Nick, the "Pinduoduo Radar" line is great clickbait, but it reveals a dangerous complacency in Western analysis.
You are judging the PLA's domestic capabilities based on their "Monkey Export Models." In the arms trade, no Great Power sells its top-tier kit to a client with zero discipline. The radar in Caracas is to the PLA's integrated coastal defense what a 1990s Honda Civic is to a Formula 1 car. Furthermore, Hardware is useless without Software (Discipline). Maduro’s army had high entropy; the PLA has high order. Confusing the two is a fatal intel error.
On the "Failure of the China Model": You imply China failed because it didn't save Maduro. But System B isn't NATO. It doesn't sell "Security Guarantees" (Article 5); it sells "Mercantile Solvency." Maduro was operationally insolvent. He couldn't pump the oil to pay the interest. If the US wants to step in as the new Property Manager and spend billions in CapEx to fix the pumps? Great. The Senior Creditor (China) welcomes the liquidity. China doesn't need a friend in Miraflores; it needs a payer.
On the Taiwan Analogy: This is the most critical distinction. Venezuela was a Raid (Fast, Kinetic, Destructive) on a Commodity Asset (Oil). Taiwan would be a Siege (Slow, Strangulating, Preservative) on a Computational Asset (Chips).
You can snatch a dictator in a morning. But you cannot snatch a 3nm Fab without shattering the wafers inside. One is a police action; the other is a metabolic strangulation. The physics dictate the tactics.
"On Weibo (Chinese Twitter)" - this is a very silly and unserious critique but... 1. You don't have to call it "Chinese Twitter" - we know what it is, or can go find out on our own. 2. If you insist on providing a marker, "Chinese Twitter" is an actively silly way to do it. Twitter matured as a product (saturated market, flat growth, end of the S curve) in early 2016. It changed name to X in 2022.
It hasn't even *been* Twitter for 30% of its mature product life. If you're gonna insist..."Chinese X" would be miles more accurate, even if it punches older internet users in the feels and makes them momentarily sad for The Platform That Used To Be.
The CIA bought off the Venezulan military who then told the operators of the defense systems to stand down. Can't criticize the manufacturers for that. Link discusses the shutdown.
They already took care of that. Probably why Trump is saying Venezula is broke. On December 23rd, Russian and Chinese cargo planes cleaned out Venezula's silver supply, all 847 tons of it.
And the Venezzulan govt immediately declared force majure on all its silver contracts which represented 12 percent of this year's planned for supply.
That's why the world silver markets just went nuts.
Nick, the "Pinduoduo Radar" line is great clickbait, but it reveals a dangerous complacency in Western analysis.
You are judging the PLA's domestic capabilities based on their "Monkey Export Models." In the arms trade, no Great Power sells its top-tier kit to a client with zero discipline. The radar in Caracas is to the PLA's integrated coastal defense what a 1990s Honda Civic is to a Formula 1 car. Furthermore, Hardware is useless without Software (Discipline). Maduro’s army had high entropy; the PLA has high order. Confusing the two is a fatal intel error.
On the "Failure of the China Model": You imply China failed because it didn't save Maduro. But System B isn't NATO. It doesn't sell "Security Guarantees" (Article 5); it sells "Mercantile Solvency." Maduro was operationally insolvent. He couldn't pump the oil to pay the interest. If the US wants to step in as the new Property Manager and spend billions in CapEx to fix the pumps? Great. The Senior Creditor (China) welcomes the liquidity. China doesn't need a friend in Miraflores; it needs a payer.
On the Taiwan Analogy: This is the most critical distinction. Venezuela was a Raid (Fast, Kinetic, Destructive) on a Commodity Asset (Oil). Taiwan would be a Siege (Slow, Strangulating, Preservative) on a Computational Asset (Chips).
You can snatch a dictator in a morning. But you cannot snatch a 3nm Fab without shattering the wafers inside. One is a police action; the other is a metabolic strangulation. The physics dictate the tactics.
"On Weibo (Chinese Twitter)" - this is a very silly and unserious critique but... 1. You don't have to call it "Chinese Twitter" - we know what it is, or can go find out on our own. 2. If you insist on providing a marker, "Chinese Twitter" is an actively silly way to do it. Twitter matured as a product (saturated market, flat growth, end of the S curve) in early 2016. It changed name to X in 2022.
It hasn't even *been* Twitter for 30% of its mature product life. If you're gonna insist..."Chinese X" would be miles more accurate, even if it punches older internet users in the feels and makes them momentarily sad for The Platform That Used To Be.
Two thoughts:
Chinese and Russian air defenses
The CIA bought off the Venezulan military who then told the operators of the defense systems to stand down. Can't criticize the manufacturers for that. Link discusses the shutdown.
https://rumble.com/v73y8d0-judgingfreedom.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_a
Russian and Chinese Venezulan debt
They already took care of that. Probably why Trump is saying Venezula is broke. On December 23rd, Russian and Chinese cargo planes cleaned out Venezula's silver supply, all 847 tons of it.
And the Venezzulan govt immediately declared force majure on all its silver contracts which represented 12 percent of this year's planned for supply.
That's why the world silver markets just went nuts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1Adgk9Czw