I don't want to put you or anybody on the spot, I don't need personal answers. You summarized your views without explaining why you devote that much energy to this thread. China has been successful and the western world is in trouble, many see that without spending that much energy on reminding everybody of it online. Steady Hands asked jokingly if a girl might be the reason. I don't really care.
I've posted more on the Ukraine and Russia threads than on this one over the last couple of years, but somehow no one is questioning me about "devoting that much energy" there. Part of the reason I do post a lot on this thread is that there is an inordinate amount of low-IQ propaganda with people like LaNegra trying to push low grade slop from hacks like Serpentza about China.
As I've mentioned a few times already, I see China more as a check on the otherwise unlimited power of the ((banksters)) that have been parasiting the West than a threat to crush the West. The plans for the West and humanity of an Alex Karp, Bill Gates or a Sam Altman are far more nefarious than anything the Chinese could come ever out with.
It's pretty clear here that your take is that of a zero sum game to control the world between the West and China, so you are wondering why I am not on board with my team here. I think the Chinese, much like the Russians, basically want to be left alone, while US foreign policy has essentially been to try to kneecap their growth, if not to take them over outright, as was done to Russia in the 1990s or China for over a hundred years after the Opium Wars. It is a policy straight out of the Tonya Harding school of geopolitics.
The reality here is that China is going to be the world's leading economic and industrial power, that is the natural course of events, as they have 4 times as many people as the US, are not dumb and are highly organized and united, led by capable
nationalists. They're very good at industry but not natural global hegemons. Where I differ with IIMT is that countries like China or Russia don't have to be global predators in order to thrive,
and neither do we. That is not just a rational, civilized take, but it is also the right Christian take. Do you really want to side with sellout psychopaths like Lindsay Graham, Nikki Haley or Victoria Nuland here?? No thanks.
Faber is a Swiss economist based in Thailand since the 70s. I've seen a few of his interviews and he always warns to take the Chinese stats with a grain of salt. He wrote a book about the rise of Asia in 2000 maybe, I'm not a religious follower of any financial guru, but I heard him say that many times, I can't search for anything now, it's out there. I haven't heard about the Gaves before, maybe I'll check them out.
Faber has had a series of incredibly lousy predictions. He predicted the US stock market would crash 10 years ago, it tripled in value instead. In the 00s, he predicted Gordon Chang-style that the Chinese economy would crash, it kept growing like gangbusters instead. He's an older macroeconomist who has not lived or worked in China, unlike the Gaves who have lived and worked there as a banker-investor for 30 years.