from Hacker News

China is stockpiling – we must do the same

by jseliger on 8/7/24, 4:47 AM with 27 comments

  • by Gathering6678 on 8/7/24, 7:38 AM

    "it is spending about $700 billion"

    Where is the number from? Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates China's military expenditure in 2022 to be $292.0 billion, trailing $877.0 billion of US. (source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_China))

    There are not a lot more numbers (let alone numbers with sources) in the article. China has a lot of EV batteries because it is leading in promoting EV usage. It stockpiles a lot of agricultural products because, well, there are a lot of mouths to feed.

  • by DrScientist on 8/7/24, 11:00 AM

    Places like China and India etc have huge human resources and will inevitably [1] catch up the West in terms of economic power.

    We have two broad choices

    - brutally suppress development in these countries to remain 'top dog' or

    - continue to build those international structures that were founded after the second world war - like the UN, that were designed to stop a repeat of WWII.

    I fear the current approach of unpicking international norms and constraints in order to be able to do more of option 1 is leading us to WWWIII, not protecting us from it.

    [1] If we don't take option 1 above.

  • by yamrzou on 8/7/24, 5:57 AM

  • by maxglute on 8/7/24, 7:56 AM

    US sanctions on PRC limit what PRC can buy now, may be confiscated pending US admin to prevent PRC spending later.

    Meanwhile PRC trade surplus huge -> PRC USD reserves huge -> USD is strong and commodity prices not too whack due to global slow down.

    Why not stock up now? Eventual global recovery could trigger expensive commodity super cycle. Would it be helpful in war, sure. But PRC needs to build up nukes first, going to take a few years for 50% parity.

  • by kkfx on 8/7/24, 8:23 AM

    When climate change people have to change, this means migrations, war for resources etc, ANYONE wise do it's best to be as resilient and resourceful as possible. Accidentally this is the opposite of modern nazi-management paradigm.

  • by snapplebobapple on 8/7/24, 6:56 PM

    This guy misses the point (although he is right we should be stockpiling munitions and a bunch of other strategic things). China has to stockpile because they are net importers of almost all raw resources and a decently long list of countries can field a naval force strong enough to, for example, block the strait of malacca which would hobble them in months, not years. There's no equivalent for America on everything (There are pain points like semiconductors but they are pain points for everyone, not just america. The big ticket items (food and energy) can be handled internally at this point).

  • by OutOfHere on 8/7/24, 8:13 AM

    China is accumulating commodities that will make its currency a dominating one in the global reserve currency space. It's a long term play, and I don't believe it has anything to do with Trump or Taiwan.

  • by McDyver on 8/7/24, 7:47 AM

    This opinion piece is so loaded with fear mongering, divisiveness and subtle suggestions of "faits accomplis", that I can't read it without propaganda alarms sounding everywhere

  • by r0ckarong on 8/7/24, 7:33 AM

    So engage in a resource war and anything else really than putting any effort in stopping Trump. Got it.