America and China: Another Big Powers Understanding in the Making?

[Meengla]

As long as they remain each others' largest trading partners, there is good hope.

I tend to think they are likely to be!

 

[VCheng]

I tend to think they are likely to be!

Then everything will work out.

 

[tower9]

Fareed Zakaria--not a neo-con per my understanding, wrote a few months ago that China had taken ill-advised harsh policies WRT to India, Taiwan, Australia, and SCS. I am not sure I agree with that or not but it is there.

Fareed is a neoliberal tool.

Anyways China is a serious nation. It speaks softly but carries a big stick. It also quietly plots five steps ahead. The US has been run by self serving clowns for a long time. This time they are picking a fight with the wrong enemy that they have severely underestimated, this will prove to be a massive miscalculation and will not end well for the US unless the Biden administration works to de-escalate tensions.

Einstein said something like 'Let me read the mind of God. The rest will be just details!'
The rivalry and/or cooperation between America and China will define the years to come, just like the Cold War defined decades after WW 2.

The current world order is collapsing and the new one is being born. China bore years of the US lashing out and now that the US has played most of its cards, China id mobilizing quickly to jostle for power in this new world.

Conflict will continue to escalate for at least the next decade until we reach a new equilibrium and it will be guaranteed that at the end of this, China’s standing and position will be far greater than today.

 

[Meengla]

The US has been run by self serving clowns for a long time.

The internal divisions within America is certainly a big problem. Otherwise, how could one explain that the years of hard work done by the Obama adm about Iran was undone so quickly when Trump came to power??

 

[SaadH]

Fareed Zakaria--not a neo-con per my understanding, wrote a few months ago that China had taken ill-advised harsh policies WRT to India, Taiwan, Australia, and SCS. I am not sure I agree with that or not but it is there.

Zakaria is a commited imperialist in the mold of yore. He may not be a chicken hawk gung ho neocon, but is firm believer in American exceptionalism with the underpinnings of Hindutva supramacy.

I'd take his musings on any geo-political issue with a huge bag of salt.

 

[Meengla]

An article related to this, with a person of no less credibility than Bob Woodward. Essentially, a non-hostile relationship with China is in America's interests and even more in America's interests then it was around the American 2020 elections. The Fall of Kabul only frees up less than 5000 soldiers and up to only $50B/year in American kitty. There are other major considerations for America--some, I suspect, are too embarrassing to bring to the limelight.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/14/peril-woodward-costa-trump-milley-china/

Top general was so fearful Trump might spark war that he made secret calls to his Chinese counterpart, new book says


Twice in the final months of the Trump administration, the country’s top military officer was so fearful that the president’s actions might spark a war with China that he moved urgently to avert armed conflict.

In a pair of secret phone calls, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa.

Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, stressing the rapport they’d established through a backchannel. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”

 

[Imran Khan]

what will happen QUAD and INDIA the supa pawa ?

 

[tower9]

The internal divisions within America is certainly a big problem. Otherwise, how could one explain that the years of hard work done by the Obama adm about Iran was undone so quickly when Trump came to power??

That's only one of many serious problems that will inevitably lead the US down a road of irreversible decline.

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

The fury, the betrayal, the let down that the Vedic empire feels at the US departure from Afghanistan can't be described in mere words. They feel humiliated, they feel entitled to US protection against china and Pakistan. They are not used to fighting fair. They only want to fight when the hands and feets of their enemies are tightly tied. The prospects of talibs wandering near them is greatly upsetting them. The ferocity of the talibs to do it raw and dry to their enemies is giving nightmares to the fascist hindutvas.

Their most ideal condition to fight is against the East Pak garrison with a 15:1 favor to them, and under 100% USSR support to India and the US betrayal to Pak….

 

[Meengla]

That's only one of many serious problems that will inevitably lead the US down a road of irreversible decline.

Unfortunately, after what was done to the Iran deal, your argument holds a lot of weight.
America is quickly becoming a country beholden to the lobbies. I certainly don't think any 'strategic' thinking could explain America undoing Obama's hard work on Iran, as an example. A different set of lobbies prevailed when Trump won and he had to oblige those lobbies.

 

[PakFactor]

Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, stressing the rapport they’d established through a backchannel. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”

I would truly love to one day read in my life time the reaction of General Li after this exchange with General Milley especially the bold part.
Unlike our neighbors to the East and dead at night and missing.

 

[VCheng]

There are other major considerations for America--some, I suspect, are too embarrassing to bring to the limelight.

And what do you see as being embarrassing in the story quoted?

 

[Meengla]

And what do you see as being embarrassing in the story quoted?

Not in the quoted part, as I said: To 'bring to the limelight'. History will disclose those!

Be as it may, it IS embarrassing that a topmost US military official had to call his counterpart in China to assure the Chinese that no imminent attack is coming up and that, more than implicitly, the American President is a whacko who could try to start a war just to cling on to power despite losing the 2020 election, BUT those orders would not be carried out. You know: Nancy Pelosi also said something like between Nov. 2020 and the inauguration 2021.
If those things are not embarrassing for any country's political class then I don't know what would be!!

 

[VCheng]

Not in the quoted part, as I said: To 'bring to the limelight'. History will disclose those!

Be as it may, it IS embarrassing that a topmost US military official had to call his counterpart in China to assure the Chinese that no imminent attack is coming up and that, more than implicitly, the American President is a whacko who could try to start a war just to cling on to power despite losing the 2020 election, BUT those orders would not be carried out. You know: Nancy Pelosi also said something like between Nov. 2020 and the inauguration 2021.
If those things are not embarrassing for any country's political class then I don't know what would be!!

What Gen Milley said to his officers was this: "No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I'm part of that procedure," What this shows is that no matter how much any US President may like to think he is a King, he is still subject to a robust system of checks and balances, and cannot bypass due processes and procedures.

 

[Meengla]

What Gen Milley said to his officers was this: "No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I'm part of that procedure," What this shows is that no matter how much any US President may like to think he is a King, he is still subject to a robust system of checks and balances, and cannot bypass due processes and procedures.

Absolutely. The checks and balances in American system are great. I have seen even Canadians admiring that--and they otherwise often seem to hate America. I have lived considerable time in Canada too.