How China's Military Views the United States

For every category that China is a world leader in (in a positive way, that is), there are several categories that they are a loser in. Forty percent of their citizens get by on less than $2,000 per year. That does not sound First World to me. What good is a world leading HS rail if nearly half the population can't afford to use it? And quantity does not always equal quality. China is the only country to have a HSR train derail at 80' above the ground, resulting in their government attempting to bury the rail cars in situ before anyone could document and report the incident. They don't want to learn from their mistakes. Good P.R. is the most important thing.

 

If there were no threats in the region, there would be no need for bases. Maybe you should ask yourself who the threats are in the region.

 

Wrong again, as usual. For one thing, there is a threat of piracy for shipping going through the Malacca Straits. For another, there is North Korea. But the big threat is China. China has no defensive need for a massive, modernized army, air force, and navy. No one is threatening to invade China. China used to use its army primarily to deal with natural disasters. Now they are preparing to invade Taiwan, a country that's been independent for 80 years, and has not belonged to China in 120 years.

 

Back to reality. The Brits describe the three major flaws of China's military. It is very telling that Chairman Xi refers to a long absence of war as "the peace disease". It's almost as if communist dictators need wars to achieve their objectives. Peace is apparently not a desirable condition in China--it's a disease.

The three major flaws in China’s military

 

I tend to think that the U.S. gets a lot more economic bang for the buck with the best freight rail system in the world. High speed rail would work in the U.S., but only if it started in the northeast corridor and was attached to major airports (either directly, or through dedicated light rail). The only HSR lines in the world that pay for themselves through passenger ticket sales are the Paris-Lyon line, and the Tokyo-Osaka line, both of which have somewhere north of 50,000 people in the destination cities per mile of track between them. New York to D.C. has that many people, including Newark, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The goal of HSR is to reduce air travel more than to reduce auto travel. By integrating the HSR system with the airports (which have the same kind of security that HSR would require, plus access to rental cars, buses and light rail), it would be used more than a standalone travel system.

 

China's debt problem with HSR is about a trillion dollars. It is both a national pride and a national disgrace. A few more projects like this and China's economy would collapse.

China is speeding toward a US$1 trillion black hole - China Factor

 

The good news about the HSR problem, if there is any, is that it is small compared to their housing problem. China builds condominiums (apartments for sale) to last theoretically for 70 years. When someone buys the "house" they do so knowing that they have to give up the property in 70 years so it can be torn down, re-built, and sold to the next person. The problem is that the buildings cannot be properly maintained, so they are usually uninhabitable in less than 50 years. Of course, that's the small problem. The big problem is that Chinese people like to invest money in housing that they never intend to live in. They believe it will appreciate in value, yet the housing suffers from neglect in a few years, and no one wants to move into a ghost city with few if any people. Over 20% of Chinese families own more than one home. Many of the apartments are unfinished because a new owner will insist on customizing the house himself (not doing so is bad feng shui), so making the place look nice to sell it is a costly mistake. U.S. investors own a piece of the stock market, where the long-term value of the stocks generally go up. Chinese investors don't trust their stock market, so they invest in a depreciating asset that is over-built.