Has China been accepted as a "real" enemy? To me, China is the main virtual enemy that politicians trout out to create fear and distraction.
The USA without cheap Chinese manufacturing is basically dead in the water. It is approximately unfathomable how much of the comfortable and cheap way of life enjoyed in the US is directly dependent on trade with China and mindbendingly cheap Chinese manufacturing labor.
The ~most valuable company in the country is 100% beholden to Chinese manufacturing to make the most popular product that makes all of their money. They are doing their best to replicate manufacturing capacity in India but you can’t make 50,000 iPhones an hour without years of build-up and thousands upon thousands of trained staff.
If China invades Taiwan, the USG is basically game theoretically forced to make Americans endure some significant hardships until a new metastability is achieved.
Man Americans are oblivious to how fast China is progressing.
If anything, the US-led blockade of advanced chips to China will make it more likely for China to use force. If China can't get their hands on the most advanced TSMC chips, then why would they let the US do so and get too far ahead in AI? Both can't have them then.
Good "return on propaganda investment" for those guys.
Smedley Butler told us how this was all gonna work a long time ago.
It extends as far as Zuckerberg hiring PR firms to write hit pieces on Tiktok and lobbying government officials in order to stave off competition.
"China bad" is profitable for everyone it seems, except the commoners.
That said, China has stated that their long-term plan is to overtake our military, economic, and technological dominance.
That's, at the very least, a clear signal that they want to beat us.
Any source on that? From what I have read, according to CCP's official mouthpieces[1], "China's development strategy focuses on continuous self-transcendence, and does not aim to surpass the US or any other country".
I don't see it as rational, but there is definitely an argument that the USA ought to remain positioned as number one, having the ability to dictate global politics. I don't think we deserve it, but it's certainly 'better' for us in the sense that it gives us an advantage and thus might improve our quality of life (cheaper imports, blah blah blah). I view that argument as entitled and promoting the status quo.
The Chinese people have worked hard. Actually, people all over the world work hard, although the Chinese have gone past industrialization and have a massive and capable population. The idea that they wouldn't have more power and would need to somehow remain under the US's thumb, where we get to say how they treat Taiwan or what currency they can trade in with other countries, just seems absurd. People come up with bullshit reasons for why the US ought to retain some control over their politics or how the rest of the world engages with the Chinese (and we don't just get to do that anyway), e.g., the Chinese are mean to the Uyghurs, as if anyone ever gave a fuck about the Uyghurs or whoever twenty years ago.
In all that sense, China is certainly a real threat. But the level of entitlement behind that argument is so blatant that I can't take it seriously.
But with Trumpism again being the winner, how much of the world still view the US positively? Obama's Iran Deal was a USA-EU-Iran agreement, when Trump pulled it, it didn't just piss off "the enemy" (Iran) but also the allies (EU), and it destroyed US's credibility, even with a Democratic president, anyone going to do a deal with the USA will ask for guarantees in case the deal gets wrecked after the next presidential election...
