Thank you Dan and Elliot, for so clearly stating the threats, problems, and possible solutions. Your final paragraph: 'We are a small world. There is no isolation. Cooperation, resilience, and an ability to think globally — in terms of the economy, the environment, and the military — will be required to survive.' Gives us a roadmap to follow. But it will take great acumen, intelligence, and experience to carry out. That leaves out all MAGA politicians and several inexperienced would-be leaders.
There is no shortcut to experience. This is the strength of President Biden. He’s paid his dues, done the work and watched the world change and how things work. Or not
I agree, Fay. Many folks in the MAGA crowd support a policy of isolationism, but that doesn't make sense in today's complex and interconnected world. As the post states, "World affairs are never simple. They require compromises and weighing of interests."
I like the emphasis on the long-term planning in our relationships; we must consider every possible scenario we can in an effort to be able to keep all of us (in the world) safe and thriving.
I’ve visited China three times in the past seven years and they are a kind people, graceful and deliberate. They possess a very skilled workforce, have an abundance of technology and are a top five player in the world economy. However, let’s not look at China and other countries as the enemy but merely competitors for their place on the worlds stage of success.
Prior to my retirement form the software industry, we often referred to other companies in our industry that were also seeking success as the coopetition; competitors that we cooperated with as there were actually times where the solution was comprised of some of our software and some of theirs. This is a good way to view China as we economically need one another. Sure, we want to be #1 on the world stage, and so does China. But we should not wish them any ill will or wish them to fail as competition makes us all better. Michael Jordan never prayed that Isiah Thomas would sprain his ankle before a game. That would be too easy. Having to play one another made them both better players.
We certainly will all benefit from peaceful relationships with other countries based on coopetition.
"China’s so-called Belt and Road Initiative has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects with hopes of leveraging its economic power to expand its influence...."
"China [is] engaging in provocative military exercises that show off its modernized and formidable armed forces."
Realistically, looked at from a global perspective, these statements could just as well apply to the U.S. But because it's "us," we tend to resent such assertions. Nevertheless, in the eyes of the world, the 800+ U.S. military bases, for instance, merely represent the U.S. flexing its muscles of power, with an eye to intimidation.
Dan and Elliot's last statement is the real takeaway, leaving out the mention of the military---we're all in this together, and either we'll learn to cooperate, minus the saber rattling, or we will doom our species, no matter which artificial boundary we live within.
The common prognosis that China is an enemy and needs to be treated that way is exactly the wrong way for us to be thinking. We are competitors on the world stage and are interdependent economically. China is fiercely focused on educating its population, which is working for they realize that the smartest will inherit the spoils. That is also evident in their focus on "full steam ahead" on AI, while we are thinking that we should take it a bit slower, for fear of its negative aspects. Being behind in that technology is not an option. He who lags will pay a hefty price of being "also rans."
While touring China, just before the pandemic, we saw millions of sapling trees planted on every available scrap of land not used for farming or buildings. They are not unaware of the climate disaster that is looming and along with trees they have installed massive solar and wind farms.
Sophisticated diplomacy is what we need at this juncture. They need us and we need them and that's a good starting point.
Like you said, the working class are good people but let's not forget that the leaders are not. Just like trump, he was a terrible leader and corrupt. Bad leaders are dangerous, it doesn't matter which country they lead.
In natural ecosystems organisms that cooperate, thrive with a sharing of resources, commodifying survival. Man is perhaps the only truly destructive species, waging wars on others, nature and in turn ourselves, a broken contract with the future.
In Biology lab while growing strains of different bacterias. All beautiful little structures but in this petri dish there was always one or more strains expanding , producing more waste & thus choking out the other strains & eventually its self. Such as our World. expanding
Your view stands in concert with President Biden's and in stark contrast to the one held by his predecessor. The damage the latter did with his bromances with Putin and Kim, and his imposition of self-defeating tariffs on Chinese goods as well as his blaming COVID-19 on them, certainly destabilized an already wobbly world. I hope that Putin soon suffers the humiliating defeat that he's earned, so we can turn our attention back to rebuilding the global relationships that were developing nicely until recently.
DJT expressed admiration for Xi ruling with an “iron fist” and praised him for becoming ‘president for life.’ It was reported in China and throughout the world. In addition there were his musings at a GOP donor event in FL widely reported in the US - “He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”
From the Japan Times, April 3, 2019:
--Trump, speaking Tuesday at the National Republican Congressional Committee spring dinner in Washington, said the Chinese president had denied he was a king, but the U.S. leader was insistent.
"He said, 'But I am not king, I am president.' I said 'No, you're president for life, and therefore you're king,'" Trump told the audience, prompting laughter. --
The irony in the MAGA emphasis on "America First" is that, in this new multipolar world, we can't be offending and dissolving our alliances and relationships as tRump was doing. If their definition of American greatness is just the postwar status as sole democratic world power, that leaves us in a very weak position in this new order. Other countries will want their interests served, their voices heard. thanks to Biden, and his administration professionals, we've been rebuilding. I don't care about his age...hes 3-4 years older than tRump and he's trimmer, and more healthy...also sane. He's been very consequential. I wish the media would stop with carrying the polling narrative of his age. The alternative is ever so much worse.
Nothing was accomplished when trump was a wannabe president, all that he did was division, corruption, chaos, hiring crooks, theifs, election problems, making rich people richer and destroying democracy.
Sadly all true and yet there is more. He brought the maga thinkers and destroyers in full force in our country. He brought the ethnic wars, voter suppression and the destruction of the Supreme Court.
Why omit the fact that China owns $1 Trillion dollars of US debt?
You can never afford to call your mortgage holder an enemy.
Should the US military ever be in conflict with China, the China would sell off their US dollars causing American interest rates to skyrocket. China has brilliantly guaranteed itself peace by owning American debt.
That is one strategic error. On the other hand, if China became too aggressive the return on their investment could be diminished. I wonder what China thinks about that.
Another large problem has been reliance of US military and industry on key pieces of Chinese technology.
That is why, doing business with communist countries is wrong. They steal our technology, and our jobs. I blame Nixon, he was the one that started all this, by being the first to go to China.
A country does not have to be communist to steal technology. The recent Indian lunar landing resembled Apollo rockets and only cost $75 million! We need to keep our markets open regardless of political interests.
America has a trade embargo on Cuba that is only mean spirited from their embarrassment from their failed Bay of Pigs invasion.
If you are a trading nation, then trade openly on a free market.
Because economic decisions do not occur in a vacuum each country presents its own challenges.
Cuba - Rubio has appeared on the campaign trail with “veterans” of the Bay of Pigs to drive the point home that the Dems are socialists/communists. It works not only with Cubans but other voters whose families fled communist dictators in Latin America. If you remember Obama was removing sanctions and normalizing relations. The next guy reversed direction. The DEsantis campaign(s) doubled down on the dangers of ‘socialism’ oppressive government, especially in S. FL. The GOP made it a constant drumbeat.
Biden has reversed some of TFG’s policies, particularly ones which reunite families. But it is difficult in the face of opposition from those who fled.
China - Similar issues when changing direction may signal weakness or encourage. China likes to set up “unauthorized” police stations violating the sovereignty of the US and 50+ other nations; redraw borders & violate international waters. It isn’t only about ‘stealing’ technology but their affinity for hacking & planting malware and spyware.
In 2018 a variety of US entities received CDs with letters written in poor English and a Chinese postmark. Turns out the CDs had more than the usual Microsoft Visual Basic files. Far worse was the almost 2 decades of hacking caught in 2018 and the current ‘ticking bomb’ the US now hunts -
“The systems affected, the Times said, could allow China not only to cut off water, power and communications to US military bases, but also to homes and businesses across the United States. The report comes two months after Microsoft warned that state-sponsored Chinese hackers had infiltrated critical US infrastructure networks.”
Long term planning can leave us with win win situations where everyone gets ahead. China has managed to keep out of wars for a long time and spend money on its economic growth -- lets see if we can keep that up.
The U.S will never stop making war or meddling in other countries. The reason is that the war machine, makes billionaires and corporations richer, and they control the politicians.
Americans don't have to like how the Chinese run their country but that does not make it dangerous for this country. What we have is a nation that learned how to compete in a technologically developed world. It is the challenge for the US to learn to live with China and all countries that are not the US. That is what the US will not abide but instead paints the Chinese as our enemy. In fact it is the US that becomes the enemy as it threatens all nations if they don't kowtow. The US has been circling China militarily off their coast with military weaponry. Just as it did with Russia after assuring that country it would not place NATO any closer to the Russian border which was a direct threat to Russia resulting in the Ukraine war, actually an American war by proxy destroying Ukraine and several 100 thousand of its people. You don't create peace by labeling all competitors as dangerous enemies and then work on creating economic terrorism and military interventions.
Hmm... you started out with some well reasoned thinking... but then you went off the rails and spouted nonsense like a Putin-aggression-apologist : "Just as it did with Russia after assuring that country it would not place NATO any closer to the Russian border which was a direct threat to Russia resulting in the Ukraine war, actually an American war by proxy destroying Ukraine and...." oh, please🙄🤷♂️. No NATO country has ever shown any aggression to Russian sovereignty - and they are essentially a band of small bordering countries bonded in a defensive stance. Putin has been playing a victim card that nobody else with any sense of understanding of history sees as credible (apparently you do?). Overt nationalistic aggression is just that... NATO unfortunately "let the Crimea slide" years ago and it only emboldened the aggressor (just like appeasements did in WWI & WWII).
I remember reading an assessment of the Russian world view (in the US Navy's Journal of Acoustical Oceanography, of all places) in the early 1980s that included a world map centered on the Soviet Union. It supported the paranoid attitude prevalent in the USSR: Adversaries on all sides. So Putin is merely repeating a commonly held perception.
Thank you. Russia and China do not merely run their countries “in a different way.” I agree we cannot deal with nations by branding them as enemies and writing them off.
Neither can we be sucked into treating them as benign competitors and pals.
Putin has been destabilizing those within his reach and invading them, using mercenaries like the Wagner Group, interfering in elections. (Until Russia’s intervention, the current Belarus’ “president” who stole the election, was set to quickly reverse direction & step down in the wake of public protests.) In the 1990s, the UK and the US agreed Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan were sovereign nations and not to threaten them by military force or economic coercion. In return those nations gave up the Russian nuclear stockpiles inside their borders and became parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Russian railways and pipelines run through Ukraine. Not having a foot on the neck of Ukraine is worrisome for Russia. Fear of upsetting Russia kept NATO from allowing Ukraine to join NATO. Russia had given up Crimea to Ukraine 40 years prior.
China views democracy as messy and doomed to failure. It is laughing - openly - these days as Tommy Pooperville is allowed to weaken the structure of our military and mocks the necessity of ‘so many’ generals. Both nations seek to weaken us from within, something we should not embrace and enable by adopting their propaganda and using it against ourselves. Our biggest mistakes in the tech industry arena were probably ones that allowed us to become dependent on a malevalent competitor for key pieces of technology (like microchips). A flaw of shortsighted capitalism that China could exploit unless we follow through on building US capabilities.
When Americans view defending yourself as aggression - except local gunfire covered by the 2nd Amendment - we are truly in an upside down world.
Ask Hong Kong how trusting China NOT to take full control worked out. China definitely has aspirations of being THE global superpower. We can’t just play nice to get along. Nor can we be ignorant of the danger. It will take the wisdom of Biden to carefully engage without becoming a patsy or an aggressor.
How ironic. David Brooks wrote an Opinion piece for the NYT today that I just read. In it, he said, "China does not look like a growing, dynamic power, but a troubled, stagnating one." I hope he's right......
Brooks might have a point. I've been to China many times, and I see a people grappling with a level of growth that is impossible for any people to contend with. In so many ways, their growth is out of control, with the government desperately trying to figure out where it's going in a Keystone Cops frenzy.
Mind you, I love China, and I wish them well. But they've gone economically berserk. In other words, they really have no idea where they're heading--like a beheaded chicken!
I agree with you, once the people of China get a little taste of prosperity and freedom, things will will change and it might in a good way or a bad way.
A 5 star essay, long,complex, comprehensive essay, Dan and Elliot. Thank you. China is in it for the long game. We aren't. The current leader of the Chinese Communist Party will never be a friend of the west, us. Russia is their tool and resource provider, not a friend. We have lots to fear.
As Mr. Rather has pointed out, China is indeed focused on expanding its' global reach, but there have been consequences that didn't rattle the Chinese hierarchy but certainly caused some realignment. Those massive investment proposals in both Asia and Africa have frequently met push-back - citizens have made their leaders aware that the prospect of China investing too deeply into XYZ sovereign nation is unacceptable.
Low-cost loans are also feeling push-back; what might have seen tempting - and beyond the WMF's ability to equal in terms of long-term interest payments - are coming under far greater scrutiny. Also of note is the development of Chinese owned/funded agribusiness(es) in South America, as noted in the article, but again there has been significant push-back. ['Our land, not China's', is the frequent and popular rallying cry].
The creation of synthetic islands in the China Seas is of great concern, as is the recent development by the Chinese Navy of two (2) significant classes of warship - aircraft carriers, which will inevitably provide China with a deep-water reach, and significantly fast, agile vessels that carry a formidable SSM missile punch. The US Navy is still locked in a 'bigger has to be better' mindset that offer only super-carriers when it desperately needs to follow the Chinese example.
The Chinese economy is faltering; it's food production is virtually stagnant, it's population aging, and it too is hearing the murmurs of protest and resistance that scare the stuff out of that little thug in Moscow. Change will come to China throughout the next few decades, and we cannot assume the Cold War image that we took with Communist Russia; we both improve with intelligent trade policies, we refrain from sabre-rattling, and we open far greater channels of communication.
Historically, China has not been an imperialistic power except near its own borders. Before Columbus sailed, Zheng He commanded a sailing ship over four times longer than Columbus'. His missions to the Mid East and Africa - to spread friendly trade relations. We're the ones taunting war there, not them here. We should engage the Chinese with respectful, competitive, and creative relations - especially as regards Global Warming. I'm leery of creating needless enemies and wars.
We really don't have a say, about wars. The billionaires and corporations control the politicians and they are the ones that make the tanks, rifles, clothes, jets, and weapons.
This is another reason we cannot risk someone like Trump to become President. We need Biden’s experience and temperament. Vote like our nation and the world depends on it.
But will pull every dirty trick in the book with hope it’ll keep him outta jail. And Putin will surely give him a ton of help. It’s going to truly take all of us to prevent a disaster.
Thank you Dan and Elliot, for so clearly stating the threats, problems, and possible solutions. Your final paragraph: 'We are a small world. There is no isolation. Cooperation, resilience, and an ability to think globally — in terms of the economy, the environment, and the military — will be required to survive.' Gives us a roadmap to follow. But it will take great acumen, intelligence, and experience to carry out. That leaves out all MAGA politicians and several inexperienced would-be leaders.
There is no shortcut to experience. This is the strength of President Biden. He’s paid his dues, done the work and watched the world change and how things work. Or not
You are spot on, Pat.
Fay, Absolutely maga is for destruction of American democracy and is working against their own interest.
Agreed!
I agree, Fay. Many folks in the MAGA crowd support a policy of isolationism, but that doesn't make sense in today's complex and interconnected world. As the post states, "World affairs are never simple. They require compromises and weighing of interests."
We tried isolationism once didn't work well.
Absolutely agree.
I hope our "parties" learn to work together within & view "the Big picture".
I like the emphasis on the long-term planning in our relationships; we must consider every possible scenario we can in an effort to be able to keep all of us (in the world) safe and thriving.
...and keep tRump from the world stage and his moment-to-moment, knee jerk or isolationist responses.
Yes, indeed!
Definitely true!!!
Well done on a very complex subject.
I’ve visited China three times in the past seven years and they are a kind people, graceful and deliberate. They possess a very skilled workforce, have an abundance of technology and are a top five player in the world economy. However, let’s not look at China and other countries as the enemy but merely competitors for their place on the worlds stage of success.
Prior to my retirement form the software industry, we often referred to other companies in our industry that were also seeking success as the coopetition; competitors that we cooperated with as there were actually times where the solution was comprised of some of our software and some of theirs. This is a good way to view China as we economically need one another. Sure, we want to be #1 on the world stage, and so does China. But we should not wish them any ill will or wish them to fail as competition makes us all better. Michael Jordan never prayed that Isiah Thomas would sprain his ankle before a game. That would be too easy. Having to play one another made them both better players.
We certainly will all benefit from peaceful relationships with other countries based on coopetition.
AGREE
Well said. 👏🏻
"China’s so-called Belt and Road Initiative has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects with hopes of leveraging its economic power to expand its influence...."
"China [is] engaging in provocative military exercises that show off its modernized and formidable armed forces."
Realistically, looked at from a global perspective, these statements could just as well apply to the U.S. But because it's "us," we tend to resent such assertions. Nevertheless, in the eyes of the world, the 800+ U.S. military bases, for instance, merely represent the U.S. flexing its muscles of power, with an eye to intimidation.
Dan and Elliot's last statement is the real takeaway, leaving out the mention of the military---we're all in this together, and either we'll learn to cooperate, minus the saber rattling, or we will doom our species, no matter which artificial boundary we live within.
The common prognosis that China is an enemy and needs to be treated that way is exactly the wrong way for us to be thinking. We are competitors on the world stage and are interdependent economically. China is fiercely focused on educating its population, which is working for they realize that the smartest will inherit the spoils. That is also evident in their focus on "full steam ahead" on AI, while we are thinking that we should take it a bit slower, for fear of its negative aspects. Being behind in that technology is not an option. He who lags will pay a hefty price of being "also rans."
While touring China, just before the pandemic, we saw millions of sapling trees planted on every available scrap of land not used for farming or buildings. They are not unaware of the climate disaster that is looming and along with trees they have installed massive solar and wind farms.
Sophisticated diplomacy is what we need at this juncture. They need us and we need them and that's a good starting point.
Like you said, the working class are good people but let's not forget that the leaders are not. Just like trump, he was a terrible leader and corrupt. Bad leaders are dangerous, it doesn't matter which country they lead.
In natural ecosystems organisms that cooperate, thrive with a sharing of resources, commodifying survival. Man is perhaps the only truly destructive species, waging wars on others, nature and in turn ourselves, a broken contract with the future.
So very true. It’s like we eat our own.
In Biology lab while growing strains of different bacterias. All beautiful little structures but in this petri dish there was always one or more strains expanding , producing more waste & thus choking out the other strains & eventually its self. Such as our World. expanding
Your view stands in concert with President Biden's and in stark contrast to the one held by his predecessor. The damage the latter did with his bromances with Putin and Kim, and his imposition of self-defeating tariffs on Chinese goods as well as his blaming COVID-19 on them, certainly destabilized an already wobbly world. I hope that Putin soon suffers the humiliating defeat that he's earned, so we can turn our attention back to rebuilding the global relationships that were developing nicely until recently.
DJT expressed admiration for Xi ruling with an “iron fist” and praised him for becoming ‘president for life.’ It was reported in China and throughout the world. In addition there were his musings at a GOP donor event in FL widely reported in the US - “He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”
From the Japan Times, April 3, 2019:
--Trump, speaking Tuesday at the National Republican Congressional Committee spring dinner in Washington, said the Chinese president had denied he was a king, but the U.S. leader was insistent.
"He said, 'But I am not king, I am president.' I said 'No, you're president for life, and therefore you're king,'" Trump told the audience, prompting laughter. --
Disgusting. He is just disgusting.
The irony in the MAGA emphasis on "America First" is that, in this new multipolar world, we can't be offending and dissolving our alliances and relationships as tRump was doing. If their definition of American greatness is just the postwar status as sole democratic world power, that leaves us in a very weak position in this new order. Other countries will want their interests served, their voices heard. thanks to Biden, and his administration professionals, we've been rebuilding. I don't care about his age...hes 3-4 years older than tRump and he's trimmer, and more healthy...also sane. He's been very consequential. I wish the media would stop with carrying the polling narrative of his age. The alternative is ever so much worse.
Nothing was accomplished when trump was a wannabe president, all that he did was division, corruption, chaos, hiring crooks, theifs, election problems, making rich people richer and destroying democracy.
Sadly all true and yet there is more. He brought the maga thinkers and destroyers in full force in our country. He brought the ethnic wars, voter suppression and the destruction of the Supreme Court.
Hear hear! Exactly my thoughts. 👏🏻
Why omit the fact that China owns $1 Trillion dollars of US debt?
You can never afford to call your mortgage holder an enemy.
Should the US military ever be in conflict with China, the China would sell off their US dollars causing American interest rates to skyrocket. China has brilliantly guaranteed itself peace by owning American debt.
That is one strategic error. On the other hand, if China became too aggressive the return on their investment could be diminished. I wonder what China thinks about that.
Another large problem has been reliance of US military and industry on key pieces of Chinese technology.
That is why, doing business with communist countries is wrong. They steal our technology, and our jobs. I blame Nixon, he was the one that started all this, by being the first to go to China.
A country does not have to be communist to steal technology. The recent Indian lunar landing resembled Apollo rockets and only cost $75 million! We need to keep our markets open regardless of political interests.
America has a trade embargo on Cuba that is only mean spirited from their embarrassment from their failed Bay of Pigs invasion.
If you are a trading nation, then trade openly on a free market.
Because economic decisions do not occur in a vacuum each country presents its own challenges.
Cuba - Rubio has appeared on the campaign trail with “veterans” of the Bay of Pigs to drive the point home that the Dems are socialists/communists. It works not only with Cubans but other voters whose families fled communist dictators in Latin America. If you remember Obama was removing sanctions and normalizing relations. The next guy reversed direction. The DEsantis campaign(s) doubled down on the dangers of ‘socialism’ oppressive government, especially in S. FL. The GOP made it a constant drumbeat.
Biden has reversed some of TFG’s policies, particularly ones which reunite families. But it is difficult in the face of opposition from those who fled.
China - Similar issues when changing direction may signal weakness or encourage. China likes to set up “unauthorized” police stations violating the sovereignty of the US and 50+ other nations; redraw borders & violate international waters. It isn’t only about ‘stealing’ technology but their affinity for hacking & planting malware and spyware.
In 2018 a variety of US entities received CDs with letters written in poor English and a Chinese postmark. Turns out the CDs had more than the usual Microsoft Visual Basic files. Far worse was the almost 2 decades of hacking caught in 2018 and the current ‘ticking bomb’ the US now hunts -
“The systems affected, the Times said, could allow China not only to cut off water, power and communications to US military bases, but also to homes and businesses across the United States. The report comes two months after Microsoft warned that state-sponsored Chinese hackers had infiltrated critical US infrastructure networks.”
https://www.securityweek.com/possible-chinese-malware-in-us-systems-a-ticking-time-bomb-report/
Long term planning can leave us with win win situations where everyone gets ahead. China has managed to keep out of wars for a long time and spend money on its economic growth -- lets see if we can keep that up.
The U.S will never stop making war or meddling in other countries. The reason is that the war machine, makes billionaires and corporations richer, and they control the politicians.
Americans don't have to like how the Chinese run their country but that does not make it dangerous for this country. What we have is a nation that learned how to compete in a technologically developed world. It is the challenge for the US to learn to live with China and all countries that are not the US. That is what the US will not abide but instead paints the Chinese as our enemy. In fact it is the US that becomes the enemy as it threatens all nations if they don't kowtow. The US has been circling China militarily off their coast with military weaponry. Just as it did with Russia after assuring that country it would not place NATO any closer to the Russian border which was a direct threat to Russia resulting in the Ukraine war, actually an American war by proxy destroying Ukraine and several 100 thousand of its people. You don't create peace by labeling all competitors as dangerous enemies and then work on creating economic terrorism and military interventions.
Hmm... you started out with some well reasoned thinking... but then you went off the rails and spouted nonsense like a Putin-aggression-apologist : "Just as it did with Russia after assuring that country it would not place NATO any closer to the Russian border which was a direct threat to Russia resulting in the Ukraine war, actually an American war by proxy destroying Ukraine and...." oh, please🙄🤷♂️. No NATO country has ever shown any aggression to Russian sovereignty - and they are essentially a band of small bordering countries bonded in a defensive stance. Putin has been playing a victim card that nobody else with any sense of understanding of history sees as credible (apparently you do?). Overt nationalistic aggression is just that... NATO unfortunately "let the Crimea slide" years ago and it only emboldened the aggressor (just like appeasements did in WWI & WWII).
I remember reading an assessment of the Russian world view (in the US Navy's Journal of Acoustical Oceanography, of all places) in the early 1980s that included a world map centered on the Soviet Union. It supported the paranoid attitude prevalent in the USSR: Adversaries on all sides. So Putin is merely repeating a commonly held perception.
Thank you. Russia and China do not merely run their countries “in a different way.” I agree we cannot deal with nations by branding them as enemies and writing them off.
Neither can we be sucked into treating them as benign competitors and pals.
Putin has been destabilizing those within his reach and invading them, using mercenaries like the Wagner Group, interfering in elections. (Until Russia’s intervention, the current Belarus’ “president” who stole the election, was set to quickly reverse direction & step down in the wake of public protests.) In the 1990s, the UK and the US agreed Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan were sovereign nations and not to threaten them by military force or economic coercion. In return those nations gave up the Russian nuclear stockpiles inside their borders and became parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Russian railways and pipelines run through Ukraine. Not having a foot on the neck of Ukraine is worrisome for Russia. Fear of upsetting Russia kept NATO from allowing Ukraine to join NATO. Russia had given up Crimea to Ukraine 40 years prior.
China views democracy as messy and doomed to failure. It is laughing - openly - these days as Tommy Pooperville is allowed to weaken the structure of our military and mocks the necessity of ‘so many’ generals. Both nations seek to weaken us from within, something we should not embrace and enable by adopting their propaganda and using it against ourselves. Our biggest mistakes in the tech industry arena were probably ones that allowed us to become dependent on a malevalent competitor for key pieces of technology (like microchips). A flaw of shortsighted capitalism that China could exploit unless we follow through on building US capabilities.
When Americans view defending yourself as aggression - except local gunfire covered by the 2nd Amendment - we are truly in an upside down world.
True!
Ask Hong Kong how trusting China NOT to take full control worked out. China definitely has aspirations of being THE global superpower. We can’t just play nice to get along. Nor can we be ignorant of the danger. It will take the wisdom of Biden to carefully engage without becoming a patsy or an aggressor.
How ironic. David Brooks wrote an Opinion piece for the NYT today that I just read. In it, he said, "China does not look like a growing, dynamic power, but a troubled, stagnating one." I hope he's right......
Brooks might have a point. I've been to China many times, and I see a people grappling with a level of growth that is impossible for any people to contend with. In so many ways, their growth is out of control, with the government desperately trying to figure out where it's going in a Keystone Cops frenzy.
Mind you, I love China, and I wish them well. But they've gone economically berserk. In other words, they really have no idea where they're heading--like a beheaded chicken!
I agree with you, once the people of China get a little taste of prosperity and freedom, things will will change and it might in a good way or a bad way.
A 5 star essay, long,complex, comprehensive essay, Dan and Elliot. Thank you. China is in it for the long game. We aren't. The current leader of the Chinese Communist Party will never be a friend of the west, us. Russia is their tool and resource provider, not a friend. We have lots to fear.
As Mr. Rather has pointed out, China is indeed focused on expanding its' global reach, but there have been consequences that didn't rattle the Chinese hierarchy but certainly caused some realignment. Those massive investment proposals in both Asia and Africa have frequently met push-back - citizens have made their leaders aware that the prospect of China investing too deeply into XYZ sovereign nation is unacceptable.
Low-cost loans are also feeling push-back; what might have seen tempting - and beyond the WMF's ability to equal in terms of long-term interest payments - are coming under far greater scrutiny. Also of note is the development of Chinese owned/funded agribusiness(es) in South America, as noted in the article, but again there has been significant push-back. ['Our land, not China's', is the frequent and popular rallying cry].
The creation of synthetic islands in the China Seas is of great concern, as is the recent development by the Chinese Navy of two (2) significant classes of warship - aircraft carriers, which will inevitably provide China with a deep-water reach, and significantly fast, agile vessels that carry a formidable SSM missile punch. The US Navy is still locked in a 'bigger has to be better' mindset that offer only super-carriers when it desperately needs to follow the Chinese example.
The Chinese economy is faltering; it's food production is virtually stagnant, it's population aging, and it too is hearing the murmurs of protest and resistance that scare the stuff out of that little thug in Moscow. Change will come to China throughout the next few decades, and we cannot assume the Cold War image that we took with Communist Russia; we both improve with intelligent trade policies, we refrain from sabre-rattling, and we open far greater channels of communication.
Historically, China has not been an imperialistic power except near its own borders. Before Columbus sailed, Zheng He commanded a sailing ship over four times longer than Columbus'. His missions to the Mid East and Africa - to spread friendly trade relations. We're the ones taunting war there, not them here. We should engage the Chinese with respectful, competitive, and creative relations - especially as regards Global Warming. I'm leery of creating needless enemies and wars.
We really don't have a say, about wars. The billionaires and corporations control the politicians and they are the ones that make the tanks, rifles, clothes, jets, and weapons.
This is another reason we cannot risk someone like Trump to become President. We need Biden’s experience and temperament. Vote like our nation and the world depends on it.
Trump is only in for the money, he is the type that would sell his mother for a penny.
But will pull every dirty trick in the book with hope it’ll keep him outta jail. And Putin will surely give him a ton of help. It’s going to truly take all of us to prevent a disaster.