Meanwhile in China

[Brisketexan 105066]

Oh actually in California 
 
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/officials-believe-fresno-warehouse-was-site-illegal-laboratory-rcna96756

Unlicensed lab. Your mom. Whatever.

[Parliament 14243]

Great.  Now my red pill neighbors are gonna flake out some more.

[Schulz2.0 28951]

 

 

[Texzilla58 4731]

This is great news for Italy. All they got out of it was getting hammered by Covid from all the Chinese leather workers this sent there.

[Schulz2.0 28951]

 

 

[atomheartbevo 89628]

On 7/30/2023 at 11:21 AM, Parliament said:

Great.  Now my red pill neighbors are gonna flake out some more.

I encourage this shit with those types of people I know, but yeah, this sounds like some bargain basement Theranos operation trying to make cheap testing kits, because there was a lot of money to be made off of it.

[Schulz2.0 28951]

 

[Bevo 3000 10]

Kyle Bass is a big China hawk. He makes a compelling case here that they’re loading up to move. 12-18 month is his prediction. 
 

 

[atomheartbevo 89628]

1 hour ago, Bevo 3000 said:

Kyle Bass is a big China hawk. He makes a compelling case here that they’re loading up to move. 12-18 month is his prediction. 

How many handles is this now?

Also, what’s China going to do in 12-18 months?  Build amphibious landing ships and troop transports to replace the big fucking civilian cruise ships whose radar signatures can be picked up the moment they leave port a hundred miles away from Taiwan?  Are they going to build amphibious combat landing experience that they’ve never had?  Are they going to make stealth cargo planes to airdrop tens of thousands of soldiers?

[Bevo 3000 10]

20 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

How many handles is this now?

Also, what’s China going to do in 12-18 months?  Build amphibious landing ships and troop transports to replace the big fucking civilian cruise ships whose radar signatures can be picked up the moment they leave port a hundred miles away from Taiwan?  Are they going to build amphibious combat landing experience that they’ve never had?  Are they going to make stealth cargo planes to airdrop tens of thousands of soldiers?

What are you talking about?

Watch the video, or not. He lays out the different levels of war gaming and prepping of their economy that already they’ve done. Even specifies one more military exercise they still have to complete to be ready. 
 

He also says he’s seen the big plan we have if/when they move and that he hopes we stick to it.
 

We’re breaking Russia despite dragging our feet the whole way. If we act more definitively with China when this happens then we can stay one step ahead and shorten any conflict. He’s just sounding the alarm. 

[atomheartbevo 89628]

2 hours ago, Bevo 3000 said:

and prepping of their economy that already they’ve done.

You and I have been through this multiple times.

How do you prep an economy for up to %40 or more of your exports disappearing overnight as most of the top 10-15 trading partners implement sanctions against China, including the top 3 trading partners, who alone account for around 25% of your exports? And that's before we get into Western companies having to pull out and putting 100s of millions of Chinese out of work.  We've already seen what a pandemic can do, and what a single fucking boat stuck over by Egypt can do. 

Because if China has figured out how to completely lose a massive chunk of their export economy, then they shouldn't have had problems with a pandemic or a single ship getting stuck and jamming up a massive canal.

2 hours ago, Bevo 3000 said:

Even specifies one more military exercise they still have to complete to be ready. 

They can do one more military exercise, but unless they've magically replaced their fucking cruise liners with something that has a smaller radar signature and is much more survivable and is fast, and unless they've magically figured out how to get cargo aircraft safely to Taiwan proper to get airborne troops landing, it won't matter.  

Because as has been said many times in this thread,  at the end of the day, China still has to cross 100 miles of open and contested water to get to Taiwan. China doesn't get to drive 10 feet over a line on a road and declare that they've invaded Taiwan. 

And China has some of the same leadership problems with their military that Russia has - at the end of the day, Chinese NCOs and junior officers are going to be radioing back to their higher ups for instructions when their plan doesn't work or when they encounter something they were unprepared for, except it will be far worse because they won't have a physical land link where they can send runners if their comms are down or jammed, they'll have a 100 fucking miles of open and contested water. That means those NCOs and junior officers will fucking freeze up, because the Chinese, much like the Russians, don't encourage their junior officers and NCOs to operate independently the way Western officers and NCOs are expected to act. 

[atomheartbevo 89628]

Hell, Russia in theory had a much easier means of amphibiously assaulting Odessa back in February of 2022 (the Black Sea was not heavily contested in February of 2022), and they had the ships and the men (and decades of training and doctrine), and yet they didn't do it and aren't doing it, and the most they did was take a little fucking island of a few square miles that they couldn't even hold.

And Taiwan could put up a helluva lot more of a fight  than Ukraine could with Odessa, since Taiwan was far better prepared/equipped than Ukraine was in late 2021/early 2022.

Every time that Ukraine hits a Russian ship with a USV or whatever, makes the Chinese planners cringe, because you know that Taiwan can easily match Ukraine for that stuff.

[Parliament 14243]

16 hours ago, Bevo 3000 said:

Kyle Bass is a big China hawk. He makes a compelling case here that they’re loading up to move. 12-18 month is his prediction. 
 

 

 

14 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

How many handles is this now?

Also, what’s China going to do in 12-18 months?  Build amphibious landing ships and troop transports to replace the big fucking civilian cruise ships whose radar signatures can be picked up the moment they leave port a hundred miles away from Taiwan?  Are they going to build amphibious combat landing experience that they’ve never had?  Are they going to make stealth cargo planes to airdrop tens of thousands of soldiers?

 

11 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

You and I have been through this multiple times.

How do you prep an economy for up to %40 or more of your exports disappearing overnight as most of the top 10-15 trading partners implement sanctions against China, including the top 3 trading partners, who alone account for around 25% of your exports? And that's before we get into Western companies having to pull out and putting 100s of millions of Chinese out of work.  We've already seen what a pandemic can do, and what a single fucking boat stuck over by Egypt can do. 

Because if China has figured out how to completely lose a massive chunk of their export economy, then they shouldn't have had problems with a pandemic or a single ship getting stuck and jamming up a massive canal.

They can do one more military exercise, but unless they've magically replaced their fucking cruise liners with something that has a smaller radar signature and is much more survivable and is fast, and unless they've magically figured out how to get cargo aircraft safely to Taiwan proper to get airborne troops landing, it won't matter.  

Because as has been said many times in this thread,  at the end of the day, China still has to cross 100 miles of open and contested water to get to Taiwan. China doesn't get to drive 10 feet over a line on a road and declare that they've invaded Taiwan. 

And China has some of the same leadership problems with their military that Russia has - at the end of the day, Chinese NCOs and junior officers are going to be radioing back to their higher ups for instructions when their plan doesn't work or when they encounter something they were unprepared for, except it will be far worse because they won't have a physical land link where they can send runners if their comms are down or jammed, they'll have a 100 fucking miles of open and contested water. That means those NCOs and junior officers will fucking freeze up, because the Chinese, much like the Russians, don't encourage their junior officers and NCOs to operate independently the way Western officers and NCOs are expected to act. 

Mr. Bass talks about the prep work that China is doing like food stocking (18 months of wheat for example) and building coal-fired power plants.  That won't be enough.  Add in the fact their military is unproven, they gotta invade across the ocean and yeah, they'd lose.  

But there are counterpoints.  Fighting and losing a war might be seen as a "uniting" event for Xi.  Losing a war, badly, would get rid of a buncha excess Chinese males.  We need to be careful not to just look at this from the perspective of western democrats.  For a non-European dictatorship winning/losing can look very different.

I'm not saying this guy is right or wrong, but we need to listen to the contrarians.  I worry we are not.

[Macanudo 12975]

Bass is a hedge fund manager (surprise!) and he's seen our war plan for dealing with China?  

[berlinerbaer 670]

2 hours ago, Parliament said:

Mr. Bass talks about the prep work that China is doing like food stocking (18 months of wheat for example) and building coal-fired power plants.  That won't be enough.  Add in the fact their military is unproven, they gotta invade across the ocean and yeah, they'd lose.  

But there are counterpoints.  Fighting and losing a war might be seen as a "uniting" event for Xi.  Losing a war, badly, would get rid of a buncha excess Chinese males.  We need to be careful not to just look at this from the perspective of western democrats.  For a non-European dictatorship winning/losing can look very different.

I'm not saying this guy is right or wrong, but we need to listen to the contrarians.  I worry we are not.

Don't mistake Surly opinion as a microcosm of overall opinion in the West. The real contrarians are the guys like Zeihan. All of our war games show the US losing at least an aircraft carrier. Nobody who matters is downplaying this threat and, if anything, its the China hawks like Bass who hold more sway over actual policymaking.

[Bevo 3000 10]

2 hours ago, Parliament said:

Mr. Bass talks about the prep work that China is doing like food stocking (18 months of wheat for example) and building coal-fired power plants.  That won't be enough.  Add in the fact their military is unproven, they gotta invade across the ocean and yeah, they'd lose.  

His point is that if you wanted to prep your economy for an invasion and resulting sanctions, then you would do exactly what they’re doing. Whether it’s enough, TBD. 
 

2 hours ago, Parliament said:

But there are counterpoints.  Fighting and losing a war might be seen as a "uniting" event for Xi.  Losing a war, badly, would get rid of a buncha excess Chinese males.  We need to be careful not to just look at this from the perspective of western democrats.  For a non-European dictatorship winning/losing can look very different.

He also discusses what may seem irrational to us, is not to them. Especially if they feel it’s time to make a move. 
 

He’s solidified his position. No viable challenger. He also cites notable shifts in official rhetoric. Again, all things you would do if prepping to make a move. 
 

2 hours ago, Macanudo said:

Bass is a hedge fund manager (surprise!) and he's seen our war plan for dealing with China?  

He’s connected on the economic side. Member of the council on foreign relations. Economic warfare is obviously a big part of things now. I’m not surprised. 
 

10 minutes ago, berlinerbaer said:

Don't mistake Surly opinion as a microcosm of overall opinion in the West. The real contrarians are the guys like Zeihan. All of our war games show the US losing at least an aircraft carrier. Nobody who matters is downplaying this threat and, if anything, its the China hawks like Bass who hold more sway over actual policymaking.

Maybe on the military side, but otherwise we’ve seen a softening to an extent recently. Yellen bowing ten times. As Bass said we’re begging for meetings. 

[Gatorubet 30185]

it would be stupid as hell. I forget what day last week that Bloomberg was talking about all of the serious problems China has, and will continue to have. War will not fix that.  Granted, WWWII was perhaps the greatest thing that took us out of the great depression.  But in the aftermath of World War II, Japan and Europe suffered considerable destruction and the United States and its steroid-upped industrial capacity was there to keep us employed and make a shit ton of money doing business repairing all the places we had destroyed. 

If China goes to war, its homeland will not be free of destruction as was the case in the United States in WWII.  And they are going to war against the US and Europe - people who consume most of their goods.  it would be unlikely we start immediately trading again after China is defeated, and then says “my bad, Bro”.   If during the conflict the US and NATO decides to embargo China and sink ships going to or from, China does not have the navy to deal with that.  Or won’t after a stab at Taiwan.   The Chinese are the masters of the long game, and not the short term expedient, political answer,.   I cannot fathom why they would start a war over Taiwan.

[Gatorubet 30185]

My last post is entirely full of shit. Well, not entirely.   But my thinking about NATO’s involvement was obviously wrong. Just like Argentina and great Britain having a shooting war over the Falkland islands did not require NATO participation, NATO partners should be able to sit it out as China would not be attacking us. We would be attacking them after they attacked Taiwan.     Which is sort of a big point I didn’t even think about.

 I’m sure there’s going to be some chitchat about that in Vilnius.

[Texzilla58 4731]

They can do one more military exercise, but unless they've magically replaced their fucking cruise liners with something that has a smaller radar signature and is much more survivable and is fast, and unless they've magically figured out how to get cargo aircraft safely to Taiwan proper to get airborne troops landing, it won't matter.  
Because as has been said many times in this thread,  at the end of the day, China still has to cross 100 miles of open and contested water to get to Taiwan. China doesn't get to drive 10 feet over a line on a road and declare that they've invaded Taiwan. 
And China has some of the same leadership problems with their military that Russia has - at the end of the day, Chinese NCOs and junior officers are going to be radioing back to their higher ups for instructions when their plan doesn't work or when they encounter something they were unprepared for, except it will be far worse because they won't have a physical land link where they can send runners if their comms are down or jammed, they'll have a 100 fucking miles of open and contested water. That means those NCOs and junior officers will fucking freeze up, because the Chinese, much like the Russians, don't encourage their junior officers and NCOs to operate independently the way Western officers and NCOs are expected to act. 

This is our biggest advantage in an battle with soviet trained or soviet styled troops be they Russians, Iraqis, whomever. Chain of command all the way down to the senior private vs totally central command plus political kommissars. This is likely why ukes vs russkies is what it is. No in field in combat decisions.

Xi has many reasons to fight a war. I think he sees modern China as soft and needing the struggle of a great march or cultural Revolution. The Chinese haven’t had a successful offensive military campaign in a millennium but that never stopped a despot.

We should be rehabbing the Iowa and drive that mother up the Yangtze with those 16’s and a jillion cruise missiles sending hell on them. And Japan has Godzilla ready to fucking tangle.

[Bevo 3000 10]

Creepy

 

 

[Schulz2.0 28951]

 

 

[Parliament 14243]

Is that bad?  That sounds bad.

[Schulz2.0 28951]

On 8/8/2023 at 6:34 AM, Parliament said:

Is that bad?  That sounds bad.

 

[Orange&White 5522]

I wish we had some sort of Crystal Ball score for Zeihan's predictions to see how often he is proven right. Because it seems like his doom and gloom scenarios rarely come to fruition.

[KeysPhoneWallet 807]

I wish we had some sort of Crystal Ball score for Zeihan's predictions to see how often he is proven right. Because it seems like his doom and gloom scenarios rarely come to fruition.

Yet

[Macanudo 12975]

20 minutes ago, KeysPhoneWallet said:

Yet

But isn't that kind of like me saying "I haven't slept with Charlize Theron.   Yet."

[SmokeyTheBear 5562]

I only listen to Zeihan to understand the structures that are invisible to the layman like myself. Past that, take things with a grain of salt. Still appreciate his perspective regardless. 

[Parliament 14243]

40 minutes ago, Orange&White said:

I wish we had some sort of Crystal Ball score for Zeihan's predictions to see how often he is proven right. Because it seems like his doom and gloom scenarios rarely come to fruition.

 

Just now, SmokeyTheBear said:

I only listen to Zeihan to understand the structures that are invisible to the layman like myself. Past that, take things with a grain of salt. Still appreciate his perspective regardless. 

A few months ago his hyperbole had gotten so bad he was nearly insufferable.  He was drinking his own koolade.

More recently he has dialed it back.  Even admitted he was wrong about Russia's oil wells freezing shut and their economy crashing.  Ironically, THAT is own that can be ended with "...yet."

[Schulz2.0 28951]

China's going to stop publishing youth unemployment data.

 

[Schulz2.0 28951]

China's fertility rate dropped to 1.09 in 2022.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-fertility-rate-drops-record-low-109-2022-state-media-2023-08-15/

[KeysPhoneWallet 807]

China a govt full of assholes of the first order.

[Schulz2.0 28951]

China releases propaganda video on WeChat of the PLA training for an amphibious landing of Taiwan.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/17/china-army-filmed-apparently-preparing-for-conflict-in-taiwan-strait

[SydneyCarton 48055]

15 hours ago, Schulz2.0 said:

China releases propaganda video on WeChat of the PLA training for an amphibious landing of Taiwan.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/17/china-army-filmed-apparently-preparing-for-conflict-in-taiwan-strait

Go on. Get yourselves fucked up. 

[Gatorubet 30185]

Fascinating that all of these authoritarian regimes want to fix their demographic problem, with not enough young people, by killing many of the young men in their country in war. 

[Trey3216 15345]

10 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Point: China plays the long game with cold, intelligent rationality. 

Counterpoint:  All the Chinese people are weathering a huge economic recession by spending all their money on fucking lottery tickets. 

They've realistically been in a recession for about 10 years.   The only thing that's propped up their GDP is their absolute farcical construction industry...building up entire cities that lay vacant and what have you.  

 

The reality of depression is right around the corner.  

[Orange&White 5522]

2 hours ago, Trey3216 said:

The reality of depression is right around the corner.  

I think I have been hearing his for the last 20 years.

It ranks up there with the aggies always being one year away from winning a National Championship.

[Schulz2.0 28951]

Looks like another real estate giant, this one is bigger than Evergrande, will default.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/18/china-property-crisis-deepens-as-developer-country-garden-at-risk-of-default-evergrande

[Trey3216 15345]

1 hour ago, Orange&White said:

I think I have been hearing his for the last 20 years.

It ranks up there with the aggies always being one year away from winning a National Championship.

It’s totally normal to have 25-30% unemployment for 18-30 age group.   Another massive real estate bank going under.   Entire cities built (some for up to several million residents) that not a single person lives in.    
 

Completely normal.   

[atomheartbevo 89628]

On 8/11/2023 at 8:40 AM, Orange&White said:

I wish we had some sort of Crystal Ball score for Zeihan's predictions to see how often he is proven right. Because it seems like his doom and gloom scenarios rarely come to fruition.

On 8/11/2023 at 9:20 AM, SmokeyTheBear said:

I only listen to Zeihan to understand the structures that are invisible to the layman like myself. Past that, take things with a grain of salt. Still appreciate his perspective regardless. 

I like and think Zeihan is very useful when he gets into demographics - there are honestly a whole lot of people who have no clues about the populations of various countries as well as their birth/death rates.

You could ask 20 people walking down the street what's the most populated country in the world, and how many people China has and whether it's growing or shrinking, and most would be off on the number, and they'd all assume China is still growing, and that China still has the most people in the world, and they wouldn't even mention India.

You could ask the same 20 people which country, the United States or Russia, has 330 million people and which has 140 million people, and they'd guess that Russia has 330 million people because they hear that Russia is the biggest country in the world and so think that surely it has more people than the US. There are a whole lot of people, especially older people, that still have Soviet Union = Russia in the their heads, and never think about all of the 100 million+ people that are in republics that left the Soviet Union.

1 hour ago, Trey3216 said:

It’s totally normal to have 25-30% unemployment for 18-30 age group.   Another massive real estate bank going under.   Entire cities built (some for up to several million residents) that not a single person lives in.    
Completely normal.   

And that gets into the demographics thing - China planned a whole lot of cities for a population growth that is now, never going to happen.  Obviously, a bunch of Chinese oligarch types got rich and/or powerful off of those cities, and they were good makework, but at the end of the day, China is going to look very different 50 years from now.  75 years from now, it'll probably be below 800 million.

[Brisketexan 105066]

3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

75 years from now, it'll probably be below 800 million.

But the question remains....how we gonna get there.....

[atomheartbevo 89628]

6 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

Fascinating that all of these authoritarian regimes want to fix their demographic problem, with not enough young people, by killing many of the young men in their country in war. 

It sucks to kill off a bunch of young men in an unnecessary war, but if you're an authoritarian regime focused on the short term, you're killing off many of the people who might rise up against you. The key is to get them to reproduce before you send them off to die.

When Putin let the 700,000 - 1 million men and their families flee Russia ahead of the conscription last fall, those were clearly going to be the group that might cause him serious problems and put up a resistance - they were willing to completely give up their homeland, flee to a country who may not even really want them, and knew they might get cut off from relatives, yet they still felt strongly enough to flee.  Of course, the irony is that some of those countries have seen a boost to their economies from the influx of Russians since many of those Russians were middle-class/educated and brought with them money and skills. More importantly for Putin, he got rid of the group that could cause him the most problems.

[ABSR 5308]

3 hours ago, Trey3216 said:

It’s totally normal to have 25-30% unemployment for 18-30 age group.   Another massive real estate bank going under.   Entire cities built (some for up to several million residents) that not a single person lives in.    
 

Completely normal.   

And when looking at demographics this age group is vastly smaller than would be expected…..and there are still no jobs for them.

[atomheartbevo 89628]

57 minutes ago, ABSR said:

And when looking at demographics this age group is vastly smaller than would be expected…..and there are still no jobs for them.

And they have to help take care of their parents.  Which could be a job I guess.

[Telegraph_it 3357]

24 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

And they have to help take care of their parents.  Which could be a job I guess.

A couple things in this world you just can’t bullshit your way around. Physics and demographics. 

[Brisketexan 105066]

A couple things in this world you just can’t bullshit your way around. Physics and demographics. 

And your woman holding a grudge.

[atomheartbevo 89628]

1 hour ago, Telegraph_it said:

A couple things in this world you just can’t bullshit your way around. Physics and demographics. 

When they went all in on trying to limit everybody to one child per family, they should have changed the part of the Chinese culture about the kids taking care of parents, because one child taking care of two parents makes it hard if said child has a family of his or her own.

If they weren't willing to go the Soylent Green route, I never understood why they didn't try to come up with some alternative to the kids taking care of parents. I suppose the West's ability to ship a lot of our old people off to retirement homes or The Villages is not very doable at the kind of scale China would need, at least in terms of cost, but it seems like they could have done a little central planning for large-ish scale retirement homes/communities.

And hey, they have a bunch of empty cities they could start shipping the olds off to.

[Telegraph_it 3357]

46 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

And your woman holding a grudge.

I think that falls under physics, specifically entropy. 

[atomheartbevo 89628]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/21/economy/china-economy-troubles-intl-hnk/index.html
 

Quote

China has long been the engine of global growth.

But in recent weeks, its economic slowdown has alarmed international leaders and investors who are no longer counting on it to be a bulwark against weakness elsewhere. In fact, for the first time in decades, the world’s second economy is itself the problem.

Quote

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (HSI) Index slid into a bear market on Friday, having fallen more than 20% from its recent peak in January. Last week, the Chinese yuan fell to its lowest level in 16 years, prompting the central bank to make its biggest defense of the currency on record by setting a much higher rate to the dollar than the estimated market value.

The issue is that, after a rapid spurt of activity earlier this year following the lifting of Covid lockdowns, growth is stalling. Consumer prices are falling, a real estate crisis is deepening and exports are in a slump. Unemployment among youth has gotten so bad the government has stopped publishing the data.

Quote

To make things worse, a major homebuilder and a prominent investment company have missed payments to their investors in recent weeks, rekindling fears that the ongoing deterioration of the housing market could lead to heightened risks to financial stability.

A lack of resolute measures to stimulate domestic demand and fears of contagion have triggered a new round of growth downgrades, with several major investment banks cutting their forecasts of China’s economic growth to below 5%.

Quote

“We downgrade China’s real GDP growth forecast … as the property downturn has deepened, external demand has weakened further, and policy support has been less than expected,” UBS analysts wrote in a Monday research note. Researchers at Nomura, Morgan Stanley and Barclays had previously trimmed their forecasts.

That means China might significantly miss its official growth target of “around 5.5%,” which would be an embarrassment for the Chinese leadership under President Xi Jinping.

Quote

China’s economy has been in doldrums since April, when momentum from a strong start to the year faded. But concerns have intensified this month following defaults by Country Garden, once the country’s largest developer by property sales, and Zhongrong Trust, a top trust company.

Reports that Country Garden had missing interest payments on two US dollar bonds spooked investors and rekindled memories of Evergrande, whose debt defaults in 2021 signaled the start of the real estate crisis. 

Quote

Beijing has rolled out a raft of supportive measures to revive the real estate market. But even the stronger players are now teetering on the brink of default, underscoring the challenges Beijing faces to contain the crisis.

In the meantime, debt defaults at property developers appear to have spread to the country’s $2.9 trillion investment trust industry.

Lot more in the article about local debt and long term problems with demographics.  Here’s hoping it doesn’t cause problems here.

[Schulz2.0 28951]

3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/21/economy/china-economy-troubles-intl-hnk/index.html
 

Lot more in the article about local debt and long term problems with demographics.  Here’s hoping it doesn’t cause problems here.

It's already messing with the stock market and global economy.

[atomheartbevo 89628]

Xi skipped an important event, even though he was there and attended events before and after the one he skipped.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/23/china/china-xi-skips-brics-business-forum-speech-intl-hnk/index.html
 

Quote

Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Tuesday unexpectedly skipped a business forum of the BRICS economic group in South Africa, sending his commerce minister instead to deliver a fiery speech in his name that decried US hegemony.

Xi, who arrived in Johannesburg on Monday for the annual BRICS summit of major emerging economies, was scheduled to deliver a speech at its business forum on Tuesday alongside leaders from India, Brazil and South Africa.

But the Chinese leader failed to show up at the event, with no official announcement or explanation from Beijing. 

Instead, his prepared statement – peppered with thinly-veiled swipes at the United States that have become a fixture of Xi’s international speeches – was delivered by Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

In the statement, Xi called for the world to avoid sleepwalking “into the abyss of a new cold war.”

Without directly mentioning the US, the statement said “some country, obsessed with maintaining its hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the emerging markets, and developing countries.” 

“Whoever is developing fast, becomes its target of containment. Whoever is catching up, becomes its target of obstruction. But this is futile,” it added.

Xi was the only BRICS leader who did not attend the forum. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin, who could not join the summit in person due to an international arrest warrant for his brutal invasion of Ukraine, delivered remarks virtually.

After skipping the forum, Xi later attended a dinner hosted by Ramaphosa, along with the leaders of Brazil and India, and Russia’s foreign minister.

Xi’s surprise absence from the forum, noted by journalists at the event, raised questions among long-term observers of Chinese foreign policy.

“It’s extremely unusual for a Chinese leader to show up in a country hosting a multilateral meeting – especially one that China is deeply invested in, like BRICS – and fail to show up at the opening event,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program.

Brian Hart, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Xi’s absence is “highly unusual,” adding that Chinese leaders rarely go off script at high-profile events like this.

“It seems that something pulled Xi away from the meeting. It could have been a health incident or perhaps a pressing matter that required his attention,” he said. “It is also possible Xi skipped the event for some other reason – perhaps in response to developments at the summit.”