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The jury is out there about whether China can take a meaningful lead in any major technological field the US and Europe are actively invested in.
That said, we will probably get away with bullying Europe for a while longer. Canada seems to be standing up to USA pressure fairly well. Europe needs to do the same, and they will probably eventually get there.
The argument for benefits of US economic power are clear. Less clear is military power:
The Plaza Accord was framed as cooperation among G5 allies. But in practice U.S. security guarantees gave it disproportionate influence. Japan, for example, had little independent military capability, so its security reliance on the U.S. translated into willingness to accept U.S. economic pressure.
Really hit the nail on the head here.
If we extrapolate this way of thinking to Europe, the US keeps pushing Europe to fund more of its own defense. If Europe does so, the US will probably find that a more independent Europe may be less likely to agree with the US on other global issues since Europe will need the US less in Europe.
lol, people has been saying this for the past two decades. The truth of the matter is everyone and their mom has "structural problems". Each time I visit their quality of life is only improving there and the pace of progress hasn't slowed down
Also, China would not have been able to rise anywhere near as high as it has without intensive use of ocean trade.
In other words, although national economic independence matters a lot, it matters only in specialized circumstances, namely, war that is not restricted to only a few countries, but rather spreads to cover large areas of ocean; Washington's deciding to stop policing the world ocean; or Washington's deciding to stop enforcing a policy of freedom of shipping and freedom of ocean trade for every nation (modulo US sanctions).
China has built a successful tech pipeline, but it doesn't translate to significant prosperity in a country where median disposable household incomes are around $400/mo [0] - much lower than their peers in Thailand [1]. And China's HDI only caught up with Thailand's over the past 2-3 years, and China's GDP per capita has been stagnant for 4 financial years now.
This does NOT imply Chinese collapse, but it does highlight real issues that exist with the China story.
From a power projection perspective, China has capabilities that very few nations have and can tie with the US, but that has not translated to mass prosperity in the way growth in 1970s and 1980s Japan did. It is still an open question about whether or not China "Japanifies" or not.
China is now at a crossroads, similar to what South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia faced in the 1990s.
As long as the Xi admin remains avowedly opposed to what he termed "Welfarism" ("福利主义典范国家，中产塌陷、贫富分化、社会撕裂、民粹喧嚣，这不乏警示— 防止落入“福利主义”养懒汉陷阱"), Chinese growth will sputter.
[0] - https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202501/t202501...
[1] - https://www.nso.go.th/nsoweb/storage/survey_detail/2023/2023...
[2] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/median-age
[3] - https://globaldatalab.org/shdi/table/msch/CHN+JPN/?levels=1+...
Yes, and that’s a big plus for China, it means that there’s still room for productive growth. The also means that the price of labor will still continue to be competitive.
The median Chinese in 2025 is also much older than the median Japanese was in 1990 when their bubble burst. Without welfare expansion and a broad project to increase the prosperity of the median Chinese household, growth will sputter - as it already is [0]
Xi's admin remains avowedly opposed to what he termed "Welfarism" ("福利主义典范国家，中产塌陷、贫富分化、社会撕裂、民粹喧嚣，这不乏警示— 防止落入“福利主义”养懒汉陷阱") [1], and almost all stimulus provided is supply-side.
Chinese households need to either earn enough so they can save for a rainy day and consume, or the state needs to dramatically increase the scope of it's social safety net to incentivize spending.
China needs a "New Deal" style welfare reform if it wants to escape Japanification at this stage.
> The also means that the price of labor will still continue to be competitive.
It's isn't anymore. China's costs have caught up with those of Mexico and Malaysia's, so cost sensitive manufacturing began leaving over a decade ago to Vietnam, Mexico, and India.
High value manufacturing has taken off in China, but generates very few jobs, because a heavily automated factory requires much fewer and much more educated employees, which locks out a large number of Chinese as the average age of schooling amongst working age Chinese is around 8-9 years [2]
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-economy-slumps-au...
[1] - http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2021/1116/c40531-32283350.htm...
[2] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-years-of-schoolin...
Have you been living under a rock the past couple of years?
They sell you solar infra so that you can feel good about protecting the world while they continue to build coal plants. For reference, in 2023 they built 95% of the world's new coal plants...
Don't be fooled.
I have the feeling the US is creating giant problems by putting massive tariffs on allies and pretending they don't hurt themselves.
Why would you invest billions to build a factory when the president at anytime just decides that you can no longer build it or it's of "national security" and forces you to sell it at a loss?
At that point I would build the factory in China or India were the market is much bigger and at the moment the risk appears lower.
They might not have to do that to dominate. They'd dominate if they're just near the cutting edge and cheaper.
And the US and Europe have shown a lot of shortsightedness and incompetence by abandoning technological fields when faced with Chinese competition (e.g. solar panels). They're too blinded by free market economics to make the right decisions.
I’m not totally sure about the above and even less sure about solar, but it feels like it is pretty wrong to say that the whole US didn’t want either to happen. I think on average and more so in certain federated parts, the US did want to make EVs and solar happen more than they did.
Even if your arguments are true, I think we should treat ‘I failed because I wanted to fail’ as a failure of US industrial capacity, not as a success.
Only if we let our business leaders and economists make the decisions.
Whatever resources you are thinking they are much better.
- math and engineers- soft/hard. they are #1 in the world, and their education system is ready to produce in 2-3 years even more in any domain.
- electricity for ai, they are producing nuclear plants and solar like candies.
- semiconductor industry - NVIDIA + TSMC is really the last frontier. They are leaders everywhere else.
The US is run by lawyers, China is run by engineers.
Unfortunately for the software/AI industry, this likely means the same outcome as every other industry China has dominated: displacement.
If you work in software and you're complaining about your situation now... this is just the beginning. China will capture major market share, and AI will transform what remains.
The US can't even ban TikTok, let alone address the broader presence of Chinese cameras, drones, and other devices packed with AI and software. Meanwhile, the EU is eager to buy Chinese cars loaded with everything from software to chips and hardware.
you all can see a capitulation messages from western media:
US made phone will cost 30% more or 60% whatever. Basically refusing any attempt to protect the market and invest into engineering power etc.
Just to remind you how china got here. They place crazy restictions, they ban google, car manufactures, etc. and stimlate stimulate invest for decades.
Now this strategy pays off, and we will be with no jobs.
Nothing is ever done.
The US and West won't be able to return to its period of unrivaled technological dominance, but it's not inevitable that they will be dominated either.
But to avoid domination it has to 1) abandon its suicidal fixation in neoliberalism, 2) abandon its lazy assumption of technological dominance so it can start learning and investing in lost capabilities, and 3) kick business and consumer interests out of the driver's seat.
There's actually some progress being made on 1 & 2, but unfortunately not so much on 3.
> you all can see a capitulation messages from western media:
> US made phone will cost 30% more or 60% whatever. Basically refusing any attempt to protect the market and invest into engineering power etc.
Honestly, I think that is actually one of short-sighted partisan politics, not some kind of capitulation. Trump likes tariffs and advocates for bringing manufacturing back to the US, and nowadays liberals first and foremost oppose Trump and everything he stands for. They lost the last election in part due to inflation they caused, and now they're trying to win the next one on inflation they can pin on Trump.
So a new homegrown chip would have to capture a very large share of this relatively small market to make significant volume. That makes it rather risky for profit-driven investors.
Politically directed investment probably increased, but in the end the private sector also needs to be on board.
You don't just buy (or copy) and ASML litho and turn it on. Just like you don't buy a horsehair brush and start painting Picassos. It's even more difficult than that because there are something like ~1000 sub processes and each one needs a world renowned artist in that specific art to get it done.
Its the reason why even Samsung can't match TSMC despite having the same tools and capital.
I don't think there are too many military analysts who would claim that the USA could "protect" Taiwan if China was really determined. The USA still retains the ability to significantly increase the cost, both militarily and economically, of an invasion, and relies on this - successfully, to date - as a deterrent.
I think most people recognize however, even in Taiwan, that in terms of pure practical facts on the ground, not even the world-beating US military can overcome geography. Taiwan is 100 miles off China's cost, Guam is 2800 miles away. It is difficult for me to imagine anything, barring some incredible technological advantage that the USA shows no sign of possessing, that could outweigh such a tremendous home-turf advantage.
It is very hard to come up with a realistic, or even semi realistic, scenario in which China does not end up with Taiwan if it really wanted it.
Looking at the Chinese semiconductor development trajectory, and considering that TSMC won't be sitting on their hands, "within a decade" seems really unlikely.
China has immense engineering capability and is replicating the entire western semiconductor supply chain within its borders.
They have the money, the engineering capability, the will and full support from the government. It is inevitable.
The key word you mention is "replicating." They'll be chasing for a while still, and it's not clear that they'll be able to leap ahead. Copying is much easier than real innovation.
It's amazing how China has doubled down into STEM and green energy while the US has done exactly the opposite. The CHIPS Act propped up a company further driven into the ground by Pat Gelsinger. The last few administrations have had no focus on driving innovation and technology - only propping up the Tech Bro market making money off of attention and ads. Maybe, just maybe, the US should stop electing geriatric and short term gains ignorance?
The US needs to dig its head out of its ass if it wants to continue to be recognized as the global power it once was.
Securing Taiwanese independence is going to be necessary for the EU to ensure that there isn't a US microchip monopoly, and the only way the EU can do this is by the aforementioned means.
If Taiwan is going to place nuclear weapons on its territory the conflict would probably escalate quickly.
0. https://kyivindependent.com/zelenskys-full-speech-at-munich-...
There is a problem with this kind of reasoning though. It's like, somebody shows up 'try to grab my gun and I'll shoot' but the thing is, he might shoot anyway, and if you grab the gun, maybe you'll get hold of it.
When someone threatens something, that's not reason for stepping down, passivity or anything like that, it's reason to immediately risk everything on an attack to take away the thing he has that allows him to threaten you. By threatening something he only demonstrates that he must be attacked immediately.
I like an example I gave earlier with hostages. It's Monday, someone has taken a hostage and threatens to kill unless left alone. The next day he's taken another, he has the same threat. On friday, he has five. Now, you realise you should have attacked on Monday when your attack only risked one death.
So today, the question might be 'why didn't we start building nukes last year?'
The EU + US is reasonably close to what China appears to be planning as its long-run population, so if the US and the EU had a real partnership and co-operated effectively they could probably have kept up with China.
Now of course, that isn't what's happened and I think even under Biden there were strong efforts to limit competition from the EU and to disadvantage its industry, so it was always going to go this way, but with a real effort I think something different could have been achieved.
Considering the amount of sanctions coming from US (and EU), it's no wonder that "the rest of the world" is trying to "build their own" <thing> now.