CHINA ; THINGS THAT DON'T ADD UP [THREAD]
1/ Even prior to COVID19, China's economy was in serious decline. The timeline for this decline is significant, & may explain some of China's behavior politically, both at home & internationally https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49791721
1/ Even prior to COVID19, China's economy was in serious decline. The timeline for this decline is significant, & may explain some of China's behavior politically, both at home & internationally https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49791721
2/ Xi Jinping became President of PRC in 2012. China's more aggressive stance began with him. The graphs below show 2 key data points since Xi became leader. 1st graph shows China's industrial decline, the 2nd graph shows a 300% increase in military links with Russia since 2012
3/ This is where the data can get confusing. If China is in a manufacturing economic decline, why did China just import a record amount of iron ore, from the world's largest producer, Australia? And they paid a premium price. But all is not what it seems
4/ One of the major indicators are China's "Ghost Cities". Whole cities & buildings are being built with no one living there. To put simply, it is economic activity/growth, absent demand, and funded by ever increasing debt. Xi Jinping is desperate to keep growth going
5/ Xi, and the rest of the Chinese Communist Party, know that China's economic miracle of the last 30 years has been its only legitimacy with the people of China. But that miracle is coming to an end, & Xi knows if China's domestic economy collapses, it will take the CCP with it
6/ It's clearer when we consider the case of Cai Xia. She was a senior CCP member & senior Party Theorist who fled China in the last month, after criticizing Xi. She states that Xi wants tensions with the US to divert China's citizens from the deteriorating economic situation
7/ If that's true, then the case of Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, the supposed dissident & a resident at Mar a Lago, maybe starts to make sense. Guo previously had links to the MSS, & since being in the US has partnered with Steve Bannon. Guo has been stoking China/US tensions
8/ Steve Bannon himself is a chaos agent. So Bannon partnering with Guo becomes even more intriguing when we see Bannon attending a closed door conference hosted by China's state owned CITIC along with Cambridge Analytica's Alexander Nix, in Hong Kong during 2017. Why?
9/ Somebody thought Guo Wengui was suspect, because he was mentioned in a search warrant executed on former RNC finance chair, Elliot Broidy. The whole current narrative around tensions between the US & China needs to be reexamined, as it seems those tensions suit Trump & Xi