OST FRONT

The newspapers are talking little, too taken from Covid, of what is happening in the east, in that of Hong Kong. On the contrary, it would be good if they did, because it is very worrying.

What happened is that at the last annual congress, the Chinese president did two things.

1. He failed to mention economic growth among the targets. Let me be clear, he was not obliged, for reasons I will say later. But to say that you no longer care about economic growth means to say that commercial relations with foreign countries are no longer your priority.

2. It launched a border consolidation operation, stating in writing that HongKong and Taiwan have lost all rights to call themselves "independent" from China. Since these are borders on the Pacific, the move is directed against the American thalassocracy.

Could he have done otherwise? Sure. He could simply say that the low GDP was due to the low resistance of the Chinese export markets, and also throw an arrow at Trump. But the congress was not made for Trump.

He could also use propaganda in another way and say that he would do more to expand to other markets, and that they would recover before others. Having been elected for life, the Chinese president is comfortable using propaganda.

The implicit message of this congress was: we have lost patience with the Americans and their sycophants .

Until now Hong Kong had been kept alive only to satisfy Western and English-speaking customers. And at every friction with the USA or England, demonstrations immediately followed (wanted by the Beijing regime) and promptly repressed. A clear message.

But now they have lost patience. With this law the situation can no longer be amended. Whatever the US or the EU does, it doesn't worry them. They already said they don't have growth targets.

Apparently, China has reacted to yet another arrogance against Huawei. He said it: we won't be watching while slaughtering Huawei . And this is the result. Now it's up to the US to make the next move, but Trump cannot expose himself because he knows that Beijing will NEVER take a step back, and therefore would pass for a loser in the election period.

The fact that China has lost patience doesn't mean anything good. We know how a regime like that reacts to economic losses. It invests in the military industry, which is not subject to the market. Imagine the Chinese industrial apparatus that is converted into a military one. And you will know what the next outlet is. War.

The Chinese armed forces need one thing: to participate in real wars. Exercises are not enough, to build a good army you need a real war. The stress of combat in fact reveals the weak points and allows you to amend them. On the other hand, for the Chinese it is also necessary to avoid a blatant defeat, so he needs an opponent that is fierce enough to stress his weapons and strategies, but not fierce enough to defeat them.

If I were in Taiwan or North Korea, I would worry enough. Mongolia may enjoy some Russian pressure, depending on how much risk the Chinese are willing to accept. Russia can only frighten China in terms of nuclear weapons, but a nuclear war is an event that is not unleashed to defend Mongolia .

But the point is: what do we want to do?

Trump would have no hesitation in going to war with the Chinese to save his second re-election. He knows well that a war president is re-elected. This means that the Chinese are likely (but certainly not) to make their first military move after the US election.

But the European countries? If the Chinese completely cut off all trade by explicitly saying that they do it because we are in NATO, how many European countries would stay with NATO (which, moreover, they despise trump) and how many would declare themselves neutral?

This is the point. That the Chinese have lost their patience is clear. That with the USA the tones are ready to warm up too. The Chinese will not bow to commercial retaliation, they said by hiding their growth targets. The next US move will inevitably be weak, because no ally would ever follow Trump on this path.

It would be time for the newspapers to realize this, because Trump does not understand that a country can make non-economic retaliation for an economic move. For him money is money, the rest is more. He probably didn't even understand that the tightening of the regime in Hong Kong and Taiwan is a response to his move against Huawei.

But this is an American question, which concerns the domination of the Pacific.

The real question is: what about us?