OK, that’s unexpectedly lucid. I’m tired of China-mongering, and it’s good to see Biden is being briefed by people who understand the region.
After this, I’m kind of getting interested in voting for Biden again. That debate can’t come soon enough.
The Pendulum Swings
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m not interested in voting for Biden but I do think he’s wildly overhated.
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“I’m tired of China-mongering”
If you’ve been following China economically like I have (very casually but from China watchers who know how things there work what to look for) the economy is total crap and only going to get worse.
The ‘rules based order’ or ‘maritime empire’ is broadly (and imperfectly) designed to discourage dictatorships since they depend on the movement of foreign capital which tends to shy away from systems where it’s liable to be nationalized or simply stolen. So stability (rather than democracy per se) is rewarded and crazy mood swings are discouraged.
The thinking was that the wealth offered by that system would be a sufficient enticement to encourage more stable governments.
Unfortunately in the case of China (and russia) simply holding onto power turned out to be more important than wealth and Xi has devoted about 95% of his energies on staying in power and the peasants can eat dirt of starve as far as he cares.
China’s economic moment is over for the time being.
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‘maritime empire’
actually that should be ‘maritime order’ (was blanking on the term)
Sarah Paine contrasts the maritime order (win win when applied even moderately well) and ‘continental power’ (zero sum cutthroat order preferred by russia).
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