Yes, but what about the Peloponnesian War? Athen was a rising power, put Sparta the hegemon still put up a good fight and successfully maintained its despotic hegemony. Crimean War (rising Russia versus status quo Britain)? Same thing in 1918 between Germany and Britain. Ultimately there are many ways the status quo power could resort to violence and sabotage to keep the rising power down for good.
Trade War with China
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manqiangrexue
Brigadier
OK so you didn't understand that quote. That doesn't mean that there can't be a fight; that quote means your "IF" is huge and not likely achievable, referring to your unsupported claims of if the US somehow magically murdered China's state-led institutions. It's basically like saying, "I'd be rich if I beat Mayweather in the next fight."
Your examples are describing Thucydides trap, which was conceptualized in a non-nuclear world where 2 countries fight to achieve victory over one another that cannot be spoiled by having nukes dropped on both parties in the end. Of course the PLA must be vigilant and continue to grow, and so must its nuclear forces/technologies. The way to not fight is to be ready to fight.
But that has nothing to do with what we're talking about. We're talking about America using all its tricks to stunt China's technological and economic growth and seeing no positive results. And then, for some reason nobody here understands, you continue to hold a pessimistic view of China's future with all these empty, worst case "ifs" that are totally unsupported by current events. You can say the possibility exists, simply because nothing's impossible, but you can't say there is a "big chance" because when it comes to chance, there is only 100% altogether. It's already clear that the likelihood of Chinese tech continuing to grow, accelerate and cause America's relative decline already takes up the majority of that 100% with no American tricks able to stunt China's momentum, so whatever scraps are left from that 100%, obviously cannot be big.
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Hopefully the U.S. vassals that banned Huawei and/or sided with Ericsson/Nokia end up feeling the economic consequences of siding with the imperialists, via falling behind.
I suggest you change to a clean pants as you sounded like badly soiled.
If you think China is really weak and hapless, here is some food for thought.
Hong Kong extradition bill have been in the works for some time. It goes ahead while the trade dispute is still ongoing.
Why is that? Why does China purposefully choose this time when Sino-US relations are fraught with tensions. Why didn't Beijing keep the powder dry and wait for another time knowing full well what would entail?
Why is US congress and Trump not ratcheting up tensions more by threatening to strip HK off its special trading status with US, which under 1992 United States–Hong Kong Policy Act, Trump has the full authority to revoke it.
HK is conduit to China for US firms, financial and non-financial, and vise versa. HK is a very important financial link between China and US. Why China is purposefully risking it?
China is actually walking the walk, without saying the say. So far, Trump is reacting mildly. Not a peep or tweet about HK's special trading status.
Think long and hard.
It is a way of China saying, " go ahead, make my day."
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Huawei Is Said to Demand Patent Fees From Verizon
"Verizon doesn’t buy any Huawei products but relies on over 20 vendors that use technology owned by the Chinese telecommunications giant. Huawei’s patent claim covers a variety of properties, including networking devices and wireless technology. Added up, Huawei’s claims would exceed $1 billion in fees, the people said."
"Verizon doesn’t buy any Huawei products but relies on over 20 vendors that use technology owned by the Chinese telecommunications giant. Huawei’s patent claim covers a variety of properties, including networking devices and wireless technology. Added up, Huawei’s claims would exceed $1 billion in fees, the people said."
I put all my money on my bet here: the US won't dare to attack Iran. The reason is quite simply and quite clear. Times has changed, and we are now in a multi-polar world. .
At the time of Iraq wars, China was still aligned with the US against the USSR, while the USSR was in the process of disintegration due mainly to its own failures. The US then was a true unrivaled superpower and Iraq was a true international orphan. This is why the US - Iraq wars could be unfolded like a reality TV show of "SWAT storms a civilian house" to the audience world-wide. The Iraq wars certainly inflated, and are still inflating Washington hawks' confidence at America's ability to wage wars overseas.
Now, the Trump admin. has declared China and Russia are America's national security adversaries. China has a de facto alliance treaty with Russia. This Sino-Russia treaty states clearly that any issues involving any of the two signatories' national security warrant both countries to co-operate, and that the two countries are dedicated to safe-guard of world peace.
Trump has soured America's relations with China and Russia simultaneously. China and Russia have every reason to find any opportunity to faithfully carry out their duties as an America's strategic adversary. If the US ever dare to touch Iran, or any other countries that the two countries regard as their friends for this matter, China and Russia will immediately act jointly to punish the US, and the consequences will be dire and deadly for the Americans. A war led by the US in Russia's neighborhood certainly is an issue threatening Russia's national security. The two signatories of Sino-Russia treaty will act accordingly. And another Vietnam war-like catastrophe is waiting for the US.
Doesn't Trump know this? You'd better bet he surely does. Then why did Trump provoke Iran so much that he even sent a lot of military assets to the Gulf? Well, he's such an overconfident guy that he always over-counts his own cards and under-counts other people's hands. He thinks he can out-fox other people with high-pressure sale techniques. But his Fart of the Deal gives him more trouble than success. His NK gamble was already ended in his disgrace. He can't afford another disaster before his 2020 re-election campaign officially starts. This is why his golf-boy Abe, Japan's PM, has to rush to Tehran, trying to help him find a face-saving exit from his Iran gamble.
Lesson from Trump's failures: don't gamble if you can't afford to lose.
Are you sure? Do you remember how painful the Tiananmen sanctions were for China? China was that close in accessing state-of-the-art American helicopters, tanks, and radars. In fact, even Deng Xiaoping's grandson admitted that China needs to "know its place." Again, the international system has never been fair. It's brutal! China cannot demand others to adapt to its rise. Beijing has to adapt in order to survive and become prosperous. Just think of Imperial Japan before 1923. Japan actively supported Pax Britannia until it was powerful enough to decouple. That was the point of Deng Xiaoping's "hide your edge and nurture your strength." Ultimately, China did indirectly receive benefits from the U.S.-led hegemony in Asia between 1972 and 2017. While the U.S.-led alliance prevented China from taking Taiwan, it also castrated Japan militarily and prevented South Korea and Taiwan from going nuclear. The only major pain in the neck for Beijing was Taiwan (but this could wait), and occasionally having to pay lip service to democracy and human rights under Pax Americana. Coming back to trade. If China does agree to shrink the size of its state-owned actors while allowing more private and foreign-invested firms to have a bigger share of the market through rule of law (independent judiciary that protects small businesses from arbitrary administrative orders and well-connected SOEs) and fair competition, Beijing could really accelerate urbanization and enhance consumption. This is exactly what Xi Jinping hoped to achieve when he came to power in 2013. Keep in mind it is the private sector, not SOEs, that accounts for 70% of high-tech innovation and 80% of employment, which relates directly to social stability and legitimacy of the CCP. I am not saying SOEs are unnecessary (SOEs are indeed extremely important during wartime mobilization), but SOEs with too much administrative support and privileged access to loans (not available to private and foreign investors) hinder market competition.
Xi Jinping once said if you stayed in a greenhouse, you would be safe but won't grow as big as you would be when you grew outside. China had been weak, had been poor, but never cowards.
It took 22 years for mainland China to take a seat at the table of world community, to get full recognition. It took over 30 years to get into WTO. It took another 40 years to get here. And she will get where she sets her mind to, however long it takes. That's her DNA.
She has an ever growing middle class that's bigger than that of US. She has an un-fragmented internal market for 1.4 billions people. Access to her market is much coveted. Her technological and financial prowess is growing each passing month. She has ever expending commercial and cultural ties with countries around the world. She has the most STEM grads in the world. If those are nothing for you, nothing else other than an enslaved existence would satisfy you.
Speaker Pelosi commented on re-accessing the HK autonomy status just today. Let's see what Trump tweets.
You should see the unreliable list, this extradition bill, rare earths, tech regulations, opening up financial sector, lowering tariff to others except US, all together as a package setting up the long haul slog.
This extradition bill is setting up to kill several birds with a single shot. We'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Tiananmen's military sanctions caused China's domestic military complex to grow; if not, who knows, maybe the US would be threatening a weapons embargo on a reliant China today. China adapts far too well to the world as evident by its unprecedented growth and now the world is adapting to a rising China. Some may not like it and wish to resist it but they have no choice because they cannot stop China from growing.
Deng Xiaoping's son said for China to know its place, followed by "We should neither be overbearing or belittle ourselves.” and ironically, you are doing exactly the latter. China's not being overbearing; it's using its own tools to develop its own tech so it isn't reliant on foreigners and that's exactly what it should be doing.
China has analyzed the benefits and drawbacks of allowing increased foreign investment and has set the level to where they have deemed fit. Blindly allowing increased foreign ownership has dangers in both capital loss (from companies earning money in China and sending it back home), and receding control in certain sectors to possibly unfriendly entities or entities subject to foreign governmental influence. One of China's greatest advantages in its economy is its level of control and governance over it, protecting it from many dangers that would be catastrophic to freer markets.
For the life of me, I can never find a shred of usefulness in anything that you write. It seems your whole point is that it would have been easier and success more guaranteed if China waited to become more technologically mature to challenge the US. Well there are 2 points against that, both of which have already been mentioned to you:
1. It isn't China's choice to do this now; this happens to be when the US woke up. If it were up to China, we could certainly do this 10 or 20 years down the line. Do you know when the best time to challenge a hegemon is? When you're already so strong that he's no longer a challenge. But the US isn't that stupid, is it? So this is happening now because America, not China, chose to do it now and that's just fine because China's already got plenty of tools to use.
2. Yes, there are some things like MIC2025 that shouldn't have been given a name to keep the US slumbering for a bit longer (or perhaps not), but guess what? Everybody knew that way before you pointed it out and there's no reason or benefit to discussing how this could have been better handled if we were 3 years in the past! This is not 2015; it's 2019. This is fight time, no going back. Live in the now, not in the past! As you said, it's game on, and when the game is already on, nobody wants to hear a dude whine about how he wishes the game would happen a little later so we could prepare more.
So basically, your point is wrong and even if it weren't, it's still useless because it's not 2015 anymore. Do you have anything actually useful to say at all other than regurgitating American right wing propaganda, imagining worst case scenarios divorced from current events, or telling irrelevant little tidbits of history?
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FriedRiceNSpice
Captain
Regarding Tiananmen sanctions: Tiananmen provided a convenient excuse to the US for cutting off military aid, but I think the main reason is the collapse of USSR. From the American strategic perspective, China transformed from useful counterweight to Soviet Union into potentially a future rival. Even though Tiananmen occurred before the actual break up of USSR, by then people were already expecting it to happen. Regardless of the real motivations behind the sanctions, US military assistance was bound to be cut off eventually.
Regarding trade: China should eventually begin many of the reforms you mentioned, but the issue is when and how. Caving into Trump is going to have negative repercussions both domestically and internationally. China has to been seen implementing such market oriented reforms on her own initiative. Such changes must be done incrementally and gradually, ensuring China's socioeconomic stability. The ideal time for further opening up of the market and reduction of overall state intervention is about three to five years down the road, as that would be around the time it would take for China to finally be considered a developed / high income economy. The legal reforms may also be particularly tricky, as outright adoption of a Western system may be difficult with the Chinese political system.
Finally, simply reforming and opening up the Chinese economy is ultimately not going to appease Trump. Trump wants China to open up and agree to very specific terms now in order to benefit the US- his goal is not to make China great again. That is also why Trump is so insistent that such actions take place now, before China's economy is fully ready for these reforms. He wants to snuff out China's future hopes of being competitive in the free market and keep China reliant on the US in certain critical high tech industries in order to maintain US supremamcy in those areas.
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