China is repeating the Soviet Union’s most fatal mistake:

[william]

The Soviet Union built an extraordinary military machine. Nuclear arsenals. Intercontinental missiles. Advanced fighter jets. Massive warships. Space stations. Moon programs. These achievements impressed the world, but they steadily drained the economy beneath them.The Soviet system poured national resources into projects that generated prestige without creating enough household prosperity, consumer demand, or self-sustaining civilian growth. Eventually, the burden became unbearable.

China now appears to be following the same path on an even larger scale. Aircraft carriers are launching at remarkable speed. Naval capacity is expanding rapidly. Beijing is spending heavily on space exploration, artificial intelligence, advanced semiconductors, electric vehicles, biotechnology, nuclear technology, and other strategic industries.Every one of these fields is enormously expensive. And every yuan committed to military expansion, state-directed industrial funds, and prestige technology is a yuan unavailable for household income, pensions, healthcare, education, small businesses, or social security.

The consequences are already visible. Chinese consumers remain cautious. Domestic demand is weak. Deflationary pressure persists. Private companies struggle for oxygen. Young people face a brutal employment environment. Factories increasingly depend on exports because Chinese households cannot absorb what the country produces.

This creates a dangerous cycle: more subsidies create more capacity, excess capacity creates more exports, and more exports create greater trade conflict.

China’s greatest strength would be a wealthy population, a thriving private sector, and a powerful consumer market to reduce the crippling dependence on the US dollar. Instead, Beijing is prioritizing carriers, rockets, factories, and strategic prestige. The Soviet Union already tested this model. The ending was catastrophic. China is heading in the same direction, full-speed.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2088923139938169275

Think the US and other western countries would bail out china if it came to that?

 

[DEFCON Warning System]

The difference is that China is a creditor nation. It has tons of money flowing into it. The Soviet Union did not.

 

[GBS61]

Fundamental Differences: Global Economic Integration: Unlike the USSR, which operated in isolation within its bloc, China is the world's manufacturing engine and remains deeply interconnected with Western economies.

Technological and Financial Power: China possesses a cutting-edge technology sector (AI, batteries, infrastructure) and massive financial reserves that the USSR never had.
Adaptability: The Chinese Communist Party meticulously studied the fall of the USSR to avoid repeating its mistakes, notably by rejecting a sudden political opening (Glasnost) while maintaining a pragmatic form of state capitalism.

 

[teekay99]

China can afford its military machine thanks in large part to western nations through business offshoring and imports of goods manufactured in China. The West was not nearly as economically engaged with the USSR. Even if the West stops all economic activity with China tomorrow (which is completely infeasible at the moment), China still has reserves and capability well beyond that of the former USSR. China may be repeating the mistake of the USSR, but it has a much wider margin in which to reset before it runs into economic trouble.

It is the United States that could be in a more precarious position. Significant reliance on Chinese imports to keep goods affordable at a time of increasing cost based inflation makes the US economy more sensitive to price shocks and the associated political fallout. Couple that increasing deficit spending and a government that can't say "no" to more spending (the fault of BOTH political parties), one could see that the US economy could experience resiliency issues in the future.

Continuing deficit spending is a national security issue and we (the US) cannot do it indefinitely. The interest payment on the debt absolutely will eat into the availability of funds for other priorities, like military spending. We cannot borrow forever and expect to remain prosperous.

 

[Torch]

We cannot borrow forever and expect to remain prosperous.

“…That's the bitchin' part about it! It don't matter! If you can't afford it, FRACKING FINANCE IT!”

Time 1:30

And then there is Teekay99 at 3:22

 

[william]

China is trying to do a mix of "Central Planning" and "Capitalism" and I'm not sure how this is going to work out in the long run. One or the other is going to dominate and it appears "Central Planning" in China is prevailing at this time, and we all know how well that has worked for the people in the past.

I also believe Western Governments are trying to gain more power through "Central Planning" but there is push back from the people, so far. This is why the second amendment in the US is SO important. IMO