[HN Gopher] WSJ: 'Xi Has Spent Decades Preparing for a Cold War ...
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       WSJ: 'Xi Has Spent Decades Preparing for a Cold War with the U.S.'
        
       Author : MilnerRoute
       Score  : 17 points
       Date   : 2025-07-05 17:33 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.msn.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.msn.com)
        
       | jauntywundrkind wrote:
       | Related, China also speaking of a strong desire to keep the war
       | in Ukraine ongoing, as distraction for the world & the US.
       | https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/07/04/europe/china-ukraine-eu-w...
       | 
       | Just feels like China has very little to do in this cold war
       | right now. The US just funded a massive war against itself, that
       | is absolutely going to suck up fantastic resources & deeply
       | deeply weaken our nation.
        
       | dumbledoren wrote:
       | Could that be because the US think tanks and establishment
       | mouthpieces published papers on how the US needed to destroy
       | China to prevent it from becoming an economic competitor decades
       | ago, and then started appointing people to the State Dept. to
       | implement that plan?
        
       | AngryData wrote:
       | China isn't dumb, they saw what the US did to the USSR and anyone
       | who else who was even the smallest possible threat to the US. And
       | they knew how big of an actual potential threat they would become
       | as they industrialized and hollowed out US manufacturing. And I
       | think it is the right move on their part, surpass the US
       | economically, let the US continuously drain its resources across
       | the globe, and when the US is under pressure and decides China
       | has too much control it will be too late and they can just starve
       | the US out economically. The worst thing that can happen at this
       | point to China is the US actually does build back a broad local
       | manufacturing sector and reduces imports, but that still leaves
       | China with a far larger domestic market. Every other potential
       | outcome has China sitting in an even better position.
        
         | lvl155 wrote:
         | What did they do to the USSR? They collapsed all on their own.
         | If China were on its way up, people will flock there to find
         | opportunities (just as they did briefly following the financial
         | crisis) but the exact opposite is happening. China had its shot
         | but they timed it poorly.
        
           | AngryData wrote:
           | Besides the repeated sanctions and embargos, propaganda,
           | proxy wars, and military dick waving contests?
           | 
           | I don't know how you can believe China is on anything except
           | an upward trend right now. Many countries won't even let
           | people buy Chinese cars because they are so far ahead of
           | everyone else in cost and manufacturing efficiency and I
           | don't know any industry where China can't match foreign
           | companies in and compete against.
           | 
           | They are in a prime position right now in my opinion. All of
           | their industries have major players in cutting edge
           | technology, yet they still have more population to modernize
           | and sell to domestically, and they supply half the world's
           | manufacturing needs and do work in basically every sector.
           | They have tons of foreign investments into infrastructure and
           | mineral extraction to keep feeding themselves raw materials,
           | they have all the processing equipment to convert raw
           | materials into base materials, they have all the
           | manufacturing to turn those base materials into pretty much
           | any goods they want or need. They have highly educated people
           | and education programs and schools, a robust government, a
           | domestic population still fairly far away from dropping off a
           | cliff like every western nation, they have a strong enough
           | military to be secure against basically any nation outside of
           | global nuclear war, and a populous that broadly supports
           | their government. Outside of multiple chartoonish sized
           | blunders I don't see any path for the near future that
           | doesn't result in Chinese economic growth and increased
           | global positioning and power.
        
         | kashunstva wrote:
         | > as they industrialized and hollowed out US manufacturing
         | 
         | Just to be clear about cause and effect - during the long
         | period of globalization, the U.S. chose to off-shore
         | manufacturing, trading high availability/low cost for domestic
         | production. Off course, China has been an active participant in
         | that process; but the U.S. could have chosen otherwise. Much of
         | the rhetoric from the current administration's leader in the
         | U.S. implies that the U.S. has been victimized unwittingly by
         | the process, which of course is entirely unfounded.
        
       | akomtu wrote:
       | It's not really a revelation that war machine #1 has spent
       | decades preparing for a war with war machine #2. That's the
       | entire point of their existence: waging wars and preparing for
       | wars.
        
       | animitronix wrote:
       | lol whatever, China's screwed
        
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       (page generated 2025-07-05 23:02 UTC)