RE: China’s Economy Is Not Crashing, It’s Worse Than That
That statement is mildly sensationalized, but only mildly. Given the inherent frailty of China's entire economy (yeah I just said that), all we have to do is make them stumble once or twice and the series of crises that they have been waiting to address one-by-one in a planned order will all hit them at once, and we can just let China's history of "coast gets rich, interior gets poor, interior gets jealous, coast gets headaches" repeat itself for the umpteenth time.
The only weapon China has that is worrisome is deception; specifically, in an age where power comes not from a nation's military but their ability to rally other nations to their side, they don't have to beat us in battle or economics if they can make the world THINK they have beaten us in one or the other. I have done an article about that recently, but I have another one pending that is a bit more specific to psychological warfare.
Yeah maybe I do get a bit sensational, but I tend to think a few years ahead. It's inevitable that when a world power is challenged, war breaks out. China's growth rate was on the path to overtaking the US in about 20 years, and the US would never give up its unipolar status without a fight. China would more than likely prepare for that, and preemptively strike with deceptive espionage and cyberwarfare, since those are its strong suits. I agree with you wholeheartedly on psychological warfare. That's their best weapon, and it's time we ramped up ours. When the Chinese say they are "stunned" and "shocked" that Trump would ever think to call them out, I laugh. Because it's so easy for America to become the good guy. We have people in our government that have allowed them to perpetrate their soft power game without pushback. This battle starts internally, but if we conquer ourselves, they have no chance. I also totally agree with what you said about China's economy - their debt system is ridiculous.