I generally take hawkish military-inspired postures seriously where they are actually appropriate. Where even serious thinkers go wrong is not realizing they’re doing the economic equivalent of “honor-based” strategy. Something no modern military would ever do on battlefield.
-
-
But the relative and growing “strength” of China is, IMO vastly overstated due to lots of factors. Ranging from population effects to fake state numbers to deep fragility swept under the rug. Being treated as bigger than they are is a big win for them. That’s taking it to make it
Show this thread -
For the record, I’m rooting for China to win big economically because I don’t think US needs to lose economically for that to happen, so it’s a net win for humanity. It would be even better if 1/5 of the world’s brainpower came online and took the lead on key tech.
Show this thread -
What’s better than a superpower that knows how to actually create wealth? TWO superpowers that know how to do it. Even better if it’s with two distinct playbooks. Hedge bets. There are problems with the rise of China, but they’re climate/environmental, not zero-sum political.
Show this thread -
China is probably iterating and learning faster than the US in a few key areas, like batteries and solar or something. Maybe semiconductors in the future. But so long as the rest of the world can benefit from cheap Chinese innovation spillover, it’s good.
Show this thread -
Vast wealth was created around the world via cheap spillover of a century of US innovation. It’d be nice to have a twin-engined global innovation economy. It’s certainly needed to beat climate change, drive development in Africa, beat aging population problem with robots, etc.
Show this thread -
Even with its fatal ideological flaws and a flawed economic doctrine, the USSR did a ton of wealth-creating innovation. So did Japan. Whether Chinese playbook works or not politically/ideologically, we’ll probably end up with some good rewards from the grand Chinese experiment
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.