RE: The Chinese Communist Party's Master Plan is Not What Most People Think
I think another dynamic is also informing CCP policy. We observe with facility that solar cycles strongly impact society, and we presently are entering a period of low solar output, which in historic times has correlated with decline and crash of empire.
In the last year, ASF has resulted in the decline of the global pig population of 25%, and pigs are a major source of human sustenance. Across the world, crops as diverse as wheat, corn, beets, and soy have suffered an unprecedented decline in productivity, and rather chaotic economic and political results are yet unfolding as a result.
It is likely that as the solar minimum continues to reduce growing seasons and agricultural productivity, famine will result, or at least threaten populations least secure. China has been moving globally to secure food sources, purchasing Smithfield, Cargill pork subsidiary, farms, and deepwater ports suitable for transshipment of of food to China. If famine does erupt, China has done much to prevent it's people from suffering it, and this is no mean accomplishment.
I do not seek to glorify China, but bad acts do not render sound policy of no consequence entirely. Should famine strike as a result of the ongoing solar minimum, and these moves help insulate the Chinese from it, that will certainly redound to the benefit of the CCP.
Your thesis here is not the only example I have read of institutions deliberately fostering hatred directed at themselves, unfortunately. I wish such cynical manipulations weren't as profitable as they seem to be, so good people could better work together to reduce violence, war, and oppression. Perhaps, one day, we will be better people, and live in a better world.
Thanks!
The second and third paragraphs of this need to be examined more carefully.
and...
As I've pointed out, the vast, VAST majority of this loss was right inside of China. The primary reason China yielded so quickly in both Trade War deals was that Trump's primary demand, namely "buy more food from our farmers," was what they suddenly had to do to survive. In addition, China's acquisition of ports and farms (as well as their acquisition of fisheries in the West Philippine Sea) has been less about monopolizing the world's food supply and more about desperately struggling to get a grip on any of it at all. The vast majority of China's arable land is in border regions that are traditionally non-Chinese (Tibet and Xinjiang), and even that is rapidly becoming toxic. The amount of crops and meat lost due to ASF and Armyworm in 2019 were almost exclusively a Chinese problem, a problem from which most of the world has already recovered.
In short, when you speak of the CPC taking steps to secure China from a coming famine resulting from 2019's losses, that famine is not coming but already here, and China was and is Ground Zero. This famine was also a virtual direct result of the Party's policies (for example, ASF would not have caused such a shortage of pork within China if the Party's response to the outbreak had not been to block all pork imports, under the pretense that the imported pork was the source of the infection).
Still, your point is noted.
You're not wrong in the main, but I don't think famine has even begun to evidence yet as a result of the Grand Solar Minimum. ASF and Armyworms aren't the same class, even within an order of magnitude of the impact of climactic variation that will eventuate in coming decades.
I sure hope I'm wrong.
It'll be years before we know.
What I can say though is China's food acquisition projects so far, far from "dominating" anything, have been insufficient to even feed their population. As for famine on a global scale, watch Africa and South America. Those are the first places where such a thing will show.