There goes Siberia?

 Strategy page has an analysis on China's position on the Ukraine Russian war, and it points out that Russia's military didn't fight as well as expected. Read the whole thing.

But this is the interesting part for those of us in Asia: that Russian military weakness encourages and speeds up China's long term plans to take over Siberia (which is being populated with Chinese and Chinese businesses) and also the influence over the stans that used to belong to Russia but before then were on the silk road.

so what happens when someone asks locals in Siberia if they want to become independent? 

But the economic push back against Russia also warned China of what might happen to them if they invaded Taiwan or expanded their aggression in the West Philippine sea.

the Ukraine debacle and Chinese association with it also weakens Chinese efforts to deal with increasing foreign efforts to make China behave in its dealings with trade partners and curb the Chinese theft of foreign trade secrets and IP (patented Intellectual property).

The United States took the lead in this area back in 2018 with an unprecedented trade war that cost China over half a trillion dollars and forced compliance. This encouraged other victims of the predatory Chinese trade practices.

as Bill Clinton once said: It's the economy stupid.

as the essay discusses, China considers trading partners as "client states", and although actual invasion is rare, the immigrants from China, seeking economic opportunities, has been going on for  hundreds of years.

China is trying to use these immigrants as a way to promote their power in todays world, but as Singapore suggests, it might not work in all areas. (in the Philippines, traditional laws that stop foreigners from owning businessese resulted in intermarriage, hence most of the oligarchy that runs the country are partially Chinese ancestry).

Today, China's diaspora tends to run the economies on SEAsia, (and in more recent years maybe parts of Africa and the silk road states) They send in cheap goods that undermine local industries, they send in developmental projects, and when the poor countries can't pay them back, they steal resources. And often their projects which were seen as providing local jobs were actually staffed by Chinese personnel. (example; the casinos here in the Philippines). 

This is going on in a lot of places that are peaceful thanks to the Pax Americana: so what happens as "big brother" America says it's your problem? Hence all the "wolf warrior"propaganda films coming out of China in recent years...

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and at the end of the article they discuss the covid coverups: Chinese attempt to blame others for the epidemic is not believed, and that some suspect up to two million in China died of Covid...