My op-ed is an urgent wake-up call for the US. China is forging ahead on AI, robotics, high-tech manufacturing, etc. Meanwhile, Trump is destroying the pillars of American power.
Great article and summarises my conclusions formed over the last 3 years of visiting china. I am European, very heavly US Influenced but since living in Singapore for 6 years and seeing China first hand, I have realised that the US/EU centric world alliances are on their way out. China is an extremely well run bohemoth if a superpower, and most of all an intrinsically peacfull bear totally focussed on self reliance. It will dominate the next 200 years for sure.
Can an empire with a military as large and globally entrenched as the USA’s be “irrelevant?” I’m not trying to be glib here - I agree with the main thrust of the article. There are just some hard power realities that a purely economic policy analysis misses. The Soviet Union collapsed, the Russian Army continues to menace its neighbors. America can self-weaken but it’s probably Too Big to Not Matter.
Great piece, Kyle. Read it as soon as it dropped this morning.
Unlike the flood of commentaries treating China as an abstract threat, you deliver hard data and concrete evidence. Your analysis stands on firm ground, not anxious speculation. most valuable: i love the techno-optimism and long-term thinking underneath your argument—no alarmism, no dismissiveness, just clear-eyed analysis.
The only hope is Democrats wake up, throw out the old guard, and embrace a new vision and set of reforms and investments as suggested by the abundance agenda. This Republican Party is too far gone and out of touch with reality to ever face or address the China threat.
And we shouldn’t wait to see what happens in upcoming elections. We need a Project 2099 from new leaders that clearly outlines the threat, the opportunity, and the plan to achieve a brighter future. One that includes a more realistic and hopefully more amicable relationship with China.
…it’s so hard for arrogant and ignorant americans wrap that around their heads even though it was coming for decades, if you paying attention that is, just like dictatorship we have now, this country suffers severe arrested development due to brainwashing about “american dream” astonishingly reminded of the nightmare at the end
…it didn’t happened overnight, for decades the trick was to convince american liberals they still live in a democracy,
while led them to the point of no return by pulling the rug under their feet, but they still don’t fucking get it
Is this cherry-picking the selected high points? The conventional impression is that PRC will be the first (leapfrog) country to get old b4 getting rich. If you go inland, the prosperity levels drop ... I recall when backpacking wondering why the ice in Xi'an was black ... due to the coal dust. There's high levels of pollution, no public social safety net, and kids are delay/defer/deny getting married leading to shrinking labor pool. The centralised decision making means that market failures like overbuilt property is slow to correct, the ability to peacefully transfer power between leadership fosters purges, and corruption / transparency / accountability is not as good as could be. Lying down has become a passive aggressive resistance to unreasonable work-life balance. In short, despite shiny toys, struggling out of the middle-income trap is still open question.
Great article and summarises my conclusions formed over the last 3 years of visiting china. I am European, very heavly US Influenced but since living in Singapore for 6 years and seeing China first hand, I have realised that the US/EU centric world alliances are on their way out. China is an extremely well run bohemoth if a superpower, and most of all an intrinsically peacfull bear totally focussed on self reliance. It will dominate the next 200 years for sure.
Gweilo. U r a Gweilo
Can an empire with a military as large and globally entrenched as the USA’s be “irrelevant?” I’m not trying to be glib here - I agree with the main thrust of the article. There are just some hard power realities that a purely economic policy analysis misses. The Soviet Union collapsed, the Russian Army continues to menace its neighbors. America can self-weaken but it’s probably Too Big to Not Matter.
NATO expansion explains Ukraine. Pls absorb this idea
Great piece, Kyle. Read it as soon as it dropped this morning.
Unlike the flood of commentaries treating China as an abstract threat, you deliver hard data and concrete evidence. Your analysis stands on firm ground, not anxious speculation. most valuable: i love the techno-optimism and long-term thinking underneath your argument—no alarmism, no dismissiveness, just clear-eyed analysis.
They will start and when they see where the article is going will stop out of resentment. The truth is too hard to handle.
Just read this on the NYT website - could not agree more! Such an important piece - really, really hope some folks in Washington read this.
The only hope is Democrats wake up, throw out the old guard, and embrace a new vision and set of reforms and investments as suggested by the abundance agenda. This Republican Party is too far gone and out of touch with reality to ever face or address the China threat.
And we shouldn’t wait to see what happens in upcoming elections. We need a Project 2099 from new leaders that clearly outlines the threat, the opportunity, and the plan to achieve a brighter future. One that includes a more realistic and hopefully more amicable relationship with China.
…it’s so hard for arrogant and ignorant americans wrap that around their heads even though it was coming for decades, if you paying attention that is, just like dictatorship we have now, this country suffers severe arrested development due to brainwashing about “american dream” astonishingly reminded of the nightmare at the end
…it didn’t happened overnight, for decades the trick was to convince american liberals they still live in a democracy,
while led them to the point of no return by pulling the rug under their feet, but they still don’t fucking get it
…we created the empire and now we have an emperor
truly the dream of an idiot above LOL
Interesting take! Can't deny China's success but we want to do our research overseas and write on Substack for a reason I guess...
https://youtu.be/uNKRplIFJmc?si=l7zRioEUWF7_zc0b
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQ_2r94VDU
NYT is a worthless rag.
Didn’t read it. Princeton never produced a China expert. Not ever. This probably is worse than Edgar Snow
You are a loser and have nothing to offer for our country.
Fantastic op-ed. Can't wait to get you on Sinica to talk about that and many other things!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vU0NR-W_o8c
Is this cherry-picking the selected high points? The conventional impression is that PRC will be the first (leapfrog) country to get old b4 getting rich. If you go inland, the prosperity levels drop ... I recall when backpacking wondering why the ice in Xi'an was black ... due to the coal dust. There's high levels of pollution, no public social safety net, and kids are delay/defer/deny getting married leading to shrinking labor pool. The centralised decision making means that market failures like overbuilt property is slow to correct, the ability to peacefully transfer power between leadership fosters purges, and corruption / transparency / accountability is not as good as could be. Lying down has become a passive aggressive resistance to unreasonable work-life balance. In short, despite shiny toys, struggling out of the middle-income trap is still open question.