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2001 George W Bush “you are either with us or with the terrorists”

2025 Donald J Trump “we might force countries to choose between the US and China”

We’ve all seen the game before and, arguably, America had far greater leverage 25 years ago. Arguably. And it still turned out horribly wrong.

Over the past decade and a half, the US has spent blood and treasure on a series of misadventures. China, on the other hand, has deployed trade surpluses to build.

Thunor 8mo ago 💬 1

I'd rather not accuse you of being wrong Peter, but what you've omitted to say about the "real" China includes hidden facts that would shock most people. The most blatant of which are as follows ...

China joined the World Trade Organization (at the time, many argue prematurely) on December 11, 2001. That event was the culmination of 15 years of almost constant negotiations, during which China made extensive "commitments" to reform its domestic policies and reduce trade barriers (after all incentives to do so had already been removed by their late 2001 accession to the WTO!).

Unsurprisingly, therefore, China never fulfilled those commitments to the WTO ... an organization it has arrogantly tried to dominate in the same way it has tried (some would argue, successfully) to dominate the WHO.

China has cheated (in one way or another) almost every nation it has ever engaged with commercially since early 2002 ... and especially those more creative nations, such as Britain, the USA, Canada, Germany, and Australia. They also commenced a series of corrupt projects in both Cambodia and Malaysia. The chronic problems in Myanmar also carry the fingerprints of Beijing.

What this means is ... China has engaged in premeditated Intellectual Property theft on a grand scale, to such a degree, it should have already been thrown out of the WTO.

For example, all those sleek and fancy 300 mph trains you can see displayed in Youtube videos started out as the technologically brilliant brainchild of Germany's Siemens ... which the Chinese then turned into a self-congratulatory "nationalist" achievement after acquiring (i.e., stealing) all the know-how from the too trusting Germans.

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Discussion

Peter Alexander 8mo ago 💬 1

I love it and also agree with all of the points made. It might be a good idea to mention that my commentary on #China shouldn’t be taken as China = Good and America = Bad. My aim is just to highlight the current confines of the bilateral relationship given what decisions were made by both parties over the past couple of decades.

But again, I don’t just agree with your points, I’ll add one more. There was the decision by China to literally build islands in the South China Sea and claim they were for “scientific purposes”. A few years later, those islands were militarized.

Long story, short. China took complete advantage of the “international rules based order” and was enabled to do so due to America being so very preoccupied with the Global War on Terror. All it is that China received were strongly worded memos. Too easy to just disregard.

It was, in my opinion, American hubris - with a dash of hypocrisy - that led to China’s rise over the past two decades. And now China has reached escape velocity. Containment isn’t an option. That should have been the American policy back in 2010.

That leads us to the current state of play. The points of leverage are changed and it is through this lens that American policy needs to operate.

Again, the more disagreement the better. It’s why Nostr is so great. There’s a demand for accountability. I wouldn’t want it any other way.