The sparkle of your China

by liberal japonicus

Can you show me the shine in your Japan
The sparkle of your China, can you show me
Bodhisattva, 

This Klein interview with Thomas Friedman is quite interesting. (the link to the transcript is here, put a gift link in the comments and I'll change it) I've never been a fan of the Moustache of Understanding, (see here and here, I'm not going to link to Taibibi's review of his book) but in this, he hits a lot of notes I agree with but the conversation is all over the place. As an attempt to entice you to listen, from 32:00 for about 3 minutes is where Friedman, as they say in the UK, he loses his rag, check it out.

It starts off with Klein questioning the consensus around China, and, though I appreciate his commentary, this tendency to be driven not by an examination of the problem but of setting oneself opposed to whatever one feels is the 'consensus' is a lot of what got us into this societal dumpster fire (cf vax-questioning, climate change skepticism as examples that come to mind). But I do think the opening observation is right on

What if you get into a trade war with China and you lose. i don't think people are thinking enough about how possible that really is And one of the reasons it's possible isn't just because Donald Trump's trade war is ill thought through and ill defined and not well planned for. [...] I fear that America is trying to fight the China of the '90s or the 2000s with a very very very poor understanding of what China's become today.

Of course, the Moustache of Understanding opens with a grand sweeping statement and an metaphor so bad, it has to be noted

All the American business executives in China left China during Covid, virtually all of them, and then after covid, we began this process of decoupling. So you basically had six years with very very little American presence there. When I was in China last year, I felt like I was the only American in China. You just didn't see any other Americans, not tourists, not business people, not nobody. I wrote then that it was like America and China were two elephants looking at each other through a straw. Having just been there two weeks ago I would say now they're like two elephants looking at each other through a needle, the aperture has just gotten tiny.

I got physically sick thinking about that last attempt at a metaphor. I assume that it is because Chinese taxis are self driving and he can't get inspiration from the drivers.

 

But move past Friedman's tired rhetorical moves, there are some interesting points, though you have to work hard to get to them. Friedman says that Huawei engaged in a lot of industrial espionage, which helped it overcome US attempts to kill the company, which then culminates in a suggestion that I have to quote because you won't believe how blindingly stupid it is

I would say to Huawei here's the deal, we're going to let you wire Wyoming Montana and Idaho. You can sell your technology in those three states. We're going to watch you for three years We're going to see how you handle that. We're going to see how you handle the data If you do well we're going to give you two other states

I lost 10 IQ points just pulling that out of the transcript. If Friedman might pause to think how that would, in any reality, actually work, he might realize that the internet and networked economy was a large reason why Huawei was able to do what they did. Now, I know that IP is a touchy subject here, but Friedman might consider how the whole IP enterprise is actually an upgrading of colonialism, making sure that countries like China are constantly paying tribute to the West. (see here and here as two examples at random). Because of the whole patent system, you get comments like the Josh Hawley line, noted by Klein at the beginning, "China can't really innovate. They can just steal."

 

Friedman also talks about how Chinese smartphone makers went to car manufacturing. He's not wrong about this, but I think this is a more insightful take, from Asianometry.

There is more, but I'll leave it for all of you to take up in the comments. As a little amuse-bouche, check out this article about Chinese memes about the US, which has this quote from Press Secretary Leavitt ""I have seen the videos. We're not sure who made the videos or if we can verify the authenticity." Someone should clue her in to the fact that sarcasm is not based on authenticity.

 

been on my mind watching the Trump administration light the confidence the rest of the world has had in America on fire and call it greatness

Comments

[Pete]

I was going to listen to Klein, but then I saw who the guest was. Maybe I'll put it on later while getting some other stuff done. Klein was promoting his new book on the Weekly Show recently. This doesn't address the trade wars directly, but it was eye-opening to me and kinda explains the Democrats' problem with convincing voters that they can actually get things done. TLDR; The design specs call for the road to hell to be paved with good intentions but it never actually gets built.

Excerpt from the transcript. Feel free to pare it down (or delete if it's off the mark).

EZRA KLEIN: So what I'm reading off of here is testimony that was offered by Sarah Morris, who was part of the Commerce Department to Congress in March 4th-- on March 4, 2025. So everything I am telling you is valid post-Biden Administration, right? March 4, 2025. OK, so we have to issue the Notice of Funding Opportunity within 180 days. That's step one. Step 2, which all 56 state applicants completed, is states who want to participate must submit a letter of intent. After they do that, they can submit a request for up to $5 million in planning grants. Then the NTIA-- step 4-- has to review, and approve, and award, again, planning grants-- not broadband grants, planning grants.

JON STEWART: And it's still at the NTIA. It's still at the first step of the-

EK: Yes.

JS: Just out of curiosity, what is the half a year? What's going on in the 180 days between when this is passed as legislation and when they're going to notify people it's been passed, and it's an opportunity?

EK: So the NOFO is being-- the Notice of Funding Opportunity is being written. And in the book, I actually spent a lot of time on the Notice of Funding Opportunity for the CHIPS and Science Act because that's not a small thing. And I don't have the NOFO for this in front of me. But the Notice of Funding Opportunity -- for the grants that will go to semiconductor factories-- or, I'm sorry, manufacturers to locate semiconductor fabs, as they're called, in America. That NOFO was long. I read it. And it is just full of stuff. Look, I call this everything-bagel liberalism-- the tendency-- like, an everything bagel, you put a little bit of stuff on the bagel, and it's great. And you put too much-- and if you saw the movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, it becomes a black hole from which nothing can escape. So Notice of Funding Opportunities can make a project very complicated. When CHIPS and Science passed, I, a naive and idealistic policy reporter, thought, oh, good, we're going to give a bunch of semiconductor companies money to locate their plants here. And then I read the NOFO because somebody alerted me to it. And there's a part that's like, in your application, explain how you are going to attract more women into the construction industry--

JS: [GROANS]

EK: --which is a totally fine goal. But does the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing corporation know a lot about that? Or how are you going to diversify your subcontractor chains? And there's a seven-step process. And one idea is maybe you can break deliveries into smaller subcategories. It's all this stuff.

JS: This is for your application.

EK: Yeah, this is for your application. There's a thing about showing your plans to put child care on site in the factories, which, again-- I want child care. It's great. But you're trying to do something really hard. We have lost semiconductor manufacturing to Taiwan, to South Korea, to, at a lower level, China. And we are trying to get it back. And one reason we've lost it is we made it very expensive to do here. And so now we're putting more than $30 billion to make it cheaper to do here. And in the NOFO, to get people to apply for the $30-plus billion, we are putting in a bunch of things that are going to make it more expensive. And they're going to make it harder to do the thing. Eventually, that money did go out, I want to say. But, you know, we'll see how it works out.

[wj]

we're going to let you wire Wyoming Montana and Idaho

Somehow my kneejerk reaction was:
Why is Montana in there? Why not go with Idaho, Wyoming and the Dakotas?

Yes, I realize that's pretty Off Topic. But it really was my first reaction.

[Michael Cain]

Why is Montana in there? Why not go with Idaho, Wyoming and the Dakotas?

To make it contiguous and relatively compact (in the math sense)? Great vast emptiness (325,000 square miles, 11.5 people per sq mile)? Most of it is mountainous? Any sane job of costing out the price tag for actual "wire" is going to conclude the right answer is to pay SpaceX for Starlink terminals, hopefully with a bulk discount. Because it puts most of the area in the Western Interconnect?

35 years ago USWest was selling rural telephone exchanges in those states (and others) in part because we were terrified the state governments would bankrupt us by eventually requiring we provide high-speed data service everywhere we provided telephone service.

[Donald]

Haven’t read this yet, but as a sign of the Apocalypse I have actually liked one or two of Friedman’s posts lately.

I think it is because Trump is so horrific many critics largely agree, from center right to far left.

On China, I did start to read but had to put it aside earlier and was surprised to see him saying, if I read it correctly, that there is an unfortunate bipartisan consensus that formed in the last several years treating China as the enemy. I’ve thought that myself. Not that they are wonderful, but it just seemed like there was an unnecessary level of hostility towards them. Maybe they really are planning to invade Taiwan. I don’t know. But it felt like more that the U.S. sees China as gradually ( or suddenly, with Trump in power) replacing us as the chief superpower and our elites just can’t handle that.

As for Friedman, he is usually going to say some pseudo- folksy stupid things or he wouldn’t be who he is.

[Michael Cain]

Ignore for the moment the paleocons and the Pentagon, whose driving motivation is that the US must be the preeminent global military power.

At this point in time, China vs the US really comes down to just a few things.

(1) TSMC. China already dominates the world market for integrated circuits at 28nm and above. Note that most military tech is 28nm and up; weapons systems get the performance they need via customization, not bleeding-edge density. China wants guaranteed access to TSMC's bleeding-edge tech (which means, indirectly, guaranteed access to Dutch company ASML's EUV photolithography). The US wants the same things. So near as I can tell, China is not opposed to the US having that tech; the US is opposed to China getting it.

(2) BYD. BYD asserts that there is a huge market in the US for well-built sub-$25K electric cars. US car companies, starting with Tesla and moving on, are terrified that there is, and they can't make any money at that price point, so need barriers to keep BYD out.

(3) The US western states have made the decision, consciously or not, to build their power grid on renewables and storage. (Efficiency is important for scale, but at some point you still need electrons.) At the present time, batteries for storage in those states seem to rank Tesla, then Samsung, then BYD. I really dislike the thought that Trump will go to the wall in conflict with the western states over this, but fear he and his minions will.

[wj]

The US western states have made the decision, consciously or not, to build their power grid on renewables and storage. (Efficiency is important for scale, but at some point you still need electrons.) At the present time, batteries for storage in those states seem to rank Tesla, then Samsung, then BYD. I really dislike the thought that Trump will go to the wall in conflict with the western states over this, but fear he and his minions will.

What is interesting is that Texas' business interests seem to have made the same decision. Texas (Republican) politicians are still blinded to anything but oil. But Texas has become a major source for renewable, especially solar, energy anyway . We shall see how far the GOP gets in trying to legislatively gut those businesses in pursuit of ideology.

[hairshirthedonist]

pseudo- folksy stupid things

Thanks for the morning chuckle, Donald.

[Michael Cain]

On the energy subthread here, the Dept of Energy has ordered a halt to all construction related to the $5B Empire Wind 1 offshore wind project while it reconsiders whether the permitting process was done correctly.

I retain hope that my local power authority will turn up its new solar farm next month, shut down a comparable amount of coal generation by the end of the year, and deploy a large battery storage project in 2027.

[Nigel]

Pretty ridiculous these days to claim that China can't innovate.

They got a huge leg up from US companies effectively handing over their IP in return for the first big foray into the Chinese market - and no doubt did 'steal' some tech (though the definition of stole in this context is very blurry indeed), but there are sectors of manufacturing where they now lead the world.

And to some extent, cutting off western tech (eg advanced semiconductor production) is accelerating that development.

[wj]

With China, as with Japan half a century ago, there was an initial period where they were catching up. For that time, they mostly needed stuff we had already invented.

But once they more or less got caught up, they were in a position to innovative. And unencumbered by the inertia we had from having "always done it this way.". At this point in the cycle, we were scrambling to incorporate Japanese innovations (just-in-time stuff in manufacturing, for example). And hearing demands for protection from US firms who objected to having to do so.

And now, we are looking to do the same with Chinese innovations. Complete with demands for protection -- i.e. tariffs. The main difference being an idiot in the White House who has loved the idea of tariffs for decades

[Michael Cain]

...but there are sectors of manufacturing where they [China] now lead the world.

I check SciTechDaily regularly to scratch my old technology intelligence itch. Mostly for batteries and integrated circuit fab. (And potential dementia cures -- even though such things are going to be too late for my wife.) They cite articles in serious tech journals. Compared to even several years ago, a lot of the credited collaborations include Chinese universities.

[CharlesWT]

Among other problems, China faces declining productivity and a looming population crash. That makes them dangerous.

"China is at a perilous moment: strong enough to violently challenge the existing order, yet losing confidence that time is on its side. Numerous examples from antiquity to the present show that rising powers become most aggressive when their fortunes fade, their difficulties multiply, and they realize they must achieve their ambitions now or miss the chance to do so forever. China has already started down this path. Witness its aggression toward Taiwan, its record-breaking military buildup, and its efforts to dominate the critical technologies that will shape the world’s future."
Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China

[Donald]

Gftnc—

Forgot where it was but I saw your Gaza link about a British Jewish group. Thanks.

Hsh— you’re welcome.

Quick question ( I am kind of busy) ——. What is the name of Trump’s crime? Specifically, he is not upholding the constitution and is acting like a would be fascist, arresting people for expressing their opinions and you can add other things. ( Leaving out war crimes— dint want to, but for now those don’t count. They should.)

Is it treason? I don’t think he is betraying the us to a foreign power— he wants all the power for himself. Is that treason?

[liberal japonicus]

Charles, I'm wondering if you read the book or are just skimming thru Amazon blurbs.

One of the authors, Michael Beckley, authored a second book entitled "Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower", published in 2018. The book is in JSTOR and you can read it if your institution has access

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctvrf8cq4

But if you can't, the excerpt from the first chapter suggests this hasn't aged well.

By most measures, the United States is a mediocre country. It ranks seventh in literacy, eleventh in infrastructure, twenty-eighth in government efficiency, and fifty-seventh in primary education.¹ It spends more on healthcare than any other country, but ranks forty-third in life expectancy, fifty-sixth in infant mortality, and first in opioid abuse.2 More than a hundred countries have lower levels of income inequality than the United States, and twelve countries enjoy higher levels of gross national happiness.³

Yet in terms of wealth and military capabilities—the pillars of global power—the United States...

[CharlesWT]

Charles, I'm wondering if you read the book or are just skimming thru Amazon blurbs.

I listen to a recent interview of the author.

Michael Beckley: China is Dangerously Weak (YouTube)

[liberal japonicus]

Not so impressive, from the start, the interviewer asks

the book Danger Zone with a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan but in the waning days of the Biden administration I was wondering if you could update this for our audience now that Trump is in power...

Nothing like repackaging an old idea and selling it as a new one.

And he thinks he is talking about Xi.

I just worry these dictators they don't get the best information they have big egos they have high sky-high ambitions and in a very unstable international situation we just have to worry uh that he might roll the iron dice in the same way that Putin did in Ukraine

He's basically a war-gamer who doesn't lift his head up from the gameboard.

This, I think, is a better informed take.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqyMVZhJHcE&t=9s

[wj]

Is it treason? I don’t think he is betraying the us to a foreign power— he wants all the power for himself. Is that treason?

In the legal meaning of the term, no. To be treason first requires that the country be at war; war has not been declared.

There really isn't a term, so far as I am aware, for damaging the country, not in service of another country but merely out of pique and invincible ignorance.

[russell]

What is the name of Trump’s crime?

Which one?

[Donald]

There are a cluster of actions where he undermines the Constitution in an attempt to become a monarch without any constraints on his power.

Probably most Presidents try to increase their power, but Trump is qualitatively worse. Claiming the right to arrest and jail legal residents for writing opinion pieces advocating peaceful policies, for instance, is arguably one of the worst domestic crimes any President has ever committed— it undermines the Bill of Rights. But I don’t know what to call it.

Jan 6 was insurrection or sedition , I think,— he lost but tried to stay in office by overturning the election by force. But he is in office now, so sedition or insurrection doesn’t fit. He is trying to be a tyrant.

There ought to be a specific name for that crime.

[wj]

There ought to be a specific name for that crime.

There may or may not be a name for that as a specific crime (it's been a while since we had any lawyers active here; perhaps there's a lurker who will step up). But there are specific individual crimes which are part of the whole. The Roberts Court has given him a free pass on those, but there are still names for them.

[Tony P.]

Extortion is a crime, no? Does it matter whether the threat is to break your legs or to "investigate" you?

When you violate your sworn oath, did you commit perjury in swearing the oath, or mere breach of contract when violating it?

If I was a prosecutor trying to put He, Trump in jail, the formality of properly naming His crimes would (one hopes) be a bare minimum requirement. Otherwise, "criminal stupidity" is a perfectly adequate charge.

Then there's whatever the RICO statutes have to say ...

--TP

[Michael Cain]

@Tony...

(a) My non-lawyer opinion on oath of office would be that violating it may be grounds for dismissal, but is probably not a crime per se. TTBOMK, oaths don't usually include "tell the truth" as a requirement, so perjury wouldn't apply. Dismissing the President is up to Congress.

(b) The SCOTUS has said that if the President does it, it can't be illegal. Or at least, he can't be charged. Whether that extends to others carrying out orders, they haven't said.

(c) The real crisis will be when the DOJ declines to enforce court orders or judgements. Like all prosecutors, the DOJ already chooses to ignore certain criminal violations due to overload. How far that can be stretched?

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Didn't one of the judges looking at "criminal contempt" charges for Trump/DHS/ICE assholes indicate that if the DOJ doesn't prosecute, he'll appoint a prosecuting attorney?

(not sure that the judge would say that if it wasn't something that, while rare, was within his authority. Maybe a historic holdover from pre-DOJ days?)

My unrealistic fantasy is that a Grand Jury, empanelled for something else, goes rogue and issues a 'true bill' against Noem, DHS, ICE etc for "conspiracy to kidnap", then the judge appoints a prosecutor and goes to town on them.

In my more realistic fantasies, Thor wakes up from his hangover and does a ZOT on each and every one of those assholes.

[liberal japonicus]

It's probably an indication of how unique Trump is that we don't have a name for what he's done.

For no particular reason, I've been reading about the Defenstrations of Prague

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague

[GftNC]

A friend sent me this, by Noah Yuval Harari, copied and pasted, so I do the same for you in two parts:

Financial Times | Trump’s vis­ion of a world of rival fort­resses

19 Apr 2025

Trump’s vis­ion of a world of rival fort­resses

In his view of post-lib­eral global dis­order, the weak should always sur­render to the strong, writes Yuval Noah Har­ari

The writer is a his­tor­ian, philo­sopher and author

The sur­pris­ing thing about Don­ald Trump’s policies is that people are still sur­prised by them. Head­lines express shock and dis­be­lief whenever Trump assaults another pil­lar of the global lib­eral order — for example by sup­port­ing Rus­sia’s claims for Ukrain­ian ter­rit­ory, con­tem­plat­ing the forced annex­a­tion of Green­land or unleash­ing fin­an­cial chaos with his tar­iff announce­ments. Yet his policies are so con­sist­ent, and his vis­ion of the world so clearly defined, that by this stage only wil­ful self-decep­tion can account for any sur­prise.

Sup­port­ers of the lib­eral order see the world as a poten­tially win-win net­work of co-oper­a­tion. They believe that con­flict is not inev­it­able, because co-oper­a­tion can be mutu­ally bene­fi­cial. This belief has deep philo­soph­ical roots. Lib­er­als argue that all humans share some com­mon exper­i­ences and interests, which can form the basis for uni­ver­sal val­ues, global insti­tu­tions and inter­na­tional laws. For example, all humans abhor ill­ness and have a com­mon interest in pre­vent­ing the spread of con­ta­gious dis­eases. So all coun­tries would bene­fit from the shar­ing of med­ical know­ledge, global efforts to erad­ic­ate epi­dem­ics and the estab­lish­ment of insti­tu­tions like the World Health Organ­iz­a­tion that co-ordin­ate such efforts. Sim­il­arly, when lib­er­als look at the flow of ideas, goods and people between coun­tries, they tend to under­stand it in terms of poten­tial mutual bene­fits rather than inev­it­able com­pet­i­tion and exploit­a­tion.

In the Trumpian vis­ion, by con­trast, the world is seen as a zero-sum game in which every trans­ac­tion involves win­ners and losers. The move­ment of ideas, goods and people is there­fore inher­ently sus­pect. In Trump’s world, inter­na­tional agree­ments, organizations and laws can­not be any­thing but a plot to weaken some coun­tries and strengthen oth­ers — or per­haps a plot to weaken all coun­tries and bene­fit a sin­is­ter cos­mo­pol­itan elite.

What, then, is Trump’s pre­ferred altern­at­ive? If he could reshape the world accord­ing to his wishes, what would it look like?

Trump’s ideal world is a mosaic of fort­resses, where coun­tries are sep­ar­ated by high fin­an­cial, mil­it­ary, cul­tural and phys­ical walls. It for­goes the poten­tial of mutu­ally bene­fi­cial co-oper­a­tion, but Trump and like-minded pop­u­lists argue that it will offer coun­tries more sta­bil­ity and peace.

There is, of course, a key com­pon­ent miss­ing from this vis­ion. Thou­sands of years of his­tory teach us that each fort­ress would prob­ably want a bit more secur­ity, prosper­ity and ter­rit­ory for itself, at the expense of its neighbors. In the absence of uni­ver­sal val­ues, global insti­tu­tions and inter­na­tional laws, how would rival fort­resses resolve their dis­putes?

Trump’s solu­tion is simple: the way to pre­vent con­flicts is for the weak to do whatever the strong demand. Accord­ing to this view, con­flict occurs only when the weak refuse to accept real­ity. War is there­fore always the fault of the weak.

When Trump blamed Ukraine for the Rus­sian inva­sion, many people couldn’t under­stand how he could hold such a pre­pos­ter­ous view. Some assumed he’d been hood­winked by Rus­sian pro­pa­ganda. But there is a sim­pler explan­a­tion. Accord­ing to the Trumpian world­view, con­sid­er­a­tions of justice, mor­al­ity and inter­na­tional law are irrel­ev­ant, and the only thing that mat­ters in inter­na­tional rela­tions is power. Since Ukraine is weaker than Rus­sia, it should have sur­rendered. In the Trumpian vis­ion, peace means sur­render, and since Ukraine refused to sur­render, the war is its fault.

The same logic under­lies Trump’s plan for annex­ing Green­land. Accord­ing to Trumpian logic, if weak Den­mark refuses to cede Green­land to the much stronger US and the US then invades and con­quers Green­land by force, Den­mark would bear sole respons­ib­il­ity for any viol­ence and blood­shed.

[GftNC]

Part 2

There are three obvi­ous prob­lems with the idea that rival fort­resses can avoid con­flict by accept­ing real­ity and cut­ting deals. First, it exposes the lie behind the prom­ise that in a world of fort­resses every­one will feel less threatened, and every coun­try could focus on peace­fully devel­op­ing its own tra­di­tions and eco­nomy. In fact, the weaker fort­resses would soon find them­selves swal­lowed by their stronger neighbors, which would turn from national fort­resses into sprawl­ing mul­tina­tional empires.

Trump him­self is very clear about his own imper­ial plans. While he builds walls to pro­tect US ter­rit­ory and resources, he turns a pred­at­ory eye to the ter­rit­ory and resources of other coun­tries, includ­ing erstwhile allies. Den­mark is again a tell-tale example. For dec­ades, it has been one of Amer­ica’s most reli­able allies. After the 9/11 attacks, Den­mark ful­filled its Nato treaty oblig­a­tions enthu­si­ast­ic­ally. Forty-four Dan­ish sol­diers died in Afgh­anistan — a higher per cap­ita death rate than that suffered by the US itself. Trump didn’t bother say­ing “thank you”. Instead, he expects Den­mark to capit­u­late to his imper­ial ambi­tions. He clearly wants vas­sals rather than allies.

A second prob­lem is that since no fort­ress can afford to be weak, all of them would be under enorm­ous pres­sure to strengthen them­selves mil­it­ar­ily. Resources would be diver­ted from eco­nomic devel­op­ment and wel­fare programs to Defence. The res­ult­ing arms races would decrease every­one’s prosper­ity without mak­ing any­one feel more secure.

Third, the Trumpian vis­ion expects the weak to sur­render to the strong, but it offers no clear method for determ­in­ing rel­at­ive strength. What hap­pens if coun­tries mis­cal­cu­late, as often hap­pens in his­tory? In 1965 the US was con­vinced that it was much stronger than North Viet­nam, and that by apply­ing enough pres­sure it could force the gov­ern­ment in Hanoi to cut a deal. The North Viet­namese refused to acknow­ledge Amer­ican superi­or­ity, per­severed against immense odds — and won the war. How could the US have known in advance that it actu­ally had the weaker hand?

Sim­il­arly, in 1914 both Ger­many and Rus­sia were con­vinced they would win the war by Christ­mas. They mis­cal­cu­lated. The war took much longer than any­one expec­ted and involved many unfore­seen twists and turns. By 1917 the defeated Tsar­ist Empire was engulfed by revolu­tion, but Ger­many was denied vic­tory due to the unanti­cip­ated inter­ven­tion of the US. So should Ger­many have cut a deal in 1914? Or per­haps it was the Rus­sian tsar who should have acknow­ledged real­ity and sur­rendered to Ger­man demands?

In the cur­rent trade war between China and the US, who should do the sens­ible thing and sur­render in advance? You might respond that instead of see­ing the world in such zerosum terms, it is bet­ter for all coun­tries to work together to ensure mutual prosper­ity. But if you think like that, you are reject­ing the basic premises of the Trumpian vis­ion.

The Trumpian vis­ion is not a nov­elty. It has been the pre­dom­in­ant vis­ion for thou­sands of years prior to the rise of the lib­eral world order. The Trumpian for­mula has been tried and tested so many times before that we know where it usu­ally leads — to a never-end­ing cycle of empire-build­ing and war. Even worse, in the 21st cen­tury the rival fort­resses would have to deal not just with the old threat of war, but with the new chal­lenges of cli­mate change and the rise of super­in­tel­li­gent AI. Without robust inter­na­tional co-oper­a­tion, there is no way to deal with these global prob­lems. Since Trump has no viable solu­tion for either cli­mate change or an out-of-con­trol AI, his strategy is to simply deny their exist­ence.

Con­cerns about the sta­bil­ity of the lib­eral world order moun­ted after Trump was first elec­ted US pres­id­ent in 2016. Fol­low­ing a dec­ade of con­fu­sion and uncer­tainty, we now have a clear pic­ture of the post-lib­eral world dis­order. The lib­eral vis­ion of the world as a co-oper­at­ive net­work is replaced by the vis­ion of the world as a mosaic of fort­resses. This is being realized all around us — walls are going up and draw­bridges are raised. If this con­tin­ues to be imple­men­ted, the short-term res­ults will be trade wars, arms races and imper­ial expan­sion. The ulti­mate res­ults will be global war, eco­lo­gical col­lapse and out-of-con­trol AI.

We can be saddened and out­raged by these devel­op­ments and do our best to reverse them, but there is no longer any excuse for being sur­prised. As for those wish­ing to defend Trump’s vis­ion, they should answer one ques­tion: how can rival national fort­resses peace­fully resolve their eco­nomic and ter­rit­orial dis­putes if there are no uni­ver­sal val­ues or bind­ing inter­na­tional laws?

Thomas B. Edsall
202 631 2611 (c)
New York Times Columnist
https://www.nytimes.com/column/thomas-b-edsall
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
https://journalism.columbia.edu/faculty/tom-edsall
@edsall

[GftNC]

been on my mind watching the Trump administration light the confidence the rest of the world has had in America on fire and call it greatness

Further to which, I posted a piece recently about the "Donald dashers", rich Americans leaving the US for London and (among other things) driving the property prices up. There's a follow-up in today's Times - I won't paste the whole thing because I don't want to take over the thread, but this bit stood out:

Forget dinner parties — people are now coming together to talk escape plans and strategies. I recently hosted a “support group” dinner along with a friend. The journalists, lawyers and writers, several of them American, all agreed that the conversation we had that night would not happen in the US.

It’s all very familiar. My family spent many years in Moscow, where my American diplomat father was based. One summer I interned for the Financial Times correspondent who regularly met with Soviet dissidents. The meetings were always outside, away from devices and never documented (my job was to listen and memorise). The same is happening in New York. Conversations take place a good distance from telephones, Alexas or even colleagues; never in restaurants or even homes with wi-fi. A case in point is that absolutely no one wanted to go on the record for this story, journalists especially.

[wj]

The irony in Trump's view is that he believes, in his heart of hearts, that he is weak. That is why, like all bullies, he blusters and threatens anybody he thinks is weaker or otherwise open to intimidation. But caves when he comes up against someone who projects strength: Putin, Xi, Kim. It would be massively pathetic if it weren't so dangerous and damaging.

[liberal japonicus]

I actually forgot to delete that last bit, it was something that Klein said that I thought was quite poetic.

Say this for the states, Germany had to go through hyperinflation for 2 years as a precursor for brown shirts and book burnings, we just needed the price of eggs to go up.

[hairshirthedonist]

A friend forwarded this link to me this morning, regarding regrets some Wall Street types are now having about tRump.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-tariffs-capitalism-global-us-economy-stock-market-wall-street.html

This quote jumped out at me:

"Maybe if there were a stock market for civil liberties, people would care. Like, that market would have been tanked, you know?"

[liberal japonicus]

This, via LGM, is Larry David on Bill Maher's dinner date with Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/opinion/larry-david-hitler-dinner.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BU8.iA11.gp0VbsxPOiVa&smid=url-share

[Michael Cain]

A second prob­lem is that since no fort­ress can afford to be weak, all of them would be under enorm­ous pres­sure to strengthen them­selves mil­it­ar­ily.

At least superficially, a North American Empire would have an easier go of this than most of the other examples. Certainly easier in many ways than the military necessary to defend the current so-called American Empire. That empire includes both Western Europe and Japan, so the US Navy has to be structured and sized to repeat WWII's goals of keeping logistical flow open across the Atlantic and Pacific. If the goal were "merely" to fight off conventional invasions of North America across the Atlantic or Pacific, the Navy would be quite different.

[Michael Cain]

A second prob­lem is that since no fort­ress can afford to be weak, all of them would be under enorm­ous pres­sure to strengthen them­selves mil­it­ar­ily.

At least superficially, a North American Empire would have an easier go of this than most of the other examples. Certainly easier in many ways than the military necessary to defend the current so-called American Empire. That empire includes both Western Europe and Japan, so the US Navy has to be structured and sized to repeat WWII's goals of keeping logistical flow open across the Atlantic and Pacific. If the goal were "merely" to fight off conventional invasions of North America across the Atlantic or Pacific, the Navy would be quite different.

[Michael Cain]

Sorry about the double post. When I get an error message during a post, I should remember to refresh the page and check whether the comment made it to the database before hitting the post button again :^(

[hairshirthedonist]

Michael Cain doesn't know much about how software works. ;^)

[Michael Cain]

...but there are sectors of manufacturing where they [China] now lead the world.

CATL, a Chinese company, is the largest provider of batteries in the world. (BYD, another Chinese company, is #2.) Yesterday I read that they have released two new innovations. The first is a lithium-ion cell that broke BYD's record for rapid charge, providing -- if the charger can deliver the power -- roughly 500 km of range in five minutes. The second is a new sodium-ion battery intended initially for grid storage applications that is both cheaper and much safer than lithium-ion, and delivers performance comparable to lithium.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Nearly every country has products that they are better at providing than other countries.

The USA excels at providing "weaponized stupidity". It's how we got Trump.

[wj]

A second prob­lem is that since no fort­ress can afford to be weak, all of them would be under enorm­ous pres­sure to strengthen them­selves mil­it­ar­ily.

A century ago, that was true. But today?

The pressure would be to launch preemptive strikes against any fortress which looked even moderately close to being able to build nuclear weapons. And, Trump being Trump, he would likely allow himself to be persuaded** that we could launch a nuclear strike which would successfully take out all of Russia/China's nuclear weapons. (At most, they'd be able to get one thru on Washington. But since he'd be golfing in Florida, no problem.)

** And you know there are nut cases around him who believe that.

[russell]

QOTD, apropros of nothing in particular but everything in general, courtesy of a buddy of mine on FB:

Hegseth reminds me of that guy you accidentally make eye contact with in a bar and he comes over to ask what your problem is.

LOL

[hairshirthedonist]

Onion headline today:

Unpopular Pete Hegseth Forced To Drink Lunch Alone

[GftNC]

Meanwhile, Carole Cadwalladr on Substack, sent to me by a friend, about the demise of the Observer, TED and other things. Sharing authorised:

https://open.substack.com/pub/broligarchy/p/fuckity-bye?r=w2vx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

[Donald]

“ Trump being Trump, he would likely allow himself to be persuaded** that we could launch a nuclear strike which would successfully take out all of Russia/China's nuclear weapons. ”

I tentatively think, and we can all hope I am right, that Trump is afraid of getting into a war with a country that can fight back and he has enough sense of self preservation to avoid deliberately getting into a nuclear war. He is a bully and not a fanatic.

He is, on the other hand, probably stupid enough to blunder into a war. But I think bombing civilians in countries which can’t shoot back is more his speed.

And with trade wars, well, he is stupid enough to pick a fight with everyone in the world at the same time. So that is a point against my optimism, but even Trump knows there is a difference between trade. wars and nuclear wars.

[wj]

I tentatively think, and we can all hope I am right, that Trump is afraid of getting into a war with a country that can fight back and he has enough sense of self preservation to avoid deliberately getting into a nuclear war. He is a bully and not a fanatic.

Unfortunately, some of those around him are fanatics. And what Trump appears to fear above all else, even more than physical threats, is to appear weak. Which provides an opportunity for a fanatic to manipulate him.

I really, really hope you are right. But my level of optimism ain't what it once was.

[hairshirthedonist]

Now we have another "rally" in the stock market after the most recent at-least-partial reversal on China tariffs. What I wonder is how much this dialing back is coming from tRump versus others. Is it a matter of making him think it was his idea? Is he simply succumbing to pressure, either from his advisers or public/donor-class opinion (or some combination thereof)?

No matter how it's all working out on the inside of the administration, it should be apparent from the outside that there is nothing remotely close to a sufficient amount of thought or planning being put into this "policy" (like a lot of other things, of course).

The appeal of whip-saw chaos in a US presidency, of all things, is lost on me. But I don't like reality TV shows, either, so what do I know?

[Donald]

His supporters think there is a plan. The NYT had another one of those interviews with about 10-15 Trump votersa few days ago. (Not worth linking.) Some were critical of some of his policies and when they were, they were specific. But when they spoke in favor of him it was all glittering generalities--one person said "trust the process". What process, exactly?

[Marty]

We just can't grasp his wily plans as he plays 4D chess against the world. We are special that we are alive now to watch this historic reimagining of the world order during our lifetimes.

Or he is an idiot, mentally and emotionally the equivalent of a two year old imagining he is winning.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

The market gyrations give some big opportunities to use insider knowledge to make a lot of money...

...until the chaos-monkey in the WH does a big change without dropping hints, and then there'll be a lot of new fortunes that evaporate.

[JanieM]

I know this isn't a direct answer to Donald's question about naming a particular phenomenon as a crime, but there are plenty of other crimes to name.

[liberal japonicus]

Now we have another "rally" in the stock market after the most recent at-least-partial reversal on China tariffs.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/cronyism-capitulation-and-chaos

Hitting the road today, but I have time for a note on the news that moved markets yesterday. Bloomberg reports:

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a closed-door investor summit Tuesday that the tariff standoff with China cannot be sustained by both sides and that the world’s two largest economies will have to find ways to de-escalate.

That de-escalation will come in the very near future, Bessent said during an event hosted by J.P. Morgan Chase in Washington, which wasn’t open to the public or media. He characterized the current situation as essentially a trade embargo, according to people who attended the session.

Investors liked this report, but it was, if you think about it, deeply disturbing on two levels.

First — and why aren’t more people saying this? — what the hell was the Treasury secretary doing giving a closed-door briefing on a significant policy change that hadn’t yet been officially announced? Isn’t that a setup for large-scale insider trading? Indeed, attendees at that conference surely made market bets before Bessent’s remarks became public.

[liberal japonicus]

If that was posted here, apologies. If not, it certainly explains the 'rally'.

[russell]

In the immortal words of George Carlin, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it".

[Donald]

Extending JanieM's response to me, here is a list of some of the worst things Trump has done, though not all are crimes. Cutting aid to starving Africans probably isn't a crime, but is arguably the single worst thing he has done.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/starving-the-worlds-poor-is-one-of-trumps-most-reprehensible-acts

[hairshirthedonist]

From Donald's link:

One of the reasons this story isn’t getting as much attention as it deserves is that the U.S. media simply does not treat African lives as being as important as American lives. So the possibility that an iPhone will cost more due to Trump’s trade war may get more press than the possibility that hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people will starve to death.

[nous]

Africa is The Great Wrong Place*. When you already think of it as an endless hellscape of human misery it lets you dissociate from any suffering to which you have contributed.

*See also - the rest of the Global South, Mexico and Central America, Gaza, socialist nations, US cities with sizable minority populations, etc..

[GftNC]

Cutting aid to starving Africans probably isn't a crime, but is arguably the single worst thing he has done

Amidst truly impressive competition...