China’s feet of clay and sword of gold

Although China is a formidable geopolitical rival it is not ten feet tall. It’s birthrate continues to fall to record levels despite the Party’s reversal of the One Child policy. Compared to the Quad alliance …

Chinese birth rate falls to lowest in seven decades

At the same time, China’s population hit 1.4 billion in 2019 – but the gender imbalance remains.

made up of the USA, Japan, India and Australia, China has:

1. half the GDP (15 vs 30 trillion $);
2. 77% of the population (1.44 vs 1.86 billion)
3. 46% (3.7 vs 8 million sq miles)

Given this disparity in raw power potential even an aggressive Communist party is unlikely to expand by anything other than an asymmetric strategy.

One such strategy is to buy off foreign politicians.

U.K. Takes Aim at Alleged Chinese Espionage

London has over the last 12 months quietly expelled three suspected Chinese spies who posed as journalists, according to a U.K. official, the latest sign of deteriorating relations between the two countries.

Wariness in Western countries about Chinese influence is growing beyond economics like trade imbalances and intellectual property protections. Increasingly, Western policy makers, including in the U.S., view China’s links to media, telecommunications and education as threatening to national security.

British officials say they have had to adjust in recent years to what they call a severe and growing espionage threat from China, which has long targeted commercial secrets but is increasingly seeking government information. They haven’t depicted the activity as aggressive as Russian espionage, which has been a British focus spanning decades.

It would be reassuring to believe that politicians, as a class, were incorruptible. But there is some doubt about that.