I couldn’t agree more with this, and parts of it have already started to take place, but it takes years to make the changes. We are now reaping what we started to sow twenty years ago, and it will take another twenty years to revert things.
Obviously, there is also the problem that China is now a trade partner who buys things from us as well. It’s not that straightforward anymore I’m afraid… if we hurt them on an economic level, they’ll hurt us too, and in the end, everyone loses out.
The problem as always with these things is that morals and politics don’t combine well at all.
All the US would need to do is blockade the shipping. Chinas economy would collapse.
It’s been interesting in the last few months. Chinas spat with Australia has massively backfired with shortages of coal/energy (having exhausted its stores)
Big firms moving out of China due to the risk to supply chains. Coal has been part of that. Increase that risk firms will relocate. It could be argued it’s an outcome the US wants.
China project’s power but I think it has a weak underbelly.
Manufacturing isnt done in China because it’s cheap. Its because its cheap and skilled/technical. There is a reason your hoodie is made in cambodia but your iPhone is made in China. What manufacturing can be moved out of China to other more allied Asian countries already has been., the stuff that hasnt moved hasnt because those other countries would need 10 years of intense government investment in facilities and training to be able to compete.
I read a book years ago predicting the geopolitical movements of the next 100 years. Most of the predictions around China were based on the challenges posed by the incredible disparity that exists between te majority of the country and the wealthy concentrated in just 2-3 urban areas. It predicted it was untenable in the loing run and conflicts based around this would undermine China’s power as the monied interests would look to align themselves more with the west than with Beijing.
Xi is obviously wielding a big stick now to stop that happening. As I mentioned the other day, if he can make Jack Ma disappear then the prospects of a monied uprising against the state is small, at least in the present. but what’s interesting is they are putting significant energy into raising standards in those currently rural poor areas. I watched a documentary recently about the Chinese wine industry that has basically started from scratch in a region of the country that used to be part of the Gobi desert. the effect of this is 2 fold - 1) it is providing labor intensive work for a region of the country that used to be destitute (the degree to which this is voluntary is debatable), 2) its commercial success is not matching how well regarded the wine is by experts. The main reason for this is thought to be distrust of Chinese food products both within china and without. This is creating an incentive for China to clean up its own manufacturing standards, which has the knock on effect of making going to china for cost less apparent.
Basically we can poke holes in these specific examples, but they are illustrative of the fact the situation in China is not static and they have significant challenges to address how that is managed in a way to sustains China’s rise.
Blockading shipping would an escalatory move that would damage China immensely. That’s a war move and would certainly trigger reactions. Perhaps enough for it to damage its own economy by short-selling US bonds, triggering American economic instability . It owns 4 percent of US debt.
But a naval blockade would likely trigger military escalations and more.
I don’t think China has such a weak under belly really. It has of course many weaknesses, it is still growing after all, but it is not a democracy, so can cope with crisis far better than a democracy can. That is the strength of autocratic regimes after all. If the US committed to anything as aggressive as a naval blockade, which I don’t think the US would risk, then war is the logical next step unless someone deescalates. There is also little chance an autocracy as strong as China, with it’s high degree of social cohesion, would collapse politically, far more likely it would unite Chinese people under the umbrella of nationalism, as the nation would be attacked. In a zero sum game, which a naval blockade would certainly trigger, there is immense damage China could do, as it has near monopoly on rare earth minerals just as an example. It would never back down (or I don’t think so, face means a lot in Asia). There is no browbeating it into submission, not with the degree of Social Cohesion inside China. Chinese people are mostly loyal to the state, which most Chinese people see as “the Chinese Nation”, and conflict would likely increase and not decrease that.
And playing a long game like Russia (probably more than Russia), China is may be likely to be willing to take massive economic hits for long term strategic benefit (example: Crimea and Taiwan).
In any case, I don’t think China makes rash decisions, but I do think they have gamed several scenarios to death and have a portfolio of actions it can take in the event of escalation. I see them as an incredibly major threat and certainly not weak.
From what I understand it has weak infrastucture, it has coal and all sorts of other ‘mineral’ wealth but just can not get it to where it needs to be hence massive importation.
The problem is other countries would fold a lot sooner than China which could have devastating concequences all over the world. Trade wars are never a good idea, particularly as they often lead to fully blown war.
I agree, I think democracies would fold far faster than China.
Because if China had suffered dire economic times, maybe it could trigger revolt and unrest if from internal reasons. Not unlikely that. But this is very unlikely, I think, if Chinese people perceive the economic hard times to be due to a rival’s actions. That usually leads to higher cohesion and not less, people will support the “nation” and be willing to endure great hardship for the national cause.
Or so I think anyway. Maybe I am wrong.
In any case, this is a catastrophic scenario that would shake the whole world to its core, so I choose to believe that wise heads will prevail.
The idea that autocracies are somehow better in a crisis than democracies is flawed. It’s true that they can marshal their resources more quickly and efficiently and if their leadership makes the right decisions, they are likely to deal with difficult situations better than systems which rely on more debate and discussion. However, if their leadership make bad decisions, there is no chance that anyone can point that out, or suggest alternative strategies. The disastrous policies of Mao, Stalin and Hitler are examples from recent history.
The Chinese communist party is a refined and improved form of authoritarianism and is, so far, more successful, but this doesn’t mean that it is immune from the inherent weaknesses of this form of government.
I am talking about Social cohesion and I specified China (If I did not, I meant to do so) and not a MENA type dictatorship with low social cohesion and low public trust.
But I agree, autocracies have severe weaknesses.
What I meant to be talking about, and sorry if I was not clear, is resilience.
I will also note that Stalin, Mao and Hitler’s regimes had a massively high degree of social cohesion. It took a disastrously large war, unthinkable in our world with nukes, to crush Nazi Germany.
Yeah. It’s also not just about bad decisions made in good faith, but in autocracies there is often the fear of making the regime, and therefore the leader, look bad and so decisions are made to hide things rather than face reality. Chernobyl is an example of this. As is, it seems, the initial response in China to Covid. It is often presented as the CCP hiding things from the world, but lots of insiders have suggested it was more like Chernobyl - local officials trying to hide it from the big wigs. This explains why we see such a distinctly 2 phase response and why once Beijing were aware we got the genetic sequenced in a matter of days and published in global open access.
Yeah, those are certainly some of the distinct weaknesses of autocracies.
It was the same in Iran, after they shot down the airliner when some GBAD operator thought they were under attack from cruise missiles. The instinct is to hide, then clamp down, and only admit facts when it becomes totally impossible to do otherwise.
In the context of Taiwan and its defense I see a US blockade it has the most likely strategy.
For me if China does attack Taiwan, the US must become involved. Imagine if they didn’t. It sets a precedent for how the world responds to an expansionist China (emboldens them with little or no consequences), it would undermine US-Japan US-Korea military pacts (if you don’t defend one ally, why should we trust you will treat us any different?) It exposes the US tech industries who rely upon semiconductors (almost all made in Taiwan).
If the US is going to defend Taiwan then what’s the best way to do this?
Any military action will have serve financial impacts. As soon as a shot is fired you can kiss goodbye to any trade. Heck Chinas diplomatic policy seems to be fuck you for your condemnation, here’s a trade embargo. That has embarrassing backfired with Australia and they are heading into winter with a fuel shortage and electricity rationing.
It highlights Chinas weakness it relies almost entirely upon maritime trade. Both for the importation of raw materials and the export of products. This has been China’s biggest strength but it is also its biggest military weakness. You cut this off and its akin to encircling a castle and waiting. You starve the economy.
It plays to the US navy strength, multiple bases encircling pacific, enables distance from Chinese missiles minimising loss of life, best maintains as much as possible the status quo. It also compliments other strategies if needed. If done correctly you could also enlist the support of Australia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam etc.
I concede it would hit the US economy hard. But if we are honest ANY action will. A blockade has long been employed as a successful strategy and I think you could convince a democratic nation it is worth the short term pain, for a long term consequence of manufacturing returning to US shores. Decreasing its dependence on China, creating jobs at home.
I don’t think it is that easy (or difficult, you didn’t say it was easy).
A) The US does not guarantee Taiwanese security. B) Taiwan is recogniced as part of China, this makes International Law less clear. C) I think the CCP would survive a western economic embargo, Russia would certainly not stop trading with it as an example. While it would crush the Chinese economy, if you are prepared for terrible hardship and your population accepts it, why not play the long game ? Because like with Crimea, those sanctions will not last forever. Sooner or later there would be a rapprochement, as the west needs China too. D) a military naval blockade would perhaps trigger war, the risk would certainly be high and then how do you deescalate and still win ? Because if it escalates, it will be difficult for all parties to “calm down” and we have nuclear weapons involved in the calculus. E) I think defending Taiwan militarily would be terribly difficult as it is within range of Chinese stand off fires as well as long range air defence umbrella. This would mean that it would be necessary to bomb the Chinese mainland in SEAD operations, which again would escalate into what would likely be full fledged war. How do you deescalate that war without loosing face ?
I think this is terribly difficult and I doubt the US would military defend Taiwan. I also very much doubt a naval blockade would be enacted, it could so easily spill over into war when China seeks to break it. I think what the US will do, is to persuade it’s allies to sanction China heavily economically and politically instead. Even that carries a risk, a nightmare scenario is a full fledged Russo-Sino alliance akin to NATO and a new era of Cold War with all the legions of secondary and tertiary proxy wars that would lead to, as competing alliances would seek to block each other’s influence with hard power.
The US will intervene of course, but the question is how. The US does not guarantee the security of Taiwan and I think that a war scenario is not the coarse of action the US would choose. If the US decides to guarantee the security of Taiwan, which I doubt it will do, then it would be different.
That’s what I think anyway.