Sinicism publisher Bill Bishop analyzes China's threats to cancel Donald Trump's planned Beijing visit over a reported $20 billion US arms package to Taiwan.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bishop: CIA allegedly financed promotions for rising Chinese PLA officers
“And this was and there are, there's been certainly, I don't think it's been in the media, but I'd certainly heard that among the funders of some of these officers in years past was our America CIA, because it was a great way to push people in and, you know, ev…”
Assertion Supported
Bishop: Corrupt PLA officer promotions functioned like angel investments for future revenue
“It's kind of like an angel investment, at least in some cases where actually people would collectively buy a stake in a rising officer because I'm not joking. Right. Literally.”
Opinion
Bishop: Purging dozens of generals impacts PLA combat readiness in the short term
“There's clearly the number of generals and senior officers who've been taken out over the last two plus years is quite shocking. It's in the dozens, and so it, it's hard to imagine in the short term it doesn't have some impact on the military's ability to figh…”
Insight
Bishop: Corruption in China functions as a tax without halting project execution
“The thing is, is the corruption is just sort of like, it's another tax. It still works. Right? Unlike maybe other countries, you still get it done. It still works pretty well, but some folks, you know, but then you make a little money on the side.”
Assertion Supported
Bishop: China's AI strategy prioritizes economic diffusion over frontier models
“They have like this AI plus plan they rolled out a couple months ago, where it's really to embed AI throughout the economy and throughout society. And so they're not really focused on As much as sort of getting to AGI and these massive models, they're really m…”
Assertion Supported
Bishop: State Department blocks Commerce-approved NVIDIA H200 sales to China
“What's interesting, right, I think it was the Financial Times reported last week that even though, ah, like, the Department of Commerce has signed off on the licenses to sell to China the H 200, that the Department of State, or the State Department, which has …”