In January last year I published (NYT, FT, etc.) three claims, hoping to provoke responses from American readers, making sure that they could dispute my claims. I tracked their engagement until, late last week, a million folks had read at least one of the three:
Social Claim: There are more hungry children, drug addicts, suicides, executions, and illiterate, incarcerated, poor, homeless people in America than in China. 62% of Americans own homes compared to 96% of Chinese, and American families’ net worth, $97,000, is a fraction of Chinese families’ $363,000 PPP, which is also more equitably distributed.
Military Claim: China’s 340-ship navy will have 400 boats eighteen months from now, while the US hopes to grow from 290 vessels now to 300 by 2030. PLAN boats are newer and, thanks to advanced propellants, explosives, and terminal guidance systems, their 10x more numerous missiles outrange America’s. Their fleet sails under an umbrella of satellites and drones that guide 1,000-round salvoes of shore-to-ship missiles that destroy fleets in minutes, and hundreds of ballistic missiles that can sink a carrier in Darwin Port.
Economic Claim: China’s peacetime GDP is $30 trillion, America’s is $25 trillion PPP. China’s will add $1 trillion this year and can maintain that pace through 2049 while the US struggles to add one-fourth of that. China’s productive –wartime – economy, is three times bigger and more diverse than America’s service-based economy.
Heartbreaking Truth #1
Clearly, the US has passed the culminating point of its 170-year-long assault on China: it can no longer mount an attack with a reasonable prospect of success, or even survival. General Milley has begun lowering expectations, especially important after Afghanistan and Ukraine. Western elites, usually eager to exchange our lives for their status, find the prospect of nuclear dematerialization by one of China’s bigger, faster, ICBMs unattractive, making a shooting war unlikely.
Heartbreaking Truth #2
One million educated, engaged readers read at leas one of my claims. None seriously challenged them. Make of that what you will, but I suspect that despair plays a part. Besides, who wants to be the bearer of evil tidings?
The Bearer of Evil Tidings
The bearer of evil tidings, When he was halfway there, Remembered that evil tidings Were a dangerous thing to bear.
So when he came to the parting Where one road led to the throne And one went off to the mountains And into the wild unknown,
He took the one to the mountains. He ran through the Vale of Cashmere, He ran through the rhododendrons Till he came to the land of Pamir.
And there in a precipice valley A girl of his age he met Took him home to her bower, Or he might be running yet.
She taught him her tribe's religion: How ages and ages since A princess en route from China To marry a Persian prince
Had been found with child; and her army Had come to a troubled halt. And though a god was the father And nobody else at fault,
It had seemed discreet to remain there And neither go on nor back. So they stayed and declared a village There in the land of the Yak.
And the child that came of the princess Established a royal line, And his mandates were given heed to Because he was born divine.
And that was why there were people On one Himalayan shelf; And the bearer of evil tidings Decided to stay there himself.
At least he had this in common With the race he chose to adopt: They had both of them had their reasons For stopping where they had stopped.
As for his evil tidings, Belshazzar's overthrow, Why hurry to tell Belshazzar What soon enough he would know?
I have recently moved from predicting China's over throwing US as world leader to accepting it as something that happened - about 2016.
This perception helps a great deal. US stupid adventures in Syria with ISIS or in Kiev can be seen as actions of a loser not an idiot. Denial explains US behaviour much better than naivety (and we already know that the US acts solely with their eye on next weeks domestic opinion polls, not on next years).
Name calling is the act of a man being defeated, not a man still fighting.
MAGA was an admission of defeat dressed up as a refusal to acknowledge it.
Globalism (sacking US workers to replace them with Chinese workers while increasing the profits for US elites) accelerated the process and meant no one till Trump dared say what was happening.
The smart option - take 2nd place in a multipolar "rules based" world next to a benign China was not an option for American politicians and "diplomats". Actually I think that was right, the US is incapable of acting as a No 2 country, and by the time it has adjusted to a junior role it will be No 3 or 4.
Yes, Godfree. I was aware of these terrible truths before I came across you. And there really is not much to be done until the ruling oligarchies actually fall. Dangerous to tell the truth.