A phenomena that is very clear in threads about China.
I would think the opposite to be true.
How do you attempt to apply to game theory to a situation where the other party is completely irrational? It seems impossible to me.
Honest questions here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)#Ch...
Like many politicians, Xi is ruthlessly self-interested. His actions that allow him to consolidate power aren't necessarily in the best interests of China.
Yes, this sort of narrative plays a lot better when describing someone you're actively at war with. Along with the fact that you are always winning the war. Ukraine has been winning the war with Russia for about 9 months now, according to the media.
It’s always in our interest to simply reduce our enemy to madmen or nazis, as it justifies our own counter aggression.
Yeah, Biden himself recently said that Putin is a rational actor who grossly miscalculated, because he was basically fed very bad and flawed intel. He may be blustering about nukes now, but the only way he would do that is if Ukraine turns the tables and invades Russia, or something similar.
It is interesting to see how dramatically opinion has cooled on China in the past few years, simply because they have become a great power competitor.
The PRC's GDP was US$17.7 trillion nominal in 02021, the latest year for which we have numbers, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China. That makes it the world's second largest economy by nominal dollar value (after the US) and the largest by PPP. That's not just individual countries, either; it overtook the economy of the EU in nominal GDP in 02021 under Xi's leadership. The IMF's estimate for 02022 is US$20 trillion according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi....
This isn't just a matter of domestic numbers that can be fudged, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports says it exported US$3 trillion worth of goods in 02021, up from US$2.5 billion in 02020, making it the world's #1 exporter, with almost twice the exports of the US at #2, though by this measure the entire EU does still exceed PRC. (The EU is excluded from the list for not being a country.)
Nor is it just a question of adding together poverty-level earnings of 1.2 billion people. The PRC's per-capita GDP is US$20k PPP. Economically, the average Chinese person is doing fine, although they're experiencing a lot of unfortunate things outside the economic sphere.
China's economy is experiencing major difficulties (Evergrande, zero-COVID lockdowns) but it is far from being "killed" or a "return to Mao-style communism", by which I charitably assume you mean 01970s-style stagnation and not, for example, the largest famine in human history.
You should take a long hard look at where you're getting your information from and how you decide what information is trustworthy.
