They are decoupling but its a slow process

How nice of China to give them the time and space to do that slowly so it doesn’t have to cause a lot of upheaval in their society. Now that’s an understanding and reasonable adversary. If only all national security threats behaved that way, things can be much better. Like imagine if Bin Laden had simply called ahead about 9/11, let people prepare, slowly empty the towers and create a safety zone around it, then the whole 9/11 fiasco could have been a fun demolition watch instead of all the hassle. He lacked class in my opinion.

It’s like the coupling with the US, it’s complicated. Complete decoupling is very difficult (if possible at all) and not really desirable. So the whole discussion is how hard, and where we put the line. Saying things like “they don’t actually want to” and “it’s too difficult to actually do it” is not very helpful.

Everyone wants more independence to some degree, it’s just that not everyone is prepared to pay the same price, or is willing to accept the same compromises. So yeah, if you personally put the line somewhere, you will be disappointed if a given government sees things differently and puts it somewhere else. It does not mean that everything is terrible and they are lazy or stupid.