British Government Advisor Gives Worrying Insight into China at Relais Breakfast Talk
“There is a huge economic disruption coming within the next five years,” according to Sam Olsen, Founder and CEO of Evenstar Global, who provide data-driven strategic intelligence and insights on geopolitical risk in China who was the speaker at The Salon membership recent event at The Relais Henley hotel.
Sam is also an advisor to the British Government and senior Parliamentarians on China. He gave the audience the background history to the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) and the culture in the country. Sam said, “Their number one priority is to stay in power. The ‘Dragon’ will not go away. They believe that economic prosperity is what the people want. The CPC had a dream 2049 plan to be the great power. They brought this forward to 2035 as CPC’s Leader, Xi Jinping wouldn’t be around but now they have brought it forward to the next election cycle of 2027.”
Part of the plan Sam says and is opening talked about is the invasion of Taiwan as technology is a crucial factor in keeping their economy going which is not doing very well at the moment even though China tells the world it is good. It is illegal for any company to publish statistics that are contradictory to the Chinese government statistics. The invasion of Taiwan would have a massive impact on technology as over 90% of the world’s advanced microchips are manufactured there. Another important time factor is that there is an election in Taiwan in 2024 when a new leader has to be elected as the current President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party is ineligible to stand for a third term. Sam said, “The majority of the candidates in the election will be pro independence so early next year I think China will start to move and take lots of the little Taiwan islands and do an embargo of Taiwan.”
After the talk Sam took questions for the floor which asked – What is the hope? What will be the world’s reaction? What are we doing about this?
The next The Salon event will take place on Thursday 25 August and will be an evening river cruise sponsored by Mr Hobbs Gin. Please contact Sulie at salon@therelaisretreats.com to check availability.
