Thread by @EricMertz_KC

China's small factory owners are completely blackpilled right now.

They're giving up on the US market entirely thanks to tariffs.

Goods are piling up in warehouses across China.

"The more ambitious you are, the more you lose"
"When the gods fight, the people suffer"

"If no one is buying, how can we clear domesticlally"
"30% rely on exports for wages"

"Do you think it is the Americans who will suffer? No. It is us as we pay higher taxes to subsidize businesses."

"The small factories in Gunagdong will disappear after June"
"The whole world criticizes the US, but no one wants to give up access to the US Market"
"This is worse than COVID"

"We can't counter the tariffs, we can't afford to make deals. If losses continue, we won't be able to stay open."

"I took out hundreds of thousands in loans to open a factory in Vietnam last year, now I have nothing and I am going to go join the Russian army"

An electronics exporter told Radio Free Asia that importers in the US are demanding their suppliers in China include the price of the tariffs in the price they quote to US firms - with the tariffs to be paid by Chinese firms as overhead.

"We can't even transship in Vietnam and reexport that way. Trump has blocked that."
"We can't reshore to a different nation because of the global tariffs."

The elimination of the exemption which Temu and Wish amd Shein exploited is causing massive stress for workers as well.

These account for 11% of China's exports and have incredibly small profit margins.

They're all talking about scrambling to find non-US markets and are expressing what can be best interpreted as scathing rage at the CCP for going all in on the trade war rather than helping small manufacturers find new markets or resolve the dispute.

Sentiments on the rare earth export ban are mixed. The small manufacturers largely don't work with REE's and they're happy to use it as a weapon, but they're also concerned this will speed up development of new sources outside of China's de facto monopoly.

It's worth remembering the US has an absolute motherlode deposit in Texas which has been the subject of plans for a mine for nearly a half decade at this point.

"The only buyer is the US. Any supplier who refuses to be included in the new system is doomed"

Speculation time!

I'm expecting to see a lot more propaganda on Douyin (TikTok) and Xiaohongshu (Pinterest analogue) pushing Xi's new Down to the Countryside Movement. Lots of pretty girls who are way too clean LARP'ing as peasant farmers or village merchants.

Xi has made the lack of development a major criticism of the Shanghai Clique and used his own pledge to do so as a way to undermine the Communist Youth League Clique. This is the perfect chance for him to double down on that.

If China's unemployed are scattered across small villages which don't even have proper toilets, its a lot harder to organize against him and his supporters.

This is also going to be used by the remnants of the Shanghai Clique and the Communist Youth League Clique to undermine his own base of support.

It's also going to piss off the Red Princelings in the PLA, many of whom effectively own some of these factories.

It's entirely possible the Tsinghua Clique may wind up being dismantled and someone new replacing Xi at the 15th National People’s Congress in 2018.

If so, I'm expecting a populist, inward facing clique to arise from the ashes of Hu Jintao and Li Keqiang's Communist Youth League Clique.

However, with all the higher ups in the CYL having been effectively purged, this will likely be a far weaker clique with less experience at the top.

It also wouldn't surprise me to see that Clique turn out to be a puppet of the senior PLA leadership.

I'm also expecting to see a lot of workplace arson. It's highly doubtful these small factories have been able to sock away enough to pay out the bonuses which are part of employment in China.

If you're not familiar, most Chinese are paid an hourly subsistence wage and then receive bonuses at monthly, quarterly, or yearly. There has been a sharp spike in workplace arson over bonuses which are typically six months in arrears.

I'm also expecting to see this year's murder season to spike higher than last year, as more people carry out "Revenge Against Society" attacks via car and knife.

Children and the elderly are typically the targets of these attacks.

I do not think this will be what brings down the CCP. The PLA and the PAP (People's Armed Police) will keep getting paid as long as they can, and dictatorships only fall when the security apparatus turns on them.

This may, however, spark the Westward adventurism I've been watching for. China will likely want to blame this unrest on Islamic militants and will seize on the first instance they can find as proof.

If it's a sufficiently big incident, the Zhongnanhai will use it as a casus belli to go into the 'Stans and rally the Chinese people to the flag.

I don't think it will work very well if they try, but I can see Xi getting sufficiently desperate to try.

The CCP's propaganda ministry spent almost a month hyping the fact Uyghurs who were radicalized by Beijing's genocide of Uyghurs were part of the leadership of the new government of Syria.

An external war against a common foe Xi created would make "Eating Bitterness" far more appetizing for those who haven't fully embraced laying flat.

This, by the way, will be the real motive behind any move west into the 'stans. China desperately wants overland contacts with Europe so they don't have to worry about India blockading the far side of the Strait of Malacca.

https://x.com/jd_sauvage/status/1909708739722309664?s=19

Speaking of pretty girls LARP'ing for the cameras, China has this new trend which is deeply disturbing all things considered of pregnant young women dressing in risque clothing and doing risque dances. It's called "Borderline Content".

There have been accusations of young women buying fake baby bumps to jump on this trend.

I'm absolutely convinced its a result of the same factors driving the Laying Flat and Let It Rot "movements" as well as the total collapse of the simp economy.

I expect to see many of the prettier girls winding up in picturesque villages in Heilongjiang or Guangdong and working as the faces of propaganda meant to encourage lonely and unemployed men to voluntarily move out of the major cities.

If I were the National Security Advisor, I'd be recommending we back the Balochis in their bid for independence.

@alexthechick I don't think any of these folks would be this open on Sina Weibo. In WeChat and QQ, they can claim this was just for their own consumption in pseudo-private groups. That's not an option on Sina Weibo.