Will Xi Move on Taiwan?

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/20-years-after-9-11/Will-Xi-move-on-Taiwan-History-warns-he-might-Niall-Ferguson

by RyanShook • 5 years ago

86 137 5 years ago

asia.nikkei.com

brsg• 5 years ago

I thought this was an interesting quote

A: Two thoughts. First, you can leave a foreign country behind in an orderly way. Ask the British Empire, which mostly ended its colonial occupations in an orderly way.

The interviewee says this as though it's common sense, but is it true? The examples that stick out to me are India, Israel/Palestine, and the South African colonies. Can these really be described as safe and orderly withdrawals? What are the examples of successful withdrawals? Are they really that much better than US withdrawal from Vietnam or Afghanistan?

thaumasiotes• 5 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Divorce

docdeek• 5 years ago

What are the examples of successful withdrawals?

Australia or Canada, perhaps.

macdice2• 5 years ago

Those are settler colonies, a completely different kettle of fish. From the point of view of the (majority) settler population, they gradually ceased to consider themselves as British and underwent a multi-step disentanglement of legal and constitutional connections to the UK beginning almost a century ago but still ongoing. From the point of the (minority) indigenous populations, well I'm sure it varies but they may not agree that a withdrawal has occurred...

bpodgursky3• 5 years ago

The withdrawl from India was safe (for the British, let's ignore the partition bloodshed) and didn't lead to immediate regime collapse... so I certainly don't think it went as badly as Afghanistan or Vietnam.

charlescearl• 5 years ago

No let’s not ignore the loss of over 1 million lives. Borders are still contested, with several wars having been fought, the scale of the disaster dwarfs Vietnam.

dmurray• 5 years ago

What are the examples of successful withdrawals?

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Caribbean territories. Arguably Hong Kong.

You could also make a reasonable case for Egypt, Ghana, India/Pakistan... The withdrawal itself was peaceful and didn't leave the state in immediate civil war, even if it wasn't stable in the medium term.

Wowfunhappy• 5 years ago

I’d say the difference is that those territories were more or less “at peace”. The colonists had “won” the war, at least per some definition of winning.

Afghanistan was a barely held together mess even before we withdrew.

I’m not arguing one way or the other for Taiwan—I don’t want to go to war with China for all sorts of obvious reasons—but we would have the backing of the Taiwanese people, and that’s a major difference versus Afghanistan.

rjsw• 5 years ago

Withdrawal from Malaysia and Singapore went well.

908B64B1973• 5 years ago

Canada, Australia

Ask the natives about it.

qiqing• 5 years ago

The British Empire also left Afghanistan. And the US also left Japan and South Korea.

It depends on which data points you pick.

mandevil• 5 years ago

Egypt? The British left in June 1956 and immediately tried to invade their way back in, October 1956. There is a reason that for a generation, "Suez" was a trigger for humiliation.

India/Pakistan? Do you mean the event that caused the death of somewhere between 200,000 and 2 million people? And the displacement of another 10-20 million people? That was much, much more catastrophic than what just happened in Afghanistan.

Ghana did have a somewhat smoother path to independence than either of those.

Canada, Australia and New Zealand were always a separate category: settler colonies where the new arrivals almost completely displaced the natives. Ireland shows the difficulty when you try and send settlers but don't genocide the natives first.

bawolff• 5 years ago

Also its a pretty slow process for canada. Depending on your definition, canada became independent in 1867, 1982 or somewhere in between.

A withdrawl over 115 years is a very slow withdrawl.

seanmcdirmid3• 5 years ago

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and Russia leaving the former soviet constituent countries in Europe (e.g. Ukraine) and Central Asia (e.g. Kazakistan) turned out OK in the end, tension didn't flare up until this decade.

kamaal• 5 years ago

>India/Pakistan... The withdrawal itself was peaceful and didn't leave the state in immediate civil war, even if it wasn't stable in the medium term.

The partition of India was a very bloody event in History. The mess left behind by British, doesn't just include partition, it also includes the Kashmir problem over which wars have happened till date.

Not to mention the horrible economic and social conditions that British left behind in the then Indian subcontinent.

bpodgursky3• 5 years ago

I'd argue that the Soviet withdrawls from Eastern Europe went pretty well. Safe, orderly, no real bloodshed.

nradov2• 5 years ago

The Soviets militarily occupied Eastern Europe, but they never really colonized it to a significant extent.

wrinkl3• 5 years ago

The Soviet withdrawal was a bit different since the Union was actively falling apart and the occupied territories were pushing for independence. It wasn't all that smooth either - Georgian civil war and the first Nagorno-Karabakh War directly resulted from USSR's dissolution.

__d• 5 years ago

Australia and New Zealand would probably be considered successful withdrawals? Canada?

Less so the colonies that became the US, I guess.

throwawaysea2• 5 years ago

I personally don't think those withdrawals are truly orderly. Let's take India - leaving aside the partition of India (which is a huge matter in itself), a big crime is that the country that was left behind by the British did not resemble its historical culture or way of governance. It was instead turned into a secular nation, which just means defaulting to a status quo of colonial Western values. Ironically the partitioned areas (like the Islamic Republic of Pakistan) were not secular, but Hindus no longer had a land to practice a life that was fully dictated by their principles and their principles alone - instead they would live by rules and structures the British left behind. India also retained a lot of colonial structures outside of its government. For example the British education system continued, meaning that Indian children were taught out of Western-controlled/sourced materials that glossed over the horrors of British rule. Those children were also not taught the cultural things they would have learned in a pre-colonial era. This pattern isn't unique to India, but I wanted to call it out as an example of how seemingly peaceful withdrawals still result in long-lasting damage to a people and their culture. Is that peace? Maybe in the most literal sense. But it's not the same as making that place whole.

hackeraccount• 5 years ago

I don't want to speak well of the USSR/Russia but it's not hard to make an argument that they left Eastern Europe in an orderly way... well at the end. Honestly between Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and others there were some bad times in the there.

Razengan2• 5 years ago

I don't want to speak well of the USSR/Russia

Why?

mc327• 5 years ago

Gorbachov left the Eastern Block in relative peace I would say. Afghanistan of course was an exception.

rich_sasha• 5 years ago

Czechoslovakia and Romania made attempts at leaving peacefully and that didn't go so well. Though yes, in the end it was "fine".

tragomaskhalos• 5 years ago

The intention was there - according to Pakenham's "The Scramble for Africa" the idea was that prior to independence you educate a generation of civil servants who will then run the country along essentially British lines. I'd argue this worked well in India, largely though because Indians were already running the country in most important particulars. In Africa less so because independence movements gained unstoppable momentum which preempted such planning, plus many of those countries had been colonies for decades rather than centuries.

throwawaysea2• 5 years ago

civil servants who will then run the country along essentially British lines

While this may mean structural continuity, I can’t help but feel this is also a bad outcome - it’s just a continuation of imperialist force/cultural projection.

AmericanChopper• 5 years ago

the idea was that prior to independence you educate a generation of civil servants who will then run the country along essentially British lines. I'd argue this worked well in India…

I certainly wouldn’t draw that conclusion. Immediately after the British left Nehru adopted 5 year plans based on the soviet model. Nehru and Stalin didn’t get along because he was still too Britain-friendly for Stalin, but India and The USSR developed very close relations within a very short period of time.

Some elements of India’s governance structure were distinctively non-Soviet, like having a multiparty democracy. But if you look at the way the country was run, it was done in the style of soviet central planning, most certainly not along British lines.

ekianjo4• 5 years ago

Ask the British Empire, which mostly ended its colonial occupations in an orderly way.

Oh, like the independence of the US did go like a major peaceful operation. And yes the US used to be a british colony, in case people forgot.

dexter89_kp3• 5 years ago

Decisions taken by British still haunt India to this date. Especially their division of states.

wonnage• 5 years ago

Yeah this statement kinda discredits everything he says. The world is littered with countries that exist only because some existing adjacent kingdoms happened to both be colonized by the British, and they merged them into one colony. Countries fell apart after they left because there was no shared national identity to begin with.

xenocyon• 5 years ago

* India: the Partition led to massive loss of life, displacement in the tens of millions, traumatized communities, and deadly polarization between peoples to this day.

* Palestine: the end of the Mandate and the 1947-1949 Palestine war saw largescale displacement, loss of life, and (as is obvious to everyone) once again a deadly and unshakeable polarization between peoples that persists to this day.

On the one hand, it is certainly true that the British did not intend for these consequences, but on the other, the British were fully in charge as the sovereign government of India and Mandatory Palestine (unlike the US in Vietnam or even Afghanistan) - in particular having ruled India for over three centuries by the time they left - and so more deserving of blame.

RyanShook• 5 years ago

Seems pretty accurate in hindsight:

So, there was this enormous distraction that the Islamists created that absorbed our attention, our resources, and it turns out that it was really -- it was a detour. The big issue was the rise of China.

wahern2• 5 years ago

Both North Korea and Iran deftly took advantage of the U.S. being preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan. Frankly, I'm surprised China didn't make more significant moves the past 20 years. Though, I suppose China's economy has changed significantly over the past 20 years, and the U.S. was less preoccupied the second decade than the first, which is when Iran and North Korea made their major nuclear moves.

But it's not news that China posed the greater strategic issue. One of Obama's first foreign policy initiatives in 2009 was the "Pivot to Asia". And the need for that pivot had been the consensus opinion of foreign policy analysts for years prior.

The U.S. got stuck in the Middle East because it couldn't separate itself from the rhetoric. The Bush Administration (specifically Cheney, et al) did too good a job selling the Iraq War to both the public and the defense industry. Conservatives continually carping over Iran has never helped, either. The irony that Iran would never have pursued nuclear weapons but-for the Iraq invasion--because of the threat the U.S. posed, because it distracted the U.S.--makes the dynamic starkly clear.

randomopining4• 5 years ago

The US must've tappped the CCP communications in the 90s... they must've known this was their endgame. I'm surprised that only in the past few years has the China thing really come to the forefront. This should've been in like 1996 wit the taiwan straight incident.

potatoman22• 5 years ago

It seems sort of weird to consider a country improving itself as an issue.

mc327• 5 years ago

There were a few people who raised alarms --from IP theft, unfair trade (we can impose barriers for you, but you grant us free access), voluntary hollowing out our industry, theft of military secrets, etc.

But... most people were dollar eyed like a doe on a dark night with the blinding light from the semi coming at them freezes them in place. We could not extricate ourselves from the "promise billion-man market".

And, so here we are now, a great thanks to Nixon, Kissinger and the coup de grace from Clinton with the MFN to WTO.

daqhris• 5 years ago

From an American perspective, it is understandable that a group of religious fanatics grabed all attention by acts of extreme violence. But, from a non-American perspective, I think that too much resources were needlessly invested by the US to chase a faraway bunch of lunatics. Our attention was purposefully oriented by the USA towards the Middle East for what was unclear and uncertain at the time of invasion.

Why not simply take out the top leaders or commanders? Why not stage a coup d'état? Why not put in a place an embargo? Why not sanction the financiers of radicals?

The issue with China is they are deadbeat serious about economic growth. Masquerading as communists, speaking out as socialists but deep down thinking like mere capitalists. The historian makes comparison between Soviet Union and PRC that I think are erroneous. Crimea and Taiwan could be compared on the basis of territory size or cultural affinities. But unfortunately, China decided to focus on the Xinjiang region. From there, it borders more than 5 huge countries and the region is the basis for implementing their next decade growth engine i.e. belt and road project. They have more official manpower over there than on the Taiwan borders. They are effectively able to colonize the Uyghur region more than the overpopulated Taiwan island. Why bother making scenarios that China might invade a wealthy nation instead of a lawless region? The terrorists for America were in Middle East; the terrorists for China are not far from that location.

Really, China and SE Asia will continue their rise as it's evident that Americans are self-obsessed and lack commitment to long term goals. Interagency fights lead to zero sum games in the federal administration which will then destroy any valuable foreign policy strategy. Let's learn the lesson for goodness' sake. Truly speaking, the US has always been an immigrant country, so growth will certainly come from the new-comers. The issue is that for the last five years, the USA has portrayed itself as the most anti-immigrant land. It's been losing its appeal for talented professionals. Then it's hard for me to agree with a historian who is predicting the future out of thin air with plenty of bias.

Most probably, Xi's administration will move to Taiwan... to poach its tech talent pool. Until now, the Chinese media has not yet started beating drums for their army to go hunt ennemies in the South East Asia. Their focus and attention is really elsewhere.

SkyMarshal3• 5 years ago

The Biden administration's abandonment of Afghanistan could be interpreted as an unwillingness on the part of the U.S. to engage in overseas wars and could change Chinese President Xi Jinping's risk calculations, Ferguson said.

I think this is exactly backwards. Xi was previously exploiting the US’s preoccupation with the Middle East to build up China’s military and militarize South China Sea islands.

With a large chunk of the US military bogged down in a multi-front stalemate with Taliban all across Afghanistan, and maintaining stability in a destabilized Iraq, it was the perfect time for CCP to exploit their limited capabilities.

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan and drawdown in Iraq is clearly about freeing up those forces to refocus on China and possibly Russia, in a pivot back to Great Power competition and balance of power strategies.

The CCP is publicly trying to convince East Asia that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan means the US won’t stand by its allies there, but that’s just posturing. I’m pretty sure both those allies and the CCP know it means exactly the opposite.

dnautics• 5 years ago

The CCP is not trying to convince any East Asian nation that the us is flaky. It is trying to convince a populace that attacking Taiwan is going to be bloodless for an army of it's populaces only children.

randomopining4• 5 years ago

US should give Taiwan nukes secretly and then taiwan announces a first strike policy.

SkyMarshal3• 5 years ago

That's true too, but the CCP clearly wants to convince East Asia to more closely align with China than the US. That was subtext of replacing the US-led TPP with the China-led RCEP, among many other recent developments in the region.

CCP's strategy in recent years is to convince all its neighbors that the US is an inevitably declining power, China will dominate the 21st century, that there is no choice for them, and that the sooner they realign with China the better it will be for them. The longer they hold out, the worse it will be for them. CCP uses everything from the Afghanistan withdrawal to 1/6 Capitol riot and everything in between to make that case.

randomopining4• 5 years ago

I wonder what the total percentage of US forces were focused on Afghanistan. how much does Biden's move free up the US? I figure most of it was probably the logistical support side.

Smart move.

sk2020• 5 years ago

I think there was all of one BCT in Afghanistan with the ANA doing most of the high risk work. I think it’s more likely that the politburo surrendered to allow China to expand into Central Asia. I’m sure there will be some book deals and paltry speaking fees collected in the coming years.

Almost nothing the federal government does makes even a modicum of sense unless you look at it through the lens of it being a corrupt criminal organization auctioning off national assets to the highest bidder.

no_butterscotch• 5 years ago

I've heard that China is currently at it's demographic peak. From here on out people are aging with less replacing them, and more and more youth have to support multiple grandparents (effect of one-child policy, which while no longer in effect still has lasting impact).

As such I suppose if they were going to make a move now would be the time.

dundarious6• 5 years ago

I don’t think their preferred tactic is a human wave attack anymore. They’re advanced now. Better to ensure the US stays out of open conflict, which probably still means playing the waiting game.

eloff2• 5 years ago

The demographics are not a problem because of how they constrain the number of troops they can field - their population is still quadruple the US, so no problems there. The problem is the economic weakness that comes with a country where each working person supports two retired people (either directly as in family or indirectly as in taxes). That doesn't work as far as we know. So China is right near the peak of their power (maybe 15-30 years away.) I still think that means they'll be patient and wait for their moment. But they can't wait forever.

dirtyid4• 5 years ago

This is one of the more idiotic extrapolations of demographic bomb. Even the one-child policy annual birth rate in China is ~9-10M per year. That's an incredible amount of bodies to recruit from for the needs of modern air / naval warfare with limited casualty potential. Around half of births will be from underclass, where becoming a military martyr for the cause of reunification would be the surest guarantee their family has a meal ticket for the rest of their lives. Throw in upward mobility incentives like preferential queuing for universities, real estate etc - there won’t be a manpower problem.

someperson2• 5 years ago

Those military-age only children are expected to take care of their elderly parents and grandparents.

In a world war over Taiwan, it's likely millions of them would die. Leaving each family as "bare branches" since they have no siblings. And eldest male children are especially important in Chinese culture.

Given it would be a mass casualty conflict, the upward mobility "support the troops" impact (and guaranteed "meal tickets") would seem to be have a pretty limited.

eloff2• 5 years ago

The issue has nothing to do with military manpower, see my sibling comment.

mc327• 5 years ago

There is also a sex imbalance that could result in tens of millions of un-paired male adults because of the one child policy. These are men who will not be able to compete against more attractive men (money, power, influence rather than looks)

Isamu• 5 years ago

There has to be some reason why Saigon 1975 and Kabul 2021 were such a mess.

Sure, the US was exiting one region while under fire from fighters from yet another place that sought to “liberate” the region. Chaos from locals that hoped to save their lives from their “liberators”.

You are comparing that to an exit from a region where there is no other party participating in the liberation.

b1n2• 5 years ago

"When the battle over Huawei began, over 5G, I saw a map of the world, and it was a map of the world according to whether countries were allowing Huawei in or not, and I said to one of my young colleagues, "Oh, that's the Cold War.""

Map of countries that have banned Huawei: https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/17528.jpeg (from https://www.statista.com/chart/17528/countries-which-have-ba...)

b1n2• 5 years ago

Just noticed how bad the color choice is on that chart.

The lightest red (pink) is actually "Unlikely to ban".

renewiltord• 5 years ago

Western Europe is somehow supposed to be in the Second World in this Universe.

The only way that’s true is if the US player is forced on the Early War card Degaulle Rules France and not permitted to play NATO.

I declare this comparison Bogus History!

rkk35• 5 years ago

The win condition has been updated, now it is if you have control of Asia you win. Coups are now also allowed in Europe at Defcon 4.

chrononaut• 5 years ago

Why on Earth is "Unlikely to ban" close to the same shade of red as "On the fence" and "(Partial) ban in effect", while "Using Huawei" is green.

COGlory• 5 years ago

What a useless map

nullspace• 5 years ago

Haha, until I read your comment, my reaction was “huh interesting, Russia has banned Huwaei” as well.

ekianjo4• 5 years ago

That's one of the worst color coding ever.

tvphan• 5 years ago

I suspect the person who created this chart probably reckoned that anything less than “using Huawei” is a bad thing

Daneel_• 5 years ago

A very quick colour replacement for readability (sorry colour-blind folk): https://i.imgur.com/bWD6iFA.jpeg

mcdoh• 5 years ago

I'm colorblind and this looks way better, thanks!

IAmWorried• 5 years ago

So we have 3 categories that mean "has not banned", and 1 category that actually means "banned". What on earth does "on the fence" mean? How is "unlikely to ban" any different from "using Huawei"? This chart is one of the worst I've ever seen, regardless of the color coding - seems the objective was to make China look alone or something? Who knows.

moogly• 5 years ago

The just-announced Aukus military pact leaves no doubt in my mind. Pretty overt.

627467• 5 years ago

What would CCP gain (compared to the status quo) in doing this move?

To test US loyalty to other Asian allies? Seems... Convoluted, reckless, and not at all something China has done in the past.

China and Taiwan are already co dependent.

chrchang523• 5 years ago

Well, Hong Kong had plenty of co-dependence with the rest of China, and everyone already expected greater integration in 2047; yet the CCP still chose to accelerate the schedule in defiance of the expectations of both a majority of HK citizens and the West.

With that said, Taiwan is both more valuable and easier to take if more Taiwanese people don't think it's much better to be associated with the US than China. I think that, if the CCP does gain control of Taiwan in the future, it's >50% likely to be no more violent than Crimea; that's not possible today because too many Taiwanese are opposed.

rsj_hn2• 5 years ago

More importantly, China is co-dependent on the rest of the world, including the US, to continue allowing large Chinese trade surpluses. And virtually all of China's foreign assets are held in US and European custodial accounts that could be instantly seized or at least frozen.

This is not the position from which one would want to upset the current world order, especially if domestic tranquility (read, employment) is dependent on the good graces of your trading partners.

On the other hand completely isolated nations like North Korea -- which are not tightly integrated into the international economy and feel they have nothing left to lose -- these are the ones that are more likely to do crazy things.

Thus China will continue to sabre-rattle and focus on largely symbolic issues in order to stoke nationalism but they will not actually act as that would immediately make a large chunk of their population unemployed and destitute. And questions of money and employment are much more important to Chinese citizens than nationalism.

angelzen5• 5 years ago

The economic interdependency argument is fragile. It has been refuted at least once in history. In the 1909 book 'The Great Illusion', British lecturer, journalist, author and Member of Parliament and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Norman Angell argued along the same lines. Coming at the tail end of an unusually long and prosperous European Golden Age, the Belle Époque, it was very well received in its time. 5 years later, the trenches of WWI would put the lofty ideals to rest.

According to Angell, the economic interdependence between industrial countries would be "the real guarantor of the good behavior of one state to another",[6] as it meant that war would be economically harmful to all the countries involved. Moreover, if a conquering power confiscated property in the territory it seized, "the incentive [of the local population] to produce would be sapped and the conquered area be rendered worthless. Thus, the conquering power had to leave property in the hands of the local population while incurring the costs of conquest and occupation."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_%C3%89poque

abrowne3• 5 years ago

Xi would look strong if they win.

hollerith• 5 years ago

What would CCP gain (compared to the status quo) in doing this move?

Same reason they are creating islands in the South China Sea: becoming less vulnerable to blockade. (They can use ships and planes based on Taiwan to attack any ships trying to enforce a blockade.)

Also, as long as the Taiwanese government exists, groups inside China seeking the overthrow of the CCP can hope to ask it to become the new government of mainland China. Of course, that would start to make sense only if the CCP weakens drastically because of severe civil disorder, but severe civil disorder has been common in Chinese history.

temp8964• 5 years ago

Does China even need to attack Taiwan? Put an embargo on the island. Will US has the political will to directly confront with China? Seems unlikely.

seanmcdirmid3• 5 years ago

Taiwan is too closely situated to the Ryukyus (and American airforce/navy bases) for China to enforce an embargo on them. Unless China can block off Japan also, then they can't really cut the island off from anyone.

If you mean a direct economic embargo, then China loses a lot of its export potential (e.g. via FoxConn) driven by descendants of the mainlanders who fled to Taiwan in 1949. A lot of the factories are owned/managed by such Taiwanese, who are much more in line with a unified China than other Taiwanese, but are still unwilling to become PRC citizens.

smitty1e• 5 years ago

A naval blockade? That would be tantamount to an attack.

After Kabul, whether the feckless U.S. will bother to recall that Taipei is an ally is another question.

rkk35• 5 years ago

Does Taiwan converting to a liberal democracy decades into the civil war overrule China's right of Sovereignty?

davidjytang• 5 years ago

It sure doesn't overrule Taiwan's right of sovereignty.

rkk35• 5 years ago

Why do you think they have a right to sovereignty? They lost a civil war (and wouldn't exist without US intervention), Taiwan is a Chinese province. I doubt you would be making this claim if they were still being ruled through dictatorship by a Chiang.

Edit: You can downvote me without exploring the question, but most of the world does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation.

vondur• 5 years ago

Taiwan reminds me of Switzerland. Mountainous terrain with a lot of bunkers and brimming with high end military equipment. It would be really hard to have an invasion force not be noticed by Taiwan. One the shooting started what would stop the Taiwanese from simply lobbing missiles at the heavily populated South of China. I don’t think it’s worth it for China to invade. Constantly threatening it is an interesting foreign policy move against the US.

SkyMarshal3• 5 years ago

One the shooting started what would stop the Taiwanese from simply lobbing missiles at the heavily populated South of China.

I doubt Taiwan would target civilian centers, rather they'd be more likely to put all their surface-to-surface arrows behind sinking the PLAN's amphibious landing ships first, and the rest of its ships next. Without those, there can't be an invasion.

Guthur• 5 years ago

Not the main point of the article but I'd strongly disagree that Keynesian economics were effort dropped, government spending has been ever increasing since the 1940s and in the 80s it accelerated and just before the GFC it seemed to have got really out of control. I doubt Milton ever advocated for such large government, actually I know definitively that he would have been opposed.

dundarious6• 5 years ago

What does it mean to be in a Cold War with China? On the US side, the Cold War with the USSR involved coups (many but not all successful) in the Middle East and Latin America, training death squads at the School of the Americas, installing nuclear ICBMs in Turkey and on submarines surrounding the USSR, propping up puppet/minority governments resisting “contagion” (and even going to war on behalf of some of them). This was all done to resist “contagion” (sometimes USSR imperialism, but mostly just people agreeing with ideas we didn’t like).

What does it mean this time? There doesn’t even seem to be any argument akin to “contagion”. I don’t see any Chinese imperialism or even a big ideological soft power push. Even China’s loans and purchases associated with the Belt and Road come with almost no ideological strings, especially compared with IMF loans and US’s push for the Washington Consensus. What material actions are being asked for here, in order to make up for the lost focus on this supposed “Cold War 2”?

This whole article is saber rattling nonsense to me.

angelzen5• 5 years ago

Cold War I ended with the breakup of the USSR. Quite possible that Cold War II will have the same end, marked by economic crisis and ethnic strife, but most importantly by the complete dissolution of the average person's faith in their own country. The submarines are a side show, mostly a signal of economic health.

dundarious6• 5 years ago

My questions were about the entire stretch before the end, where a lot of things took place (almost entirely openly reported contemporaneously in the press) and I don’t see analogous things taking place this time, on either side.

I mentioned submarines in the context of nuclear buildup during CW1, where they were not a distraction at all. Launch facilities in Turkey were closed as part of a deal to end the Cuban Missile Crisis/October Crisis, but the US only did so because they were to be retired anyway in favor of the submarine nuclear capability.

Ericson2314• 5 years ago

What a moron

The Biden administration's abandonment of Afghanistan is a kind of signal that they probably won't fight over anything.

I'm not saying it was a pretty pullout, the whole time that administration was saying we have to do this to change focus to China. Absent lots of mind games, the simple message is "we shouldn't waste our time defending Afghanistan and Taiwan at the same time."

I'm tempted to call it "Keynes' revenge." John Maynard Keynes had a period of retreat, and Milton Friedman had a period of ascendancy, and you could date that from around 1979. Monetarism became dominant, markets were preferred to the state, and what emerged as "the Washington consensus" was much more a Friedmanite view of the world.
Keynes' revenge began in 2008, when, in the face of the financial crisis, a really large part of the economics profession, led by Paul Krugman, essentially said Keynes was right and we need to do Keynes now, or it will be the Great Depression.

This part is true. Though I might put Joseph Stiglitz on equal par for existing big names beating the drum.

Some Friedmanite ideas have survived. Universal basic income was an idea of the right, once upon a time...

It has an older history that that, but true.

And the answer is because, in the 1970s, Keynesian policies led to inflation. I feel like that's all just going to replay itself and we're going to have to relive the 1970s in order to remember why we did the 1980s.

There was inflation before the 1970s that was tamed without a return to stupidity (and class warfare from above). See https://employamerica.medium.com/expecting-inflation-the-cas...

No, it won't, because the multiplier just will be nonexistent. The U.S. is completely incapable of turning a large fiscal stimulus into the kind of investment that would have a significant multiplier. We already know what the outcome will be. There won't really be a significant macroeconomic benefit.

The "multipliers" are not so dire.

I do agree stimulus should be decoupled from infrastructure -- infrastructure simply doesn't mass-emply people the way it used to, especially if projects are completed in a timely matter, but that is a a separate point.

That's partly because the administration cannot resist mixing up other things with the word "infrastructure." Infrastructure now means everything. If you want to do environmental, "green" policy, that's infrastructure.

Exactly wrong. Bipartisan road spending just promotes more wasteful, terrible exhurbs. It's useless and environmentally counterproductive. Things like universal Pre-K would actually be useful and certainly raise private sector efficiency.

If you're serious, you're going to walk away from natural gas, walk away from shale gas, and increase the costs of your energy mix. That's just the reality.

The point is costs relative growth. If the prices go up but incomes go up faster, there's no problem. "Carbon dividend"-type proposals that make the poor not face the brunt of fuel prices (but still incentive them to ditch the car and pocket the difference!) are a good example to think about.

satonakamoto2• 5 years ago

You guys are fucked.If you don't know HK is China's financial corridor and TW is China's tech corridor.So No! China will never use military force to TW. TW and China just play a show to World and US buy it.

9999px• 5 years ago

China has a more historic and material claim over Taiwan than the U.S. has over Hawaii. Give me a break with all this imperialist sabre-rattling.

Taiwan is a province of China. Fewer than 15 countries (the U.S. is not one of them) acknowledge a sovereign Taiwan.

This is a wedge issue designed so that defense contractors can sell more weapons/arms/subs in the South Pacific.

auroz3• 5 years ago

Taiwan is a province of China.

De facto, it is not.

arcanon• 5 years ago

TSMC guarantees global intervention if China attempts to take Taiwan. The US is not alone.

Will Xi Move on Taiwan?

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