China - Geostrategic & Geopolitical.

[Musashi_kenshin]

Russias war has made authoritarian leaders more aware of this corruption. The fact it was identified and openly talked about may mean they have worked to address the issue. China would have been watching the recent failures in Russia and NK and would seemingly be of aware of the possibilities.

Then why do Chinese ministers and generals keep being fired? We're getting to the point where Xi's handpicked "clean" replacements are also guilty of graft.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think these are necessarily mockups. But whether they actually do what they advertise is a different matter.

I think there is ever reason to believe they are real. China's economy is booming.

We've been here before. China almost always hits its growth forecasts. But China's economy is almost certainly overestimated (as well as the number of young people it has), and there's no reason to believe the latest set of official "data" is trustworthy - even Chinese people are sceptical the economy is booming.

This was a propaganda parade. China is normally secretive about its military developments. So I'm going to be sceptical about these new Wunderwaffen, especially at a time where Xi is trying to push a message that China is the future so everyone should get onboard with it now.

 

[StingrayOZ]

Then why do Chinese ministers and generals keep being fired? We're getting to the point where Xi's handpicked "clean" replacements are also guilty of graft.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think these are necessarily mockups. But whether they actually do what they advertise is a different matter.

I don't think those in the west should always underestimate the opposition. There is plenty of corruption and inefficiencies on our side of the fence. China is throwing significant resources behind these programs, and China has shown that they aren't stuck in some sort of 70s 80s soviet russia levels of inefficiency or corruption. I'm not saying it's a complete honest perfect meritocracy, but clearly China, can do things and are working day and night to do so. Even if official numbers are dodgy, and unreliable, they are still genuinely big and growing, 3rd party numbers support that. The growth is slowing, that is is a huge issue, and the workforce is aging, another huge issue. Hence the collapsing housing schemes and now imploding birth rate.

Russia I am less sure of. How many new pieces of effective military equipment projects have they had in recent years? Few. They seemingly are most effective is refurbishing old soviet gear in old soviet factories, but under capitalist management practices. Its changing, but changing slowly. Russia is facing less of a demographic issue.

This was a propaganda parade. China is normally secretive about its military developments. So I'm going to be sceptical about these new Wunderwaffen, especially at a time where Xi is trying to push a message that China is the future so everyone should get onboard with it now

China got a pretty big turnout. Plenty of countries were happy to go along with this. The weapons themselves, are not particularly important. China has real conventional weapons, in large numbers. No one is signing up to China's world view because China has the hypersonics or new drones. They are signing up because China has huge economic influence. It also has hard power, and soft power, and technologies. To non-aligned states, China is legitimate 2nd source and possibly, probably biggest economic partner. In a world where the US is becoming more erratic and inwards looking, it may be the only way they can get US attention, is talking to China.

 

[Musashi_kenshin]

I don't think those in the west should always underestimate the opposition.

No one has suggested that.

The point of these parades isn't to scare other countries into spending more on defence, it's to scare them into thinking that China, Russia, etc have already won the next war, so we should do what they want.

For every person that thinks "hmm, China's a bit scary - we'd better be ready to tangle with them" there is a real possibility that two or three might think "hmm, China's a bit scary - we'd better be nice to them, because we can't beat them".

I'm thinking back to "experts" breathlessly talking about China's "stealth" missile boats, which were labelled "carrier-killers", so making it impossible for the US to intervene in a war in the Pacific. It happens every time China unveils a new weapon. "We can't beat China, we should accommodate them."

There is plenty of corruption and inefficiencies on our side of the fence.

When was the last time a British defence official was fired because they'd spent a budget for fuel procurement on a new house or mistress? Again, no one is saying everything is perfect in our part of the world. But if Xi says he wants a new weapon ready for his big parade, you can bet it's going to be there even if it's a pre-demonstrator model that won't even turn on half the time.

China got a pretty big turnout. Plenty of countries were happy to go along with this.

It was a diplomatic event, so of course people were going to turn up. But I'm not sure the list is very impressive. Lots of former leaders and leaders from minor countries. Noteworthy that no leaders of Central or South American countries turned up (ignoring Cuba, which is in the Caribbean).