Comment by cbeach
1 month ago
> the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
This is dangerous, geo-politically, should China ever go to war with the West in any capacity.
In WW2, America's car factories gave it a decisive advantage, as part of the war machine.
Ford’s Willow Run plant produced one B-24 bomber every ~63 minutes at peak output. General Motors built tanks, aircraft engines, trucks. Chrysler: tanks and artillery.
The West de-industrialised, as a result of our globalist policy (thanks to the WTO, WEF and other supranational organisations). We have decimated our own military industrial production capability.
Meanwhile China has taken exactly the opposite approach.
https://www.ft.com/content/6474a1a9-4a88-4f76-9685-f8ccb080d... : "Renault to team up with French defence group to make drones for Ukraine"
I don't think the deindustrialization narrative is quite as bad as the doomers would have it, although it's notable that both sides in the Ukraine war depend on Chinese drone electronics.
(we've also forgotten the nuclear war narrative of the 80s: it's irrelevant if you can build a bomber in 63 minutes if it only takes the ballistic missiles 43 minutes from launch to arrival, at which point the war or at least industrial society is over)