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-_-_-_-_-  13d ago (noahpinion.blog)   1801 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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China does not seem to want more than taiwan and access to the ocean

Dude ... why do they want access to the ocean? You're answering your own implied question here.

They don't want to get blockaded to shit every time they displease Current Hegemon?

right, now follow the thread further.

If you don't want to be beholden to the whims of Current Hegemon, the only way to guarantee that is to be roughly equivalent in overall power and capability to Current Hegemon. If you grow to that size, however, Current Hegemon will suspect you're a rival - which you are.

That precarious balance of power creates a tension that can go cold to hot very quickly.

China having a "history of peaceful behavior" (I would contest this assertion) does nothing to resolve this.

If you don't want to be beholden to the whims of Current Hegemon, the only way to guarantee that is to be roughly equivalent in overall power and capability to Current Hegemon.

I would say that this is not only legitimate but the right and proper aim of any nation. As opposed to the British strategy, which is to bleat endlessly about the ‘special relationship’ and hope America throws us some scraps.

I see it fas a fundamentally legitimate demand, they don’t want to be at the mercy of their rival. I’m not fighting a world war to deny them that modest amount of autonomy.

Your reasoning doesn’t seem to allow for any legitimate demand on their part, they’re just supposed to accept being beholden to the whims of current hegemon forever. Like, if they build a fort in the suburbs of beijing, the US will seemingly go: “wowowow, hold on, your capital is now less vulnerable to my potential attacks, I can’t order you around anymore, that is an obvious threat to my hegemony, you’re now a rival for world domination, let’s have a war”.

From that perspective, you could say that just china strengthening and no longer starving is ‘destabilizing’ and causing war. For my part, I don’t think the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspires the Lacedaemon, makes war inevitable.

A hegemon who wishes to keep any potential rival too weak to ever present a challenge (for example, I sometimes hear the idea that the US should have bombed China into the stone age in the 80s, while it still could) is a terrible tyrant who should be overturned.

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