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Sanctions will not deter China from taking Taiwan

June 14, 2022

China is not Russia and Taiwan is not Ukraine but it is a foregone conclusion that China will take over Taiwan before too long.

It is only a matter of when. Chinese honour is already hurt by the fact that Taiwan has lasted for 110 years. Almost certainly by 2030. There is a small probability that it could happen in 2024. The two key questions are

  1. whether Chinese military superiority is sufficient to prevail in a conflict lasting less than 12 months, and
  2. whether the US will have the stomach to get involved militarily.

The likelihood of any other countries entering the fray is already very low and is zero if the US does no more than levy “stringent” sanctions which half the world will ignore. As a military presence the EU is of no significance. The most the EU can do is provide support (in material resources) for the US. 

The first question is probably what engages Chinese strategists the most. Taiwan’s military strength cannot be underestimated and judging the superiority of Chinese military capabilities for a mainly sea borne operation is quite chancy. The rapid neutralisation of the Taiwanese air force will be a critical requirement. In any event, the Chinese capability for accepting and absorbing losses is very much greater than Taiwan’s. However, even in a campaign of attrition the Chinese will probably be looking for the take-over to be completed within 12 months. It is known that this take-over is one of the strategic goals for equipment procurement and the current expansion of the Chinese military. Their provocative sea exercises are nearly all geared to testing the responses of potential opponents and training for Invasion Day.

The second critical question, whether the US will act or just rely on sanctions, will also be exercising the Chinese strategists. They will be studying the US rhetoric and its lack of response in the Russia/Ukraine story very closely. The Chinese probably believe that Invasion Day will occur only when a Democratic President is in the White House and during the second half of a Presidential term. The chances of the US making a lot of noise but doing little else is then very high. China is even less susceptible to US sanctions than Russia (and half the world is even now ignoring the US sanctions against Russia). The Chinese will also be looking for a period which is relatively quiet in US domestic politics to make their move. Turbulent politics at home could even lead to a reckless Democratic President. Action abroad may be seen by a weak President as a way of currying domestic favour.  

There is a small probability that the Chinese assessment of the current US administration’s fear of risks and their paralysis of action, is that timing is unlikely to be better (from their point of view) in the next decade. That creates the possibility – though small – that 2024 as the last year of the Biden administration is seen as a window of opportunity.

 

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Chinese population could crash to half by 2100

December 13, 2021

I wonder how long it will take for the politically correct to acknowledge that it is population decline that is the  challenge and not population explosion. It was only about 10 -15 years ago that I realised that my perceptions of the existential threat posed by population explosion were largely the result of brain-washing by the politically correct. 

https://ktwop.com/tag/population-implosion/

But I note that the reality of population decline is beginning to enter mainstream journalism. The Lancet now recognises that there is a risk that Chinese population could halve by 2100.

https://www.thelancet.com/infographics/population-forecast

Population increase will still be an issue in Africa for the next 100 years but it will decline even there. But there is little doubt that the colour of the world population is changing irreversibly.

The changing colours of the world’s population

The success of a species is ultimately dependent upon survival of populations. For the human species, population implosion is more of an existential threat than population explosion ever was.

 

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The man-made Chinese virus – more a cover-up than any conspiracy theory

May 31, 2021

My post from a month ago was not so fanciful after all:

Covid 19 : A Chinese biological weapons test gone wrong?

  • Just a naturally occurring mutation of a coronavirus? Unlikely.
  • An accidental virus crossover to humans from a Chinese wet market? Perhaps.
  • An accidental escape of the virus from a Wuhan laboratory? Possible. 
  • Were Chinese scientists considering the coronavirus as a biological weapon? Certainly. 
  • An accidental escape from a Chinese biological weapons program? Possible. 
  • An intentional release of the virus as a biological weapons test? Unlikely
  • Just another conspiracy theory? Hardly.

There have been a number of reports recently which make it even more likely that the pandemic was caused by the accidental escape of a man-made virus from a Wuhan laboratory which did have a section devoted to work for the military. The first is admittedly from the Daily Mail but is about a paper by reputable authors in a reputable – if not well known – scientific journal. Cambridge University Press – Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery. (The scientists have apparently had great difficulty in getting the attention of more well known Journals where a few influential establishment scientists have been reluctant to rock the boat).

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is qrb-discovery.jpg

COVID-19 ‘has NO credible natural ancestor’

  • DailyMail.com exclusively obtained the new 22-page paper authored by British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen set to be published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery
  • The study showed there’s evidence to suggest Chinese scientists created the virus while working on a Gain of Function project in a Wuhan lab 
  • Gain of Function research, which was temporarily outlawed in the US, involves altering naturally-occurring viruses to make them more infectious in order to study their potential effects on humans 
  • According to the paper, Chinese scientists took a natural coronavirus ‘backbone’ found in Chinese cave bats and spliced onto it a new ‘spike’, turning it into the deadly and highly transmissible COVID-19
  • The researchers, who concluded that COVID-19 ‘has no credible natural ancestor’, also believe scientists reverse-engineered versions of the virus to cover up their tracks
  • ‘We think that there have been retro-engineered viruses created,’ Dalgleish told DailyMail.com. ‘They’ve changed the virus, then tried to make out it was in a sequence years ago.’
  • The study also points to ‘deliberate destruction, concealment or contamination of data’ in Chinese labs and notes that ‘scientists who wished to share their findings haven’t been able to do so or have disappeared’ 

This perhaps explains how the first Chinese vaccine was available so quickly.

Other reports include:

WSJ: Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin

Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory. 

Intelligence reports from the US and the UK report that a section of the Wuhan lab was answerable to the Chinese military but the Chinese have not been forthcoming about what activities this section was involved in.

Fox: Pompeo says Wuhan lab was engaged in military activity alongside civilian research

NBC News: Biden asks intelligence agencies to ‘redouble’ efforts to determine coronavirus origins

There may be a UK variant and a S African variant and an Indian variant but the virus is Chinese. This is looking more and more like a cover-up by the Chinese rather than any conspiracy theory.

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Covid 19 : A Chinese biological weapons test gone wrong?

May 9, 2021

Just a naturally occurring mutation of a coronavirus? Unlikely.

An accidental virus crossover to humans from a Chinese wet market? Perhaps.

An accidental escape of the virus from a Wuhan laboratory? Possible.

Were Chinese scientists considering the coronavirus as a biological weapon? Certainly.

An accidental escape from a Chinese biological weapons program? Possible.

An intentional release of the virus as a biological weapons test? Unlikely

Just another conspiracy theory? Hardly.

Chinese Scientists Discussed Weaponising Coronavirus In 2015

A Chinese scientific paper titled “The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons” suggested that World War Three would be fought with biological weapons.

Beijing: A document written by Chinese scientists and health officials before the pandemic in 2015 states that SARS coronaviruses were a “new era of genetic weapons” that could be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus, then weaponised and unleashed, reported Weekend Australian.
The paper titled The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons suggested that World War Three would be fought with biological weapons. The document revealed that Chinese military scientists were discussing the weaponisation of SARS coronaviruses five years before the COVID-19 pandemic. The report by Weekend Australian was published in news.com.au.

Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), told news.com.au that the document is as close to a “smoking gun” as we’ve got. “I think this is significant because it clearly shows that Chinese scientists were thinking about military application for different strains of the coronavirus and thinking about how it could be deployed,” Jennings said. “It begins to firm up the possibility that what we have here is the accidental release of a pathogen for military use,” Jennings added.

He also said that the document may explain why China has been so reluctant for outside investigations into the origins of COVID-19.

…….. 

This is not a new theory.  By the criteria used for determining what makes a good biological weapon, Covid- 19 is not the best possible.

Forbes:

……. Overall, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has some “desirable” properties as a bioweapon, but probably not enough to make it a good choice for military purposes. Regardless, it has certainly reminded us of our vulnerabilities as a society to a new pathogen, and how crippling a pandemic can be, as we continue to watch the entire world grappling with how to contain it.  ………

Will China ever be held accountable? Hardly.

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All the Chinese viruses from the Spanish flu to the Wuhan coronavirus

July 10, 2020

This is the Wuhan virus and it did come from China. 

Trying to be politically correct is more misleading and probably the cause of more disinformation and self-delusion than any other. Political correctness applied to the scientific process is particularly destructive and gives us the burgeoning levels of fake science. Results are determined before the investigations have begun. For the WHO it is servility to Chinese interests which has prevented the Wuhan coronavirus from being named the Wuhan virus.

It now seems highly probable that even the Spanish flu of 1918 originated from China.

National Geographic:

 The deadly “Spanish flu” claimed more lives than World War I, which ended the same year the pandemic struck. Now, new research is placing the flu’s emergence in a forgotten episode of World War I: the shipment of Chinese laborers across Canada in sealed train cars.

Historian Mark Humphries of Canada’s Memorial University of Newfoundland says that newly unearthed records confirm that one of the side stories of the war—the mobilization of 96,000 Chinese laborers to work behind the British and French lines on World War I’s Western Front—may have been the source of the pandemic. …..

…. The 1918 flu pandemic struck in three waves across the globe, starting in the spring of that year, and is tied to a strain of H1N1 influenza ancestral to ones still virulent today.

There is little doubt that the current pandemic originated from Wuhan though, every so often, some journalist or “scientist” who is part of the China lobby will cast doubt on that. 

RealClearScience:

The Asian Flu in 1956 killed between one and four million people worldwide. SARS in 2002 infected 8,098 and killed 774 in seventeen counties. H7N9 emerged ten years later to strike at least 1,223 people and kill four out of every ten of them. Now, the milder, yet more infectious COVID-19 has sickened more than 70,000 across the globe, resulting in 1,771 deaths.
All of these outbreaks originated in China, but why? Why is China such a hotspot for novel diseases?

“It’s not a big mystery why this is happening… lots of concentrated population, with intimate contact with lots of species of animals that are potential reservoirs, and they don’t have great hygiene required. It’s a recipe for spitting out these kinds of viruses,” Dr. Steven Novella recently opined on an episode of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe.

South Central China is a noted “mixing vessel” for viruses, Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance, told PBS in 2016. There’s lots of livestock farming, particularly poultry and pigs, with limited sanitation and lax oversight. Farmers often bring their livestock to “wet markets” where they can come into contact with all sorts of exotic animals. The various birds, mammals, and reptiles host viruses that can jump species and rapidly mutate, even potentially infecting humans. Experts are pretty sure this is precisely what happened with the current COVID-19 coronavirus, which is why, on January 30th, China issued a temporary ban on the trade of wild animals. ………

….. China is also notorious for its misinformation, secrecy, and censorship, which raises the chances that new diseases will fester and spread. Back in early January, Chinese government officials told the public that the new infection’s spread had been effectively halted. This was not true. At the same time, the authoritarian regime bullied health experts who attempted to sound alarm. The young doctor Li Wenliang attempted to warn others about the new coronavirus. He was ‘rewarded’ with a threatening reprimand by police. Li subsequently caught COVID-19 and succumbed to the disease the first week of February.

It may be called the Covid-19 virus but it is the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic

 

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China WHO?

March 26, 2020

Maybe not politically correct to give the virus a nationality, ….

…… but China, aided and abetted by the WHO, certainly suppressed information which could have slowed its progress.

(original image from Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten)

 

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100 days and 4,000 deaths later in China ….

March 19, 2020

It is yet to be confirmed if this is just a quirk of numbers or whether the outbreak of coronavirus has truly been brought under control. Even if it has, China has used brutal and draconian measures to control the infection.

The question is whether Europe and the US are being smarter?

From the New York Times:

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) in its daily report said that no new domestically transmitted cases of the novel coronavirus disease were reported on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday. However, a total of 34 new COVID-19 cases were reported on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday, all of which were from those arriving from abroad, marking a sharp increase, it said. 

Of the 34 newly imported cases, 21 were reported in Beijing, nine in Guangdong Province, two in Shanghai, one in Heilongjiang Province and one in Zhejiang Province, the NHC said.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 80,928 by the end of Wednesday. This included 3,245 people who died of the disease 7,263 patients and 70,420 patients discharged after recovery.

The NHC said the number of imported cases in China rose to 189 with 34 confirmed cases from the people arriving from abroad.

China has reported a total of 80,928 confirmed cases of the COVID-19, of which 3,245 have died and 70,420 patients were discharged after treatment.

 

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By responding to Trump, China blunders and ensures that “One China” is on the table

January 16, 2017

In the business world one of the first lessons we used to pound into our deal-makers (salesmen, contract negotiators, purchasers, …. ) was that it was “silence” that defined what was really “non-negotiable”. Bringing up such matters or even responding to any mention about what was “non-negotiable” was self-defeating and, in itself, put that matter on the table. Merely saying that something was “non-negotiable” was, in itself, sufficient for the opposing party to always try to keep it on the agenda.

Trump is bringing a business, deal-making approach to politics which even veteran diplomats are finding uncomfortable and incomprehensible. China’s Foreign Ministry has just declared that “One China” is “non negotiable”. That is a massive blunder by their conventional diplomats and bureaucrats. They have just ensured that in any future US/China talks, “One China” will always be present, even if only in pre-talk talks where China tries to keep it off the agenda.

By responding to Trump’s acceptance of a phone call from Taiwan’s president after his victory and a few tweets which followed his attacks on China’s economic “cheating” during the campaign, China has effectively just put “One China” on the table.

The Guardian: 

China has warned Donald Trump that he has no chance of striking a deal with Beijing involving Taiwan’s political status following the US president-elect’s latest controversial intervention on the subject.

The Chinese foreign ministry told Trump that the US’s longstanding “One China” policy, by which it does not challenge Beijing’s claim over the self-ruled island, was the political basis for all Sino-US relations.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Saturday Trump said all options were on the table as he considered how he might reshape Washington’s relations with China, a country he accused of deliberately devaluing its currency in order to hamstring US businesses.

“Everything is under negotiation, including ‘One China’,” Trump said, referring to the US’s longstanding diplomatic decision not to challenge Beijing’s claim that Taiwan, an independently and democratically-ruled island, is part of its territory.

China’s foreign ministry hit back in a statement advising Trump, a billionaire property tycoon who has claimed “deals are my art form”, that he would never be able to achieve such a deal.

“There is only one China in the world, Taiwan is an inalienable region of China, and the government of the People’s Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing China,” spokesperson Lu Kang was quoted as saying.

“The ‘One China’ principle, which is the political foundation of the China-US relations, is non-negotiable.”

If this was a chess game, Trump’s tweets are giving him the first move with the white pieces. In chess parlance he has the “tempo”. So far, the Chinese – who are more conservative than is sometimes thought – have not quite caught onto the game that is being played. It is negotiation by tweets. They may well get the US to continue to accept “One China”. But it is going to cost them something else.

Trump has not even entered office and negotiations have started.

 

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A flying boat or a swimming aircraft? China rolls out the AG600

July 25, 2016

China unveils AG600 – Peoples Daily

AVIC TA-600, Flying boat
The AVIC TA-600, also known as AG-600, is a large amphibious flying boat that is being designed and built in China by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.  
Top speed: 570 km/h, Wingspan: 40 m, Length: 40 m Maximum take-off weight 51.5 t.
Manufacturer: Aviation Industry Corporation of China Wikipedia
AG600 - AVIC
China has just rolled out the world’s largest amphibious plane, AVIC’s TA600 designated the AG600.  The AG600 is intended
to fight forest fires and be used for maritime search and rescue (SAR) operations. Being able to land on water means that they can quickly pump in tons of water to fight forest fires. For SAR purposes, the ability of large seaplanes like the TA-600 to land directly near survivors means more rapid rescue responses compared to slower helicopters, which will be attractive to Chinese maritime enforcement agencies. Perhaps most important to current regional tensions, the TA-600 may also offer a new scale and means to rapidly deploy or resupply any current or new remote island garrisons in the South China Sea. A number of islets and reefs are too small to have runways to accommodate conventional transport planes like the Y-8, but sited so as to have strategic value.
It is not as large as the eight-engined Howard Hughes H-4 “Spruce Goose”, the largest seaplane ever built, which weighed 180 tons in full and had a wingspan of 97 meters. But the Spruce Goose only flew a short distance on its maiden flight in 1947 and never lifted again.
But more to the point, the AG 600 can carry 50 passengers whether people being rescued, or troops on the move to a South China Sea island. Certainly the AG600 adds significant strategic capability to the Chinese claims in the South China Sea.

Nov. 2, 1947: The Hughes Aircraft H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" during short flight in the Long Beach-Los Angeles Harbor. This photo was published in the Nov. 3, 1947 LA Times.

Nov. 2, 1947: The Hughes Aircraft H-4 Hercules “Spruce Goose” during short flight in the Long Beach-Los Angeles Harbor. This photo was published in the Nov. 3, 1947 LA Times.

 

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The Paris Agreement sanctions a dash for coal

February 25, 2016

Now that the Paris Climate Agreement is out of the way (having actually achieved nothing while seeming to have solved everything), sensible countries that wish to implement their plans to utilise coal can do so without being castigated for it (since Paris has now solved everything). The non-sensible and sanctimonious countries – and Sweden leads all the rest – can refrain from using coal and other fossil fuels to their own self-inflicted disadvantage.

The real winners from the Paris Agreement are, of course, India and China. By using carbon emissions per unit of GDP as the measure, India has ensured that it can treble its coal consumption by 2030 (while GDP increases by a factor of 4) and still show a 30% decrease in emissions/GDP. Similarly China can double its coal consumption by 2030 while GDP increases by a factor of 2.65 and still show a 20% reduction in carbon emissions (based on my calculation from the Indian and Chinese INDC submissions for the Paris conference).

The 2012 global coal consumption (IEA report) was about 8.186 billion short tons of which China consumed 3.887 billion short tons and India consumed 0.745 billion short tons. By 2030, India alone would consume 2.235 billion short tons and still meet their Paris obligations. Similarly China would consume about 7.774 billion short tons and still meet their Paris promises. Effectively the Paris Climate Agreement sanctions that coal consumption in India and China alone will be about 10 billion short tons and exceed today’s global consumption. The global coal consumption in 2030 will then be above 14 billion short tons which is about 70% higher than the 2012 global consumption.

And now Reuters informs us that

A decision by Japan’s environment ministry to abandon its opposition to building new coal-fired power stations casts doubt on the industry’s ability to meet targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions, experts and environmental activists said …..

As Japan gets ready to open up its power retail market in April, companies are rushing to build 43 coal-fired plants or 20.5 gigawatt of capacity in coming years, about a 50 percent increase. ……. Coal is attractive because it is the cheapest fossil fuel source and prices have slumped in recent years. Japan has turned to the energy source in record amounts since the Fukushima disaster in 2011 led to the shutdown of reactors.

A group of 36 power companies, which supply 99 percent of the country’s electricity, have also formed a new body to take measures to trim emissions and meet the industry’s voluntary goal to cut emissions by 35 percent in 2030, compared with 2013.

The Paris Agreement has ensured that all those who wish to use coal can continue to do so.

 

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