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.
Noah Smith: Manufacturing is a war now
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Notes -
The PRC wants the South China Sea, Taiwan, Senkaku, Ryukyu (they've openly put out feelers, even if they haven't officially demanded it yet), and a few territories along the Indian border, plus maybe Korea, plus some degree of control over the policy of ~everywhere (see e.g. the Fourteen Demands).
Japan and South Korea will nuclearise if Taiwan falls unfought. Pure if-then. In a world where the USA is not willing to defend East Asia and the PLAN has Pacific Ocean access unobstructed by the First Island Chain, Beijing would otherwise be able to dictate terms to them due to the threat of blockade (neither country is remotely close to food security).
Unless we feel like performing the kowtow, we're probably going to have to fight the PRC, and if so we should fight it while our allies are all intact and the geography works against it.
I don’t care if South Korea and Japan have nukes and would probably consider it a good thing. I’m very confident that Xi Jinping does not personally want to rule over the Japanese the way Putin dreams of reconstituting the Russian Empire, so I don’t really care.
I care .... I really, really care.
the Great Man theory of history really is some midwit shit. This isn't about Xi or Putin, this is about large scale economic-military-political spheres of control and influence that will outlive both of these men. The post WW2 world order was started by a bunch of Americans that are now very dead and has been sustained for going on 80 years because of a system maintained and reinforced by cultural, political, economic, and military forces.
China is not seeking Taiwan as an end state. They are seeking to create a Chinese system (of cultural, political, economic, and military means) that similarly self-sustains and self-supports for centuries. That can only come with a reduction in both the relative and absolute power of the West, especially the United States. Such a drastic shift in power will necessarily alter our cultural values and operation. I don't want Beijing's incredibly global presence to dictate cultural norms to any extent (aside: Ban TikTok).
The world hasn't gotten any smaller, but nations (in the conceptual sense) have become larger and can move faster and further. There is no "over there" any more.
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Who’s next?
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Just like Japan and Korea’s fear of being cut off from the ocean is understandable, so is China’s. Even a reasonable and peaceful China would do everything to remove this knife from their throat. I’m uncomfortable getting into a massive war without trying appeasement first. You can speculate on China’s ultimate goals, but there is no record of defection and increasing demands like there is with Russia. Every power gets one tschekoslovakia, one free defect, that’s my rule.
Are you perhaps forgetting Hong Kong? They agreed to preserve Hong Kong's political systems from 1997-2047; that didn't even last until 2022.
They also have been building villages inside Bhutan, apparently confident that Bhutan can't do anything about it and nobody will call them out on it. I think there was one inside India as well.
Let's not forget their long-standing habit of taking hostages to extort their home countries' governments, and of controlling their diaspora by holding their non-diaspora families hostage.
I seem to recall a recent incident where they lit up an Australian ship with targeting radar (usually considered sufficient cause to fire back), but I can't find a citation.
The PRC is currently playing defect-bot*. A lot of these incidents are "nothingburgers" because the other side just cries and takes it, but that just means it's playing defect-bot successfully.
(Also, Japan and South Korea have far, far more to worry about from blockade than China; China has a much-better land:people ratio and it has access to land imports; Japan has no land borders and South Korea's only one is with North Korea i.e. a close Chinese ally that would take part in any such blockade. China would feel some pain from a sea blockade, but it's a long way from "lol state failure as people eat each other".)
*Its strategy is probably technically "Spiteful-Bully", but eh.
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