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-_-_-_-_-  13d ago (noahpinion.blog)   1800 thread views

Noah Smith: Manufacturing is a war now

noahpinion.blog

Industrial policy has been a frequent subject on Smith's blog, for those who don't follow it. (He's for it, and thinks that Biden's industrial policy was mostly good - it's worth following the links in this post.) This post focuses on defense-related geopolitical industrial policy goals and pros and cons of anticipated changes under the incoming Trump administration and Chinese responses. Particularly, he highlights two major things China can do: Restrict exports of raw materials (recently announced) and use their own industrial policy to hamper the West's peacetime industrial policy (de facto policy of the last 30 years). These are not extraordinary insights, but it's a good primer on the current state of affairs and policies to pay attention to in the near-future.

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I find all this to be a bit far-fetched. When exactly did the Chinese Communists express any intent to unify Korea after expelling the Americans? Their intervention in the Korean War didn't go to such lengths either. We might as well say that their wildest dreams include Vladivostok. And what Russian ambitions are 'way beyond' Eastern Ukraine? Don't tell me it's Moldova of all places.

Their intervention in the Korean War didn't go to such lengths either.

Uh, yeah, it did? Mao was absolutely trying to unify Korea under Kim Il-Sung. They captured Seoul and would have taken all of South Korea had the UN forces not driven them back.

I don't think we can say that with certainty. The intervention happened when North Korea was on the verge of complete defeat and I'd be surprised to learn that it had goals more ambitious then restoring the status quo.

I think you might need to read up a bit more on Mao Zedong. The Sino-Soviet split occurred because Mao thought Khrushchev wasn't being aggressive enough in spreading communism; Mao was very aggressive, and was involved in the planning of the initial North Korean invasion of South Korea.

It's debatable whether Mao would have come in if the UN hadn't invaded North Korea, but once he did he absolutely intended to unify Korea under Kim.

(To be clear, this particular incident has little bearing on modern Chinese intentions; Xi Jinping is not Mao and has different objectives. He is also aggressive, but in a different fashion.)

Rhetoric is one thing, actions are another. Altogether I find it a bit of a stretch to say that Chinese foreign policy was markedly aggressive during Mao, either compared to that of the USSR or the Qing Dynasty for that matter.

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