Recent comments on a hardcore India based bitchy anti-China media site, Firstpost, is saying that the USA does not know how best to deal with China. That was a shockingly, and surprisingly rare and direct criticism and a reality slap, which will be denied vehemently by the USA for sure.
The modus operandi of taking from its usual playbook in dealing with Russia as with others, is now brought down to earth, with all the sanctions largely failing to work. Russia is not yet on the level of the intertwined economy between China and the USA, and yet Russia's tenacity and ability to endure in response is unsettling for the USA, even with the support of all of Nato. Therefore the USA realises that sanctioning China or even decoupling from it is going to cause unimaginable destruction for both of them economically, when it eventually pivots to the South China Sea.
While the USA, throughout the decades of its dominance, been used to taking out countries like Iraq and Libya like a morning exercise in the Park, Russia and China presented it with a different kettle of fish, where force will be met with force and more, with nuclear no longer the unilateral option it can deploy, like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, without any fear of reprisals from the Japs.
Decoupling was almost the de facto way forward, as espouse by many USA hawks, and Trump took up the challenge by igniting the fuse with his trade war, attempting to lure back manufacuturing to the USA and bring down China. Instead, most of foreign owned Chinese manufacturing migrated to India and Vietnam among others. Added to the inability to decouple is now the looming rise of BRICS threatening the USA with the de-dollarisation move, and eating away the US$ hegemony. The USA and its allies can deny the inevitable and calling it 'over blown', but slow it may be, the outcome is ominous. They can brush that aside at their own risk, like the rise of China and now India. But I think the USA is deeply worried, nervous and paranoid.
With cheap labour, good skills availablity and even cheaper energy to boot in India in particular, the choice of destinations for such companies moving out of China is decisively not the USA. The USA basically lacks the kind of skills and talents needed, after the rush to China decades ago, as evidenced by the acute shortage of skilled its chip innovation talents to fill the gaps, with all the foreign chip makers flocking to take advantage of the subsidies dangled by the USA Government, whose intention is discreetly engineered to help their own chip manufacturers, killing two birds with one stone by destroying those foreign ones like TSMC and Samsung, who are now overshadowing them in innovation. So much so that the USA had to resort to force to bring back those talents, with loss of US citizenship if they refuse. Talk about their protection of 'Freedom of Choice' and all those bullshit.
Now, the new narrative of the USA on display is 'de-risk' knowing that decoupling is going to be devastating for them as well, with Russia already providing the perfect example. China is not going to fall for that 'de risk' line, and China should from now on take innovation into its own hands in chip manufacturing and everything else, whatever the difficulties and be self reliant in all important fields. Most importantly, have enough deterrents to counter any possibility of a sneak attack. A wounded tiger is the most dangerous animal.
Anonymous
