Comment by newsclues
Comment by newsclues 2 days ago
Who do we expect will replace Americas global leadership and will they really be better for everyone?
Comment by newsclues 2 days ago
Who do we expect will replace Americas global leadership and will they really be better for everyone?
I disagree that something good for China is necessarily bad for the rest of the world, which you seem to imply here includes only Europe.
China alone has a higher population than Europe and the USA combined. I'd say that even if things got worse for Europe, to humanity it still constitutes a net benefit. Lives aren't of less value just because they're in a (gasp) communist country.
Not necessarily. But China's aggression towards Taiwan and their recent rare earth metals move last year show that China does not have the worlds best interests at heart either. We're picking between two evils and China's evil is more predictable than the US's right now.
This goes for Asia in general. Korea, Japan, and China spent centuries fighting and making them the de facto super power makes it easy to resume the Korean war or try to overtake the (military wise) crippled Japan should they be emboldened by the faltering/collapse of NATO.
> communist country
New things need new words to describe them, I know people love to call bad guys "nazis" or "communists" and that everyone seems stuck with 1939 lingo but come one. 1950s china isn't 1980s china which isn't 2026 china, yet they're all ""communists""
"Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" is the official name of the ideology of the Communist Party of China.
China is ruled by the Communist Party. It does not seem unreasonable to call them a communist country.
Yes, I know, they have moved away from historical communism, and it's more of a "brand name" than an ideological description. Still, it is their chosen name for what they're doing.
No words are not required.
Authoritarian. Totalitarian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_fascism is an OLD term.
The EU just signed large deals with Latin America and India, binding a sizable chunk of the world to its rules. ASEAN is on the docket, Japan, Canada and South Korea have been signed for a while now.
Make of that what you will. Power isn't always tanks and soldiers. Sometimes its bureaucracy and contracts.
The single superpower thing was an anomaly which was mostly a result of one specific country being largely untouched by WW2; we're more likely heading back towards multiple regional powers with varying levels of cooperation, e.g. EU+Mercosur+India agreements that just happened.
The lines are still being drawn, but its doubtful one single power will emerge.
The US is resigning the position intentionally. It's not as if someone is gearing up to replace it.
But as a trade partner? China, markets love reliability and stability. Not every 4 years wondering if there will be another trade war for reasons unknown.
You'd be very surprised the amount of malicious behavior countries will ignore to allow trade. Look at Saudi Arabia.
I don't see any way we're not heading back to the multipolar world. They've managed to burn almost all of the goodwill and soft power that took 80 years to accumulate in 373 days.
Even with a "return to normalcy", the trade and military agreements being forged are permanently diminishing America's influence. Especially given that we're never more than 4 years away from this happening again.
Well, cooperation with one specific player.
Cooperation among the rest of the world is rapidly progressing in response.
That's not how it works though, is it? What you're really saying there is global governance.
Which faction that emerges as a dominant ever says "Oh no! We better stop using our advantage to improve our condition".
China probably. No I don't think it is better but at least their leadership is actually sane. Evil, but sane and predictable.
Even the evil adjective starts to look debatable in contrast to what current hegemony is doing on its way down.
Apparently their worst offence so far was calmly outgrowing and out competing their peers while benefiting global consumers with he fruits of organized labor of their own society.
Iam sceptical whether china is more evil than the current and historic US. Both countries have commited atrocities but the US was way more involved "for their interests overseas". Maybe the western distrust towards china will make it a different power equilibrium.
As opposed to America who uses cruise missiles on fishing boats in a different continent?
Maoist protracted people's war has traditionally relied on being less of an asshole to the peasants than the enemy.
I was referring more to the millions of Uyghurs in political prisons and their overreaching surveillance of the population.
And I was just speaking of what I think about China, not saying the current US administration is any better. I don't think it will be there forever though.
Right the Uyghurs, a word we never knew before.
When faced with credible threat of islamic terror in their country China implemented some harsh, systemic ideas about what to do with it.
I'm sure if they just started two wars in the middle east instead the western community would be way more lenient towards them.
China did what it though was the correct thing and the west happily classified it as racism and religious persecution.
However when the pandemic came China had zero restraint towards applying harsh measures on the bulk of their population regardless of race and relligion. And while their solutions are harsh and possibly incorrect is it really unique on the global stage?
US, the shining city on the hill, when faced with a problem of having inadequate social support systems to help the more recent immigrants decided that it will try to build concentration camps on the teritorry of one of their closest vassals. This can't be correct or humane solution either.
And when it comes to surveillance, China is on the forefront, but US and UK closely follow. What's different is that China does their surveillance overtly and tries to make it socially useful. I don't for one second believe that technologically Palantir and such are more than one step behind.
Your comments are all about "the US is bad too" which I consider whataboutism. I am not from the US nor live there and I was opposed to all the wars in the middle east and to palantir and the Snowden revelations etc.
But that doesn't make what China does better in any way. And those millions of Uyghurs they locked up couldn't possibly all be terrorists. That makes it racism and religious persecution.
Ps how is Cuba a vassal state of the US? When you speak of a concentration camp I assume you refer to Guantanamo?
I'm particularly annoyed that the US is for the people of Iran and not, like China, for the government of Iran. And the US putting secondary sanctions on Russian oil to starve Putin from Chinese and Indian oil revenues? Disgusting.
China wants but China won't. They lack the military capability of force projection that is the basis of the US dollar dominance, their currency cannot be used as a reserve/trading currency due to capital transfer controls (that have no sign of ever going away because otherwise everyone who has money in China will move it immediately out of the reach of the CCP), foreign investors have gotten very skeptical over the years regarding IP theft on one side and supply chain law issues (e.g. underage labor, 996 and modern slavery, environmental concerns) on the other, and on top of that China is getting rocked hard by the inevitable consequences of the one-child policy that is driving up labor costs, further reducing the attractivity for foreign investors.
> Yes, they want Taiwan, but that’s a silly national pride thing. It would not really benefit them to take it by force.
We thought the same about Putin, and yet he went and invaded Ukraine.
We thought the same about Trump, and yet he went and abducted the president of a sovereign country.
Never underestimate nationalist BS or outright mental deficiency.
China seems to be the only candidate. But whatever happens it won’t be in the same way as before.
As for whether it is better for everyone, that question became a lot harder in just the last year. Who is «everyone»? And what do we mean by «better»?
With the US wanting to annex territory from its NATO allies, and engaging in extortionate tariffs, it is harder to argue that the US is good for Europe. Which is why Europe has already started to look eastward. Starting with a comprehensive trade deal with India.
What’s happening is good for Russia and China. Not so much for the rest of the world.