Introduction
A while back I wrote about Peter Zeihan.
He is a Globohomo mouthpiece. The catch? He talks, primarily, to fellow travelers. Therefore he is disincentivized to bullshit because he's briefing his own side; what he gets wrong is due to GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) via bad data.
In recent months he's been including commentary about China and Russia due to the Ukraine War and its effects on his core topic: geopolitics and the global economy.
Folks have gainsayed his commentary on China and Russia's abysmal demographics, worse than those of the West, and how these demographics are akin to witnessing the Hindenberg disaster of about a century ago in slow motion.
Below is independent confirmation of how fucked China is.
china’s birth rate..
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) March 18, 2023
lowest ever recorded pic.twitter.com/Da5RODzR1b
If you follow The China Show or Lei's Real Talk (or similar channels) you'll know that Xi Jinping's hold on power is not as solid as he wants the world to beleive.
You may also have heard a lot about China's diplomatic moves of late, as well as plenty of noise about Taiwan.
Know that Xi Jinping is sufficiently well-read to know his Sun Tzu, and one of his well-known quotes is this: “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
We can conclude that, despite all the theater, Xi personally and thus the CCP (and, by extention, the military) is weak. Several other China watcher channels routinely show video by locals that slip past the Great Firewall about how bad things really are, and channels such as China Update hit upon how the economy really is on a daily basis.
Xi may want to move on Taiwan. Xi has to know that, alas, Zeihan is right: the CCP (and thus the military) has not the means to do it even if they want to- and if they could, they would still fail, and that is before outside intervention (neverming American).
Fortunately for Xi, he does have one effective tool in the box.
The Shillsphere
The CCP is not entirely a clown show. There is one thing they are very good at doing, and that's bullshitting their enemies. "Influence operations", to use a formal term, is how the ChiComs use their own form of Imperial Intelligence to replicate what Globohomo uses Five Eyes and European Intelligence do to influence targetted populations into Globohomo orbit.
This is very effective against Western dissidents, earnest and crooked alike.
All that one needs is sufficient money and loose women--honeypots--and it's off to the races. As the CCP prizes Causasians, the suckers and grifters recruited as agents for the CCP's influence operations directly are known as "White Monkeys" (h/t China Show). Diasporan Chinese and similar Asians come second as recruitment choices.
The tell is as simple as it is genius: they never talk shit about China or the CCP.
This is how I have come to reason that a lot of the "pro-Russian propaganda" is actually CCP Shillsphere operations in effect. The New Atlas (whom I suspect is a White Monkey operation), The Duran, Garland Nixon, and many others in and around those groups are part of this CCP Shillsphere.
Most of these people, contrary to expectation, are not directly paid by the CCP; they are used--they are Useful Idiots in the classic sense--but out of an entire online cohort maybe one or two get real compensation (I am certain of this for George Galloway and I suspect this of Berletic of The New Atlas) while the rest are played for fools (e.g. Gonzolo Lira, The Duran).
The problem here is that it complicates an already horrible problem of information pollution by dumping in another source of outright bullshit, further muddying already dirty waters with yet more toxic sludge. When you have two competing bullshitters lying, scamming, and gaslighting populations it makes finding out what's really going on impractical for common people at best.
Now add on that Russia still has its own influence operations, even if they are at present anemic and very limited compared to China and Globohomo, and it gets impractical for anyone who lacks the time to filter shit out or the luxury of being able to wait to see what sifts out from the silt.
This is bad for dissidents. There is sweet fuck-all for clean, reliable information out there at this level unless you're rich or wealthy enough to buy access to a service that caters to such people- and that's hardly the dissident populations of the world. Furthermore, as the episode with James O'Keefe and Project Veritas revealed, any such operation that does get tractions is targetted for cooptation or destruction. All Imperial powers cannot abide alternatives to their control, and information control is critical.
I have no solutions for you about that problem at this time. I just want you to recognize that the problem exists, and there is an opportunity for those bold and savvy enough to go for it.
Conclusion
Finally, I want all of you to recognize this fact: you don't need to be the best to win- just the one that sucks least.
Because of the terminal demographics of Russia, I no longer care about the Ukraine War. Even if the best result occurs (which means Russian winning and Europe backing off), it's still going to lead to Russia losing down the road sooner than later; winning the war is a Pryhhic Victory at best because it cannot win the peace and Putin's regime will fall sooner than later.
China's in the same position in the East. A population aging so fast it feels like the mainland's afflicted with Timefall out of Death Stranding means that China's shot at taking down Globohomo has already passed; yes, the West is a fucking circus, but it's still more competent and resilient than either of its challengers, as revealed by both the data and the events of the last year.
Which means that, for Western dissidents, there is no aid coming from beyond the West. We are on our own; if we can't save ourselves, then it's up to God to do so because no man will be able to do it for us.
Hit the gym, folks, and don't fall for the White Monkey screetching.
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