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Trump Could Put Xi In A Bad Spot. But He Won’t
Xi Jinping can outlast the US in a trade war.
That's not to say he wants to. But he could. Because
Speaking of China’s incredibly cheap goods (perhaps made even cheaper by their desperation to sell, considering current events), just made my 3rd purchase on Temu over the last month.
11 shirts
A pair of sunglasses
An electric kettle
A dual port fast charger
All for under $65
I should add that I do not live in the US (fortunately).
Italian shirts I hope
“Do note: The current CCP leadership is the last to be comprised of officials whose formative years overlapped the Cultural Revolution. If you’re 40 in China now, your youth was spent in a far different reality”
Good point, though I’m not convinced about “and one, I should note, which was more open than the current domestic political environment in China.” As in allowing for-profit enterprises to rise and allow others than party officials to become rich?
But your point on the aging of memory is something I’ve wondered about. 20+ years ago I dated a woman from China, now in her 60s. Her family did suffer to some degree during the cultural revolution and she could speak of harvesting freshwater snails to eat. But to her, it was just something that happened.
She was not as obsessed with memories of privation as my parents and others in the US who lived through the 1930s and were seared for life by the daily struggles they faced to survive. Outstanding consumer debt statistics surely indicate that the overarching desire to be thrifty and only spend within in your means has long been forgotten.
So I wonder how much cultural memory there is of what life was like in China in the first half of the 20th century when the country was ruled by regional warlords and then supplanted by Big Eared Du and other triad bosses who facilitated Chiang kai-shek’s rise to power. Are those memories dying out as well?
I think it’s safe to say most Chinese who were teenagers in the mid- to late-1990s aren’t excited about one-man, totalitarian rule. China had a good thing going for a very long time. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Xi’s “ruining it,” but I doubt his Mao impression is something your typical 41-year-old Party member’s especially enamored with.
I mean, here’s this guy who’s saying, quite literally, “I’m gonna run this country until I die, or I decide not to, whichever comes first,” and I haven’t seen or heard much in the way of evidence to suggest the typical retirement age for the rest of the leadership is going to be extended to “never” like his.
So… what’s this going to look like if he lives to, say, 95? China’s going to have this decrepit guy in a Mao suit who, you gotta think by then will be a full-on, cartoon-style dictator (i.e., far more so than he already is), surrounded by leaders who’re, on average, 30 years younger than him. They’ll have to cart him around, and help him walk and all the rest in what’ll by then be a highly-advanced economy. I can’t see that being tenable. They’ll be a laughing stock.
I don’t necessarily see a way out for China, but that eventuality just seems really backward and if you’re 40, you’re looking at your kids and thinking, you know, “Do I really want them to grow up having to worship this guy like he’s some kind of deity?” Because that’s where this is headed.
Who lasts longer – Xi or Trump?
Who’s willing to suffer more economic pain, Americans or the Chinese? (it’s not Americans)