China Is a Declining Power—and That’s the Problem
The United States needs to prepare for a major war, not because its rival is rising but because of the opposite. - Hummmm!!! This is a new one!!!

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-united-states/?utm_source=thisweek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thisweekmarketing&?tpcc=thisweekmarketing&utm_source=PostUp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=36608&utm_term=General%20Marketing%20Communications&tpcc=36608

On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 3:12:06 PM UTC-7, Rusty Wyse wrote:
> China Is a Declining Power

I believe it's still too early to call China "a declining power". But certainly, the U.S. is a declining power after the Vietnam War and the war in Afghanistan. How much can you really call "alliances" a "power"!!! The Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan War,... all have the United Nations troops involved. It didn't help to win the wars... As I have said many times, the U.S. has super-volcanoes all over the Rocky Mountain ranges... If that goes off, it's all over for the U.S. Never mind the rest of the alliances....

China has one weapon that can hit any target around the world, the hypersonic weapons... Once the bombs started to explode in your country, then that's when reality sets in.

> —and That’s the Problem
> The United States needs to prepare for a major war, not because its rival is rising but because of the opposite. - Hummmm!!! This is a new one!!!
>
> https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-united-states/?utm_source=thisweek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thisweekmarketing&?tpcc=thisweekmarketing&utm_source=PostUp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=36608&utm_term=General%20Marketing%20Communications&tpcc=36608

Cannot read the article as it has to be subscribed. The article is not found
elsewhere website.

"Rusty Wyse" wrote in message
news:e72b70da-330c-4c29-9cb5-944a3cdd13e4n@googlegroups.com...

China Is a Declining Power—and That’s the Problem
The United States needs to prepare for a major war, not because its rival is
rising but because of the opposite. - Hummmm!!! This is a new one!!!

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-united-states/?utm_source=thisweek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thisweekmarketing&?tpcc=thisweekmarketing&utm_source=PostUp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=36608&utm_term=General%20Marketing%20Communications&tpcc=36608

On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 6:50:39 AM UTC-7, sukiki wrote:
> Cannot read the article as it has to be subscribed. The article is not found
> elsewhere website.

ARGUMENT
China Is a Declining Power—and That’s the Problem
The United States needs to prepare for a major war, not because its rival is rising but because of the opposite.
By Hal Brands, Michael Beckley
SEPTEMBER 24, 2021, 4:16 PM
Chinese President Xi Jinping leaves after making a toast during a welcome banquet .
Chinese President Xi Jinping leaves after making a toast during a welcome banquet for the Belt and Road Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, 2017. WU HONG/GETTY IMAGES
Why do great powers fight great wars? The conventional answer is a story of rising challengers and declining hegemons. An ascendant power, which chafes at the rules of the existing order, gains ground on an established power—the country that made those rules. Tensions multiply; tests of strength ensue. The outcome is a spiral of fear and hostility leading, almost inevitably, to conflict. “The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable,” the ancient historian Thucydides wrote—a truism now invoked, ad nauseum, in explaining the U.S.-China rivalry.

The idea of a Thucydides Trap, popularized by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, holds that the danger of war will skyrocket as a surging China overtakes a sagging America. Even Chinese President Xi Jinping has endorsed the concept arguing Washington must make room for Beijing. As tensions between the United States and China escalate, the belief that the fundamental cause of friction is a looming “power transition”—the replacement of one hegemon by another—has become canonical.

The only problem with this familiar formula is that it’s wrong.

The Thucydides Trap doesn’t really explain what caused the Peloponnesian War. It doesn’t capture the dynamics that have often driven revisionist powers—whether that is Germany in 1914 or Japan in 1941—to start some of history’s most devastating conflicts. And it doesn’t explain why war is a very real possibility in U.S.-China relations today because it fundamentally misdiagnoses where China now finds itself on its arc of development—the point at which its relative power is peaking and will soon start to fade.

There’s indeed a deadly trap that could ensnare the United States and China. But it’s not the product of a power transition the Thucydidean cliché says it is. It’s best thought of instead as a “peaking power trap.” And if history is any guide, it’s China’s—not the United States’—impending decline that could cause it to snap shut.

The retreat of the Athenians from Syracuse in the Peloponnesian War
The retreat of the Athenians from Syracuse in the Peloponnesian War is depicted in “Cassell’s Illustrated Universal History, Vol. I—Early and Greek History.”THE PRINT COLLECTOR/HERITAGE IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES
There is an entire swath of literature, known as “power transition theory,” which holds that great-power war typically occurs at the intersection of one hegemon’s rise and another’s decline. This is the body of work underpinning the Thucydides Trap, and there is, admittedly, an elemental truth to the idea. The rise of new powers is invariably destabilizing. In the runup to the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century B..C., Athens would not have seemed so menacing to Sparta had it not built a vast empire and become a naval superpower. Washington and Beijing would not be locked in rivalry if China was still poor and weak. Rising powers do expand their influence in ways that threaten reigning powers.

But the calculus that produces war—particularly the calculus that pushes revisionist powers, countries seeking to shake up the existing system, to lash out violently—is more complex. A country whose relative wealth and power are growing will surely become more assertive and ambitious.. All things equal, it will seek greater global influence and prestige. But if its position is steadily improving, it should postpone a deadly showdown with the reigning hegemon until it has become even stronger. Such a country should follow the dictum former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping laid down for a rising China after the Cold War: It should hide its capabilities and bide its time.

Now imagine a different scenario. A dissatisfied state has been building its power and expanding its geopolitical horizons. But then the country peaks, perhaps because its economy slows, perhaps because its own assertiveness provokes a coalition of determined rivals, or perhaps because both of these things happen at once. The future starts to look quite forbidding; a sense of imminent danger starts to replace a feeling of limitless possibility. In these circumstances, a revisionist power may act boldly, even aggressively, to grab what it can before it is too late. The most dangerous trajectory in world politics is a long rise followed by the prospect of a sharp decline.

As we show in our forthcoming book, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, this scenario is more common than you might think. Historian Donald Kagan showed, for instance, that Athens started acting more belligerently in the years before the Peloponnesian War because it feared adverse shifts in the balance of naval power—in other words, because it was on the verge of losing influence vis-à-vis Sparta. We see the same thing in more recent cases as well.

Great powers that had been growing dramatically faster than the world average and then suffered a severe, prolonged slowdown usually don’t fade away quietly. Rather, they become brash and aggressive.

Over the past 150 years, peaking powers—great powers that had been growing dramatically faster than the world average and then suffered a severe, prolonged slowdown—usually don’t fade away quietly. Rather, they become brash and aggressive. They suppress dissent at home and try to regain economic momentum by creating exclusive spheres of influence abroad. They pour money into their militaries and use force to expand their influence. This behavior commonly provokes great-power tensions. In some cases, it touches disastrous wars.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Eras of rapid growth supercharge a country’s ambitions, raise its people’s expectations, and make its rivals nervous. During a sustained economic boom, businesses enjoy rising profits and citizens get used to living large. The country becomes a bigger player on the global stage. Then stagnation strikes.

Slowing growth makes it harder for leaders to keep the public happy. Economic underperformance weakens the country against its rivals. Fearing upheaval, leaders crack down on dissent. They maneuver desperately to keep geopolitical enemies at bay. Expansion seems like a solution—a way of grabbing economic resources and markets, making nationalism a crutch for a wounded regime, and beating back foreign threats.
READ MORE

A Chinese flag waves in front of the Evergrande Center building in Shanghai, China, on Sept. 22.
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Many countries have followed this path. When the United States’ long post-Civil War economic surge ended, Washington violently suppressed strikes and unrest at home, built a powerful blue-water Navy, and engaged in a fit of belligerence and imperial expansion during the 1890s. After a fast-rising imperial Russia fell into a deep slump at the turn of the 20th century, the tsarist government cracked down hard while also enlarging its military, seeking colonial gains in East Asia and sending around 170,000 soldiers to occupy Manchuria. These moves backfired spectacularly: They antagonized Japan, which beat Russia in the first great-power war of the 20th century.

A century later, Russia became aggressive under similar circumstances. Facing a severe, post-2008 economic slowdown, Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded two neighboring countries, sought to create a new Eurasian economic bloc, staked Moscow’s claim to a resource-rich Arctic, and steered Russia deeper into dictatorship. Even democratic France engaged in anxious aggrandizement after the end of its postwar economic expansion in the 1970s. It tried to rebuild its old sphere of influence in Africa, deploying 14,000 troops to its former colonies and undertaking a dozen military interventions over the next two decades.

All of these cases were complicated, yet the pattern is clear. If a rapid rise gives countries the means to act boldly, the fear of decline serves up a powerful motive for rasher, more urgent expansion. The same thing often happens when fast-rising powers cause their own containment by a hostile coalition. In fact, some of history’s most gruesome wars have come when revisionist powers concluded their path to glory was about to be blocked.

Left: German Kaiser Wilhelm II meets with troops during World War I in 1914.. Right: Japanese schoolgirls wave flags in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Dec. 15, 1937, in celebration of the Japanese capture of the Chinese city of Nanjing. PHOTOQUEST/GETTY IMAGES

Imperial Germany and Japan are textbook examples.

Germany’s rivalry with Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is often considered an analogue to U.S.-China competition: In both cases, an autocratic challenger threatened a liberal hegemon. But the more sobering parallel is this: War came when a cornered Germany grasped it would not zip past its rivals without a fight.

For decades after unification in 1871, Germany soared. Its factories spewed out iron and steel, erasing Britain’s economic lead. Berlin built Europe’s finest army and battleships that threatened British supremacy at sea. By the early 1900s, Germany was a European heavyweight seeking an enormous sphere of influence—a Mitteleuropa, or Middle Europe­—on the continent. It was also pursuing, under then-Kaiser Wilhelm II, a “world policy” aimed at securing colonies and global power.

On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 11:47:22 PM UTC, rst88...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 3:12:06 PM UTC-7, Rusty Wyse wrote:
> > China Is a Declining Power
> I believe it's still too early to call China "a declining power". But certainly, the U.S. is a declining power after the Vietnam War and the war in Afghanistan. How much can you really call "alliances" a "power"!!! The Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan War,... all have the United Nations troops involved. It didn't help to win the wars... As I have said many times, the U.S. has super-volcanoes all over the Rocky Mountain ranges... If that goes off, it's all over for the U.S. Never mind the rest of the alliances...
>
> China has one weapon that can hit any target around the world, the hypersonic weapons... Once the bombs started to explode in your country, then that's when reality sets in.
> > —and That’s the Problem
> > The United States needs to prepare for a major war, not because its rival is rising but because of the opposite. - Hummmm!!! This is a new one!!!
> >
> > https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-united-states/?utm_source=thisweek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thisweekmarketing&?tpcc=thisweekmarketing&utm_source=PostUp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=36608&utm_term=General%20Marketing%20Communications&tpcc=36608

The article is premised on Michael Beckley's book entitled "Why America Will Remain the World’s
Sole Superpower" published two years ago.
Basically, Beckley conceptually equates Power with resource. And according to his indicators,
the US would remain the world's sole superpower indefinitely.

"Resources versus outcomes
Power can be measured in two main ways.4 The most common approach,
and the one I adopt in this book, measures power by tallying the wealth and
military assets of each country. The logic of this “power as resources” approach
is simple. Wealth enables a country to buy many forms of influence through
aid, loans, investment, and bribes and to cultivate soft power by, among other
things, funding global propaganda campaigns, building awesome skyscrapers,
and hosting international expos.5 Military resources (e.g., troops and
weapons), on the other hand, enable a country to destroy enemies, attract
allies, and run extortion rackets, extracting concessions and favors from
weaker countries through threats of violence and offers of protection.6
Some scholars, however, defi ne power in terms of outcomes.7 Power,
they argue, is fi rst and foremost about winning. It is the ability of a country
to prevail in a dispute, attract followers, and set the agenda of international
negotiations.8 Measuring power, these scholars argue, therefore requires a
“power as outcomes” approach that involves observing international
events—such as wars or diplomatic negotiations—and then determining
the extent to which the participants shaped the outcomes in line with their
respective interests.

Both definitions of power have virtues. The power as outcomes approach
usefully tells us who got what, when, and how on a specifi c issue. It also
helps explain cases in which the side with fewer resources prevailed. Such
David versus Goliath cases are not uncommon; in fact, they account for
roughly 25 percent of all international disputes and wars.9 Materially weak
countries can defeat better-endowed opponents through smart strategy, or
dumb luck, or by running more risks or bearing greater costs.10 By defining
power in terms of outcomes, analysts can account for these nonmaterial
factors and measure power with a greater degree of granularity than the
power as resources approach.

Yet the power as outcomes approach has several weaknesses that limit its
usefulness for what I hope to accomplish in this book. First, I want to assess
the overall balance of power—that is, the balance of power across a broad
range of issues—but the power as outcomes approach is inherently issue
specific. The reason is that evaluating outcomes requires knowing the preferences
of the actors involved; in other words, fi guring out which country
won a dispute (the outcome) requires first establishing what each country
wanted to happen in the fi rst place (preferences). Preferences, however, are
not fi xed—different countries, at different times, want different things—so
while we might know a country’s preferred outcome regarding a particular
event, it is diffi cult, if not impossible, to know the preferences of many
countries across hundreds of events over long periods of time. Thus the
great strength of the power as outcomes approach—its specificity—becomes
a weakness when the goal is to assess the overall balance of power.
A second limitation of the power as outcomes approach is that it is only
useful for analyzing past events. After all, analysts must wait for an outcome to
occur before they can study it. In this book, however, I want to
make an educated guess about the balance of power in the decades ahead.
To do that, I need a measure of power that can be projected into the future.."

The second part of his of resource determinism is net versus gross resources.
Only net resources could be devoted to increase a nation's power. Hence this measure
is more predictive. China has more people but Chinese are not as productive as
Americans measured by per capita GDP. China's population is also aging faster
than the US.

On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 8:00:21 PM UTC, ltlee1 wrote:
> On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 11:47:22 PM UTC, rst88...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 3:12:06 PM UTC-7, Rusty Wyse wrote:
> > > China Is a Declining Power
> > I believe it's still too early to call China "a declining power". But certainly, the U.S. is a declining power after the Vietnam War and the war in Afghanistan. How much can you really call "alliances" a "power"!!! The Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan War,... all have the United Nations troops involved. It didn't help to win the wars... As I have said many times, the U.S. has super-volcanoes all over the Rocky Mountain ranges... If that goes off, it's all over for the U.S. Never mind the rest of the alliances...
> >
> > China has one weapon that can hit any target around the world, the hypersonic weapons... Once the bombs started to explode in your country, then that's when reality sets in.
> > > —and That’s the Problem
> > > The United States needs to prepare for a major war, not because its rival is rising but because of the opposite. - Hummmm!!! This is a new one!!!
> > >
> > > https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-united-states/?utm_source=thisweek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thisweekmarketing&?tpcc=thisweekmarketing&utm_source=PostUp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=36608&utm_term=General%20Marketing%20Communications&tpcc=36608
> The article is premised on Michael Beckley's book entitled "Why America Will Remain the World’s
> Sole Superpower" published two years ago.
> Basically, Beckley conceptually equates Power with resource. And according to his indicators,
> the US would remain the world's sole superpower indefinitely.
>
> "Resources versus outcomes
> Power can be measured in two main ways.4 The most common approach,
> and the one I adopt in this book, measures power by tallying the wealth and
> military assets of each country. The logic of this “power as resources” approach
> is simple. Wealth enables a country to buy many forms of influence through
> aid, loans, investment, and bribes and to cultivate soft power by, among other
> things, funding global propaganda campaigns, building awesome skyscrapers,
> and hosting international expos.5 Military resources (e.g., troops and
> weapons), on the other hand, enable a country to destroy enemies, attract
> allies, and run extortion rackets, extracting concessions and favors from
> weaker countries through threats of violence and offers of protection.6
> Some scholars, however, defi ne power in terms of outcomes.7 Power,
> they argue, is fi rst and foremost about winning. It is the ability of a country
> to prevail in a dispute, attract followers, and set the agenda of international
> negotiations.8 Measuring power, these scholars argue, therefore requires a
> “power as outcomes” approach that involves observing international
> events—such as wars or diplomatic negotiations—and then determining
> the extent to which the participants shaped the outcomes in line with their
> respective interests.
>
> Both definitions of power have virtues. The power as outcomes approach
> usefully tells us who got what, when, and how on a specifi c issue. It also
> helps explain cases in which the side with fewer resources prevailed. Such
> David versus Goliath cases are not uncommon; in fact, they account for
> roughly 25 percent of all international disputes and wars.9 Materially weak
> countries can defeat better-endowed opponents through smart strategy, or
> dumb luck, or by running more risks or bearing greater costs.10 By defining
> power in terms of outcomes, analysts can account for these nonmaterial
> factors and measure power with a greater degree of granularity than the
> power as resources approach.
>
> Yet the power as outcomes approach has several weaknesses that limit its
> usefulness for what I hope to accomplish in this book. First, I want to assess
> the overall balance of power—that is, the balance of power across a broad
> range of issues—but the power as outcomes approach is inherently issue
> specific. The reason is that evaluating outcomes requires knowing the preferences
> of the actors involved; in other words, fi guring out which country
> won a dispute (the outcome) requires first establishing what each country
> wanted to happen in the fi rst place (preferences). Preferences, however, are
> not fi xed—different countries, at different times, want different things—so
> while we might know a country’s preferred outcome regarding a particular
> event, it is diffi cult, if not impossible, to know the preferences of many
> countries across hundreds of events over long periods of time. Thus the
> great strength of the power as outcomes approach—its specificity—becomes
> a weakness when the goal is to assess the overall balance of power.
> A second limitation of the power as outcomes approach is that it is only
> useful for analyzing past events. After all, analysts must wait for an outcome to
> occur before they can study it. In this book, however, I want to
> make an educated guess about the balance of power in the decades ahead.
> To do that, I need a measure of power that can be projected into the future."
>
> The second part of his of resource determinism is net versus gross resources.
> Only net resources could be devoted to increase a nation's power. Hence this measure
> is more predictive. China has more people but Chinese are not as productive as
> Americans measured by per capita GDP. China's population is also aging faster
> than the US.

While indicators are common and they are periodically reported. How to apply them is
far from simple.

Example,
"As manufacturing has become increasingly automated with the development
of 3D-printing and artificial intelligence, and as China’s labor costs
have risen, American firms have started “reshoring” manufacturing plants
in the United States to take advantage of low energy prices, high-skilled
labor, and proximity to consumers. For those reasons, Deloitte and Boston
Consulting Group both project that the United States will overtake China as
the world’s most cost-competitive manufacturing nation by 2020.87"

Why the US would overtake China as the world's most cost-competitive manufacturing nation
by 2020?

"1. United States
The US improved its positioning from fourth in 2010 to second in the 2016 study and is relied upon to arrive at number one by 2020. The ascent is because of solid investment in skill and innovation as the US is positioned most noteworthy as a propelled manufacturing economy and is exceptionally competitive as far as the share of high skill and innovation commitment to exports and work efficiency as estimated by gross domestic product. What's more, the US keeps on positioning itself among the worldwide pioneers in innovative work (R&D) exercises by putting resources into top colleges, R&D ability, and funding, ventures that help move the organization higher in by and large manufacturing competitiveness.

One of the nation's best makers is Polaris Industries which held the top positioning on IndustryWeek's 50 Best US Manufacturers.
....
2. China
Shenzen, which is situated among Guangzhou and Hong Kong, is an enormous manufacturing center that has sprung up rapidly. Joining the achievement of its neighbors, it is positioned fourth in China for modern yield. It has been fabricating higher innovation items than Guangzhou by and large, with its very own few effective organizations.

*Low GDP/individual and discretionary cashflow have specialists anticipating China will drop to #2 by 2020"

https://www.plantautomation-technology.com/articles/top-10-largest-manufacturing-nations-in-the-world-in-2020

If all things are equal, comparison across nation is easy. But all things are not equal.