Once again, want to point out how this is simply American leadership not wanting to accept their loss and move on. For the first time in the history they're not being perceived as the "global leader", and that's not acceptable from their POV. Now it's just freaking out and hoping that some extreme policy changes will change the course. From my personal experience, most people act this way when they're in distress and can't think ahead because of all the externalities.
This isn't just ego. This is an impending existential issue.
America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace.
China will soon have the ability to take Taiwan and Korea and Japan. If that happens it's game over for any American interests and perhaps democracy as a whole.
Wargames[0] paint a grim picture of an upcoming conflict between China and America over Taiwan with the US barely winning at a great cost including the loss of many ships, aircraft, and the depletion of missile stocks.
The Chinese have a naval production of 260 times that of America and account for an ungodly amount of global steel production so they'll be able to bounce back faster than the US can. With a lead time for producing American missiles measured in months and years it will be just a matter of time before they take the countries in the region that are critical to American manufacturing if they're so inclined.
Do you think that global hegemony by force is long-term (centuries) sustainable at all?
What makes you confident that this could ever work on a longer term? The US is only ~5% of people globally, and I would expect any industrial/technological lead to melt over the years unless there is a monumental, continuous difference in spending (like what the US military did since WW2).
But I see no indication that you can keep that situation stable over the long term, and I honestly think that attempts like the current tariff approach don't help one bit in the long run while having massive harmful side effects (price inflation, loss of planning stability/soft power/productivity).
Global hegemony of the US is based not on 5% of people, rather the US sphere of influence. US, Canada, EU, Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc. The combination is immensely rich, powerful and advanced. Even more so when you keep India on board as well.
It at least stands a fighting chance if it wasn't the case that this alliance is being destroyed before our eyes.
I will admit that even an integrated alliance cannot push around China in the way it could decades ago.
> America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace.
That does not make sense.
Low value manufacturing has been disappearing from the US for decades and arguably the US -- up until the recent turmoil -- has continued to maintain its hegemony.
Great, but as I said, it does not make sense for the US to chase low value manufacturing.
Apparel, shoes, things you might find in a big box store -- zero sense. Low value manufacturing - leave it to China, Vietnam, India.
Jet engines? Advanced polymer materials? Batteries? All make sense! CHIPS act was intended to accelerate US IC R&D and manufacturing...which was cancelled.
I am concerned that the United States does not have the industrial capacity or institutional knowledge to make relatively simple but essential things for war.
In a protracted conflict with China will the US have the industrial capacity to produce enough ammunition? Does the US have a sufficient stockpile of ammunition to buy enough time to scale up the industrial capacity to manufacture more ammunition? Are there enough skilled people in the US who can teach more people to become skilled in this endeavour in time?
Does the US even have enough industrial capacity to produce enough iron, aluminum, nickel, copper and other such things to do this?
It is specifically "US hegemony" and not "western democracy hegemony" because the US is so extraordinarily powerful in economy and military.
Interests/culture with other democracies aligns well enough (and the power differential is large enough!) that US leadership is tolerated/supported.
But Canada, EU, Australia, Japan are NOT vasall states: If interests would clash and/or the US lose a lot of its relative power, those would cease being majority supporters and push for domestic interests instead.
Calling them "fairweather friends" might be too cynical but I think it's much more accurate than considering them integral parts of the US hegemony.
I think "centuries", plural, is too long for anything much to last since the industrial era. I'm not comfortable guessing past 2032 even without any questions about AI.
The United Kingdom of England and Scotland didn't exist until 1707, and even that was sans-Ireland until 1800.
And yet, even with the biggest empire the world had ever known, WW1 could only be won with the support of another huge empire (France) and the subsequent arrival of the USA; shortly after this, most of Ireland became semi-independent.
WW2 was "won", again with huge support, but a pyrrhic victory from the UK's point of view, and India soon after became independent. The Suez Crisis was 1956, and showed that the old empires of the UK (and France, Union française) were no longer economically hegemonic — even when working together — and the US had replaced them in this role.
Looking into the future, there's no way to guess. The more tech advances, the easier it becomes for a single person to cause enormous, world-altering impacts: hackers are already relevant on the geopolitical stage; there's good reason to think that quality of life is directly related to how much energy a person can process, but once you have sufficient energy per-capita, it's not hard to use a cyclotron to brute-force the purification of weapons grade uranium, or to transmute depleted uranium into plutonium; simple genetic manipulation has been a standard technique for first year biology students for at least two decades, and can be done in a home lab, and at some point we will have risks from someone trying to use this for evil rather than decorative bioluminescence. All these things can topple a hegemon that spends its tomorrows looking at yesterday's battlefield.
The UK continues to exist because it was replaced by a democratic American hegemony.
If an authoritarian country like China achieves hegemony the continued existence of democracy is at risk.
I want to live in a democratic world, not an authoritarian one.
America's democracy is a flawed one but of the two choices -- American hegemony or Chinese hegemony it is the best path to a flourishing global liberal democracy.
Can you foresee Chinese hegemony leading to increased democracy, individual property rights, due process, and rule of law?
No, I do not, but I also do not much stock in America's policy of spreading democracy. I believe that America will do best by setting a good example at home, and it is failing in this regard. China is obviously not a democracy.
My fear is that people will look at China's might and economic success and conclude that democracy is overrated.
France and Spain continue to exist and they were former hegemons. China has stably existed with long periods of turning inwards after more regional hedgemony.
It's really straight forward -- Do you consider things like liberal democracy, property rights, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of association, due process, and the rule of law to be essential features of society?
If you don't -- Chinese hegemony and the path it will lead the world down is the one for you.
If you do -- Then American hegemony with all its flaws is something worth fighting for.
It’s hard to convince people to think the US is in any position to protect those principles when the current administration is attacking each and every one them head on.
Being ideals, all of those ideals in reality are implemented with different tradeoffs in different nations with different risks going forward. Discussing in more detail how one arrives at that particular choice of options is more interesting than an end presentation of what looks like a fallacy of false dichotomy.
People value freedom in different ways. Personally, I would ally myself with tomorrow’s bully, rather than today’s. I understand the implications, but it looks like most of nations are shifting in the same manner.
One note, some of the things you’ve listed has been proven as “mostly on paper, once people get their way, mental gymnastics will overcome the reason” in the past month. For a bastion of “freedom and democracy”, it’s really not looking like one from outside.
Authorian to democracy transition happens more often than democracies come back from severe backslides, which... is basically never. I struggle to think of an example.
Stop and think about this for a moment -- do you think that China doesn't spread authoritarianism across the globe because they don't want to or simply because they can't do it yet?
One is actively threatening, and one may threaten in the future.
Also, I am Canadian, but I could also be Panamanian, or Danish. Maybe it would be different if I were Taiwanese or Vietnamese or Japanese, but, China is far away and playing nice, and America is close and not.
It’d be amazing, but I don’t have a lot to do with that one way or the other. If it happens, I might reconsider my stance on US v China. Right now it looks unlikely.
They were really close to not existing. France stopped existing, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, all stopped existing. China, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, New Guinea, Guam, East Timor, and Nauru all stopped existing.
It certainly was. You think nuclear weapons are less or more likely to have countries not exist anymore? If you believe MAD works, then countries can easily not exist the conventional warfare way. If you think MAD won't work, countries can easily not exist the nuclear war way. The only difference is speed.
Of your list I've been to France, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France (you seem to have it twice for some reason), Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.
They all most definitely did not stop existing.
Also I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you say the United Kingdom came really close to not existing.
I did. Austria, Belgium, France etc all existed during WW2. They were occupied, but they existed. Also lots of countries you listed definitely don't meet any sort of reasonable definition of "hegemon".
To pick another example, Singapore was a crown colony before the war, then they were occupied by Japan during WW2, then they were a single nation with what is now Malaysia, then in the 1960s they two countries became independent from each other. They didn't under any reasonable reading of the situation cease to exist and they also have never been a hegemon of any kind.
So what's your criteria for existing, dirt in the same place? Their governments were dissolved. That means they don't exist anymore. Does the confederacy exist since the boarders are the same and the dirt is in the same place? I would argue not.
>Also lots of countries you listed definitely don't meet any sort of reasonable definition of "hegemon".
I agree, just pointing out countries that no longer existed.
Genuinely, USA as of now is threat to both peace and democracy - both at home and abroad. Whether it manages to bring back manufacturing is irrelevant to that.
> America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace.
This argument is based on experiences in WWII, i.e. the previous war. You need to be cautious about basing military doctrine on the previous war. I’m not sure the next war will be won by churning out aircraft carriers.
I don't know why people keep thinking that China will attack Taiwan. It took HK and Macao without a shot. I think China is following Sun Tzu.
"subduing the enemy without fighting," is the epitome of strategic thinking in his book, The Art of War. This means achieving victory through cunning, deception, and maneuvering, rather than through direct confrontation and bloodshed"
They are increasing their military knowing that US military costs 4+x as much. It might be 4x better so don't fight. Just bankrupt the US. Trump wants a $1T military budget next year.
Why would China want to conquer the West? Buying what it wants is cheaper than an uncertain military battle fought with Nukes.
1) Historical claims - the CCP views Taiwan as a breakaway province and considers unification important. After the Chinese Civil War ended in 1948, the defeated Republic of China (ROC) government fled to Taiwan while the CCP took control of China.
2) Political legitimacy - successful unification would be a nationalist victory for the CCP
3) Strategic importance - key geographic asset. It lies in the first island chain, a line of US-aligned territories that can potentially restrict China's naval access to the Pacific. Control over Taiwan gives China more leverage over sea lanes critical to global trade and security influence in East Asia
4) Economic, technology bonus points - Taiwan is a global tech powerhouse, especially in semiconductors. TSMC is the world's leading chipmaker.
5) Global power dynamics - unification would weaken US influence in the region
1-2 really just do not matter; I can't imagine anyone in the CCP views that as more important than their own internal matters.
3 as I said, they can just negotiate and throw money at the problem; it's cheaper than fighting a war.
4 they can already buy hardware from them and was doing so just fine before US stepped in. DeepSeek seemed to do fine and China may likely surpass Western AI development in the near future
5 I don't see how that's the case when the US has very little presence in TW compared to SK or JP. Taiwan is a hair on a gorilla's right knee.
1 and 2 are the biggest reasons by far and matter a lot.
Dictators are people too, they are susceptible as anyone to their minds being poisoned by too much nationalism. And even if it wasn't for that they would still view it as a way to get back flagging support from a nationalistic public(even dictators need a minimal amount of support from the population).
They do see Taiwan as an internal matter, that's the problem they don't recognize this sovereignty and don't like or understand Democracy.
It's like Russia with Ukraine but they'll also claim Taiwan isn't a country because even most western nations technically don't recognize them. It makes me think we made a mistake not recognizing Taiwan as it's own country back in the 90s when China was less powerful.
Just answering your question "What I still don't get is what could China possibly want with Taiwan?".
If you don't believe the rational I sketched, informed by analyses such as that by the Council of Foreign Relations[1], you can also learn more by reading directly from China's Mission in the EU about the China One principle: http://eu.china-mission.gov.cn/eng/more/20220812Taiwan/20220...
Are you trying to evaluate their intelligence or predict their actions? I for one agree that attacking Taiwan is strategic folly. That doesn't mean they won't do it. Invading Ukraine was strategic folly too. The CCP are smarter than Putin, but not immune to mistakes. And again, look at their built strategy.
Regardless of the reasons (mostly political rather than rational, as my sibling comment laid out), the beach invasion barges we've been seeing are IMO a dead giveaway of intent and resolve to take Taiwan. Between that and American fecklessness, if I was Taiwanese I would be shitting my pants.
I'll charitably assume you meant first time in post-war history.
USA as "The Global leader" didn't emerge until after Europe was ravaged first by The Great War and then WWII.
No-one was looking toward the USA for leadership during The Great Game. Even by the time of the outbreak of WW1, the size of the USA's army was very small, half the size of the British army, which was itself considered small compared to the French and German armies.
US foreign policy was still inward looking, protectionist and isolationist until it could no longer ignore the case for war.
The foreign power projection really didn't kick into gear until 1945 onward and the determination not to let too much of the world fall to communist ideas.
I was a few drinks in on a sunny Tokyo day when I wrote it, my bad. But yeah, sorry, that’s what I meant. Basically since gaining the “leadership”, which you’re completely right about.
