Sarah Paine: prediction

Transcript context

…But the idea that there will be some sort of conflict between these two countries… I agree with the idea that China has a lot of people and a lot of wealth. Russia has a lot of water, and it has a lot of resources. These are complementary resources. They both have things that the other party has. The question is, will they attain these things through war or through trade? It seems very improbable to me that… China’s got a lot of money. It can just pay for Russian oil, it can just pay for water. Why would it invade a nuclear-armed nation? I never said it would do that. It’s a question of if Putin feels that his back is up against the wall. What price? We don’t really know the terms of their trade. What are the real energy prices that China’s paying for all of this? I don’t know. Maybe some people do know. I suspect that whatever the terms of trade are going to be, the Chinese are going to get a really good deal. If you look at what happened to Gorbachev at the very end of the Cold War. He’s not going to war with anyone, but his internal situation is devolving so rapidly because their economy collapses. He’s already got lousy oil prices. In addition, he has so upset the centralized planning system such that revenues are just collapsing around him, and he’s about to be thrown out of power. He is desperate for the kind of loans that the Germans in particular are willing to give him in order to get, not only Germany reunited, but West Germany staying in NATO. The next thing is East Germany is going to be in NATO too, and then NATO can have whomever. Those things are trades he never would have made ever, but he’s so desperate. In that case, the West likes to pay people, so instead of paying him a low price, the West is paying him a high price to back off. In China, I suspect it’ll be the opposite. They pay him less and less for whatever it is he wants if he really continues to corner himself in Ukraine. These terms of trade will get more and more in China’s favor. Does that look like the bromance ending? North Korea has for decades been in a very desperate position.…

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