> never turned into a full-on war.

But almost did (Cuban Missile Crisis), and there were several wars* by proxy (some with China too).

*conflicts technically, as Congress hasn't declared war since WW2

> as Congress hasn't declared war since WW2

because they couldn't win in Vietnam or Korea.

China is a lot more stable, both economically and politically, than the Soviet Union. While it's not quite par with the United States yet, China has a population 4x the size of the United States, which gives them unprecedented scale to build out and deploy new tech that can easily leapfrog any edge the United States has right now.

In the long term, the only thing going for the US are alliances with other developed countries and democracies. But the current administration doesn't seem to care very much about that.

I don’t think raw population numbers are as useful as they seem. Most ruling political states have been comprised of a fairly small group of elites. Think Britain in India, or even the Mughals before them. We should also consider that Canada and Mexico have been/can be more integrated into a single economic unit.

The more important part is technological innovation, and so far, I remain unconvinced that a closed totalitarian system will have as much innovation as an open one, in the long term.

Otherwise, agreed that the US does need its allies, though I don’t necessarily agree that it has alienated them. If you look at the real events, and not merely the media talking heads, there is absolutely a growing sense of unity against China. See: India, Vietnam, Japan, Philippines, increased NATO budget commitments, to name a few.

> The more important part is technological innovation, and so far, I remain unconvinced that a closed totalitarian system will have as much innovation as an open one, in the long term.

It's better to characterize/qualify Chinese style of governance as a top-down meritocratic totalitarian government. Policymakers in China are theoretically able to make decisions that are optimal to achieve certain policy goals, say x% economic growth. In contrast, democracies set policy goals and make decisions through the messy process of achieving political consensus.

IMO, private innovation happens when a combination of factors align: free consumer choice, a large market under a common set of rules and stable political conditions. I don't think the Chinese style of governance prevents any of this.

Public innovation happens through well-funded universities and taxpayer-funded research grants. China pushes one step further at times by funding new technology/research directly through state owned/sponsored enterprises.

I think there are genuine fears within US policy circles that the stability afforded by economic growth under a meritocratic totalitarian government could give China an edge over countries like the US, which have to work with the overheads of a democracy. I believe observers in the future will agree that these fears were not unfounded.

I agree with most of what you’re saying. I would just add that much of the US’s power comes from cultural capital. New York, Hollywood, the widespread use of English, tech companies that rely on free speech (e.g. Twitter or YouTube), and so on. I’d argue that it is impossible to separate culture from technology.

I don’t believe that China can ever get remotely close to this cultural influence if it retains an authoritarian system. The artistic ecosystem will never form.

Cultural capital feels like a classic lagging indicator. You pave the roads in your feudal states first then the culture spreads in.

That's directly contradicted by the success of media exports from China lately, already in Asia but it's beginning to cross the language barrier into English Youtube, despite the firewall. In fact it shows it's money and competition that matter, and there is plenty of both in China.

Links? Examples? Some obscure series on YouTube isn’t particularly relevant. My narrative will be “directly contradicted” when the Chinese equivalent of Brad Pitt, Disney, NBA, MLB, NFL, Warner Brothers, etc. are household names in America and the world.

My country shares a border with China and we have negligible media imports from China.

I can only think of Vietnam where a Chinese TV series got quite popular.

Chinese restricts thought which by definition will take a whole range of creative ideas off the table. They're limiting their tool set in ways that can't be overcome within their governance system.

That’s not meritocratic in the normal sense of the word. Nobody is allowed to ignore CCP policy goals hoping to prove that they are flawed with data later. You’ll be in a re-education camp long before then.

Now it may be true that you can quickly climb the ladder if you never challenge anything, but that’s a pretty narrow set of merit being recognized. It’s just barely an improvement over promoting family members. In both cases, no fundamental change can legitimately bubble up based on merit.

A system that does not respond well to criticism will inevitably fail on its own... in which case they don't need their apps to be banned for that to happen.

History has shown that countries can suppress dissidents for hundreds of years. This current rendition of the Chinese government could easily survive decades while suppressing criticism (which they obviously do).

So you are justifying American imperialism in "helping countries along" by forcibly collapsing unfavorable regimes?

If only the US motives were actually that altruistic, but in reality US intervention in foreign regimes were mostly to protect its interests rather than any actual ideals.

>See: India, Vietnam, Japan, Philippines, increased NATO budget commitments, to name a few.

Apologies for unstructured reply:

There are other real events too, like how trade between China and ASEAN increased throughout covid and and the general trend is more integration. The real events you outlined are also still filtered through FVEY talking heads. People are misattributing increased militarily budgets in the region as growing hint solidifying US coalition when many of these increases are because these countries no longer see US as a reliable partner in SCS, a pattern that started under Obama. See Australians increased military budget citing specifically so, or how their foreign minister upheld US position on SCS but publicly distanced herself from Trump/Pompeo bellicose China policy. Philippines just bailed SCS drills. Half of Vietnamese military acquisitions capabilities target Malaysia, like wise for other countries in the region. It's not all to challenge China - people forget SCS is a 6 party dispute with various overlapping claims. Like when Taiwan AND China both sent ship to assert their claims after PCA ruling. BTW their increased funding and capabilities is directly a result of increased growth from China's growth. Or that China puts more warship tonnage than the entire region combined every year, by multitudes. Or how US military experts want access to Japanese basing to spreadout US asset risk against Chinese strike, but rampant covid in Japanese US bases just made sure that will never happen. Or this meme [1] that explains India's geopolitical situation, China is not the only big country with nervous neighbors.

Or how moving manufacturing out of China is still an ongoing experiment and ultimately one first started by China herself, where China gets to decide winners and losers. Months after Samsung closed their last phone plant in China, they outsourced their low-end models under a Chinese ODM. Also Vietnam is full, all their infrastructure including human capital are at capacity and will take years to cultivate. Or how people celebrate Foxconn recently moving 1B iphone manufacturing to India but don't mention they've invested 8B into IC packaging in China the same week. Or most of final assembling happening in India is still completely reliant on Chinese supply chains. Or how India basically needs 30 years of Chinese reforms to reach comparable development status as China and China could only achieve that due to authoritarian government structure... does India's messy democracy stand a chance? History and past attempts at reform suggests no. Or how automation + ASEAN competition means India will only get to grab a fraction of Chinese manufacturing before they get another 300M unemployed, angry youths because they don't have one-child policy. China still has that many in "poverty" even after peak manufacturing phase. IMO there's just not enough global demand for India to ever replicate China or reach parity. And that demographic boon of of youth is going to turn into a curse. Rest of ASEAN is the same, if you divide all of Chinese manufacturing at peak, with minimal automation, that fed entire world, ~400M jobs, there's simply not enough to go around. Again, China controls the supply chain, she will decide winners for the next 10 years (this number is important), not the west. She simply hasn't enacted extreme policies like US entities list, but could literally cripple many sectors in any country it chooses if she does.

The geopolitics of the region is complex, and everyone in the region is hedging between US and China for posturing, everyone is building up - through growth enabled by China - because they doubt US commitment under current admin that will take years to fix. Except US analysts thinks unless they start a war with China by 2025-2030 latest (that 10 years), Chinese advantage in SCS will be insurmountable. Incidentally, it will take a few years for TSMC to finish their Arizona plant, otherwise no one gets 7nm chips for a while. At the end of the day, only US China-hawks wants a war, everyone else in region has too much to lose, Chinese economy and supply chain feeds the entire regions growth, especially post covid just like post 2008 GFC. And in the south, literally by controlling mekong water supply in down river countries. And even if there is a war where China loses, unless China is completely dismantled, she'll have the industrial capability to destroy any SCS infrastructure via missiles for perpetuity. The future of SCS is already decided in a sense. China has too much industrial capital now to ever not be a geopolitical reality in the region - industrialization is why North Korea can't feed their people but still build inter-continental ballistic missiles. China will always have the capability to shutdown ASEAN and turn everyone into losers. This holds true even if China is blockaded from all outside resources, China is not Japan in WW2, it doesn't have enough domestic resources to maintain huge economic growth, but it has more than enough to be completely self sufficient on a war economy, even if everyone has to ride bikes and eat rice. It could literally revert to a hermit kingdom and lob missiles forever, in which case the entire region loses while US wins. Everyone knows this.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/KireMama/comments/hda8kq/south_asia...

USSR was isolated from the American economy. USA is doing everything in its power to destroy top tier Chinese companies and exploit local political situations.

Both the US and the Soviets did these things and to a far greater degree.

As I said, we will likely see a Cold War scenario of two separate spheres of economic influence. The divestment process is already underway.

TSMC has great potential to degrade into kinetic war.

That's why TSMC has started the process of putting fabs back into the US.

Lack of stability in the Pacific Rim is now more expensive long term than US labor costs.