Big state visits are often a distraction from problems at home. It struck me that Trump and Xi have similar problems domestically, even though the two big nations are probably best placed to weather the gigafamine etc. coming from the resource crisis caused by Epstein Fury. Doubtless this will be on the agenda.
Tony Nash wrote this "Xi's Trump Photo-Op: A Desperate Play
The state visit of President Trump to Beijing this week is being framed
by Chinese state media as a historic meeting of equals. To the casual
observer, the red carpets and carefully stage managed handshakes suggest
a regime at the peak of its power. However, beneath the porcelain
veneer of the Great Hall of the People lies a leadership in profound
distress. For Xi Jinping, this summit is not about trade concessions or
regional stability. It is a desperate play for optics. Xi needs the
visual validation of a peer level summit to mask a domestic reality
defined by institutional rot and a collapsing network of international
proxies.
The most visible sign of this distress is the systematic hollowing out
of the military top tier. Since 2022, over one hundred senior officers
have vanished into the black box of the party’s disciplinary apparatus.
The recent removal of Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang
Youxia and Joint Staff Chief Liu Zhenli earlier this year indicates that
even the most loyal inner circle is no longer safe. A military consumed
by internal score settling is a military that cannot project credible
power. Simultaneously, the domestic social contract is fraying. Lowered
growth targets and a youth unemployment rate that remains a source of
systemic instability have left a generation of educated professionals
disengaged. Xi is hosting a summit in a fortified capital to project a
strength he no longer possesses at home." I commented, and Tony
challenged me to write the Trump comparison. Domestics make writing
difficult so this is brief, rough, and final.
Removal of inner circle
Hegseth has fired a large number of generals and admirals. Exact numbers are hard to find, and he doesn't seem to know.
State diplomats have been removed from negotiations with Iran, and replaced by the lords of the valley for the trip to Xi.
The Israel-first inner circle cannot brook anything from Trump, and wise counsel e.g. Tulsi has been sidelined at best.
Military without credible power
The US military is lurching from woke to Christian Zionist. The USN is engaged in littoral combat but LCS seems to be missing. A carrier-based USD to control chokepoints for global energy supremacy seems to be having problems.
If the USN has reached the stage of laundry fires in combat zones, then some serious questions need to be asked (but won't be). (Do all USAF aircraft squawk 7700?).
Fraying domestic social contract
Guns but no butter (battleships at the price of wheat planting for instance) is going to bite further into the K shaped economy. The Soros-backed (or equivalent) summer riots could be epic this year. How far can he deploy the National Guard now?
Lack of growth and employment
I don't get Shadowstats, so don't have an up to date figure, but things don't look great for lots of folk in the US, and neither country has buoyant real estate.
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