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The report with 37 out of 44 referred to in the article is from the Australian anti-China think tank ASPI. Which gets most of its money from the US defense indu

The report with 37 out of 44 referred to in the article is from the Australian anti-China think tank ASPI. Which gets most of its money from the US defense industry. The idea of a race, a zero sum game when it comes to development, is an uniquely Western way of thinking. This is how we drive ourselves. We won't go to the moon - who cares about that? Unless of course the Soviets are trying to get there ... then we will spare no expense. In other words it is a ploy that pundits promote in order to get money to their military industrial backers. The GDP pr person in China is between 1/6 to 1/3 of the US (depending on how you measure). Any Chinese leader, including Xi, will tell you that the China will be developing, catching up, for the next many decades.

alephnerd 2y ago
> The idea of a race, a zero sum game when it comes to development, is an uniquely Western way of thinking It's not uniquely "Western" - as Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese, and even Chinese strategy has shown. That said, it is a reductive way to think about power and society, which is the point of this article, and something I agree with as well. A "race" implies an existential competition, which nation state competition should NOT be. Doesn't mean we shouldn't build deterrence, but it doesn't mean falling into the depths of McCarthyism. > ploy that pundits promote in order to get money to their military industrial backers. There is a real competition, but overly histrionic punditry on both the US and Chinese sides might inadvertently lead us into an accidental war. There is a lack of mutual understanding in the upper echelons of power in both Beijing and Washington DC that is leading to myopic competition.
- throwaway4good 2y ago
  We in the west are also extremely good at projection - seeing our own aggression in whatever the Chinese are doing. The interpretation of made in China 2025, that being used as key justification for the tech war, is a good example of this. Also just in simple things like “lack of mutual understanding”. I don’t think that is true. I think the Chinese understand the mechanics of western government and politics quite well, whereas we in the west have very little understanding of the Chinese ditto - simply because we don’t bother as we are the top dog.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > I think the Chinese understand the mechanics of western government and politics quite well The same issues in the US with regards to Chinese policy exist in the Chinese view of the US as well. Most policymakers and staffers on either side of the Pacific haven't actually spent extended time or intercultural experience with the other, and those who have the experience with both Asia and the US remained in the private sector due to better prospects and (in the Chinese case) inability to join the civil service due to age and examination restrictions and (in the US case) due to clearance restrictions. On top of that, those in the policymaking level are those who had around 20-30 YoE within their country's civil service, meaning most policymakers and senior staffers today started their careers in the late 80s/early 90s. This is a major reason why Chinese policymakers have been fairly hawkish compared to a decade ago, as the early 1990s was an existential decade for China - the Tiannamen Square Massacre and subsequent sanctions, the Taiwan Straits Crisis, and the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade all solidified an anti-American viewpoint among Chinese policymakers who started their careers in that era, unlike the policymakers from 1973 to early 90s who had experience working closely with the US (eg. there was even a US Army listening post in Turpan staffed by both US and PLA soldiers during the 70s and 80s [0]). [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-in-tracking-missiles-in-soviet.html https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-...
    - throwaway4good 2y ago
      Far more Chinese leaders have spent time in the US than vice versa. Many top Chinese communists have degrees from US universities. I don't think you can find a single US politician or top civil servant with a degree from a Chinese university. I am not saying that US politicians should go and study in China but the claim of equivalence in counter party understanding is just not true at all. The Chinese hawkishness today is reaction to the changed attitude of Americans, they were (naively) hoping for the better all the way up to the Biden admin; the experiences of 90es/early 2000es drove China closer to the west regardless of the events you mentioned.
      - alephnerd 2y ago

alephnerd 2y ago

> The idea of a race, a zero sum game when it comes to development, is an uniquely Western way of thinking It's not uniquely "Western" - as Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese, and even Chinese strategy has shown. That said, it is a reductive way to think about power and society, which is the point of this article, and something I agree with as well. A "race" implies an existential competition, which nation state competition should NOT be. Doesn't mean we shouldn't build deterrence, but it doesn't mean falling into the depths of McCarthyism. > ploy that pundits promote in order to get money to their military industrial backers. There is a real competition, but overly histrionic punditry on both the US and Chinese sides might inadvertently lead us into an accidental war. There is a lack of mutual understanding in the upper echelons of power in both Beijing and Washington DC that is leading to myopic competition.

throwaway4good 2y ago
We in the west are also extremely good at projection - seeing our own aggression in whatever the Chinese are doing. The interpretation of made in China 2025, that being used as key justification for the tech war, is a good example of this. Also just in simple things like “lack of mutual understanding”. I don’t think that is true. I think the Chinese understand the mechanics of western government and politics quite well, whereas we in the west have very little understanding of the Chinese ditto - simply because we don’t bother as we are the top dog.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > I think the Chinese understand the mechanics of western government and politics quite well The same issues in the US with regards to Chinese policy exist in the Chinese view of the US as well. Most policymakers and staffers on either side of the Pacific haven't actually spent extended time or intercultural experience with the other, and those who have the experience with both Asia and the US remained in the private sector due to better prospects and (in the Chinese case) inability to join the civil service due to age and examination restrictions and (in the US case) due to clearance restrictions. On top of that, those in the policymaking level are those who had around 20-30 YoE within their country's civil service, meaning most policymakers and senior staffers today started their careers in the late 80s/early 90s. This is a major reason why Chinese policymakers have been fairly hawkish compared to a decade ago, as the early 1990s was an existential decade for China - the Tiannamen Square Massacre and subsequent sanctions, the Taiwan Straits Crisis, and the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade all solidified an anti-American viewpoint among Chinese policymakers who started their careers in that era, unlike the policymakers from 1973 to early 90s who had experience working closely with the US (eg. there was even a US Army listening post in Turpan staffed by both US and PLA soldiers during the 70s and 80s [0]). [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-in-tracking-missiles-in-soviet.html https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-...
  - throwaway4good 2y ago
    Far more Chinese leaders have spent time in the US than vice versa. Many top Chinese communists have degrees from US universities. I don't think you can find a single US politician or top civil servant with a degree from a Chinese university. I am not saying that US politicians should go and study in China but the claim of equivalence in counter party understanding is just not true at all. The Chinese hawkishness today is reaction to the changed attitude of Americans, they were (naively) hoping for the better all the way up to the Biden admin; the experiences of 90es/early 2000es drove China closer to the west regardless of the events you mentioned.
    - alephnerd 2y ago