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Stephen McIntyre's avatar

Somehow, I just don’t see China trying to colonize Siberia. The brutality of trying to live in Siberia is absolutely daunting.

During Stalin’s era millions of people were sent to the Gulag in Siberia. They basically use their own people as slave labor to build the Trans-Siberian railway and conditions that were so horrible. They are beyond description. The people live with weather conditions at times 40 below zero they work to lay track that was frozen..

People were expendable if they died, the bodies were just pushed into the ditch and moved on

So I don’t see the Chinese moving into Siberia, regardless of what mineral wealth might be there conditions to try to live. There are subhuman best. The people that survive in that brutal atmosphere conditioned and know how to deal with it.

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Joe's avatar

Setting aside all other benefits from trade with China, I thought this interesting, perhaps before one becomes so reliant on a specific product, one may want to find alternative source(s)

eg: hard to get by without medicine

No business does not have a reliable backup/alternative source

no business puts all eggs in one basket

So its pretty much voluntary and self inflicted.

And of course - one must ask US ' and you want to go to war with China '

China provides certain critical product:

Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs): China supplies 70–80% of U.S. APIs (per Connecta Network, 2024), the building blocks for drugs like antibiotics, painkillers, and generics. In 2023, pharmaceuticals and chemicals from China hit $11.95 billion (Trading Economics), critical for healthcare access and cost control.

Rare Earth Elements: Over 60% of U.S. rare earth imports come from China (USGS, 2024), used in magnets, batteries, and defense tech (e.g., F-35 jets). These are indispensable for high-tech and military applications.

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SMH's avatar

Joe: These people have elevated ignoring common sense to an art form! Everything that you brought up simply defies both logic and common sense, yet these folks jumped right in with both feet. I remember Kruschev bragging that the Soviets would hang the last capitalist with a rope that they sold them.

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Ray-SoCa's avatar

It’s terrifying that so much pharmaceuticals come from China, when China has huge corruption and quality issues. And the ability for the fda to do inspections in China is limited.

Lots of pharmaceuticals used to be manufactured in Puerto Rico, but tax code changed under Clinton so manufacturers moved offshore:

https://www.theweeklyjournal.com/top-stories/can-puerto-rico-reclaim-its-lead-in-pharmaceutical-manufacturing/article_c5ed8d04-9a64-11ec-89a1-cf4acec828b4.html

Interesting timing on this report on Chinese corruption.

Article is meh:

https://nypost.com/2025/04/05/opinion/why-the-feds-are-eyeing-chinas-grifter-oligarchs/

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Manul's avatar

So if the US goes to war against China, we may not have the antibiotics to treat our wounded soldiers?

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SMH's avatar

BINGO!

What moron or group of morons thought it was a good idea to outsource critical supplies to a country that you are trying to bully or, worse yet, go to war with? You simply can’t make this stuff up!

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Ray-SoCa's avatar

China’s nuclear count is probably low, and they are focused on increasing. 600 per this article. And China is slowly and methodically improving their submarine ability.

https://fas.org/publication/nuclear-notebook-china-2025/

Chinas demographics are a huge challenge.

In the video interesting France keeps on being mentioned.

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Meryl Nass's avatar

Love your subjects, your excerpts and your analysis.

Wanted to say that whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu (former nuclear technician) reported that Israel had 400 nuclear weapons back in 1986. For which he spent 18 years in jail. So he was probably correct. Likely they have more now.

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Mark Wauck's avatar

Thanks!

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