The best strategy is not to underestimate them and keep them on there toes, they might appear weak but what we don't know can surprise us and i think we are going in times full of surprises.

so China needs young immigrants. I guess those newborns in Africa can work in China

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China does not have to be perfect. China just needs to be better than its opponents.

They don’t have the resources to get their army over to Taiwan unless they capture a port. They can bombard the crap out of the civilian infrastructure, but they can’t take the island in less than 4 weeks.

They say 1.4 Billion, but there Population is slightly under 1.2 Billion and Falling, at this pace they'll be 600 Million to 500 Million, before allot of US are Dead. And we are set to be at 400 Million by than, possible even 500 Million with an increased birth Rate and Immigration which is possible. Whether is happens in the next ten minutes or a slow burn over the next 10 years, China is Falling… And they are trying to bring US down with them. China has been a Ponzi Scheme, and as soon as their Growth Stops, they are not going to be able to pay their debts they scammed out of the world by cooked books in a Ponzi scheme, and they did this all in a make it or Brake it bid to be Number Wone and over take US, they failed, and now the whole of the world will pay the Finical Price for allowing such an affront that was clear to cause a Collaspe!

Disagree on U.S. navy capability. The United States weak point is the lack of long range missiles and aircraft. We are working on improving that but China has them. It would be very difficult to cause harm to China who has the better defense since everything would focus on close defense and long reach supersonics to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers and bases. China has a much larger submarine fleet too. A better strategy is to stop food and oil in the Indian ocean which China is entirely dependent on and would come with a great cost to our military.

Now, Niall Furgie or whatever is jumping on the bandwagon of china's decline, just another opportunist.

China is not interested in peace. Nor is Russia. These are demographically dying countries that are lashing out on the world stage for a last gasp at relevance. For them, military victory is an existential issue. There is literally nothing the West can offer them that would stop their ambitions. They have to be stopped in Ukraine and Taiwan with blood and steel.

Such common sense seems in short supply these days.

Is US white working age population growing?

Don't need to defend Taiwan, just need sink or capture 25% of oil tankers headed for China in the Indian Ocean and China collapses.

The main contribution to population growth is coming from garbage countries. These are an undesirable subspecies that will bring the demise of Western civilization.

All well and good on the standard economics' talking points. What he and other experts are ignoring are the dramatic climate change events are going to have that render all their projections moot. And not just in China. This year China has been experiencing dramatic drought and floods… at the same time. What if this becomes the standard day to day going forward… which it quite probable? The 3 gorges dam run dry. No hydro power, not for a week or two, but months and years on end. Parts of China and a lot of other places in the world are projected to soon have huge mortality events from super heat waves. This year we've had a warm-up act from mother nature all over the world. What is China going to look like by 2030? What if that drought doesn't end? What if the US west drought doesn't end? You can snivel about whether climate change is real or not, but you'd have to be a complete luddite idiot to not acknowledge that these floods and droughts aren't happening and on an increasing and more dramatic scale. We better start learning that there is a bigger player in the room. Mother Nature always bats last…

Hal Brands and Michael Beckley make the same argument in their new book. There are dangers associated with a rising China, and there are dangers associated with a stagnating China that views its window of opportunity closing. The next decade is the most dangerous for Taiwan and for the United States.

UK has a lovely suspension bridge across the Humber estuary. It was built to serve Hull originally an important sea port. However while the wheels of planning were grinding along, union power led to the port going bust. The bridge wasn’t needed but it got built anyway.
China has the opposite problem. Someone wants a road, a bridge, a tower block, a whole new city they just build one. Stuff the market need.

Personally I think it is better not to enrage the dragon at this time. But it is one million percent sure they will attack if they cannot annex Taiwan any other way. China is already engaging a non kinetic war in many ways. EU and US needs to create significant initiatives to get all western companies and investment funds out of China now or they will be lost forever. Anyway US needs companies back to regain its financial and strategic strength.

Niall, there is not a lot of things you espouse that I find agreeable, but you are absolutely right in arguing for diplomatic efforts to delay any conflict with China. Our good friend HR McMaster is blinded by old conflict bias, rightly pointed out by you. I was a lttle disappointed that you did not point out to the General that both Russia and China already have usable hypersonic missiles (conventional and nuclear) already placed on aircraft, on land , and the end of this year on submarines.
T The Pentagon has admitted that the United States has no real defense against these missiles. Again, we cannot defend against hypersonics! We are behind in wind tunnel technology used to test hypersonics because of the enormous costs to build them. We have four, China builds new wind tunnels every six months. Military test requests takes from 6-18 months for one test.
Lastly, the group ignored the two joint Russia-China combined fleets war excercises that circled Japan for the first time in world history.
If China strikes U.S. bases with hypersonics in retaliation for US blockade of Taiwan and Russia sends their fleet to assist China, the question then is how will the US respond? Naill, these are the reasons you are right that waiting and avoiding conflict gives the U.S. time to correct these weaknesses and work out a contingent plan looking at all the possibilities.
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Japan is a likely a good Model for China to evolve into. Negative Growth is the new Progress.

What is predictable, when an authoritarian regime gets into a decline mode they always become aggressive to stay in power. They disrupt the status quo to maintain their status quo! Russia is doing it now. The economy in Russia was in a decline trend and Putin needed to unite the country so attacking a neighbor claiming to denazify it made sense?. Both Ukraine and Taiwan are mainly free and have adopted a capitalist model and freedom of capital movement for their economies. China has destroyed HK and will do the same in Taiwan just as Russia is destroying Ukraine. Russia needs to be stopped and so does China! Not necessarily militarily but with economic pressure.

china is giving major rewards for second child. big bonuses, child care in every office bldg, free education , etc. we also sell billions of made and sold in china products. eg gm makes and sells more cars in cn than rest of world combined. soon tesla same. many usa corps would go bankrupt without the rapidly growing cn market. we have a big trade surpkus with cn.
mr ferg has very little real knowledge of cn, only ideological hatred.

China knows its becoming weaker as time goes on, why else would it be embarking on such an aggressive nuclear armament programme.

It bothers me that I agree so much with what Ferguson is saying here. Also, I don't really trust Democrats on Social Security and I'm a lifelong Democrat, and I trust Republicans about a hundred times less, so NO to Ferguson on Social Security.

Some of the China's problems seem to be mirrored in the West, not sure I am buying what he's selling.

I want to share a story from a friend of mine from when I was attending Texas Christian University: We had a Government & History course together in 2015, so when the Chinese Communist Party ended the 1 Child Policy, she shared what it was like for her. She was from China & born in the early 1990s, but because of this her family was permitted to have 2nd child & 10 years later her sister was born. She told me how growing up there was some issues being a girl with so many boys around in a country that desired sons, as well as the issue of being so much older than her sister. Finally, she said she enjoyed hearing stories from American classmates who grew up with multiple siblings as if it was no big deal.

From an outsider's perspective, China having this 1 Child Policy as the norm for over 20 years has been ingrained in many Chinese citizens that suddenly ending it & trying to encourage couples to have multiple children will be economic burden for many. Furthermore, in some parts of China the male to female ratio is over 3 to 1 so having a new generation of young couples solve this population problem will be difficult.

I’ll believe it when I see it

The only way to deter China is to create a real and probable threat that the US would intervene. It's time for tough talk and proactive actions to ensure that threat exists.

I appreciate that you include the original source.

So. Chinese demographics are collapsing, rapidly. Chinese trade has collapsed. And Ferguson thinks we have a decade to work with? Taiwan has known since the 2019 suppression of Hong Kong that it must have a nuclear deterrent, so the real question is how large is Taiwan's undeclared stockpile?

It would be wonderful for Niall to have a conversation with Peter Zeihan.

This guy can speak for 15 minutes and not say one thing that is noteworthy.

What about India

hahaha sure chinas gonna collapse , tfw cia psyop

Well of course the CCP ("they who can't be trusted") wants detente. With the exception of Don Trump, every time the DC Swamp goes to the bargaining table with the CCP they get badly snookered. So all the CCP has to do is rattle their sabre and the DC Swamp comes running to the table to give away the farm.

China might have a declining population but it will remain overwhelmingly Chinese. America is 65% white.

Give Taiwan several dozen nukes. China will decide not to attack Taiwan.

EDIT: Give nukes to Japan and Australia too.

Globalization challenges:

Globalization wipes out any need for Encryptions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5-nuk5tDns

West understimate Ukraine it will understimate Taiwan

China’s debt? What about US debt of 30 trillions?

So, the Russian's are threatening nukes, the Chinese are threatening nukes, the Iranians are threatening nukes, the North Koreans are threatening nukes. Let's appease them all. Let's give Russia what it wants, minimally the old Soviet Bloc, but probably more; the Chinese want minimally Taiwan, but what else?; and what the hell do Iran and North Korea wants? ; I, honestly, don't care what Iran wants; I suppose North Korea wants, minimally South Korea, so let give them that. So, where do we go from there? None of those countries can be dealt with reasonably. They have proven that time and time again. So, let's subjugate ourselves to their rule! Or the West could say do you really want to play hardball?

You should talk to Peter Ziehan.

"only a crazy person" that's why China and Russia make the "crazy" strategic decisions they do. The west is predictable.

Japan would see an invasion of Taiwan as an existential threat. The US may want to stay out initially, but I don't see that happening so cleanly.

This isn’t a discussion …. I do want to hear what the others contribution is

Niall Ferguson is so late to this realization, but he goes ahead and puts it out there as if it is some great realization. He is essentially selling re-tread Peter Zeihan research which has been around for a long time.
I only care for McMaster's point of view on these debates. The other two guys are too pacifist and afraid to be American. Oh wait, at least one of them isn't 😉

Were China to attempt to invade Taiwan they would lose. If they attempted it 1,000 times, they would lose 1,000 times. They have no capability of doing anything successful outside of launching rockets, and if they did so, the energy and food input embargo would destroy the nation in 3 months. They import over 80% of their energy, and they are one of the least food secure countries on Earth, and there are already shortages of both in China at peace. The US would not need to be a direct combatant, they would merely stop the ships coming in, and China would fall like a house of cards.

Smuggery! Probably wrong!

When I hear someone begin to justify "detente", you begin to discredit yourself.