The US has been facing the same problem that every superpower faces. We benefit from a stable global geopolitical climate, so any move that rocks the boat is bad for us. That's why every president until Trump has been reluctant to truly bring out the big guns with China. Those guns hurt us as much as China, and Trump is feeling that now. His trade war with China has wiped out most of the economic benefits of his big tax cut legislation.
Previous presidents weren't hapless morons on this issue. They just realized that we don't have many strong cards to play here. The TPP was the best card we had, but frankly I was pretty skeptical of how effective it would be. I'm similarly skeptical that Trump's strategy will be effective. China can easily afford to wait him out.
The biggest issue about trade deficits with China is purely economic, it political/strategic. The trade deficit with China helps China grow in power. Their economy grows, and with the huge influx of taxes, they are investing in their military and foreign influence operations more and more.
Is it worth the economic benefit to cement the U.S's biggest strategic threat, who is also a brutal dictatorship? The long terms negatives, may outweigh the short term benefits.
You also bring up some good points. Any action against China back then could have hurt the U.S. as well, and our course of action may have been the lowest risk path, and arguably the lowest risk path may be the best one.
> The threat from China has been existent and ignored for the past 30 years, the same 30 years that China rose from 3rd world country to the superpower it is today.
... I'm moved to note that it was Kissinger, as part of the post-WWII globalization effort, who helped China industrialize.
As I understand it, the idea is that war is less likely among nations, at comparable levels of economic and technological development, whose economies are strongly linked through trade.
The Soviet Union had helped China develop militarily, with tanks, ships, planes, missiles, and nuclear weapons. But it did a shit job, overall. So diverting China from ideological military confrontation to economic interdependence seemed like a smart move.
Longer term, though -- as you argue -- we have an overall stronger adversary than the Soviet Union would likely have become. They could have, with our help, destroyed modern civilization. But they arguably would have never dominated the world as the US has since WWII. As China may.
You're right, war is less likely among nations with strongly linked economies. The important thing to note is that, at the same time, the survival self-interest of a county to dominant the other does not go away.
Which means that economic interdependence only helps avoid war so long as war itself doesn't provide more benefits.
China loved the idea that was popular in the the US of "peaceful" rising China, it meant people ignored the long term strategic threats militarily.
China has risen economically, and now they are aiming to have a military more powerful than the U.S.. They are also growing their influence in South America and Africa to get new markets, resources, and ultimately get rid of the dependence on the US market.
So, the dependence helped deter war in the short-term, but the economic gains let China position them better to serve the self-interest of being dominant.
There was already conflict between China and the Soviet Union. But yes, that increased as China gradually introduced capitalism, with decreasing emphasis on central planning.
And that intervention did indeed finally jump start economic development and modern industrialization in China. After the catastrophic Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. But that didn't include national-level democracy and Western-style individual rights and freedoms. Likely contrary to Kissenger's expectations.
So yes, China might become the dominant world power. And that might roll back some global consequences of the European Enlightenment. Who would have thought?
It has absolutely been a problem for decades, and most likely a well-known one. I was recently watching a collection of old jokes from Saturday Night Live from the 90s, and came upon this from Weekend Update in 1996:
> Following the surprise withdrawal of his nominee Anthony Lake, President Clinton has chosen acting CIA director George Tenant to head up the agency. Now all he needs is the approval of the House, the Senate, and this Chinese guy. [Photo of elderly bespectacled Asian man]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_fi...
some posit that this (may have) helped elect the clintons who in turn moved for the WTO/trade liberalization.
What specifically looks more peaceful now?
The "powder kegs" today are mainly the competition between the United States against China. There's also regional competition / "powderkegs", like Europe and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, India and Pakistan.
Events that could have triggered these powder kegs/massive conflicts have calmed down a bit (relatively). The biggest ones have been when U.S vs North Korea rhetoric was at a tense high (China is heavily involved with NK and would likely get involved in any war there like they did in the 1950 Korean war), India-Pakistan (two nuclear powers bordering China) had some conflict on their border and were a the brink of war for a bit there (India is big competitor to China, Pakistan its big ally), and to a lesser extent Iran. If conflict were to arise in Iran, it would have probably been another middle eastern war (lots of money and death, few results), it would likely have Russia involvement like in Syria, and potentially China (although china like the money approach to influence, as they have put money towards influencing countries like Iran, and to a lesser extent Afghanistan and others).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_%28international_relat...
As for book recommendations, is there a specific topic you want to focus on? What are understanding are you looking to get out of them?
There's books on the rise of Asian economies, books on political theory that go more in depth, books on the politics and economics of China, history books on wars between rival powers, books on the history of Asia..etc
Apart from Yang I haven't heard (partially because I haven't sought it out) any other democratic candidate voice any opinion on this matter. I really fear that if Trump doesn't have a second term, any Democrat will cut bait, sending a very dangerous message to the CCP.
edit: Actually, not sure I've heard Yang's stance on this either, just his opinion about the whole China/NBA matter.
It's still not as big of a focus of attention to the general public as are other issues, and it could potentially become ignored. Sometimes, I wonder if these politicians even know enough political science or have enough awareness of the global landscape to understand the threat.
One of the most disappointing moment was when Joe Biden said that China was not competition, echoing the previous U.S. excuse for inaction from before. I think he backpeddled on that statement after backlash, but I'm not sure.
The change in attitude began with Trump. He was to first president to bring the threat of China to the mainstream political discourse. Since then, China is so objectively a threat to the U.S. economically, militarily and through their direct actions of manipulating U.S. businesses, countering our influence internationally, that bipartisian support was easy to flourish once someone actually took an anti-china stance.
The power of the Chinese market, low wage labor, sophisticated and concentrated foreign policy manipulation, and their stated strategy of "hiding their strength and biding their time" (until Xi), has worked to make the U.S. turn a blind eye. The problem of China has been present to any competent political scientist for a while now. But the amount of money incentives and ignorance on the part of U.S. business and political leaders made it so they would in essence be bribed to ignore the issue.
Obama did a pivot to asia, with the TTP at its helm, but in reality after 8 years of presidency and negotatitions, the results were nothing unfortunately. TTP is debatable as a solution. Even with the TTP, the U.S. has been losing 300 billion a year to China in trade. Granted this results in cheaper products for us, but 300 billion dollar trade surplus for China is what funded the communist dictatorship growing military spending, leading to a military that can be as powerful as the U.S.'s one day. 300 billion each year is more profit that what all the U.S's top tech companies make each year combined. The rise of China is not a miricale, like Japan's, Koreas, and other early east asian miricales, it was bought by America's consumers and political inaction.
Some theory, although depressing admittely: There is no government for governments, so each country lives in anarchy. Therefore nothing is off limits to get what you need to survive, including war. Countries go to war and act in self interest because, if they are not strong, whoever is will likely use their power to exploit the other country.
A balance of power brings stability. If there is 1 superpower, the world becomes globalized ( US after fall of soviet union). No world wars, because anyone who fights the dominant superpower will lose. This is called unipolar, one of the most stable and peaceful states for major powers.
Now when another power comes to rise, it is like a startup rising to crush the industry monopoly. Except, instead of having to battle it out economically, they can litteraly kill each other (or on the scale of countries, war).
The incentives for major war skyrocket
Britian was was the major power, they controlled 3/4ths of the world through their colonies and their unstoppable navy. Then industrial revolution and trains led to the rise of land powers, and the rise of Germany's economy. The rising powers, the disruption the balance of power eventually led to the world wars.
After that was U.S vs Soviet Union. The two sole superpowers after WW2 were on the brink of the nuclear war. for about 50 years.
The soviet union collapsed because communism with corruption was unable to keep up with captialism.
Now the U.S once the sole superpower, faces the rise of China. The chances of World War 3 are higher than ever, although they have calmed down from the high tensions of year or 2 ago.
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think it is important that we finally realize the immense threat that China is. Not just economically, but for our safety. Their goal is to be the top superpower, and to make the U.S. and anyone else bend to their will, as is every countries goal