Chinese insider: China playing, and winning, zero-sum game with US

[The Minsky Moment]

South China Sea is definitely a flash point but ultimately the Chinese interest is primarily economic and resource-based.  A secondary objective is to use it a leverage point to reduce US influence in the Pacific but playing that hand too strong will likely backfire in that respect (in fact to some extent it already has).  Of course nations have fought over resource access and economic assets before and it isn't difficult to imagine a series of plausible conduct that ends up in military confrontation.  But this is an area which is amenable to resolution by bargaining.

The wild card is Taiwan because the relevant parties have strong emotional commitments.  If a future Taiwanese government went hard for independence, the results would be unpredictable.

[DGuller]

Economics is by its nature not a zero-sum game.

But it's more zero-sum than people think.  Resources are not infinite, even if economists like to pretend that they are.  China using more oil and driving the price of it up does directly hurt US.

[Admiral Yi]

But it's more zero-sum than people think.  Resources are not infinite, even if economists like to pretend that they are.  China using more oil and driving the price of it up does directly hurt US.

Stoopid economists.

[Eddie Teach]

The PRC: the world's greatest threat to peace and human progress. The West: too weak and stupid to do anything about it.

It's alright, we've got enough of a tech lead and military strength to just concentrate on building our spaceship and beating them to Alpha Centauri.

[alfred russel]

Jacob, American business interests see China as a huge business opportunity. I don't follow defense stuff much at all, so it sometimes is jarring to come here and read about China as a potential enemy. If you are worried about the US becoming more beligerent, I think that is unlikely--global and US markets depend on China too much. From a production side, and from a consumer side too (although the consumer side is more theoretical, but still priced in).

That dependence goes two ways, but China's government is much more of a longer term wildcard.

[The Minsky Moment]

Another thing to keep in mind is that China is a couple decades away from hitting the Japanese demographic profile. Growth in the working age population is slowing and will probably hit its peak sometime this decade.  Improvements in death rates will keep overall population stable for another decade or so before decline sets in.  But we are already seeing some impacts in terms of labor shortages in certain regions and wage hikes.  China will have to transition to higher productivity and capital efficiency and the leadership knows this.  The demographic shift will force a transition to a more consumption-based economy.  All this has implications for international and US bilateral relations because it will moderate economic frictions, and because aging countries don't provide the same domestic pressure for jingoist military adventurism that countries with rapidly growing young populations do.

[DGuller]

One serious problem that China has to grapple with is their educational system.  By some estimates, up to 70% of Chinese students are outside of the top 30%.  I don't see that situation correcting itself any time soon.

[Valmy]

Unless China uncharacteristically becomes interested in expanding geographically, the relationship can't be described as zero-sum in that regard.

Economics is by its nature not a zero-sum game.

That leaves the arena of international relations.  We're already seeing China's influence increasing, largely because of her financial muscle.  But that then raises the question of what the ultimate objective of Chinese foreign policy is.  If it's the creation of international public goods like trade and stability, why should we care who's doing the heavy lifting?  If it's simply aggrandiizement, then there will be a natural feedback look that will work to curtail China's influence.

Yeah I don't really get what exactly we would be fighting over except domination of Asia and they can have that as far as I am concerned.

[mongers]

The guy always looking over his shoulder, never wins.   

[jimmy olsen]

The more China throws its weight around the more it drives its neighbors into our arms.

Even Burma has had enough of their highhandedness, and that's principally the reason the generals have gone down the road to reform.

[Lettow77]

Yeah I don't really get what exactly we would be fighting over except domination of Asia and they can have that as far as I am concerned.

The holy sacred commitment to defend the semisacred isle of Taiwan!

[Valmy]

The holy sacred commitment to defend the semisacred isle of Taiwan!

If the precedent of Hong Kong and Macau are indications I do not really think we have much to fear.

[Ideologue]

Got a link?

www.nukestrat.com/china/Book-173-196.pdf

I like my headline better: "China playing, and losing, zero-sum marriage game with itself."

Eight years now.

[Ideologue]

So beyond the predictable nuke-em-all suggestions and variations, what do you guys think the likely trajectory of China-US relations in the next little while is?

Growing awareness that their use of slave labor, while initially beneficial, harms us; a revival of the truth that we are not free, as long as slavery exists; and more practically, that to compete with slaves we must work as slaves ourselves.

What are the reasonable actions either side should take? What's the best possible, not-unrealistic development and what needs to happen for it to come to pass?

Great big tariffs.  Embargo.  Collapse of PRChina upon itself.  We don't have to do anything, but we can hasten their system's downfall, and the replacement thereof with a better one.  Although the demographic crisis cannot be solved externally or internally except by war, time, or serious cultural change.

Personally I think the most likely trajectory is one of increased tension, but I'm hoping it's one that ends up more along the lines of the Great Power conflicts in the later part of the Victorian age. So lots of diplomatic posturing, protestations of good intentions combined with behind the scenes cloak and dagger stuff, and general jockeying for position. It'll make for great fiction, as any tragedies are mostly on the individual or community scale rather than global. Of course, it runs the risk of triggering a worst case scenario, which is large scale armed conflict.

I don't think it's a given that China manages to keep a lid on all its internal problems, the two biggest being corruption and a poor conflict resolution process for internal conflict (ethnic, class and economic). It's not far-fetched that China tears itself apart over the next couple of decades, though I think it's less than 50%...

100%.  The demographic problem is like dynamite.  Add to that the shocking class and regional divisions, the ungodly corruption that will prevent any reform, increasing external hostility toward the PRC, and the Chinese penchant for letting things get so desperate that millions will rise in a bloody if usually unwinnable revolt at least once per century, and I don't see them surviving to 2020 in their present form; 2030 at the outside.

We can hasten that.  And maybe this time they'll turn better.  The RoChinese have shown that Chinese liberal democracy is feasible.

but the chance is high enough that it wouldn't be surprising either.

Want to make it interesting?

As for the US... I'm a bit worried about the rise of the unreasonable right and what it's doing to to the country's ability to deal with the world. None of the US' problems seem unsurmountable, but sometimes I wonder whether the system is as dysfunctional as it occasionally seems. Maybe I'm just reading too much into election time posturing, but I do wonder how much actual policymaking is influenced by that. Ultimately, like China, I think the US' position depends on getting its own house in order. So I guess my question is, how big are the US' internal problems really, and are they fixable? If they aren't, I think China makes a very convenient external enemy.

I dunno.  Isn't an enemy that you can't profitably engage without getting a little bit crazy more convenient than one that will bog you down with ten years of occupation.  Also, it's a fair fight this time, so maybe it'll seem less like naked imperialism/as if we're picking on the kid with glasses, which I think is what drove a lot of the anti-war sentiment elsewhere.

In the end, then, I think the biggest risk comes if both the US and China responds to internal stresses by encouraging nationalistic focus on each other to divert attention away from their respective problems. How likely is that?

Considering that China is a major source of internal stress on the U.S., such a response is both likely, and correct.

[Monoriu]

I think Chinese mistrust of the US is much greater than the reverse.  Fundamentally, the Chinese leadership believes that the US is trying to overthrow the communist regime through subversion, Arab Spring style.  Therefore, US-China relations is not a zero-sum game - it is a matter of life and death.  Human rights, Tibet, Tinanmen, Falung Gong are all excuses and smokescreens aimed at regime change.  That fear is, I think, exaggerated but not entirely unjustified.  The communist regime is fragile and they know it.  The ultimate goal of Chinese foreign policy is therefore self-preservation.