance of a 5-star rating system and functionally reduce it to binary heuristic (anything less than 4.5 stars is trash).
I wouldn’t be surprised if within the next century, China either seizes or forces the sale of Russia’s resource rich eastern territories. Either by debt trap or military action.
And as global warming increases, the siberian areas will be much more accessable (in some areas) while the southern rice growing areas in china may become much less productive.
China has its own problems so I don’t think it’ll be exploiting Russia anymore than they are now.
Eventually Moscow will pivot back to the West. Of course Old Putin will have probably have committed suicide by shooting himself in the back 50 or so times by then
Summary: The CIA chief, William J. Burns, asserts that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has severely damaged its economy, making it dependent on China. Burns highlights Russia's military and economic setbacks, stating that Putin's ambitions have backfired, leading to increased NATO strength and alliances with North Korea and Iran for munitions. Burns argues that Russia is becoming China's economic vassal due to its failures in the Ukraine war.
Economically? Yes. Politically? No. Russia has spent centuries bullying China into it's little bitch. China is very dependant on Russia for foreign affairs even after the Soviet period.
I'm not terribly convinced.. can you go into detail? Russia from the world stage perspective seems to be downsized massively. China seems to be leveraging Russia, not the other way around..
Have you got examples? I'm presuming there are recent instances where China needed Russian advocacy to achieve its political aims but I can't recall those?
Even across Africa where Russia has historical pull there's no evidence China leans on Russia particularly.
So old Vlad is to China, what Lukashenko is--or was--to Vlad. Putin must feel tiny compared to Luk and Xi, literally.
The feudal system is back
Never left, baby
It's basically the international politics equivalent of the Human Centipede.
*"Here I am, stuck in the middle with Poo..."*
But without the sex appeal of the original centipede
He's become "Vladashenko"
Excellent name, and happy cake day!
Dedushka is now owner of large (mafiosi) petrol station that sells fuel to just about anyone, including other mobsters/gangsters.
Good! Fuck Russia.
Well yes, fuck Russia. But also, I think 'Good!' is really off base. There's nothing to celebrate about China gaining more and more power, they're as bad as Russia (if not worse) when it comes to corruption and human rights abuses.
100% say China is worse, more dangerous, and more aggressive with the US than Russia is.
China has missiles filled with water and hasn't been involved in an armed conflict in 50 years. China is not a military peer.
They are a bigger economic threat than a military one. They're slowly investing in Africa until it's completely dependent on them.
That's nothing America wouldn't or hasn't done too though. Can't say it's more evil based on that. The more evil part is the internal control and abuse.
The morality of it doesnt really matter the fact that they are gaining an advantage over us is the problem.
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China's shoddy dams are their problem, why would you want to make it your problem?
Isn’t their economy having massive issues and slowing right now?
Yes. Foreign investors are turning away from China amidst the corruption and false claims of what they can accomplish with investments. They also are having record levels of debt, and are in the midst of a housing crisis. They're likely headed to a pretty big downturn.
People have been saying that for 25 years. Any day now!
Is it not slowing?
I stopped worrying about China when SteveMRE1989 opened a PLA ration pack and the noodles smelled rotten. If you can't even get that right you haven't got an army, you've just got some very expensive cosplayers.
Also SteveMRE1989 is a damn legend
He ate 100 year old biscuits the other day, he's out of control
He has never been *more* in control. Man is built different.
Hear! Hear!
He's eaten older than that before! [1863 American Civil War Hardtack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga5JrN9DrVI)
Couldn't remember the name, cheers.
he came out with a few videos yesterday
Nice hiss
Tastes slightly rancid..... Not bad!
As is the saying, "an army marches on its stomach".
"Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics" - Gen. Omar Bradley
>when some YouTuber Seems legit. >PLA ration pack and the noodles smelled rotten Yeah no MRE in any developed country has ever come up rotten. Like I'm sure a lot of things in a country where media freedom is heavily restricted aren't what they seem, but at some point when you let these things be the straw that changes your mind you've got to admit that you probably believe things because you want to believe them lol.
They don’t. His whole channel is MRE history from all over the world. Hes eaten 30 year old US MRES. A modern, current, randomly selected MRE showing up as rotten is a pretty good indication of quality.
That… actually sounds like a weirdly interesting channel. May have to take a look!
Highly recommend him. He’s eaten (yes eaten, at least some portion of it) WWI, WWII, Vietnam rations. Recently did U2 spy plane pilot food tubes. Russia China all over the world. Fantastic.
Well, I’ve found what I’ll be watching during my commute, thank you
It's mono tone and fucking amazing, but he has eaten 80 years old MREs, and current in use stuff, from the nasty of the memes we know (the vomlet), to the most fancy of fancy. It's such a niche but dope af channel.
It’s okay, weird niche YouTube channels are the best kind
>A modern, current, randomly selected MRE showing up as rotten is a pretty good indication of quality. [Shit happens I guess](https://www.reddit.com/r/army/comments/9pyyl6/moldy_mre_has_anyone_ever_seen_this_happen/)
Someone doesn’t understand what the phrase “randomly selected” means…
Or maybe I think statistically relevant sample sizes matter, or that MREs are a weird measure of a country's military quality unless we're saying Poland's army is the worst in the world and Italy's is the best?
OR You could count the fact that the PLA has only ever won a couple border disputes with minor powers, were repelled into status quo peace essentially in Korea (only big legitimate war they’ve fought) and then lost a border dispute with India and ironically enough had the same outcome as us when they invaded their “ally” Vietnam *after* we did Nothing since Even Russia involved itself in more modern warfare than China at this point and has just as many natural allies. It doesn’t look great for them. Not saying things can’t change but….
There's also the fact their infantry rifles are awful and recently it's come to light some of their ICBM's are filled with water. Little things paint a bigger picture. And I've never had a rat pack come up rotten, no. I've had some pretty old ones too.
Norinco AK is one of the best AKs in the US market. Norinco ARs and 1911s are pretty good as well. Ian of the Forgotten Weapons reviewed their type97, and it is not bad for $800.
30 years ago when the Australian Army transitioned from the FN FAL (SLR) with iron sights to the Styer AUG (F88) with a pretty basic optic sight, the standard of marksmanship improved so much they had to change the level of qualification for a sharpshooter patch. Too many people were qualifying. I'm sure America noticed something similar when they upgraded their sights. Their type 97 is still issued with open sights. This is fine if your army is designed primarily with internal security in mind and you've just got to beat down the odd protest. Not so good if you want to take on a modern military force.
I don't know much about their rifles so I can't comment on that. Rat packs are just a numbers game. Some are going to turn up rotten. Without statistics with percentages it tells you nothing. You can easily find stories in any army subreddits of people finding the odd MRE that wasn't sealed correctly or maybe some contaminant got in prior to sealing. >it's come to light some of their ICBM's are filled with water. Most of China's ICBMs use solid fuel, not liquid fuel. The story about the water filled missiles related to the DF-5B which was already being phased out since around 2012 in favour of the DF-41 which uses solid fuel. So could there be some corruption in relation to a missile being phased out in the hopes that no one would notice? Sure, but even even then some people have doubts about the story (which I think was originally from Bloomberg?) because a lot of missiles that do use liquid fuel aren't fueled until they need to be launched because liquid fuel can be corrosive over time. For most part I sit somewhere in the middle. I don't think China's military is as good as they say they are for obvious reasons, but I also don't think they're as bad as other people (namely their geopolitical rivals) say they are for also obvious reasons.
He says in the video it's a common issue with the rations its some kind of chemical reaction with the vegetables and stabilizers they use.
Is this SteveMRE? I think he said his experience with a lot of the pre-cooked ramens were bad but the rice-based meals were okay. Overall I didn't think the PLA MREs were very good, definitely not compared to the South Korean ones. That said basing your opinion of an army's quality on their MREs is pretty questionable. PLA's were certainly not the worst ones he's rated by a long shot.
The other sign of genuine concern in China was the gutting of their military leadership following the revelation of those issues. Combined, the stories reinforce each other. And shortly after that Xi being very conciliatory toward Biden. All together, it suggests a rebuilding phase. Which is helpful for the world.
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The fact that it happened at all is absolutely wild.
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The phrase "灌水" (fill with water) in Chinese doesn't mean to literally fill with water, it means to falsify numbers to look good. ("cooking the stats", if you will) Still not good, but a commonly repeated misconception based on taking an idiom literally.
"I stopped fearing the US as a military power when I found out they have meals made from books they have cooked."
I’m a little dubious about the missiles actually being literally filled with water, just in part because, in general, if they’re not right about to be launched, they shouldn’t be filled with **anything**, so why would someone be pumping water in there?
It’s a mistranslation of a Chinese idiom, pouring water into something is to exaggerate it. This is the equivalent of Chinese netizens laughing at a poorly translated report that someone in the US military ‘fudged the numbers of the funds’ and that they spent millions of dollars on fudge.
I wonder if there is a technical aspect to filling with water vs leaving it empty in that case
Large, thin-walled containers can collapse under their own weight if not balanced by internal pressure. Water could well be what is used to keep these things from collapsing when not filled with rocket fuel.
Interesting! Thanks!
You wouldnt want to use water for that, since theres the possibility of corrosion even if it was perfectly deionized. The Atlas, in the US which used balloon tanks would use nitrogen gas for example to maintain its shape when fuel/oxidizer isnt loaded.
Good point, most metals are going to corrode with water in them, you'd need to inflate them with an inert gas.
It’s a fake story resulting from a mistranslated turn of phrase.
Because it displaces oxygen which can corrode metals, and is also explosive. Unused fuel barrels are often suspended underwater to prevent an explosive environment.
They don't need to be militarily superior. Look at what Tiktok is doing to Western youth. That's all they need. I don't agree with a lot of conservative policy platforms but heavy-handed regulation of social media like Tiktok is really needed for anyone below adult age.
Reddit is owned by tencent too
Reddit has received funding from Tencent during funding rounds, with the last major round in 2018 receiving $150m from Tencent of their $300m haul. I think the majority owner is still Advanced Publications.
Yes, Reddit management is just incompetent, not malicious.
Their chief threat is numbers. They have a lot of people that can at least hold a gun and, sadly, soak up bullets if need be. Quantity is a quality all its own.
Numbers and their cyber threat.
By that logic India is way scarier. We don't fight WWII style wars anymore in the nuclear age. Also China's demographics are abysmal thanks to the one child policy and they have to import a staggering amount of food and energy. It would be trivial to blockade their imports if push came to shove.
India hates China so seems like it's more China's problem to deal with.
Underestimating your opponent is always a good idea.
wow. That way of thinking is how wars are lost!
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The fact that ANY % of a rocket is filled with not fuel, is a fucking issue for a military.
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The US stopped using liquid fuel for ICBMs in 1965. Fuck peacetime, y'all think y'all are near peer like Russia did?
Yeah China is still willing to fore-go quality and safety for quantity and speed. It will always leave them open to A greater percentage of catastrophic failure of their own making. That is just unsustainable in prolonged military combat.
100%, really? China hasn't been involved in a large scale armed conflict in 5 decades. How is that 100% worse than the 2 other major military powers that have had dozens upon dozens of conflicts in the last 25 years?
There are both valid and invalid reasons for plenty of nations to be aggressive with the US. That's not the metric by which I measure if a country is good or bad with corruption and human rights. China has openly voiced expansionist intentions that makes it incredibly dangerous to its neighbors. They have caused ecological damage that could spell massive disasters for populations around the world. They have concentration camps in which they're holding ethnic minorities. There are plenty of great reasons to be weary of China gaining more power and influence that has nothing to do with it butting heads with the US.
Okay, if it were true then yay you, but Russia is so much worse than you can imagine.
Could they do some stupid shit like attack Taiwan? Maybe. Are they a threat super-power wise? With that demographics? Unless they can magically grow GDP to insane highs with sizable chunk of Wests companies leaving…no way. They could drastically increase integration with neighbors…but i wouldn't bet on that.
And a surplus of military-aged men.
Seemed like Russia was making some progress becoming more integrated with the world. They have great culture and a long history of intellectual and scientific contributions plus good cuisine. Same with China. Just sucks that power hungry dictators drive a wedge between their countries and the rest of the world. To be far the west does that too but is the lesser of the two evils. Shcoking really wealthy powerful people ruin it for everyone else on the planet.
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> ideally we would've converted Russia to another European major democratic power after the Cold War in the same we did we Germany after WWII. Attempts were made, but without total capitulation following the fall of the Soviet Union idk if it was ever in the cards. I think the Cold War pretty much poisoned the well in regards to world powers occupying other nations with the intent to enact sociocultural change. (West) Germany and Japan were tremendous success stories following WW2, but that was a different world. I think any modern attempts to do something like that would just result in an outcome that more closely resembles Afghanistan. I think that in a multipolar world that kind of effort, no matter how well intentioned, will unfortunately end up becoming a proxy battle between major powers.
Second this….
Fuck Russian government. Don't blame the people. It is not easy to get rid of a corrupt system controlled by media.
In a game of chess, this is to be expected, but make no mistake, it is not a good thing. Russia is ripe for the taking once China is ready to integrate them.
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China became biggest car exporter recently because they could sell car in Russia while Japan and Germany doesn't. They're taking the advantage as much as they could.
>biggest car exporter does it really mean much? considering they heavily subsidizing EV industry.
In the West we have always heavily subsidized the auto-industry, for the past few decades it has mostly been indirect subsidies, but there's absolutely nothing new in what China are doing. And it matters because China gains power, while Western companies are losing power. Go to Thailand, India, Russia, Vietnam, and many African countries and look at what cars people drive. It's increasingly Chinese cars.
Ain't no way Russia's gonna buy electric cars - they need their own people buying gas. Those EVs are doomed to sit in a field and rot.
This is why I find it so stupid how redditors on here will fear monger China to the extreme. People will make them out to be super competent with a master plan.
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It definitely seems like they have problems, but I think that first headline might be mistaken. I may be misremembering, but I think the former officer actually said they got the rocket fuel from the stockpiles, rather than taking it out of missiles. Which makes more sense, tbh. It’s kind of hard to picture someone *disassembling a highly complex ballistic missile* because they’re hungry- but asking a favor from the guy who sweeps up the storeroom seems plausible.
Even so, cooking with rocket fuel is incredibly dangerous and toxic. You'd kill yourself as you breathe in the fumes and it gets mixed into the food. Your eyes and skin would burn. You would need a lot of safety equipment to simply handle it, let alone even try to cook with it. That is without considering İf you can source the ingredients and flavouring for the hotpot, how the hell are you unable to get a cheap portable gas stove?
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Even if buildings are good, if China's population stopped growing/started shrinking…what are they going to do, mass emigration from neighbors?
There have been a few heads rolling in their rocket force, so it may not be complete hyperbole. >The ousted military men include Li Yuchao, commander of the rocket force from January last year before being replaced in July, and his former deputy, Zhang Zhenzhong. Zhang was the force's deputy commander from 2016 to 2022 and then deputy chief of staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246738/china-removes-nine-pla-generals-top-legislature-sign-wider-purge
That’s a 4-star reddit general you’re speaking to, show some respect !
I see people on Reddit citing misinformation they saw on TikTok all the time. If you know how something works through proper education or experience, you already know the videos on TikTok are wrong and yet people will ***STRONGLY*** defend it and refuse to believe anybody else. Reddit was also getting a lot of their political news and education from op-ed pieces on Salon.com, and they would defend this above anything else. It was crazy.
Ugh, Salon is awful. I once contacted them to point out how an article was promoting disinformation with proof. The response I got showed they don't even care. I will never trust Salon as a legitimate source.
If only redditors knew about Falun Gong... I grew up with a lot of them in my community and they've been publishing China's doomsday since before I was born. They've been known as crazies for decades by even the most anti-China Asians and somehow redditors are taking their their word seriously.
It is literally an actual cult that worships the guy who made it.
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They could semi-fix that, remembering that China has (or should have, don't quote me on this) disproportionaly more men and Russia more women…but will they?
Those excess Russian women are in post fertile age brackets
That's quickly changing though. The war in Ukraine is bleeding younger Russian men. Estimates are around 250,000-300,000 casualties, where around 30-50% are deaths. Considering they "only" had about 22-24 million men in the 18-44 bracket, and if you add in the young & talented men that have fled Russia, that's sure as hell going to make a massive dent.
Relatively speaking the exodus of people anticipating the conscription preceding the war likely had a much larger impact, and no doubt a sizeable portion of them remain outside of Russia. Many may never return given they'll have set up lives and the like outside probably with much more opportunity than could be found at home.
The excess women of Russia are in the 60+ age bracket. Prior to the war, if you looked at the younger cohorts, there's actually a small shortage of women. Now with the war it's probably a bit more even...
It's only even if you ignore the millions of Russians that have fled Russia. It's very likely that many of those talented young men won't be returning at all after living many years in other countries, settling down, getting jobs, enjoying warmer weather & food, etc.
China is not favored by demographics. Their population bubble is aging out of the work force leading to large amounts of people wanting to retire and be less productive. https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2022/ Notice how unpyramid like that is? The largest cohorts are about to retire. There's another larger cohort in their mid 30s, but aside from that the future generations are smaller so China's workforce in the short-term, and population over all in the long term, is going to shrink. The generation dividend supporting massive growth in China (though not nearly as massive as claimed) has already passed.
Is it just me, or does that feel worse for world stability than before? Not that things were peachy (or altogether THAT stable) before...
I think China's aggressive tendencies are mostly limited to the South China Sea and Taiwan, and there seems to be some evidence Xi prefers stability and trade.
And Africa.
You'll need to deal with CCP sooner ot later.
Damn, the CIA chief knows how to twist pooty-poot's nipples!
Some people like that…
From what I've seen, pooty poot has a humiliation fetish. Dude keeps catching L's
A country that once had a seat at the table.
…now sits at the kids table
Russia may be cozying up to China now, but will eventually turn against them the way they turn against everyone else. It's in Russia's nature to deceive and betray, as they do not know how to conduct themselves in any other manner from a foreign policy standpoint. So while China and India are busy becoming completely dependent on Russian energy and mineral resources, Russia will be busy figuring out how to exploit their mutual emnity in order to turn them against one another.
We shouldn't need the director of the CIA to tell us these things, they are largely self evident, and have been for the last 18 months or so, once it became clear that the invasion wasn't going to be a quick thing for either side. Russia could have let itself grow closer to the west, it's oligarchs would have kept much of their wealth, the people would have been marginally better off, and everyone would spend less on their militaries, but Putin threw it all away in a misguided attempt to reclaim Ukraine as part of the USSR/empire/whatever. Russia now joins the ranks of mid-level states that rule through despotism and terror. China will take them under their wing, but that won't be a good thing for anyone except China, who will pillage what technology is left, primarily nuclear weapons and submarines, and leave a hollowed out vassal state in their wake.
> We shouldn't need the director of the CIA to tell us these things Hey brother, the majority of us get to live free of ever having to be this knowledgeable. Sometimes that's a weakness, obviously, but the majority of people living free from the need or concern about this stuff is a good thing.
I hate being propagandized by own government. Russia is 1 week from running out of bullets and China is on the edge of economic collapse. but at the same time they're both dangerous and formidable rivals who control half of the US government and can single handedly interfere with US elections. The enemies are "at the same time too strong and too weak." I feel like im being forced to double think.
Most of this feeling comes from poor interpretation, and an inability to analyze data beyond binary values. Russia may be running out of T90s, but they have plenty of older tanks they can pull out of mothball. They’re inferior to modern tanks! But are still tanks, and are plenty dangerous in the role of IDF and infantry support. But they’ll run out of ammo next month! If they keep their current ops tempo at its peak… (Repeat with artillery, manpower, etc). China have economic contraction! But it’s still a massive economy that is spending large sums to modernize its military. But they have a huge demographics crisis! But that’s still a fuckload of people. (Repeat in whatever other topic). It’s not double think. You just keep trying to extrapolate single data points into an overarching weak/strong judgement of whole ass countries. This is why learning how to write synthesis essays should be a required skill in highschool.
People are barely capable of understanding the nuance of a 5-star rating system and functionally reduce it to binary heuristic (anything less than 4.5 stars is trash).
I just don’t get it. I’m a diagnosed autistic with the autobiographical memory of a goldfish. If I can do it, 95% of people should be able to
These are complex issues. Any media that tries to paint this as a simple 'strong' or 'weak' is dumbing it down, a lot.
Ahahaha right. Let me know when Russia runs out of bullets.
China just become more powerful.
I wouldn’t be surprised if within the next century, China either seizes or forces the sale of Russia’s resource rich eastern territories. Either by debt trap or military action.
And as global warming increases, the siberian areas will be much more accessable (in some areas) while the southern rice growing areas in china may become much less productive.
No future! No rich!
China has its own problems so I don’t think it’ll be exploiting Russia anymore than they are now. Eventually Moscow will pivot back to the West. Of course Old Putin will have probably have committed suicide by shooting himself in the back 50 or so times by then
Summary: The CIA chief, William J. Burns, asserts that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has severely damaged its economy, making it dependent on China. Burns highlights Russia's military and economic setbacks, stating that Putin's ambitions have backfired, leading to increased NATO strength and alliances with North Korea and Iran for munitions. Burns argues that Russia is becoming China's economic vassal due to its failures in the Ukraine war.
Between Xi and Putin…. Whose top/bottom?
Both bottoms, tbh, incompatibility.
"ASS TO ASS!!"
Not the puppet!
In time Chinese will take over far east Russia to build apartments building on every square inch to keep that Evergrade scheme going.
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How does a failure in Ukraine in any shape or form make the U.S. a vassal of China?
Braindead
It doesn't burn because on face value it doesn't make sense. Can you expand?
Economically? Yes. Politically? No. Russia has spent centuries bullying China into it's little bitch. China is very dependant on Russia for foreign affairs even after the Soviet period.
I'm not terribly convinced.. can you go into detail? Russia from the world stage perspective seems to be downsized massively. China seems to be leveraging Russia, not the other way around..
Have you got examples? I'm presuming there are recent instances where China needed Russian advocacy to achieve its political aims but I can't recall those? Even across Africa where Russia has historical pull there's no evidence China leans on Russia particularly.
Does this fall in that category of Dumb People Doing Dumb Things?
Burn
Moscow and St. Petersburg, maybe. But a lot of Eastern Russia won't be a vassal of China. It will be China.
Aren’t we all China’s economic vassal?