A counter example is Richard Spencer, the Nazi, getting punched in public twice and then saying in an interview that he's afraid to go out in public. He faded from the limelight soon thereafter.
Given how common Volkswagens and Audis are in China, I'm certain Volkswagen group's shareholders and executives are currently pissing and shifting themselves.
Musk wasn't talking about the PRC, he was talking about China. The Taiwan province government account has to be super specific in saying "PRC" because its own policies say that it's not only part of China, but also the real China.
Deep Space 9 is the first ST show to have season long arcs peppered with self-contained episodes. Since someone else already mentioned Discovery, I think DS9 is a pretty good jumping on point for "classic" Trek.
2014 data is really old when it comes to the PLAN since it's been on a building spree in the last 5 years or so. According to Wikipedia, the Chinese fleet totals 2.2 million tonnes in 2022, which is still less than the US fleet but 3x the 2014 number you cited.
Tonnage is a good data point, but can be misleading. The US has more bases and long range policing commitments, which means that on average they tend to design bigger ships to carry more fuel/provisions for longer voyages. The US auxiliary fleet is also a proportionally larger chunk of its tonnage since it had to project power all around the world. China mostly only cares about its back yard so its ships can worry less about range.
Despite what I just said about the US being focused on projecting power, US naval power projection has only been demonstrated to be effective against people who can effectively fight back. Consider this: when a modern ship has fired its compliment of missiles, it can't reload at sea. It has to go back to a base and get topped up there. A Chinese ship can withdraw up one of China's many rivers or heavily defended coastal bases for resupply. If Chinese missiles take out bases in Japan and Korea, American ships have to sail all the way back to Guam or Hawaii for reloading.
Many of China's small warships are dedicated ship-killing missile boats instead of anti-submarine or mine warfare auxiliaries like Western navies favor. These were the exact kinds of boats that gave the USN such a headache during the Millenium Challenge.
A head to head comparison of naval strength is only relevant if both fleets are going to sail out to the middle of the pacific and have a fight. In reality, you also have to consider Chinese shore based anti-ship missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles, aircraft, etc. The US can maybe call upon bases in Japan and South Korea in a Taiwan crisis, but that's a few bases versus the strategic depth of all of China.
I've been trying to come up with a term to describe this phenomenon for a while now. Privatewashing, maybe?
Westerners are programmed to not accept certain things if done by the government directly. Publishing propaganda? Bad. Laundering government propaganda through private media outlets? Not a problem. Interfering with a foreign election? Bad. Sponsoring a "Private NGO" to do it? Totally fine. Foreign government influencing domestic policy? Bad. Multinational companies paying lobby groups to do the same? Democracy.
In this case, the government telling people that their votes don't count and that rules don't have to be followed would be flagrantly undemocratic. A private organization doing that though? Well we can't do anything about it even if it's directly relevant to the outcome of elections and national policy.
If someone liking something I don't like doesn't negatively impact me then doesn't that mean that me not liking something that someone likes doesn't negatively impact them?
If so then why does any of this matter? They're free to gush on about the thing and I'm free to complain about it.
A counter example is Richard Spencer, the Nazi, getting punched in public twice and then saying in an interview that he's afraid to go out in public. He faded from the limelight soon thereafter.