The first batch of 17 countries (no Americans and 5 blind eyes) will join China’s space station to cover a wide range of research. China’s TianGong is ready for final assembly 首批17個國家(沒有美國人和5眼盲人) 將加入中國空間站, 研究範圍廣泛. 中國天工已準備好進行總裝.
US needs to continue dangling the NATO membership carrot for Ukraine to keep Zelensky interested & engaged, while using Zelensky & Ukraine as a proxy to do what America wants him to do for them .. 美國需要繼續為烏克蘭懸掛北約成員國的胡蘿蔔,以保持澤連斯基的興趣和參與,同時利用澤連斯基和烏克蘭作為代理人來做美國希望他為他們做的事情..
Jake Sullivan, US National Security Advisor “and that the process in Brussels should be taken up at a different time (after Ukraine is in complete ruins like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan..).. 美國國家安全顧問傑克·沙利文表示,“布魯塞爾的進程應該在不同的時間進行(在烏克蘭像伊拉克、利比亞、敘利亞、阿富汗一樣完全淪為廢墟之後)..
Hong Kong as a blessed place. by Johnson Choi (Hawaii, San Francisco, HKSAR & China) Oct 2 2022
自祖父1875 年在香港出生, 我們蔡家體驗香港是一個福地. 香港地理位置優越. 回歸祖國前香港已經辨演重要角色. 回歸後不管香港做出一些不智的行為, 祖國還是把最好的留給香港, 香港有難時像1998金融風暴, 沒有祖國支持香港可能被重創. 今天超過十萬反中人士逃離香港也是正常人和愛國者的好機會. 在國外50歲以下的中國人或香港人應該考慮回歸香港或中國. 除非你願意世世代代在白人的國家做一個二等公民. 年紀較大的有資源的可以考慮為自己祖國做一些事情. 我們不知道二十年後的世界是怎樣. 但我可以確定香港一定不會死, 西方國家已經步入未落, 將來是中國, 亞洲和非洲的世界, 不會改變. Since our grandfather was born in Hong Kong in 1875, our Choi family has experienced Hong Kong is a blessed place. Hong Kong has a superior geographical location. Before returning to the motherland, Hong Kong had already played an important role. When Hong Kong had a difficult time like the 1998 financial crisis. Without the support of the motherland, Hong Kong may be hit hard. Today more than 100,000 anti-China people fleeing Hong Kong are also a good opportunity for normal people and patriots. Chinese people under the age of 50 abroad or Hong Kong People should consider returning to Hong Kong or China. Unless you are willing to be a second-class citizen in an AngloSaxon country for generations. Older people with resources can consider doing something for their motherland. We don’t know what the world will be in twenty years. But I can be sure that Hong Kong will not die, the western countries have already entered the stage of irreversible decline, and the future will be China, Asia and Africa, and it will not change.
“I have a dream” keep dreaming unless you got the right stuff! 600 pieces of artworks auctioned for more than 100 millions dollars in China. “我有一個夢想” 繼續夢想,除非你有人家要的. 600件藝術品在中國拍賣超過1億元
Spectator: Europe’s descent into deindustrialisation. The US has blown up the global economy by blowing up Nordstream. The BRICS will survive. Western dominance may not. 旁觀者:歐洲陷入去工業化. 美國通過炸毀北溪管線炸毀了全球經濟. 金磚國家將倖存下來. 西方的統治可能不會.
The Spectator is the world’s oldest current affairs magazine. It is conservative, pro-Capitalist, pro-US/Atlanticist, anti-EU in its ideology. This article is out of character.
Europe’s descent into deindustrialisation The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline will encourage protectionism
Philip Pilkington
The rapid economic collapse that Britain is facing is simply an accelerated version of what the whole of Europe is about to go through; unsustainable borrowing to fund the gap between high energy prices and what households can actually afford. With the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, there is now no feasible way back. Europe can no longer physically import Russian gas – prices will remain high until Europe builds more energy capacity, which could take years.
What is likely to come of this? High energy prices will render European manufacturing uncompetitive. European manufacturers will be forced to pass through the higher energy costs in the form of higher prices and consumers will find it cheaper to buy products from countries with normal energy prices. The only logical European response to the threat of widespread deindustrialisation is to raise tariffs. This is the only way to equalise prices between more expensive European goods and cheaper foreign goods, therefore artificially supporting European manufacturing. This strategy will lower living standards, depriving Europeans of cheaper goods, but it will at least preserve some manufacturing jobs.
This process looks remarkably like the start of the Great Depression. In the 1920s, due to lopsided financial arrangements initiated in the Treaty of Versailles, western economies accumulated enormous amounts of debt. In 1929, the collapse of the American stock market removed one of the key remaining props and the western economies collapsed. Europe went first and, as trade dried up, America followed it down the hole.
Modern western economies have been accumulating debt for decades. But since the lockdowns in early 2020, this debt accumulation has gone into overdrive. In 2019, Eurozone government debt-to-GDP was 83.8 per cent. In 2020, after the lockdown bailouts were unveiled it shot up to 97.2 per cent. In the same period, Britain’s debt-to-GDP ratio went from 83.8 per cent to 93.9 per cent. These are the largest single increases in history. The run-up in debt during the lockdown was probably unavoidable. But it certainly triggered the beginning of the inflationary pressures we now see everywhere, especially because the lockdowns themselves completely demolished supply chains. So, more money chasing fewer goods. But what has happened since the start of this year is something else entirely.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered an energy price war in Europe that is forcing even higher levels of government borrowing to cover energy costs. Unlike the lockdowns, these energy price increases are putting direct pressure on both prices and the trade balance between countries. Higher energy prices mean that Europe must send more euros and pounds abroad to get energy and so the value of imports rises and these higher import costs are fed through to consumers as businesses try to offset rising energy costs by raising prices. The situation is no longer remotely sustainable. This is almost certainly our 1929 moment.
In the 1930s, Europe fell into an economic black hole. Its economy collapsed and so all the trade that it did with the rest of the world was sucked down the hole with it. Europe then turned in on itself and started raising trade barriers to eke out some semblance of economic normality. This was a classic case of what economists called the ‘fallacy of composition’: what was good for Europe in particular, was bad for the world economy and since Europe was part of the world economy, it turned out to be bad for Europe too. The world slipped into depression.
Could the same thing happen today? The Office of the United States Trade Representative estimates that the United States engaged in over $5.6 trillion of trade – roughly 26 per cent of GDP – in 2019. In the same year, trade with the European Union was estimated at $1.1 trillion – that is approximately 20 per cent of total trade. As European falls into the hole, this trade will fall with it. The American economy, already frail, will likely fall too.
One key difference this time around is that there is a rival economic bloc that could be insulated from these dynamics, the emerging Brics+: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Argentina – with Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia also joining the queue. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Brics countries have been solidifying trade and financial ties and adding new members. It appears that the goal is for these economies to decouple as much as possible from the West. If they are successful in doing that – and it looks like they may be – they may avoid the depression. The Nord Stream sabotage could be the point at which future historians mark the end of western dominance.
Pilkington is a macroeconomist specializing in general equilibrium theory.
This is a good article on why the Chinese economy will not collapse: https://unherd.com/thepost/chinas-economy-isnt-going-to-implode/ The point is that China has beaten its doubters before. Last time we saw the RMBS market collapse in China in 2014-15, the lull did not last long. The reason for this appears to be that China’s real estate sector is largely controlled by the government. Whether through direct government contract issuance or through pressure on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) connected businessmen, the Chinese state appears to be able to dictate the terms of investment.
China also appears to have a debt system immune from widespread default. During the Asian Tigers crisis in the late-1990s, the Chinese government set up so-called Asset Management Companies (AMCs) whose job it is to take bad debt onto their books and, with the help of the money-creating powers of the Chinese central bank, make them disappear. Lately these AMCs have been stuffed full of bad property debt and while there are reports that they are bulging at the seams that are way beyond capacity, there is nothing to stop the government from simply creating more.
The fact of the matter is that the Chinese economy is a hybrid, not a purely market-driven economy. Consumer goods are distributed in the same manner as we see in Western market economies, but the pace of investment and the finance system is controlled by the government. For this reason, indicators that warn of disaster in market economies fail when applied to China’s partially planned economy.
https://unherd.com/thepost/evergrande-will-not-cause-a-2008-style-crisis-in-china/ What about the impact of a burst housing bubble on the Chinese economy? Well, as we have said, the Chinese state controls investment. So, in theory, they can simply invest in something else other than housing — infrastructure perhaps, or military equipment. Those currently building houses can be employed, via state diktat, to build something else. Given that the Chinese government has explicitly stated it wants to tackle the housing problem, it would be surprising if they were not planning for this.