If we have fully torched our reputation then can we go back to free trade with China. I want to purchase their electric cars and use their open source AI models. I don’t even get what our issue is with them anymore.
And all the big labs seemed obsessed with competition with China (have you seen Dario’s essays) meanwhile the rest of the world thinks we are just as if not more dangerous. So again I don’t really understand the point of all this.
I imagine the Chinese thinking involves considerations like, "Well, at least this will prop up another few years of GDP growth via incentivizing increased investment in our world-leaving PV, wind turbine, battery, and EV manufacturing systems."
This! "Funny"?!? - Lord, no! An elderly, lame, tedious outer-borough insult comedian with weird hair and comical make-up. Witness his monologue at the White House Correspondents' dinner. At this juncture, with that kind of performance, it's not just that the old Dean Martin Celebrity Roast would set too high a bar - he'd be hissed off the stage at Stag Night at the Knights of Columbus in Maspeth!
For most of my adult life, I was an engineer employed by the defense industry. I worked in that capacity with a clean conscience through both the Trump 1 and Biden administrations (if you count my time as an intern, the tail end of the Obama admin as well). The only reason I did not quit my job after Trump’s bullshit over Greenland was that my pension hadn’t vested yet. And I seriously considered leaving anyway. I just felt dirty helping make the US stronger under those circumstances (despite the stuff I actually worked on being fairly milquetoast and uncontroversial).
Punchline is I was laid off in February, before my pension vested anyway.
Depending on the exact facts, I'd encourage you to speak to a labor & employment attorney about possible recourse. (Early in my career, I worked at a firm that had a mini practice of suing a particular company whose CEO had the habit of firing people just before their retirement packages would fully vest.)
I suspect I would not get far. The layoff clearly came as a result of lack of work. the gov shutdown last year shot our project pipeline to hell. New contracts just weren’t coming in for a while, and eventually a hard call had to be made.
The long term question for me is not whether global opinion will improve after Trump is gone--it will. My question is if it can improve when a different Republican is in power. The GOP has not been good for global opinion in the 21st century with the combination of Dubya and especially Trump. That next Republican president is going to have a lot of work to do to be able to be trusted, and get trust of the United States on such behalf.
I imagine there will be a dead-cat bounce, yes, but the fact that American voters have shown themselves willing to elect corrupt, capricious morons is going to result in (justified) permanent damage to our image.
Ball is in China's court I think. If America becomes and realises its no longer a hyperpower then a sufficiently contrite and well behaved America would become something to rally around again if China acts like the USSR did. But if China sticks to "do nothing and win" outside of the South China Sea then a lot of the world will see a Yugoslavia style balance of the two powers attitude as optimal. If China updates its attitude to start acting like it does in the South China Sea globally once its got shiny blue water fleets then forgiving America makes realpolitik sense which will be more of a driving force in a new cold war.
What does "favorability" really mean? Yes some European countries have a more favorable view of China, but they still consume American media, would like to travel to NYC and Miami, would consider moving here if it were an option for them and want freer trade with the US. They're doing none of that with China. This is why as soon as a Dem is back in power these polls flip quick, as we saw in the first Trump/Biden transition.
Btw missing from the article are the ICE overreaches, but the stories of travelling students and grannies getting held up for 6 months in detention camps really hurt the US' reputation there.
Trump decided that his second term would be one of war. Let’s start with the American people. Instead of making things less costly, he immediately raised the prices of everyday goods by imposing high tariffs. He went to war with Universities, some States, institutions like newspapers, law firms, research grants, military officers, and, more importantly, people he considered his political enemies.
He is at war with all immigrants, legal or not. He may or may not be at war with Americans who protest ICE actions that end up killing Americans and immigrants who are not the worst of the worst.
He then went to war with our allies, accusing them of ripping off the US for decades. The tariffs were meant to punish them; instead, they have kept inflation high and have prevented the Federal Reserve from lowering interest rates. He has churlishly gone after Canada, a country most Americans highly like. Denmark, because they would give Greenland to Trump over the objections of the Greenlanders themselves.
Trump has gone to war with small boats potentially smuggling cocaine. South American countries in general do not support him, and he imposes tariffs. He is now at war with the USMCA, a deal he negotiated himself. Declaring America doesn’t need anything from Mexico or Canada. He is at war with Europe again because they were not consulted and decided they don’t want to go to war with Iran.
He was earlier in the year at war with Ukraine for their refusal to give their land to a power-mad genocidal maniac. He is at war with Iran.
A man who declared he was against forever wars decided to go to war with the world. In doing so, he has turned the world against America; he has apparently turned America against himself.
He has made far more enemies than friends....Good job, Mr President, if your goal was a forever war.
Charisma is always in the eye of the beholder. And it’s largely manufactured. Plenty of people saw Reagan as charismatic. Richard Pryor’s description always felt more on target to me, Reagan looked like a worn out penis with hair on top. But the problem is only partly Trump, it’s much more many Americans don’t take voting with the seriousness it deserves. If you go to a doctor, lawyer, or accountant, you don’t care if he’s a regular guy/gal or not. You want to know how good a job he’s likely to do. With someone running for office it’s do I want to have a drink with this person, not does he/she know what the hell they’re talking about.
Can I suggest it should be a much bigger deal that China can literally prevent a major worldwide oil disruption from becoming a complete catastrophe? Like I’m sure there is a limit to how long they can draw down their own supplies but the fact that we’ve gotten to August without oil climbing to $200/barrel should tell us something.
Let me posit China’s (or more accurately Xi’s) strategy here. This is all about Taiwan. Specifically, this is about America’s ability to arm Taiwan with advanced missiles and drones. So the longer the US is mired in the stalemate with Iran, the more the US draws down missile stockpiles to catastrophically low levels and the less ability the US will have to arm allies including Taiwan. And clearly the best way to keep Trump from going TACO with Iran is if oil prices remain high but not insanely high. As long as that equilibrium holds, Trump and his quislings can insider trade to their heart’s content with every “we bomb everyone tonight!” followed by “nope we backed down”. Meanwhile every day US military capacity and specifically missile capacity is degraded. Xi and his advisors can read the same news articles we do and knows every day the US remains in this quagmire is another day longer it will take the US to replenish supplies and degrades US ability to help Taiwan.
Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately I don't have a subscription to The Atlantic anymore (one of those, I can only pay for so many subscriptions situations). But I'll see if I can find some way to read this article regardless.
"it should be a much bigger deal that China can literally prevent a major worldwide oil disruption from becoming a complete catastrophe"
IMO, the importance of this hasn't sunk in at all yet.
China has demonstrated an OPEC-like ability to control the worldwide price of oil. That doesn't just mean keeping the price from spiking, it could also mean crashing the price if they want to bankrupt oil producers worldwide. It also could mean causing oil to spike higher if they want to remind countries that it's important to diversify away from fossil toward their electro-state exports.
Puts China's "all in" bet on green tech in more perspective. I've repeatedly try to make the case that Dems best bet to reach swing voters about the importance of investing in green tech is to stop making us so dependent on the Middle East and lets get out of their business which is clearly about oil. My suspicion is a reason Dems don't want to do this is making the case can bleed into outright bigotry. It's a worry that I understand given the unhinged bigoted rhetoric coming from right wing circles both post 9/11 and today (the number of GOP officials and hardcore voters who seem to be worried about Sharia law coming to America is bananas). But I do think this mindset might be leading to an over reticence to use what i think could be an effective message to normie voters.
Point being, I wonder how much China has made the same calculus and how this war might have been sort of a "test case" for them to see how much they can survive and thrive without oil. Of course as Matt mentions the problem is the difficulty in getting any real accurate info from China right now. Reading Noah Smith on this topic has been enlightening in that it seems China continue to grow as economic powerhouse is very real, but that there are serious questions beneath the surface (demographic cliff, how many green tech factories are actually really "bridges to nowhere"), but also just serious questions about how much at face value we can take Chinese pronouncements about anything economic.
Man, as someone currently working in counterintelligence, I often feel lucky that so much the HUMINT threat we’re facing is from Russia, China, and Israel. If it were Denmark or Canada that were spying on us, I would be a lot more conflicted…
Also, INR (State Department) does unacknowledged polling in many countries and it’s been fascinating to see how often the results strongly say one thing, but the product titles and topline assessments very much underplay what the data actually says; probably because they (correctly) assume that “policymakers” are innumerate.
No mention of the Belt and ROAD to Housing Initiative?
It's a real pickle for Chinese-Americans too. Discounted by the "progressive stack", shunned by China hawks and racists, not really welcome in our ancestral homeland either (certainly for the more America-pilled among us, anyway). What's an independent schmoderate to do? I want to like and root for the best country in the world, but more and more it seems like they don't want me. And these pro-China countries may be sincere in their preferences, but as so many Asian-Americans know, it sucks trying to live up to a positive stereotype too. Like I can't even when Thomas the Tankie Engine slides into my DMs with well acktually China never started a war in modern times, unlike some imperialist countries, QED! There has to be a middle way when it comes to the Middle Kingdom.
Wallet's not particularly happy either. Dear Mr. Wuhan Virus, please stop trying to maximize the amount of ruin in a nation, I do not like how tremendous international index funds have been outpacing American ones during your sequel season. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
The most recent of which was almost 45 years ago. Additionally, all of those conflicts were with countries sharing borders with China. U.S. aggression in the past 25 years is more poisonous to its reputation because it's global.
Maybe China sees the damage that an ongoing war does to the US? And they understand TACO Trump well enough to see that if they can keep oil at $90 or less, that Trump will keep fighting. Fighting for his little win (ie, I have to get something better than the JCPOA) while using up all of our most expensive munitions. Now China is sending arms to Iran. China can drag this out as long as it wants. And on the day it wants the war to stop, it starts buying oil and the price goes crazy.
It’s genuinely the stupidest thing in the world. One of the few issues Trump was right about was that by 2016 it was clear we needed to get tough with China and be prepared for a large scale war over Taiwan and be prepared to make this a huge hinge point of us policy our side or their side.
Instead of seeing china as a threat to tbe united states as the first among equals in a a global system that benefits the American middle class he sees it as someone to shake down for this or that tiny concessions like buying more agricultural products or something about a 20th century manufacturing job or maybe just corrupt dealings.
No he hasn't. It's not the stance it's that rising Chinese power is a threat to American standards of living. We don't want to be Britain in the 50s and 60s. Americans would be very unhappy with what happens if the Chinese are able to eclipse us in the international system. If people start shifting their money into Chinese currency for instance we'd be paying higher interest rates on our debt and need to raise taxes or cut spending much more than we would like. Most of us wouldn't like it if the costs of goods drop. Yes there are some modest tradeoffs with factory workers but on net most of us would be a lot poorer if the US is eclipsed as a reserve currency.
Now if we're so hawkish that we get ourselves into a world war but the maxim if you want peace be prepared for war remains timeless advice for a reason. The way to maintain peace is to make sure China believes they won't be able to win a war not to go saber rattling around threatening anyone. To have the arsenal of democracy viable and ready in the US, to have a system of alliances and close cooperation with the rest of Asia-Pacific notably India, Vietnam, Korea, Japan and the Philippines with a kind of ring of cooperating powers around China.
My point is that Trump never argued that "it was clear we needed to get tough with China and be prepared for a large scale war over Taiwan and be prepared to make this a huge hinge point of us policy our side or their side."
That's an over-read of Trump's trade concerns.
If anything he ran on isolationism in direct opposition to this.
Ps if you're concerned about the reserve currency status then I think you should be far more concerned about inflation and weaponizing the dollar than China. There's a reason gold exploded in competition to the dollar, including in Chinese reserves.
The US political reforms that will be needed to regain global credibility is under-discussed. At minimum some combination of dramatic limits to the president's tariff and war powers should be on the table.
I think we need a full-on constitutional convention to show we’re serious. Ideally this would be the time to make the critical amendments that would make our system parliamentary.
Perhaps when it is pretty clear the US won't elect another Trumpian Republican candidate...as in the US shows some sobriety regarding electing authoritarians. Of course that goes hand in hand with a stronger Democratic Party that doesn't lose sight of the majority of US citizens like Biden did.
I agree on "under discussed." That Matt can say this is some of Trump's most harmful behavior and letting him do it is irrelevant to GOP Congress's odds of reelection is a brutal indictment of voters.
Global credibility seems overrated. I would like to emulate the foreign policies of Canada and Norway— peace, trade, and minimal investments in defense.
IIRC Canada polled as the most popular country in the world. We should be a giant Canada. People, both foreigners and Americans, would feel way better about us.
Canada benefit from a strong US guaranteeing them from Russia. Less of a concern now that Russia threw so much of its air force away but knowing that America won't let Russia take what is going to be an increasingly valuable part of the world is a nice thing for Canada.
That of course is moot if America starts threatening to invade!
But I think America returning to its position as champion of the rules based international order would be good for Canada and Norway. I'm not sure that path is open to us, though. If it is. I think we need institutional changes in the US to facilitate
Canada doesn’t need a rules based international order. It needs a peaceful southern border and a neighbor that will buy its natural resources, hopefully at market prices.
For our allies, Trump is like the 100 year flood that happens 4 times in 10 years. The fact that a Trump presidency could happen once permanently changes the risk calculation for our allies and therefore permanently changes how they will optimize their economic and security postures.
A new and more sane president won't change us back to how things were before Trump because the risk model our allies will use going forward is different than it was pre-Trump.
This is why I'm not joking about Nine Familial Exterminations '28, even though I know it has no chance of happening. It's essential for restoring international confidence in the US.
As bad as Bush was, he never threatened treaty allies like Canada and Denmark. Bush didn't try to dismantle NATO. Plus, having both the GOP presidents this century be complete failures who act like a bull in a China shop doesn't help our credibility. The fact that we voted out Trump then brought him back make us seem a lot less reliable.
True, but it’s hard to see who could be the next Obama. Obama was the “first black President” who seemed to signal that the US would be a globalist multicultural power from then on. Unless AOC wins (extremely unlikely), it’s hard to see what other Dem can do that. We’d have some rebound of course but probably not a 2008-level one.
Yes, but from the outside, the issue is, given how much power Americans have allowed individual presidents to personally exercise and run wild with, what's their assurance if another erratic individual becomes President?
China’s popularity was bound to rebound after being at nadir because of COVID, but one thing that’s really helped it is that China isn’t in any wars. The most violent stuff China does is like shoot water cannons at Filipino fishing ships and have melee-weapon-only fights with Indian troops in the Himalayas. China does not bomb anyone and there is no Chinese equivalent of Gaza or Lebanon. War is terrifying to weaker countries that could easily end up like Gaza in a war situation. To regain its popularity, the US also needs to tone down the violence. As a rule, it would be good if we kill fewer people than China.
We don't really know because China doesn't really tell us. What we do know is that over 1 million Uyghur people were held in concentration camps, many of child bearing age. That many of them reported being sterilized. That at it's peak 80% of the IUDs placed in China were in Xinjiang, a province of 25m people vs China's 1.4B. And that in 2020 the amount of Uyghur children aged 0-4 were about a third of those aged 5-9.
This all suggests that if we extend "fatal" to include children who would have otherwise been conceived then the fatalities would far exceed those of hot conflicts like Gaza and Lebanon.
This is not true -- just as much or more than anyone could criticize the US for enabling Israel's actions in Gaza, one can criticize China for enabling Russia's actions in Ukraine.
A lot of the Palestine rhetoric now is that every country that is engaged in any form of co-operation with Israel is funding genocide. America is a bit more insulated from that because you are materially supporting the IDF but here you have policewomen crippled and politicians slandered as genocide supporters because Israel buys camera components off British companies.
Russia's economy and war effort would collapse is honored the sanctions on Russia that other countries honor.
And don't forget China's backing of the number one longest running human rights horror show on Earth - North Korea - or is own internal "ethnic unity" law. China's government may be smart enough not to get it's hands dirty in public on the global stage, but that doesn't mean their hands are clean.
If we have fully torched our reputation then can we go back to free trade with China. I want to purchase their electric cars and use their open source AI models. I don’t even get what our issue is with them anymore.
And all the big labs seemed obsessed with competition with China (have you seen Dario’s essays) meanwhile the rest of the world thinks we are just as if not more dangerous. So again I don’t really understand the point of all this.
I imagine the Chinese thinking involves considerations like, "Well, at least this will prop up another few years of GDP growth via incentivizing increased investment in our world-leaving PV, wind turbine, battery, and EV manufacturing systems."
Donald Trump is not funny. He is an asshole. That is all.
This! "Funny"?!? - Lord, no! An elderly, lame, tedious outer-borough insult comedian with weird hair and comical make-up. Witness his monologue at the White House Correspondents' dinner. At this juncture, with that kind of performance, it's not just that the old Dean Martin Celebrity Roast would set too high a bar - he'd be hissed off the stage at Stag Night at the Knights of Columbus in Maspeth!
For most of my adult life, I was an engineer employed by the defense industry. I worked in that capacity with a clean conscience through both the Trump 1 and Biden administrations (if you count my time as an intern, the tail end of the Obama admin as well). The only reason I did not quit my job after Trump’s bullshit over Greenland was that my pension hadn’t vested yet. And I seriously considered leaving anyway. I just felt dirty helping make the US stronger under those circumstances (despite the stuff I actually worked on being fairly milquetoast and uncontroversial).
Punchline is I was laid off in February, before my pension vested anyway.
Depending on the exact facts, I'd encourage you to speak to a labor & employment attorney about possible recourse. (Early in my career, I worked at a firm that had a mini practice of suing a particular company whose CEO had the habit of firing people just before their retirement packages would fully vest.)
I suspect I would not get far. The layoff clearly came as a result of lack of work. the gov shutdown last year shot our project pipeline to hell. New contracts just weren’t coming in for a while, and eventually a hard call had to be made.
The long term question for me is not whether global opinion will improve after Trump is gone--it will. My question is if it can improve when a different Republican is in power. The GOP has not been good for global opinion in the 21st century with the combination of Dubya and especially Trump. That next Republican president is going to have a lot of work to do to be able to be trusted, and get trust of the United States on such behalf.
I imagine there will be a dead-cat bounce, yes, but the fact that American voters have shown themselves willing to elect corrupt, capricious morons is going to result in (justified) permanent damage to our image.
Ball is in China's court I think. If America becomes and realises its no longer a hyperpower then a sufficiently contrite and well behaved America would become something to rally around again if China acts like the USSR did. But if China sticks to "do nothing and win" outside of the South China Sea then a lot of the world will see a Yugoslavia style balance of the two powers attitude as optimal. If China updates its attitude to start acting like it does in the South China Sea globally once its got shiny blue water fleets then forgiving America makes realpolitik sense which will be more of a driving force in a new cold war.
That woud require breaking with cherished Dem/Rep infatuation with trade restrictions.
What does "favorability" really mean? Yes some European countries have a more favorable view of China, but they still consume American media, would like to travel to NYC and Miami, would consider moving here if it were an option for them and want freer trade with the US. They're doing none of that with China. This is why as soon as a Dem is back in power these polls flip quick, as we saw in the first Trump/Biden transition.
Btw missing from the article are the ICE overreaches, but the stories of travelling students and grannies getting held up for 6 months in detention camps really hurt the US' reputation there.
Trump decided that his second term would be one of war. Let’s start with the American people. Instead of making things less costly, he immediately raised the prices of everyday goods by imposing high tariffs. He went to war with Universities, some States, institutions like newspapers, law firms, research grants, military officers, and, more importantly, people he considered his political enemies.
He is at war with all immigrants, legal or not. He may or may not be at war with Americans who protest ICE actions that end up killing Americans and immigrants who are not the worst of the worst.
He then went to war with our allies, accusing them of ripping off the US for decades. The tariffs were meant to punish them; instead, they have kept inflation high and have prevented the Federal Reserve from lowering interest rates. He has churlishly gone after Canada, a country most Americans highly like. Denmark, because they would give Greenland to Trump over the objections of the Greenlanders themselves.
Trump has gone to war with small boats potentially smuggling cocaine. South American countries in general do not support him, and he imposes tariffs. He is now at war with the USMCA, a deal he negotiated himself. Declaring America doesn’t need anything from Mexico or Canada. He is at war with Europe again because they were not consulted and decided they don’t want to go to war with Iran.
He was earlier in the year at war with Ukraine for their refusal to give their land to a power-mad genocidal maniac. He is at war with Iran.
A man who declared he was against forever wars decided to go to war with the world. In doing so, he has turned the world against America; he has apparently turned America against himself.
He has made far more enemies than friends....Good job, Mr President, if your goal was a forever war.
Charisma is always in the eye of the beholder. And it’s largely manufactured. Plenty of people saw Reagan as charismatic. Richard Pryor’s description always felt more on target to me, Reagan looked like a worn out penis with hair on top. But the problem is only partly Trump, it’s much more many Americans don’t take voting with the seriousness it deserves. If you go to a doctor, lawyer, or accountant, you don’t care if he’s a regular guy/gal or not. You want to know how good a job he’s likely to do. With someone running for office it’s do I want to have a drink with this person, not does he/she know what the hell they’re talking about.
Can I suggest it should be a much bigger deal that China can literally prevent a major worldwide oil disruption from becoming a complete catastrophe? Like I’m sure there is a limit to how long they can draw down their own supplies but the fact that we’ve gotten to August without oil climbing to $200/barrel should tell us something.
Let me posit China’s (or more accurately Xi’s) strategy here. This is all about Taiwan. Specifically, this is about America’s ability to arm Taiwan with advanced missiles and drones. So the longer the US is mired in the stalemate with Iran, the more the US draws down missile stockpiles to catastrophically low levels and the less ability the US will have to arm allies including Taiwan. And clearly the best way to keep Trump from going TACO with Iran is if oil prices remain high but not insanely high. As long as that equilibrium holds, Trump and his quislings can insider trade to their heart’s content with every “we bomb everyone tonight!” followed by “nope we backed down”. Meanwhile every day US military capacity and specifically missile capacity is degraded. Xi and his advisors can read the same news articles we do and knows every day the US remains in this quagmire is another day longer it will take the US to replenish supplies and degrades US ability to help Taiwan.
Rogé Karma had a good piece about this yesterday
Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately I don't have a subscription to The Atlantic anymore (one of those, I can only pay for so many subscriptions situations). But I'll see if I can find some way to read this article regardless.
Hold on I’ll get the gift link and edit this comment to include it.
"it should be a much bigger deal that China can literally prevent a major worldwide oil disruption from becoming a complete catastrophe"
IMO, the importance of this hasn't sunk in at all yet.
China has demonstrated an OPEC-like ability to control the worldwide price of oil. That doesn't just mean keeping the price from spiking, it could also mean crashing the price if they want to bankrupt oil producers worldwide. It also could mean causing oil to spike higher if they want to remind countries that it's important to diversify away from fossil toward their electro-state exports.
Puts China's "all in" bet on green tech in more perspective. I've repeatedly try to make the case that Dems best bet to reach swing voters about the importance of investing in green tech is to stop making us so dependent on the Middle East and lets get out of their business which is clearly about oil. My suspicion is a reason Dems don't want to do this is making the case can bleed into outright bigotry. It's a worry that I understand given the unhinged bigoted rhetoric coming from right wing circles both post 9/11 and today (the number of GOP officials and hardcore voters who seem to be worried about Sharia law coming to America is bananas). But I do think this mindset might be leading to an over reticence to use what i think could be an effective message to normie voters.
Point being, I wonder how much China has made the same calculus and how this war might have been sort of a "test case" for them to see how much they can survive and thrive without oil. Of course as Matt mentions the problem is the difficulty in getting any real accurate info from China right now. Reading Noah Smith on this topic has been enlightening in that it seems China continue to grow as economic powerhouse is very real, but that there are serious questions beneath the surface (demographic cliff, how many green tech factories are actually really "bridges to nowhere"), but also just serious questions about how much at face value we can take Chinese pronouncements about anything economic.
Matt, people (pundits mostly) keep telling me that Trump is funny. I have yet to see an example of this famous wit.
Man, as someone currently working in counterintelligence, I often feel lucky that so much the HUMINT threat we’re facing is from Russia, China, and Israel. If it were Denmark or Canada that were spying on us, I would be a lot more conflicted…
Also, INR (State Department) does unacknowledged polling in many countries and it’s been fascinating to see how often the results strongly say one thing, but the product titles and topline assessments very much underplay what the data actually says; probably because they (correctly) assume that “policymakers” are innumerate.
Of course Canada and Denmark are spying on us; what do you think embassies are for?
If they weren’t spying on us (and everyone else that their budget allowed for that matter), then their governments would be in dereliction of duty
No mention of the Belt and ROAD to Housing Initiative?
It's a real pickle for Chinese-Americans too. Discounted by the "progressive stack", shunned by China hawks and racists, not really welcome in our ancestral homeland either (certainly for the more America-pilled among us, anyway). What's an independent schmoderate to do? I want to like and root for the best country in the world, but more and more it seems like they don't want me. And these pro-China countries may be sincere in their preferences, but as so many Asian-Americans know, it sucks trying to live up to a positive stereotype too. Like I can't even when Thomas the Tankie Engine slides into my DMs with well acktually China never started a war in modern times, unlike some imperialist countries, QED! There has to be a middle way when it comes to the Middle Kingdom.
Wallet's not particularly happy either. Dear Mr. Wuhan Virus, please stop trying to maximize the amount of ruin in a nation, I do not like how tremendous international index funds have been outpacing American ones during your sequel season. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
You might want to point out the Sino-Indian War, the invasion of Vietnam, aggression against the Soviet Union, the invasion of Tibet, …
The most recent of which was almost 45 years ago. Additionally, all of those conflicts were with countries sharing borders with China. U.S. aggression in the past 25 years is more poisonous to its reputation because it's global.
China just killed Indian soldiers last year and threatened Japan. I don’t think this is something that can be counted on.
"Schmoderate"
Deep cut!
Maybe China sees the damage that an ongoing war does to the US? And they understand TACO Trump well enough to see that if they can keep oil at $90 or less, that Trump will keep fighting. Fighting for his little win (ie, I have to get something better than the JCPOA) while using up all of our most expensive munitions. Now China is sending arms to Iran. China can drag this out as long as it wants. And on the day it wants the war to stop, it starts buying oil and the price goes crazy.
It’s genuinely the stupidest thing in the world. One of the few issues Trump was right about was that by 2016 it was clear we needed to get tough with China and be prepared for a large scale war over Taiwan and be prepared to make this a huge hinge point of us policy our side or their side.
Instead of seeing china as a threat to tbe united states as the first among equals in a a global system that benefits the American middle class he sees it as someone to shake down for this or that tiny concessions like buying more agricultural products or something about a 20th century manufacturing job or maybe just corrupt dealings.
Trump did not argue that. He argued that we should *not* pivot to Asia! That was why he blew up the Iran deal!
Has Trump ever stated he would defend Taiwan no matter what?
I don't think you can attribute that stance to him. He's never been a war hawk with China, just a trade one.
No he hasn't. It's not the stance it's that rising Chinese power is a threat to American standards of living. We don't want to be Britain in the 50s and 60s. Americans would be very unhappy with what happens if the Chinese are able to eclipse us in the international system. If people start shifting their money into Chinese currency for instance we'd be paying higher interest rates on our debt and need to raise taxes or cut spending much more than we would like. Most of us wouldn't like it if the costs of goods drop. Yes there are some modest tradeoffs with factory workers but on net most of us would be a lot poorer if the US is eclipsed as a reserve currency.
Now if we're so hawkish that we get ourselves into a world war but the maxim if you want peace be prepared for war remains timeless advice for a reason. The way to maintain peace is to make sure China believes they won't be able to win a war not to go saber rattling around threatening anyone. To have the arsenal of democracy viable and ready in the US, to have a system of alliances and close cooperation with the rest of Asia-Pacific notably India, Vietnam, Korea, Japan and the Philippines with a kind of ring of cooperating powers around China.
My point is that Trump never argued that "it was clear we needed to get tough with China and be prepared for a large scale war over Taiwan and be prepared to make this a huge hinge point of us policy our side or their side."
That's an over-read of Trump's trade concerns.
If anything he ran on isolationism in direct opposition to this.
Ps if you're concerned about the reserve currency status then I think you should be far more concerned about inflation and weaponizing the dollar than China. There's a reason gold exploded in competition to the dollar, including in Chinese reserves.
The US political reforms that will be needed to regain global credibility is under-discussed. At minimum some combination of dramatic limits to the president's tariff and war powers should be on the table.
I think we need a full-on constitutional convention to show we’re serious. Ideally this would be the time to make the critical amendments that would make our system parliamentary.
Perhaps when it is pretty clear the US won't elect another Trumpian Republican candidate...as in the US shows some sobriety regarding electing authoritarians. Of course that goes hand in hand with a stronger Democratic Party that doesn't lose sight of the majority of US citizens like Biden did.
I agree on "under discussed." That Matt can say this is some of Trump's most harmful behavior and letting him do it is irrelevant to GOP Congress's odds of reelection is a brutal indictment of voters.
Global credibility seems overrated. I would like to emulate the foreign policies of Canada and Norway— peace, trade, and minimal investments in defense.
You are severely, severely underestimating all the good that "USA world police" have done.
There have obviously been some glaring mistakes and issues (middle east wars) but the net effect has been extremely positive for the world.
IIRC Canada polled as the most popular country in the world. We should be a giant Canada. People, both foreigners and Americans, would feel way better about us.
AIPAC does not care about American standing in the world.
if America did that though, I think it would be bad for Canada and Norway.
It would most definitely be extremely bad for Canada and Norway and the rest of the world*
Fixed that for you.
Canada benefit from a strong US guaranteeing them from Russia. Less of a concern now that Russia threw so much of its air force away but knowing that America won't let Russia take what is going to be an increasingly valuable part of the world is a nice thing for Canada.
That of course is moot if America starts threatening to invade!
It would be great for Canada at least. Their principal threat is the US itself and its biggest foreign policy challenge the tariffs we put.
Relative to the Trumpian status quo, yes.
But I think America returning to its position as champion of the rules based international order would be good for Canada and Norway. I'm not sure that path is open to us, though. If it is. I think we need institutional changes in the US to facilitate
Canada doesn’t need a rules based international order. It needs a peaceful southern border and a neighbor that will buy its natural resources, hopefully at market prices.
U.S. popularity soared when Obama replaced Bush. I don’t disagree those would be sensible changes, but a new guy can do a lot.
For our allies, Trump is like the 100 year flood that happens 4 times in 10 years. The fact that a Trump presidency could happen once permanently changes the risk calculation for our allies and therefore permanently changes how they will optimize their economic and security postures.
A new and more sane president won't change us back to how things were before Trump because the risk model our allies will use going forward is different than it was pre-Trump.
This is why I'm not joking about Nine Familial Exterminations '28, even though I know it has no chance of happening. It's essential for restoring international confidence in the US.
You need to be Yonglemaxxing and hitting ten.
As bad as Bush was, he never threatened treaty allies like Canada and Denmark. Bush didn't try to dismantle NATO. Plus, having both the GOP presidents this century be complete failures who act like a bull in a China shop doesn't help our credibility. The fact that we voted out Trump then brought him back make us seem a lot less reliable.
True, but it’s hard to see who could be the next Obama. Obama was the “first black President” who seemed to signal that the US would be a globalist multicultural power from then on. Unless AOC wins (extremely unlikely), it’s hard to see what other Dem can do that. We’d have some rebound of course but probably not a 2008-level one.
Agreed, but I think the Trump problem is the erraticism. Bush's actions were catastrophic and ill-advised, but they were not erratic.
Yes, but from the outside, the issue is, given how much power Americans have allowed individual presidents to personally exercise and run wild with, what's their assurance if another erratic individual becomes President?
I agree! That's why there should be more discussion on what the relevant political reforms should be
This comes down to the depravity and inability of Republicans to hold themselves to any standards.
China’s popularity was bound to rebound after being at nadir because of COVID, but one thing that’s really helped it is that China isn’t in any wars. The most violent stuff China does is like shoot water cannons at Filipino fishing ships and have melee-weapon-only fights with Indian troops in the Himalayas. China does not bomb anyone and there is no Chinese equivalent of Gaza or Lebanon. War is terrifying to weaker countries that could easily end up like Gaza in a war situation. To regain its popularity, the US also needs to tone down the violence. As a rule, it would be good if we kill fewer people than China.
"there is no Chinese equivalent of Gaza or Lebanon"
I think the Uyghurs and Tibetans would disagree
Gulags are materially different from 2000lb bombs. Unpleasant but less fatal.
We don't really know because China doesn't really tell us. What we do know is that over 1 million Uyghur people were held in concentration camps, many of child bearing age. That many of them reported being sterilized. That at it's peak 80% of the IUDs placed in China were in Xinjiang, a province of 25m people vs China's 1.4B. And that in 2020 the amount of Uyghur children aged 0-4 were about a third of those aged 5-9.
This all suggests that if we extend "fatal" to include children who would have otherwise been conceived then the fatalities would far exceed those of hot conflicts like Gaza and Lebanon.
Right but extending "fatal" to mean that would be really dumb.
I think the much more important thing is that they are less messy.
"there is no Chinese equivalent of Gaza"
This is not true -- just as much or more than anyone could criticize the US for enabling Israel's actions in Gaza, one can criticize China for enabling Russia's actions in Ukraine.
Different levels. Does China just hand over several billion dollars of free weapons to the Russians every year?
A lot of the Palestine rhetoric now is that every country that is engaged in any form of co-operation with Israel is funding genocide. America is a bit more insulated from that because you are materially supporting the IDF but here you have policewomen crippled and politicians slandered as genocide supporters because Israel buys camera components off British companies.
Russia's economy and war effort would collapse is honored the sanctions on Russia that other countries honor.
And don't forget China's backing of the number one longest running human rights horror show on Earth - North Korea - or is own internal "ethnic unity" law. China's government may be smart enough not to get it's hands dirty in public on the global stage, but that doesn't mean their hands are clean.
Agreed. China's apparent popularity is more an indictment of the US than an endorsement of China.