Hacker News Reader

Comment by xwolfi | Hacker News Reader

Terrify ? I'm French and live in China: nobody in France is terrified by the US or China being better at chips. We're better at other things and import chips by giving them euros, and the fools take the trade, so we continue.

And in China, frankly, we have so much needs internally, it's more to power our own crap than to send weapons, or overpower foreign markets. We barely speak English and the americans don't take much Yuans, so their stuff is expensive :(

Be less terrified, and maybe contribute more than just patent rents? It's ok to compete, we're not gonna be at war. Or if we are, we are so corrupt that we put water in the fuel tanks of our missiles: you have nothing to fear.

View on HN

It's terrifying because these things are all signs that the era of Pax Americana is coming to a close, likely more swiftly than any of us realize, to be succeeded by the era of Pax Sino.

I for one overall enjoy(ed?) the Pax Americana state of affairs, but Pax Americana exists on the premise of absolute economical and technological superiority against would-be challengers.

We are well on our way to lose our economical superiority this century, and we already lost our technological superiority; our military superiority will also vanish once we lose both of the aforementioned, too.

Pax Sino will be nowhere as comfortable or prosperous an era (for westerners!) to live in. That is why this is terrifying.

Pax-Sino will not be a thing.

Pax-Americana existed because of two qualities that America has, but China does not.

1) America has a very unique interest in the foreign affairs of others. So much so that America is "hated" for it, and America has built a global navy to enforce its interests. China, both historically and currently, is hands off to the affairs of others if they do not represent a direct Chinese interest.

2) Foreign entities joined in on Pax-Americanan economic system (capitalism) because it made them rich as well, just not as rich as America. China themselves joined in and benefited. However, there is no part of the Chinese economic system that is interested in making others rich. They take an opposing approach, they give others the tools to keep power (through surveillance). (America gives countries the power to keep power as well through military sales, but the major factor is economic, not military).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com