The Yangtze River Economic Basin has a GDP of more than $6.5 trillion, or about half of all China's GDP.

Recall, China represents 28% of all manufacturing output - globally. More than half of that is in the YREB.

15% of the world's production would go offline in 24 hours.

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A wipeout of the Yangtze River would further cripple the already-congested Port of Shanghai, slowing vessel rotations to other Chinese and Asian ports by days or weeks.

Food imports - a critical item for China - would be slowed as refrigerated containers are bottlenecked.

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A slowdown at Shanghai would place additional pressure on the northern ports of Tianjin and Qingdao, and central/southern ports like Ningbo, Xiamen, and Yantian.

More manufacturers will offshore from China to SE Asia, creating more chokepoints.

https://twitter.com/man_integrated/status/1277943671061655553

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China's central banking system, already cracking under the pressure of COVID-19 and the trade war, will not be able to help domestic companies recover fast enough.

The CCP will not be able to keep subsidizing production in attempt to keep the economy growing.

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The middle reach of the Yangtze River is also China's main agriculture production zone, where the crops are enaring harvest.

African Swine Fever rages on.

Famine will follow without huge imports of protein from the US, Europe, and S. America.

Hmm.

https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/china-makes-its-largest-ever-purchase-of-us-corn

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China's central and northern region water supply - especially in Beijing - is dependent on the Yangtze.

Additionally, given that 2% of China's electricity is produced by the dam, recovery of the industrial base in the YREB would be crippled due to energy shortfalls.

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The lingering health effects associated with so many dead or sick from the flooding will crush the already-strained health services in the region, which are still trying to recover as the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And...it gets worse.

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It's the habit of authoritarian regimes to deflect from domestic disasters by lashing outward to external enemies or entities.

It is thus a certainty that a failure of the dam will be painted as enemy action - likely pointing the finger at the US and/or Taiwan (recall #26).

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Within days, the CCP/PLA will start saber-rattling.

Harrassment of US and allied naval assets, wargames involving intermediate-range ballistic missiles, rhetoric aimed at Taiwan, etc.

This will spill over into major disruptions of the East and South China Seas.

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Commercial shiplines (such as Maersk, MSC, CMA-CGM) and their import customers in North America will see increased transit times as non-China transshipment ports take on add'l volume and vessels redirect around the contested waters.

As with COVID-19, the system will buckle.

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Many companies in Europe and North America still recovering from the supply chain shock earlier this year will close down, ratcheting up anti-CCP sentiment further.

All of these factors combined will nearly guarantee open conflict between the US and China.

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So what does a failure of the Three Gorges Dam look like?

It would be among the most horrific humanitarian crises in memory, triggering a cascade effect of famine, war, and economic depression that will threaten global peace.

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For just one example of how we need to build proactive solutions to address China's increasingly unstable house of cards, see @SecStudiesGrp's proposal to support the Philippines in rebuilding Subic Bay into a logistics and manufacturing powerhouse.

https://securitystudies.org/blunting-a-rampant-chinas-threat-to-southeast-asian-shipping/

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For more detailed analysis on China's naval and missile programs, as well as their geopolitical moves in the South China Sea and at Diego Garcia, see this thread and the ones embedded within:

https://twitter.com/man_integrated/status/1195465368309059584

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