Victor Vescovo

And so I think that they're trying to judge the situation to their maximum benefit.

And I think the United States, especially most recently, but even with the previous administration, more attempts have been made to pivot to Asia, and we are increasing the deterrent capability of the United States to say, the odds aren't for certain that you could succeed in a military intervention in Taiwan.

And the more we can do that and show resolve, show more systems that could complicate their war planning,

the greater the chances that they would go, it's not as sure a thing as we think it is.

Let's try other means.

But then the long run, I think China has crested in terms of population.

And with the one child policy they had for so long, that is now coming back to harm them in a major way.

Their population is going to precipitously

decline over the next 40 or 50 years.

They will have serious social issues with that exacerbated by the fact that there's a severe male-female imbalance in the country.

And anyone that studies history knows that declining standards of living, which go hand in hand with a declining population,

combined with a male-female imbalance often lead to severe popular instability for governments.

I think China's going to have its hands full with domestic problems the next 10 years, 20 years.

What kind of, I mean, has this already started?

Yeah.

You're starting to see the edges of it.

It's going to be below a billion by the end of the century, which is unbelievable.

They're going to be, I think, people correct me in the comments, I'm sure, but around 800 million by the end of the century, which is 70 years, which is a full generation.

The United States is going to be growing.

And frankly, some of that's because of immigration, to be quite frank, but also we have a little bit more of a stable economy.