Bret Devereaux

But of course a level of hegemony over smaller SE states. Many states lived under hegemony of superpowers during CW though. But it's clear Taiwan will pay a big price.

Though the plus might be - great power war chances are minimized. And apart from tech competition, economic ties can still be robust w/ mutual prosperity. The question for the US really is: can Americans be secure in such a world? What ultimately is the core national interest?

I would suggest that the PRC's attitude towards allowed speech in many other countries (e.g. a lot of the 'wolf warrior' diplomacy) suggests that PRC's goals would not be limited to territorial hegemony, but would include democratic backsliding.

Yes, on all issues of core Chinese interests - Tibet, Xinjiang, CCP, Taiwan, India claims. But Beijing doesn't care if country X has internal democratic battles over anything else. It lives happily for e.g. with deep debates in S.Korea and Pakistan.

The PRC gets very upset when groups in liberal democracies criticize the PRC. Look at the response to the NBA or Activision-Blizzard. I'm not sure why we wouldn't expect those demands to censor speech to become stronger if we leave PRC to be a regional hegemon.

I am not suggesting this would be ideological in any sense. But a democracy which has free speech "except don't criticize the PRC's ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang" doesn't actually have free speech.

if I may make an ancient comparison - Rome was largely non-ideological in terms of the local governments and client states it preferred. But demands of 'no fuss, taxes get collected, no anti-Roman agitation' meant that, over time, those governmentsmostly ended up as oligarchies.

Sure, like I said any criticism of its so-called "core interests" which includes Xinjiang. This might work for some neighbors. But not for US/European media, and Beijing knows it. The q for the US is what are its vital interests w.r.t. the American people?