Its clear to you, me and Peking that we are finally starting to push back. We ourselves are up to the eyes in debt and we can't afford a conflict and so the window of opportunity for them, is actually quite a narrow one. In five or ten years time we will look much stronger and dependence on china will be reduced and the rate technology is advancing, the CCP have limited time to exploit the tech they're have swiped, before its out of date.China knows that to be a leading power, it really does boil to what’s in the bank account. China has very clearly learned from the demise of the USSR that even hardline communist governments need a viable income to keep going on and that’s been the driving force behind this authoritarian government turning China into a vast economic success.
It doesn’t play by the rules like the rest of the world. It will take a temporary hit wherever it needs to in one part of it’s economic plan to get a toe in the door and start to leverage influence and future economic success in other industries to source badly needed materials etc in those parts of the world where it can do so.
It’s been a great success story so far and it’s going to keep steam rollering on as far as anybody can really tell at the moment.
The irony for the west is that China pretty much couldn’t have done it without them. The monied classes have seen opportunities to make much more money by taking their fortunes abroad largely to China to invest in sweat shops where local workers have been forced by the Chinese government to work for a pittance.
So the basis for China’s huge and growing economic success was originally largely funded by investors from the west looking for more bang for their buck.
China’s playing a very long game and it’s only relatively recently that people have begun to take notice of what that game is.
Hence this new agreement between Australia, the USA and the UK to form this important new alliance.
Taiwan is the strategic prize and I would say the two most likely dates to me in descending order are:-
Nov 2024 - If the GOP win the 2024 election and months before they're take office and just blame it on fear of Trump and use our own media against us.
Nov-Dec 2023 - After the typhoon season and behind a screen of some kind of crash in the global economy.