III — Made in China in the Late "Twenty-Year Armistice" and During the Second World War

The "Twenty-Year Armistice" was French Marshal Ferdinand Foch's characterization of the period following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles — a prediction that history proved entirely correct. German revanchism, economic crisis, expansionism to seize resources — all of these became factors in the outbreak of the Second World War. The blood of the first war had not been fully spilled, and so it would continue to flow until it ran dry.

By this time, China's enormous influence on the world was becoming increasingly apparent — not merely because of its colossal size, but because the world's nations were beginning to recognize China's industrial might. Even if the figures in Chinese government work reports were only half true, they were still terrifying in their magnitude.

(Note: Beginning with 1917, each successive Chinese government work report became a vital resource for foreign nations studying China. These reports also exerted significant influence on the world economy. For example, the 1917 Government Work Report introduced the concept of GDP for the first time. The 1960 Government Work Report introduced the concept of the internet economy. And so on.)

When Western nations finally began paying attention to the enormous figures in China's government work reports and started synthesizing their intelligence on China, they were startled to realize that China's influence on their own countries had already far exceeded anyone's imagination. Eating Chinese flour, drinking Chinese juice, wearing Chinese suits, Chinese jeans, and Chinese leather shoes, living in houses built with Chinese cement, waking up to Chinese-made alarm clocks, commuting on Chinese "Forever" brand bicycles — this had already become the daily reality for most Europeans. A small number of wealthier individuals even drove Chinese-made automobiles!

Only then did the Western nations discover, with alarm, that China had extended its economic tentacles into every stratum of their societies — to say nothing of the traditional export staples of fine porcelain and silk. By the time they realized what had happened, it was already too late. Although the economic crisis prompted various nations to implement trade protectionist measures of varying intensity, China's economic system — combined with the Chinese government's advance precautions against the crisis — meant these measures did little damage to China. If anything, they deepened the crisis in those very countries.

China's exports during this period declined significantly compared to the early "Twenty-Year Armistice." This was not solely due to the economic crises erupting across the West and the subsequent rise of trade protectionism. Declassified Chinese government documents later revealed that Chairman Chen Ke had foreseen the crisis before it struck, advanced the theory that "in response to the crisis, Western nations will inevitably resort to trade protectionism," and instructed the relevant ministries to prepare by gradually reducing exports in advance.

As the Chinese saying goes: "When the West is dark, the East shines bright." Although trade protectionism triggered by the economic crisis sharply reduced Chinese exports, because the leadership had anticipated the crisis, China experienced no domestic overproduction (the Jiangsu Special Economic Zone being an exception). On the contrary, even after the conclusion of the major domestic construction phase, supply still fell short of demand. The primary reason was the development of the New Frontier territories. Facing the uninhabited wastes of Western Siberia and the sweltering jungles of Southeast Asia, the development of these regions consumed enormous quantities of China's domestic industrial output — especially the Kra Isthmus project, which was launched later. The materiel consumed to punch through this isthmus defied imagination.

By this point, the structure of Chinese exports had undergone a dramatic transformation. Food exports were no longer the primary component. Chinese-made industrial goods featured increasingly on the import lists of nations worldwide, with various types of electrical equipment at the very top. Chinese-made electrical equipment, showcased at the World's Fair, was renowned for being compact, high-powered, energy-efficient, and exceptionally reliable (relative to Western equipment of the time). In addition, advanced mining, steelmaking, and other heavy industrial equipment — never publicly exhibited — was also imported in large quantities, with Germany and the Soviet Union importing the most.

And at this juncture, another category of Made in China began entering the world's field of vision.

That category was: arms.

(Author's note: the following material is extremely difficult to write. Even this section took me a great deal of deliberation and I'm still not entirely satisfied, mainly because Crimson Moon was too lazy to describe these things in detail. Furthermore, as a humanities major, many of these topics are beyond my expertise, so I can only research slowly, cross-reference with the Red Dawn timeline's historical progression, and revise as I go. If any fellow forum members reading this have good ideas or insights, please share them with me. My phone number is... just kidding. You can reply directly. Also, I acknowledge that even with the utmost care, errors are inevitable, so I hope everyone will point them out.)