I suppose they didn't expect Taiwan to grow so much more progressive so quickly - and the Taiwanese have seen what happened to Hong Kong so have zero desire to go the same way...

But yeah, between Taiwan's immense value to the global computer chips industry and the equally immense share of global trade that passes through the strait between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland and would be heavily impacted in the event of any war, even before any boycotts or sanctions come into play, China has to know that the second they pull the trigger on Taiwan, they're launching the biggest economic crisis in decades if not almost a century - perhaps big enough to put their own regime at risk. Even if they successfully conquered Taiwan, the price might still be steeper than they're willing to pay. Or so I hope, anyway...

I'm not sure I can think of many issues he identified that are really new, weren't being discussed before? Though he highlights them more, sure, whether it's China or the EU countries' military spending... And yes, very counterproductive.

No doubt it's true I'm looking at it from a Western mindset, but I do also know enough about developing countries (my job involves business in Africa, to a large extent imports from China in fact) to be very aware of the corruption and extremely poor decision-making you're talking about.

However, many of the countries involved are still democracies, even if they're often rather flawed ones, or even when they're not, still the government has to keep an eye on public opinion to some extent.

Like if we go back to the Pakistan example, the big issue there now is the national electricity network - the Chinese built power plants at extortionate conditions, the national utility companies have no choice than to charge absurdly high prices for electricity and hamper the wider economy, except now more and more individuals and companies are going off the grid and getting their power from, ironically, solar panels imported from China. That's basically the whole country being confronted on a daily basis with the consequences of the bad deals some people in their recent governments have made with China - I do think that's going to have an impact and push Pakistan away from China, yes, if they don't soften those terms.

In other countries, maybe things haven't gone quite that sour yet and opinions of China are still more positive, but I think in the longer term it'll go the same way unless they change their approach, because so many of those Chinese investments, whether they're actually useful or not, are more expensive than the receiving government could actually afford.

Yes - they aren't short of actually correct arguments to use, before even needing to make up anything. But that doesn't necessarily make those countries that much closer to China either.

Yeah, I heard that before. Of course it could also turn out more like the Cold War - but today's world is far more globalized and inter-dependent than it was in the 20th century, so most countries have far more to lose from such a thing. One shouldn't overestimate how rationally governments really behave, of course, but still...