Follow the logic here in another of these Proceedings articles examining a 2026 China-US-Taiwan war:
China has long historical fear of invasion from the sea and of having its sea lines of communication cut off.
Thus, the Belt and Road Initiative to ensure neither can happen and that, even if it did, Beijing’s belt-and-suspenders approach (land lines of communication in addition) would save it. [Okay, the first two bullets are mine, but dragon with me.]
Because of the Taiwan scenario, the US military and navy in particular like to imagine and plan for a long, drawn-out war (with its “paradoxical advantages” for us) with China over Taiwan — a notion reinforced by the stalemate we support in Ukraine
In such a lengthy scenario, our goal should be to destroy, dismantle, and/or disable China’s infrastructure facilities around the world:
The CCP’s network of port facilities around the world will need to be destroyed, seized, or rendered inaccessible through political pressure or sabotage. U.S. forces surging to the western Pacific can use these reduction operations to blood themselves at relatively low cost and refine their tactics, techniques, and procedures en route. International rail infrastructure servicing China (the source of one-third of its total imports) should be handled similarly, wherever the United States can exert sufficient political influence to deny the system’s use or bear the political cost of striking or sabotaging it. These actions will degrade the PLA’s sustainment capacity and introduce additional challenges to the CCP’s control of China’s population, the CCP’s most significant existential threat. Memories of Mao’s famines still endure in China’s cultural memory, after all.
So we imagine the possibility of starving them out by cutting off their sea and landlines of communication and, in effect, affecting regime change. In this way, we fulfill every Chinese fear that drove them to the BRI effort in the first place — perfect mirror-imaging.
As always, try the other shoe on: imagine China’s navy is publishing articles proposing their military wipe out our infrastructure connectivity with the outside world is we dare invade Cuba. How do we interpret that? Would strike me as firm confirmation of everything I have long thought about that threat.
A self-licking ice cream cone in terms of strategic planning. Num, num.
2) Israel hard-right saying the quiet part out loud
As some residents trickle back to their ruined neighborhoods, prominent politicians in Israel have questioned whether they should go home at all.
Controversial proposals from some Israeli officials to evacuate Gazans to camps in Egypt or other countries are causing rifts with Washington, Europe and the United Nations, and have been included in a case filed against Israel at the International Court of Justice alleging “genocide” in Gaza. Far-right members of the governing coalition have proposed sending displaced Palestinians to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the European Union or Chile.
Would that be “ethnic cleansing”? With regard to the Palestinian people, no. But, with regard to Gaza, yeah.
“What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip is to encourage emigration,” [Finance Minister] Smotrich said in an interview Sunday with Israeli Army Radio. “If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after will be totally different.”
[National Security Minister] Ben Gvir echoed that call Tuesday, posting on X, that “the migration of hundreds of thousands from Gaza will allow the residents of the enclave to return home and live in security and protect [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers.”
The sale here isn’t easy, but it comes from a security/feasibility perspective reflective of my continued analysis that Israel isn’t trying to defeat Hamas per se nor split away its popular support but simply to eliminate Gaza as a threat vector — and dramatically reducing the Palestinian population there would go a long way toward that end.
Understand: these two ministers are not decision-makers and, as the article argues, the “professional” security types say there’s no way Gaza can be managed without some Palestinian population in place.
But this is the essential struggle going on here: How diminished must Gaza be for Israel to feel safe again?
If the West and Arab powers want to avoid this outcome, then some big ideas better be coming soon because making Gaza unlivable is the default pathway for now.
Just a fun, broad-framing piece with this core argument:
If Latinos living in the United States were an independent country, the U.S. Latino GDP would be the fifth largest GDP in the world, larger than the GDPs of India, the United Kingdom, or France. As Globalization is transformed and regional power clusters emerge globally, Latino spending power, economic progress, workforce participation, and progress growth are a source of regional competitive advantage which will buoy the U.S. Total GDP for the foreseeable future.
Some charts to round it out:
Points being:
Latinos immigrants are not holding America back but propping it up.
In hemispheric terms, we are sitting on a powder key of economic growth, if properly integrated
Our growth future lies within our hemisphere as it is the lowest hanging fruit to pick.
4) China: give the gamers what they want — or else
The Chinese government is concerned that Chinese youth are wasting too much time and money on video games, so recently it handed down some restrictions:
Beijing has become increasingly tough on video games over the years. In 2021, China set strict playtime limits for under 18s and suspended approvals of new video games for about eight months, citing gaming addiction concerns.
"Game for Peace", Tencent's alternative to the blockbuster video game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" (PUBG) in China, is seen on a mobile phone in this illustration picture taken May 13, 2019. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration
Although the crackdown formally ended last year with the resumption of new game approvals, regulators have continued to impose restrictions to curb "in-game" spending.
The new rules revealed on Friday are the most explicit yet aimed at curbing in-game spending. Besides banning reward features, games are also required to set limits on how much players can top up their digital wallets for in-game spending.
That “Friday” was 22 December.
The reaction in the stock markets was swift: major gaming companies losing value — basically billions of dollars wiped from gaming companies like the huge Tencent.
So, in that usual oblique Chinese way, it seems the situation is sort of resolved by the official who put forth the regulations being forced to resign.
This back and forth will go on ad infinitum but it shows how the Chinese Communist Party is nervously bumping up against our collective metaverse future.
5) Zakaria says we should be more upbeat. I agree.
Nice argument by Fareed Zaharia on Americans being too downbeat about America’s and the world’s current trajectory.
Luckily, as he points out, our soda-straw view of the future isn’t matched elsewhere:
The world sees what Americans do not. The latest Pew Research Center survey on the topic shows that the United States is now viewed more favorably than China in 22 of 24 countries. When asked who contributes to peace and stability around the world, the United States or China, the margins are huge in crucial Asian countries. In Japan, it is 79 percent to 14 percent; in South Korea, 74 percent to 13 percent; and in India, 70 percent to 33 percent — all in Washington’s favor.
This fundamental conundrum of how to lead in a world of our making but which no longer looks like us — and thus depresses us — is a key concept of America’s New Map’s overall logic.
The shift from a market-making persona to a market-playing one is tricky.
Investment by Indian companies is not keeping pace. The money that companies put into the future of their businesses, for things like new machines and factories, is stagnant. As a fraction of India’s economy, it is shrinking. And while money is flying into India’s stock markets, long-term investment from overseas has been declining.
Green and red lights are flashing at the same time. At some point soon, the government will need to reduce its extraordinary spending, which could weigh on the economy if private sector money doesn’t pick up.
Another essential message from my book: India’s rise is foreign direct investment (FDI) dependent — to include a substantial position to be ultimately assumed by rival China. To achieve that desired high-single-digit growth that everyone wants India to achieve requires outside money.
Recent signs are not good:
One is tempted to say that COVID-19 was bad for India.
The most immediate hold-up cited in the article: waiting to see if Modi’s government breezes through the next election. He is very pro-business and pro-FDI, but complaints arise that the big conglomerates close to his administration are doing too well relative to the wider economy — i.e., favoritism.
The usual red-tape complaints also still abound:
Still, foreign officials charged with bringing billions of investment capital to India complain that much of the traditional pain of doing business in India lingers. The one most frequently cited is red tape. Too many officials get involved at every level of approval, and it remains painfully slow to obtain legal judgments, let alone to enforce them.
Finally, the same problem China has (lower-than-desired domestic consumption) is afflicting India. FDI wants to chase that global middle class demand; that is the great FDI lure.
To say I find this all fascinating is a huge understatement, as I will be speaking at the Times of India’s Global Business Summit in New Delhi next month. India is globalization’s linchpin right now, so no more fascinating place to visit right now.
7) Spook the global middle, endanger global stability
An untold success story of peak globalization (1991-2008):
Over the past quarter-century, the world has seen the deepest, most consequential decline in income inequality since the Industrial Revolution. And yet that progress is coming to an end, probably before many Americans had even realized it was occurring. At issue is not income distribution among individuals but among the nations of the world.
Jim and Sara Nuttle illustration from “America’s New Map”
This is clearly a big theme in my work: keep the middle happy and have a happy present/future. True for a nation, true for the world.
The danger is a loss of cohesion when we will need it most, as the WAPO Board notes:
A world inescapably divided between a small core of rich countries and a vast, poor periphery wouldn’t only be unjust. It might be less stable and prone to military conflict. It could be harder to mobilize against planetary challenges such as climate change. The very idea of a cohesive human community could be that much harder to maintain.
Deniers look at that extra snow and say: Climate change is a hoax!
Smart people look at that extra snow and realize that what climate change does across the planet is to make the North tumultuously wetter and the South persistently drier.
As always (or at least for now), China is the land of too-much everything (people, pollution, extreme weather, etc.).
We used to say China won’t get rich before it gets old, but maybe the phrase should be China won’t get rich before climate change destroys too much of its land.
William Frey at Brookings is the guy on US demographics — just the best.
His latest piece says the scary part out loud regarding US population decline and immigration:
Clearly, immigration is responsible for “bailing out” what would otherwise be fairly flat national growth in recent years, with high levels of deaths and low numbers of births related to the pandemic. Moreover, recently released population projections suggest that future national growth will continue to depend on current or even higher levels of immigration, even with “normal” natural increase levels. That is due to the continued aging of the population, meaning we can expect fewer births, more deaths, and a nationwide natural decrease in the not-too-distant future. Fortunately, government policy can affect immigration levels, and it would be demographically wise to give serious attention to these policies before U.S. population growth declines even further.
It continues to stun me that people can simultaneously bemoan population and fertility decline AND oppose heightened immigration … unless you point out the racial aspect of being able to believe in both paths (namely, it’s White depopulation and fertility loss that is paramount and its White-diminishing immigration that saves the nation as a whole).
Bottom line: a demographically vibrant America is an increasingly non-White America. There is no alternative.
11) Does the MSM soft-peddle Trump the Threat out of self-gain?
Maureen Dowd at NYT wonders if the media soft-peddle the Trump threat because, secretly and deep down, they love what he does for the biz and their book sales.
You have to admit: a lot of literary stars out there owe their success to Trump’s rise.
Per Dowd:
Thanks to Trump, journalists can be festooned with gold — lucrative book contracts, TV deals and speaking gigs. The man who enriched himself with millions from foreign states and royalty seeking favors from the United States has the power to enrich us, too. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime story, the outlandish star of an even bigger reality show than his last.
Still, check out the NYT’s Editorial Board piece on the 2024 election being like none other. The Grey Lady is putting down some serious markers.
