Putin would have used a coup rather than an invasion if trump was in the office then.

Okkay, thanks for confirming that this is a pointless conversation. :)

Bye

I think the benchmarks are Japan and South Korea, and their example suggest otherwise. Again, I do think it’s absolutely possible for China to overcome these challenges, but it’s not a given. Truth be told still more likely than the US fixing its fascist problem.

I’m not convinced that shrinking population is at all an issue for a developed country that can replace workers with technology.

OK, so why do other developed countries panic about shrinking and aging populations? Developed countries “solved” this issue by outsourcing low-skilled manual labor to China. But a population tree isn’t only about manufacturing, it’s also about caring for an aging population. Our growth-based economic systems are quite vulnerable to this.

China is already one if the most automated countries in the world and currently running the biggest infrastructure investments ever.

There’s no precedence for infrastructure investments to resolve loss of workers on the scale that China is facing. Infrastructure also needs to be maintained by people. There’s also an unprecedented potential for a real-estate crisis, considering the devaluation of housing if more and more becomes uninhabited.

I think if anyone can handle population reduction it’s probably China.

Sure, they just have to achieve like 2-3 unprecedented things that also come with unprecedented consequences, etc. These responses feel like being dismissive for sake of being dismissive. My point remains: the Western powers (and russia) are dealing with precedented, or at least predicted issues, many accelerated by aging despots. China has been winning putin’s war, so time serves their purposes etc, but their hegemony isn’t guaranteed either.

Yup. and the classic paradox of authoritarian systems is that if you name and train your successor, they’ll sideline (I mean kill/imprison etc) you before your time is over, and if you make sure there’s no clear successor, power vacuum is guaranteed.

CCP will have no trouble of succeeding Xi as it’s a single party system.

The farther term limits are in the past the harder it will be.

The population issue is heavily overblown

I’d say it’s quite the opposite. Based on conversations with people who grew up in the one-child system and considering that one of the key elements of raising quality of life was reduction of births and spending more resources on these fewer kids, that are often traditionally raised by grandparents in their early years while parents are being economically productive. So people would have to compromise their present comfort to some extent to boost births. I’ve not seen a single nation in the world that succeeded in persistently raising births through pronatalist policy.

I’m not saying that this will be China’s end, but realistically they have to either lower quality of life for the populace and/or really switch away from cheap manual labor as their primary model towards more automation etc.

…China basically has to do nothing to win geopolitica these days.

I totally agree with this part.

Generally speaking, autocrats have a shorter-than-average life expectancy. At least as leaders. Trump’s mental and physical decline is very remarkable if you compare him to his 2015 self vs now. He’s slow, he has difficulty holding his attention (see Crimea annex comment this Friday), but the US still has a succession system

China faces two issues nobody ever talks about.

1. Xi Jinping is old so within years, he’ll need a successor…and with authoritarian systems, succession can be bloody.
2. China is facing a demographic collapse they have zero grip on at the moment. They might lose half their population by the end of the century. and their population hit peak in 2021, and just in the next decade they are projected to lose 50M people, (so this isn’t hat far as many people think)

It was hugely ironic that Trump and Vance sat and told Zelensky how things are based on what they’ve watched on TV, cutting off his attempts to correct them and then called him disrespectful.

To me the more surprising thing was that trimp is clueless and classless, but TBH I expected Vance to give us much more sophisticated theater. It was pretty lame and transparent.

I’m certain Dr Birx can recommend him a therapist who specializes in sold souls…

Agree.

Let’s say that there is an honest, clear, standard diplomatic protocol running as you described. Trump’s concurrent activity, specifically mentioned in this interview, sets the tone and not in a positive way.

they are deals between Israel and other countries, without including Palestine. Here the deal would be between the main protagonists Ukraine and Russia.

That’s exactly my point. The present style of negotiations makes the impression like this was a deal between Russia and USA.

If someone ignores all the cues about the discussion’s context (trumpian peace) let it be implied (thread’s topic; my first post), or explicit (“the point I was making” and beside the point of the present discussion), they shouldn’t complain about the discussion’s style either.

The point I was making is that you can’t make lasting peace through flimsy one-sided negotiations, but the trump brand of peacemaking is about quick “results” with single-presidential-term durability that solves very little on the long run, just pushes the problems to the next presidential term (which may be his own this time…).

Your comparison of Hamas and Russia doesn’t only lack nuance but blatantly ignores crucial geopolitical differences in worldwide influence, military might, and general motivations, which are all totally beside the point of the present discussion.

I remain unimpressed by CNN reporters because he has not asked the most important question: What will guarantee Russia’s adherence to any kind of peace deal?

It’s boring to repost it the Nth time but the 1994 Budapest Memorandum was quite clear about these matters:

1. Respect the signatory’s independence and sovereignty in the existing borders
2. Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories…
3. Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest…
4. Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they “should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used”.

Yet, putin kicked nearly every single point in the memorandum the moment he felt ready. Why would the same leader act differently in the future?

It’s eerily similar in my view to the Abraham accords. Trump negotiated bypassing Palestinians and then we got Oct 7 and the war that spiraled from it. These “deals” are as flimsy as a CyberTruck, but it’s also very trumpy. He gets to act like a peacemaker and then his successor will deal with the consequent shit. Same thing happened in Afghanistan.

*edit: also, if someone wants to be “fair” (i’d rather say naive) one can consider the official Russian narrative, but again that narrative explicitly goes against the Budapest Memorandum, meaning, they are very open about not respecting treaties they sign.

Canada NEEDS to replace political-parties with something intelligent, honest, and responsible!

you missed the “/s”

just let it go. deterioration of North American (not US) international relations meets criteria for World News.

yup, trump’s a symptom not a straight up cause. his demise is expected to be the least consequential of this “elite” trio, as he is already getting sidelined without consequence. Old, virile trump would have fired musk a month ago.

yup. but putin was young. trump is old and aging fast so the direct applicability to the US is limited. at this point that’s the only nice thing. putin’s old, trump’s old, xi jinping is old. At least twp of them go out of commission in the next 5 years.