It sure is a Bloomberg article. Props to those who can look past that.
Perhaps to reinforce this narrative, would-be presidential candidate and current California Governor Gavin Newsom organized a long-overdue cleanup of San Francisco, the once-lovely city that he and his fellow Democrats have turned into a dystopia with such absurd policies as “injection sites” for junkies to do illegal drugs, effective decriminalization of shoplifting and officially sanctioned shanty towns. This effort was not thought necessary for the people who live in northern California and pay the taxes that make dystopia possible. But with the leader of the Chinese Communist Policy coming to town, Newsom & Co. knew what had to be done. . . .
A recent New York Times poll of swing states must have made Democratic strategists choke on their avocado toast . . .
It sure is a Bloomberg article. Props to those who can look past that.
As a long time San Francisco resident I am still happy to see that we are the punching bag for the national media. The people it is keeping away from my still lovely city are not missed at all.
As a long time San Francisco resident I am still happy to see that we are the punching bag for the national media. The people it is keeping away from my still lovely city are not missed at all.
It's absolutely amazingly funny to hear reactionaries repeat the same tired talking points about California decade after decade as if it's not one of the largest economies in the world and a place...
It's absolutely amazingly funny to hear reactionaries repeat the same tired talking points about California decade after decade as if it's not one of the largest economies in the world and a place where almost everyone wants to live. I personally don't want to live there only because I'm terrified of the big earthquake, but it's an incredible corner of the world with unbelievably beautiful and diverse geography, lovely people, and endless economic opportunities. Always appreciate visiting.
I lived in Sweden for a few months and it's been hilarious reading right wing propaganda about "Swedistan", it's crazy what people say about places they've never been to.
I lived in Sweden for a few months and it's been hilarious reading right wing propaganda about "Swedistan", it's crazy what people say about places they've never been to.
Look at the UK mate. We've had regular right wing nutters in the US tell us we can't walk around at night withouy Islamic hit squads coming for us. It cracks you up to think how deluded these...
Look at the UK mate. We've had regular right wing nutters in the US tell us we can't walk around at night withouy Islamic hit squads coming for us.
It cracks you up to think how deluded these people can be.
Reminds me of a story. The ambassador for the Netherlands under the Trump administration said we had "No-go zones" with muslim youth and that politicions were being burned. When he finally came to...
Reminds me of a story. The ambassador for the Netherlands under the Trump administration said we had "No-go zones" with muslim youth and that politicions were being burned. When he finally came to the Netherlands he was surprised that dutch journalists, unlike in the US ones, don't take bullshit and were very adamant to hear why he had made such claims:"This is the Netherlands. You have to answer questions.". https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42671283
A lot of the people "at the top" that spout this nonsense are not deluded, it is a calculated rhetorical move on their part. The people down the ladder that eat it up are the deluded ones, but...
It cracks you up to think how deluded these people can be.
A lot of the people "at the top" that spout this nonsense are not deluded, it is a calculated rhetorical move on their part.
The people down the ladder that eat it up are the deluded ones, but deluded by someone else's targeted lies.
The classic Sharia Law zones! The reason I don't really go out at night apart from walking the dog for 5 minutes is because I live right next to a really rough area that suffers from extreme...
The classic Sharia Law zones!
The reason I don't really go out at night apart from walking the dog for 5 minutes is because I live right next to a really rough area that suffers from extreme deprivation.
Nothing to do with religious minorities, just good old fashioned poverty, alcohol and drugs.
Clearly, this is caused by huge swathes of immigrants who've come over here and injected good, honest white people with their drugs! My family used to parrot this nonsense when I moved to a big...
Nothing to do with religious minorities, just good old fashioned poverty, alcohol and drugs.
Clearly, this is caused by huge swathes of immigrants who've come over here and injected good, honest white people with their drugs!
My family used to parrot this nonsense when I moved to a big city for the first time. I just stood agape at their insanity and argue back, then I just stopped talking to them... racism and xenophobia is exhausting.
100% true. I lived and worked in Germany for 4 years but never made it to Sweden (very jealous!) and every tired talking point about immigrants destroying Europe is annoying as fuck.
100% true. I lived and worked in Germany for 4 years but never made it to Sweden (very jealous!) and every tired talking point about immigrants destroying Europe is annoying as fuck.
I actually don't think Bloomberg is particularly right-wing. Sure, it's a business publication, and the current opinion columnist has some unfortunate opinions (but is actually a very good...
I actually don't think Bloomberg is particularly right-wing. Sure, it's a business publication, and the current opinion columnist has some unfortunate opinions (but is actually a very good historian), but a lot of the coverage is surprisingly left-wing (see e.g. coverage on wealth inequality, or housing policy, or racism, etc).
His Wikipedia page strongly suggests otherwise. IMO it's basically a laundry list of one controversy after another, with some incredibly questionable views and theories being espoused by him. The...
but is actually a very good historian
His Wikipedia page strongly suggests otherwise. IMO it's basically a laundry list of one controversy after another, with some incredibly questionable views and theories being espoused by him. The impression I got after reading it all is that he's not a reputable historian at all... he's a neoconservative historical revisionist masquerading as a historian. And the fact that Kissinger chose Ferguson to write his official biography says a lot.
Honestly, I think that it's just really obvious/blatant that this guy wants to project the past into the present for the sake of it, because the idea of playing a "Soviet role" doesn't make much...
Exemplary
Honestly, I think that it's just really obvious/blatant that this guy wants to project the past into the present for the sake of it, because the idea of playing a "Soviet role" doesn't make much sense beyond being an old power with slow economic growth and a smaller population, and the geography of a new cold war is fundamentally different and taking place in a fundamentally different world. Above all else, a world not born out of harsh ideological war partitioning the world, but of capitalism managing to sustain itself beyond communism thanks to globalization, less extreme authoritarianism and not screwing up planned economies, and then absorbing the second world into itself with globalization, a far less violent beginning (though that isn't much by the standards of peace.)
But talking about how the 2 nations actually are and where they might want to go, I get the impression that the USA and China share something like 60-80% of their economic defects (expensive and questionable housing, overworked people who don't feel like having children, discontented young people without a clear path to wealth beyond decades of waiting) and their strengths are far more important to discuss than weaknesses. And personally, I think it's very self-evident that the USA, even when US politics break down completely, can basically manage to run on autopilot as the federal government just casually takes a 2-week-long break from working on the whim of conservative politicians because something like a million people immigrate to the USA every single year, a figure which has been growing to this value for the last 50-60 years (since 1965 due to LBJ) and the appeal of the USA for most of these people is basically working for a huge multinational or Silicon Valley tech company, regardless of if the government is actually functioning or not, and this massive influx basically keeps the US (well, the parts with said immigrants) away from population decline, and inevitably that is just pure soft power and economic status as the incumbent power. China's strength is that it builds much more infrastructure and is the factory of the world, but inevitably it becomes fairly obvious that this role is very dependent on free trade and the US being incapable of gathering the political/economic will to break up fully as idealized by protectionists and trade war supporters which it definitely is, don't get me wrong, but manufacturing things for the immense US consumer market doesn't lend itself to harshly opposing and fighting against America, and they seem to be distressingly near having built all the infrastructure they would ever need and then enough for the several ghost cities we hear about in the west, which is one of the many fronts where we suspect China could be inflating their GDP and other economic figures to us and themselves.
I think that the role of the US is basically to just keep being the incumbent and soft power and keep using brain drain and immigration to keep economic power to itself and away from China while China's role is basically to seek alternate pathways to economic power such as dedollarization, the new silk road and investing in Africa, which they have already been doing. Most importantly for the article though, neither of these paths involves splitting the world in 2 in a decades-long ideological conflict, especially when China as an "Arsenal of Autocracy" isn't super helpful since when you look at the relationships that these autocratic old world societies that oppose the US (China, North Korea, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, etc.) hold with eachother, you don't actually see that much in the way of actual amicableness, if anything the constant need to grandstand against their enemies makes these autocracies want to convey an image of being on their own against the USA, which does not bode well with the grandiose image of a neo-warsaw-pact of authoritarians of all ideologies.
The US is destined to be eclipsed economically by China, and anyone who believes otherwise is frankly delusional. I honestly don't believe China sees itself as an adversary of the US, and I think...
The US is destined to be eclipsed economically by China, and anyone who believes otherwise is frankly delusional. I honestly don't believe China sees itself as an adversary of the US, and I think we should more or less take their word seriously when they say they want the US to break out of its Cold War mindset. China is not interested in being a global police force the way the US is, and I would imagine there may also be some general respect and appreciation for America supporting China's development through the opening of trade in the 2000s. If it's worth anything, Xi sent his daughter to Harvard, when she could have gone to Europe or stayed in China.
On Taiwan, it's worth being mindful that China's primary geopolitical concern for centuries has been avoiding its own internal collapse. China is hard bent on taking the island of Taiwan because the alternative, in their mind, is a fracturing of the concept of China. So much so, that they view Taiwan renouncing its claim on mainland China to itself be problematic. The US could potentially buy a few decades if it signaled to China that it understood this dynamic by transparently communicating to the Taiwanese leadership that it was disinterested in supporting outright independence even if the opportunity arose, but would continue to support de facto sovreignty.
I think they are definitely interested in being the global police force in exactly the way the US has been, ensuring that global policy and interests are staunchly in their favor. They repeatedly...
China is not interested in being a global police force the way the US is...
I think they are definitely interested in being the global police force in exactly the way the US has been, ensuring that global policy and interests are staunchly in their favor. They repeatedly engage is aggressive maritime action from the South China sea (an area that according to the globally recognized United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is shared by the Philippines, Japan, and Korea) to Ecuador, Ghana, or Indonesia. They engage in predatory loan programs to destabilize and control emerging economies in South America, Central Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
I'm not demonizing China, they are using text book examples from US foreign policy. Hell, they are even inventing their own chapters. I think seeing China as a neutral, stabilizing force is a buying into the image that they are selling. It's US 2.0, colonialism wrapped up in the cloth of business.
Chinese aggression in the South China sea can be understood as wanting to establish a security moat. The strong presence that the US military has in the SCS naturally poses a risk to China,...
Chinese aggression in the South China sea can be understood as wanting to establish a security moat. The strong presence that the US military has in the SCS naturally poses a risk to China, regardless of how they feel or want to feel about us. I would say a solution on that front would be to assert that nations along the SCS, though largely on good terms with the US, are independent and have their own foreign policy. We also need to have a balanced approach with our military presence in the region.
I don't find the debt-trap diplomacy narrative all that compelling (see here or here). Nations can always choose not to take a loan, and merely the option of Chinese loans should have the effect of driving down the cost of borrowing for all developing countries from any source. We've also seen the greater competition drive more favorable Western investment and aid to these countries as a result. It's concerning that China is willing to loan to corrupt leaders, but on the whole what they're doing is far from evil and has even substantially driven development of many countries.
I'm looking to understand your point of view, here - do you mean that china wouldn't be an adversary of the US if the US stopped leaning on them or something like that? Currently all of their...
I honestly don't believe China sees itself as an adversary of the US,
I'm looking to understand your point of view, here - do you mean that china wouldn't be an adversary of the US if the US stopped leaning on them or something like that?
Currently all of their actions and words paint the US as an adversary. Trade between China and Russia has skyrocketed since Russia invaded Ukraine. China repeatedly announces that the time of American dominance is over.
I think they mean that they see us as their adversary who is holding them down, so they are thus at war with us in many ways--but they are not our adversary in that they do not truly wish to...
I think they mean that they see us as their adversary who is holding them down, so they are thus at war with us in many ways--but they are not our adversary in that they do not truly wish to replace the US as the global hegemon. They want to be powerful and wealthy, but they don't necessarily want to run the world in the way the US has since WWII.
So they believe we're opposing their interests but they don't believe they are opposing our interests in the same way (other than as a convenient way of achieving their goals...which, as I said, they don't believe have to conflict with theirs...so they feel they are justified in taking the "convenient" option because they believe we, as the global hegemon and superpower, are restraining them).
It's actually fairly straightforward once you understand each country's perspectives: we don't like them because they aren't a democracy and they don't like us because we don't like them. Sure, there's obviously a lot more nuance (if you can call it that) to each side's perspective, but that pretty much sums it up. They're not playing our game and we're stopping them from playing their game.
And honestly, I think both sides are right. China is an evil, petulant dictatorship and we're blocking them from what they want like a child who's not allowed to steal his neighbor's industrial cookie recipes and then use genocide to bake a batch of cookies. But with more nuance.
I think it's more a matter that China doesn't want to police the world in the same way as the USA, which exerts significant military might across the globe, but they very much do want their brand...
I think it's more a matter that China doesn't want to police the world in the same way as the USA, which exerts significant military might across the globe, but they very much do want their brand of hegemony to reign supreme in the 21st century. The whole world witnessed how much of a debacle the USA's power projection was in the Middle East and have learned that that's not the best way to exert influence.
Being a superpower is more than being a military superpower. Economic power, cultural influence, diplomatic relations, etc. all come into play. I would say that China has leaned heavily into economic power and cultural influence first to shore up their base of support without explicit projections of military force. There's no need for them to go hot with the USA. Instead, they'll continue to erode away at the USA's cultural export, economic dominance, steadily gain ground on military capability, and ever increasingly be central to international diplomacy and setting tech standards.
The us has sanctions in place between both china (since before the Ukraine alwar) and Russia. I'm confused by why them then working together means they're the ones being adversarial.
The us has sanctions in place between both china (since before the Ukraine alwar) and Russia. I'm confused by why them then working together means they're the ones being adversarial.
I was just reading an article about China's current & predicted economic decline. https://www.ft.com/content/c10bd71b-e418-48d7-ad89-74c5783c51a2 So I have to ask, what makes you think that the US...
I was just reading an article about China's current & predicted economic decline.
I mean, for one, they are already surpass the US in PPP output. Catching up in nominal terms is essentially a question of financial maneuvering. There are short-term and medium-term perturbations,...
I mean, for one, they are already surpass the US in PPP output. Catching up in nominal terms is essentially a question of financial maneuvering. There are short-term and medium-term perturbations, for sure, but the macro factors are ultimately on their side. China's projected declining population means little to nothing because the West and its allies will also have the same, if not worse, population decline. It's possible that the West and friends will maintain a disproportionate share of global GDP over China, but China will surely overtake the US itself eventually.
This is a very strange take--things are not going well for China and won't unless something big changes. Their declining population is a massive problem for them, and it's not a problem for the US...
This is a very strange take--things are not going well for China and won't unless something big changes. Their declining population is a massive problem for them, and it's not a problem for the US and other western nations because we have large amounts of immigration in comparison.
While I’m bearish on China, the declining population bit isn’t the economy-ender we think it is. They still have hundreds of millions of people in deep poverty. Those folks, as they gain wealth,...
While I’m bearish on China, the declining population bit isn’t the economy-ender we think it is. They still have hundreds of millions of people in deep poverty. Those folks, as they gain wealth, can help continue to grow the economy for a long time, and provide a labor force for the future.
I'll add that, because of their authoritarian, semi-centralized economy, the Chinese economy will never just crap out from large market failures like 2008 in most of the rest of the world. As long...
I'll add that, because of their authoritarian, semi-centralized economy, the Chinese economy will never just crap out from large market failures like 2008 in most of the rest of the world. As long as they have the physical resources to sustain it, their economy will endure.
It’s interesting you mention physical resources, because while China proper lacks certain critical resources (oil and gas, some minerals, uranium), when you add in the countries of North and...
It’s interesting you mention physical resources, because while China proper lacks certain critical resources (oil and gas, some minerals, uranium), when you add in the countries of North and Central Asia, that bloc appears close to self-sufficiency, meaning the Chinese could turn inward if needed (especially considering a 12-1 population advantage over those countries). If there’s certain technologies they require, they can be procured secretly through shell companies in neutral countries.
I may be underestimating how long it will take, but I still hold that the day will come within this century. Don't forget that the US is in a much worse position with its sovereign debt and has...
I may be underestimating how long it will take, but I still hold that the day will come within this century. Don't forget that the US is in a much worse position with its sovereign debt and has very little room in comparison to merely outgrow it. There's also the ongoing risk of dedollarization (in part tied to the unsustainability of US sovereign debt) around the world that could shift the dynamic of things dramatically.
They're an economic powerhouse to be sure, but from my understanding they're facing some serious real estate and unemployment problems right now. This economic malaise is a real risk for China....
The US is destined to be eclipsed economically by China, and anyone who believes otherwise is frankly delusional.
They're an economic powerhouse to be sure, but from my understanding they're facing some serious real estate and unemployment problems right now. This economic malaise is a real risk for China. Demographics are also spoiled against them as the work force ages and the population continues to contract for the first time in decades.
In contrast, US unemployment is near record lows, we've dealt with global inflation far better than most nations on Earth, and our population is steadily predicted to increase over the next century primarily because immigration here is so high. These are some big advantages.
I didn't expand because other comments largely already make the points more clearly than I would. I particularly think the portion on Taiwanese independence is naive when it comes to how China...
I didn't expand because other comments largely already make the points more clearly than I would. I particularly think the portion on Taiwanese independence is naive when it comes to how China would react to the US reaponse described.
It sure is a Bloomberg article. Props to those who can look past that.
As a long time San Francisco resident I am still happy to see that we are the punching bag for the national media. The people it is keeping away from my still lovely city are not missed at all.
It's absolutely amazingly funny to hear reactionaries repeat the same tired talking points about California decade after decade as if it's not one of the largest economies in the world and a place where almost everyone wants to live. I personally don't want to live there only because I'm terrified of the big earthquake, but it's an incredible corner of the world with unbelievably beautiful and diverse geography, lovely people, and endless economic opportunities. Always appreciate visiting.
I lived in Sweden for a few months and it's been hilarious reading right wing propaganda about "Swedistan", it's crazy what people say about places they've never been to.
Look at the UK mate. We've had regular right wing nutters in the US tell us we can't walk around at night withouy Islamic hit squads coming for us.
It cracks you up to think how deluded these people can be.
Reminds me of a story. The ambassador for the Netherlands under the Trump administration said we had "No-go zones" with muslim youth and that politicions were being burned. When he finally came to the Netherlands he was surprised that dutch journalists, unlike in the US ones, don't take bullshit and were very adamant to hear why he had made such claims:"This is the Netherlands. You have to answer questions.". https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42671283
Not the first time either, Fox News had to apologise for making similar claims about Paris and Birmingham:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gorU1WztIGw
A lot of the people "at the top" that spout this nonsense are not deluded, it is a calculated rhetorical move on their part.
The people down the ladder that eat it up are the deluded ones, but deluded by someone else's targeted lies.
The classic Sharia Law zones!
The reason I don't really go out at night apart from walking the dog for 5 minutes is because I live right next to a really rough area that suffers from extreme deprivation.
Nothing to do with religious minorities, just good old fashioned poverty, alcohol and drugs.
Clearly, this is caused by huge swathes of immigrants who've come over here and injected good, honest white people with their drugs!
My family used to parrot this nonsense when I moved to a big city for the first time. I just stood agape at their insanity and argue back, then I just stopped talking to them... racism and xenophobia is exhausting.
100% true. I lived and worked in Germany for 4 years but never made it to Sweden (very jealous!) and every tired talking point about immigrants destroying Europe is annoying as fuck.
I actually don't think Bloomberg is particularly right-wing. Sure, it's a business publication, and the current opinion columnist has some unfortunate opinions (but is actually a very good historian), but a lot of the coverage is surprisingly left-wing (see e.g. coverage on wealth inequality, or housing policy, or racism, etc).
His Wikipedia page strongly suggests otherwise. IMO it's basically a laundry list of one controversy after another, with some incredibly questionable views and theories being espoused by him. The impression I got after reading it all is that he's not a reputable historian at all... he's a neoconservative historical revisionist masquerading as a historian. And the fact that Kissinger chose Ferguson to write his official biography says a lot.
Honestly, I think that it's just really obvious/blatant that this guy wants to project the past into the present for the sake of it, because the idea of playing a "Soviet role" doesn't make much sense beyond being an old power with slow economic growth and a smaller population, and the geography of a new cold war is fundamentally different and taking place in a fundamentally different world. Above all else, a world not born out of harsh ideological war partitioning the world, but of capitalism managing to sustain itself beyond communism thanks to globalization, less extreme authoritarianism and not screwing up planned economies, and then absorbing the second world into itself with globalization, a far less violent beginning (though that isn't much by the standards of peace.)
But talking about how the 2 nations actually are and where they might want to go, I get the impression that the USA and China share something like 60-80% of their economic defects (expensive and questionable housing, overworked people who don't feel like having children, discontented young people without a clear path to wealth beyond decades of waiting) and their strengths are far more important to discuss than weaknesses. And personally, I think it's very self-evident that the USA, even when US politics break down completely, can basically manage to run on autopilot as the federal government just casually takes a 2-week-long break from working on the whim of conservative politicians because something like a million people immigrate to the USA every single year, a figure which has been growing to this value for the last 50-60 years (since 1965 due to LBJ) and the appeal of the USA for most of these people is basically working for a huge multinational or Silicon Valley tech company, regardless of if the government is actually functioning or not, and this massive influx basically keeps the US (well, the parts with said immigrants) away from population decline, and inevitably that is just pure soft power and economic status as the incumbent power. China's strength is that it builds much more infrastructure and is the factory of the world, but inevitably it becomes fairly obvious that this role is very dependent on free trade and the US being incapable of gathering the political/economic will to break up fully as idealized by protectionists and trade war supporters which it definitely is, don't get me wrong, but manufacturing things for the immense US consumer market doesn't lend itself to harshly opposing and fighting against America, and they seem to be distressingly near having built all the infrastructure they would ever need and then enough for the several ghost cities we hear about in the west, which is one of the many fronts where we suspect China could be inflating their GDP and other economic figures to us and themselves.
I think that the role of the US is basically to just keep being the incumbent and soft power and keep using brain drain and immigration to keep economic power to itself and away from China while China's role is basically to seek alternate pathways to economic power such as dedollarization, the new silk road and investing in Africa, which they have already been doing. Most importantly for the article though, neither of these paths involves splitting the world in 2 in a decades-long ideological conflict, especially when China as an "Arsenal of Autocracy" isn't super helpful since when you look at the relationships that these autocratic old world societies that oppose the US (China, North Korea, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, etc.) hold with eachother, you don't actually see that much in the way of actual amicableness, if anything the constant need to grandstand against their enemies makes these autocracies want to convey an image of being on their own against the USA, which does not bode well with the grandiose image of a neo-warsaw-pact of authoritarians of all ideologies.
The US is destined to be eclipsed economically by China, and anyone who believes otherwise is frankly delusional. I honestly don't believe China sees itself as an adversary of the US, and I think we should more or less take their word seriously when they say they want the US to break out of its Cold War mindset. China is not interested in being a global police force the way the US is, and I would imagine there may also be some general respect and appreciation for America supporting China's development through the opening of trade in the 2000s. If it's worth anything, Xi sent his daughter to Harvard, when she could have gone to Europe or stayed in China.
On Taiwan, it's worth being mindful that China's primary geopolitical concern for centuries has been avoiding its own internal collapse. China is hard bent on taking the island of Taiwan because the alternative, in their mind, is a fracturing of the concept of China. So much so, that they view Taiwan renouncing its claim on mainland China to itself be problematic. The US could potentially buy a few decades if it signaled to China that it understood this dynamic by transparently communicating to the Taiwanese leadership that it was disinterested in supporting outright independence even if the opportunity arose, but would continue to support de facto sovreignty.
I think they are definitely interested in being the global police force in exactly the way the US has been, ensuring that global policy and interests are staunchly in their favor. They repeatedly engage is aggressive maritime action from the South China sea (an area that according to the globally recognized United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is shared by the Philippines, Japan, and Korea) to Ecuador, Ghana, or Indonesia. They engage in predatory loan programs to destabilize and control emerging economies in South America, Central Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
I'm not demonizing China, they are using text book examples from US foreign policy. Hell, they are even inventing their own chapters. I think seeing China as a neutral, stabilizing force is a buying into the image that they are selling. It's US 2.0, colonialism wrapped up in the cloth of business.
Chinese aggression in the South China sea can be understood as wanting to establish a security moat. The strong presence that the US military has in the SCS naturally poses a risk to China, regardless of how they feel or want to feel about us. I would say a solution on that front would be to assert that nations along the SCS, though largely on good terms with the US, are independent and have their own foreign policy. We also need to have a balanced approach with our military presence in the region.
I don't find the debt-trap diplomacy narrative all that compelling (see here or here). Nations can always choose not to take a loan, and merely the option of Chinese loans should have the effect of driving down the cost of borrowing for all developing countries from any source. We've also seen the greater competition drive more favorable Western investment and aid to these countries as a result. It's concerning that China is willing to loan to corrupt leaders, but on the whole what they're doing is far from evil and has even substantially driven development of many countries.
I'm looking to understand your point of view, here - do you mean that china wouldn't be an adversary of the US if the US stopped leaning on them or something like that?
Currently all of their actions and words paint the US as an adversary. Trade between China and Russia has skyrocketed since Russia invaded Ukraine. China repeatedly announces that the time of American dominance is over.
I think they mean that they see us as their adversary who is holding them down, so they are thus at war with us in many ways--but they are not our adversary in that they do not truly wish to replace the US as the global hegemon. They want to be powerful and wealthy, but they don't necessarily want to run the world in the way the US has since WWII.
So they believe we're opposing their interests but they don't believe they are opposing our interests in the same way (other than as a convenient way of achieving their goals...which, as I said, they don't believe have to conflict with theirs...so they feel they are justified in taking the "convenient" option because they believe we, as the global hegemon and superpower, are restraining them).
It's actually fairly straightforward once you understand each country's perspectives: we don't like them because they aren't a democracy and they don't like us because we don't like them. Sure, there's obviously a lot more nuance (if you can call it that) to each side's perspective, but that pretty much sums it up. They're not playing our game and we're stopping them from playing their game.
And honestly, I think both sides are right. China is an evil, petulant dictatorship and we're blocking them from what they want like a child who's not allowed to steal his neighbor's industrial cookie recipes and then use genocide to bake a batch of cookies. But with more nuance.
I think it's more a matter that China doesn't want to police the world in the same way as the USA, which exerts significant military might across the globe, but they very much do want their brand of hegemony to reign supreme in the 21st century. The whole world witnessed how much of a debacle the USA's power projection was in the Middle East and have learned that that's not the best way to exert influence.
Being a superpower is more than being a military superpower. Economic power, cultural influence, diplomatic relations, etc. all come into play. I would say that China has leaned heavily into economic power and cultural influence first to shore up their base of support without explicit projections of military force. There's no need for them to go hot with the USA. Instead, they'll continue to erode away at the USA's cultural export, economic dominance, steadily gain ground on military capability, and ever increasingly be central to international diplomacy and setting tech standards.
The us has sanctions in place between both china (since before the Ukraine alwar) and Russia. I'm confused by why them then working together means they're the ones being adversarial.
I was just reading an article about China's current & predicted economic decline.
https://www.ft.com/content/c10bd71b-e418-48d7-ad89-74c5783c51a2
So I have to ask, what makes you think that the US will be eclipsed economically by China?
I mean, for one, they are already surpass the US in PPP output. Catching up in nominal terms is essentially a question of financial maneuvering. There are short-term and medium-term perturbations, for sure, but the macro factors are ultimately on their side. China's projected declining population means little to nothing because the West and its allies will also have the same, if not worse, population decline. It's possible that the West and friends will maintain a disproportionate share of global GDP over China, but China will surely overtake the US itself eventually.
This is a very strange take--things are not going well for China and won't unless something big changes. Their declining population is a massive problem for them, and it's not a problem for the US and other western nations because we have large amounts of immigration in comparison.
While I’m bearish on China, the declining population bit isn’t the economy-ender we think it is. They still have hundreds of millions of people in deep poverty. Those folks, as they gain wealth, can help continue to grow the economy for a long time, and provide a labor force for the future.
I'll add that, because of their authoritarian, semi-centralized economy, the Chinese economy will never just crap out from large market failures like 2008 in most of the rest of the world. As long as they have the physical resources to sustain it, their economy will endure.
It’s interesting you mention physical resources, because while China proper lacks certain critical resources (oil and gas, some minerals, uranium), when you add in the countries of North and Central Asia, that bloc appears close to self-sufficiency, meaning the Chinese could turn inward if needed (especially considering a 12-1 population advantage over those countries). If there’s certain technologies they require, they can be procured secretly through shell companies in neutral countries.
I may be underestimating how long it will take, but I still hold that the day will come within this century. Don't forget that the US is in a much worse position with its sovereign debt and has very little room in comparison to merely outgrow it. There's also the ongoing risk of dedollarization (in part tied to the unsustainability of US sovereign debt) around the world that could shift the dynamic of things dramatically.
Do you mean GDP adjusted for PPP?
Yes (that goes without saying?)
They're an economic powerhouse to be sure, but from my understanding they're facing some serious real estate and unemployment problems right now. This economic malaise is a real risk for China. Demographics are also spoiled against them as the work force ages and the population continues to contract for the first time in decades.
In contrast, US unemployment is near record lows, we've dealt with global inflation far better than most nations on Earth, and our population is steadily predicted to increase over the next century primarily because immigration here is so high. These are some big advantages.
It's refreshing that Tildes comments aren't just "China involved therefore bad" the way Reddit was, but this perspective seems naive at best.
While I'm not necessarily disagreeing, would you mind expanding on your thoughts rather than just calling the OP naïve and calling it a day?
I didn't expand because other comments largely already make the points more clearly than I would. I particularly think the portion on Taiwanese independence is naive when it comes to how China would react to the US reaponse described.