> Part of what makes the world today frustrating is both America and China are squandering their advantages in remarkably-similar ways, with each regime’s defenders speaking almost identically.

Personalist rule be personalist. Also glad to see you also appear to recognize our "Wolf Warrior" moment.

Yes, but the real question is if Reagan still would have pushed as hard for financialization and deindustrialization if he understood that he was ultimately selling American industry to communists.

I think he would have. I think he hated American labor more than he hated foreign communists. If his head were still around in a Futurama Jar to comment on the matter, I think he would be blaming American workers for the consequences of his own policies.

If China gets bogged down in Taiwan

The odds of them losing militarily are virtually nil. They could face an insurgency, but there isn't a whole lot of rural Taiwan for insurgents to vanish into and occupying cities is a lot easier absent language and cultural barriers. The could be isolated politically and economically, but realistically China's territorial claim on Taiwan is on far firmer legal and historical ground than many other territorial disputes (eg their control over Tibet).

I don't see the US involving itself directly. What are they going to do, counter-blockade? Start a naval shooting war with a full-on nuclear power on the other side of the world? I don't see Japan backing that either, despite their natural anxiety over the vulnerability of the Ryukyu islands. Support for US bases in Okinawa is ambivalent at best, and while Japan is surely not thrilled about Chinese regional hegemony it's also a reality they've dealt with for thousands of years.

> If China gets bogged down in Taiwan...

Look at the geography. Taiwan is a long, narrow island. All the important parts are in a narrow plain on the west side, facing China. There's only about 20km of depth from the sea.

The war in Ukraine is like fighting over Iowa, one farm at a time. Taiwan is not like that.

Although I agree the space program lost steam, I'd still count the Mir space station (1985) and Buran space shuttle (1988) to both be ambitious achievements.

There's a question as to whether China's surplus capability is enough to overflow the deprivation that a space program might suffer in a chaos Taiwan scenario.

Their resources and capabilities are obviously substantial and sustained (not going anywhere). The USSR had only a few patches of sustained serious economic output, the rest of the time was rolling from one disaster to another, one deprivation after another.

It seems entirely plausible that China getting bogged down in Taiwan wouldn't be enough to deprive them of a run to the Moon. The US was able to sustain NASA during Iraq-Afghanistan, and go to the Moon during the Vietnam War (plus cultural chaos).

That said, China isn't going to get bogged down in Taiwan. It's going to unfortunately be easier than most are imagining. China will ultimately regret not moving on the island sooner when they see how easy it's going to be to take it and how weak the US response will be (the US can't sustain a stand-off with China in that region for more than a few weeks before folding, unless it's willing to go to full war mode economically (which it's not)).

All frontline experience is valuable. It reminds the leader that in war, real people, people on your own side, people that you know, people that you will miss, will die.

Yeah but the question of stability was relative to the Soviets. The US has a good amount of instability as well, and has been hemorrhaging scientists lately.

So if the argument is that sacking a top general implies that China is too unstable to prevail in a future space race I don’t buy it.

Except generals get sacked all the time in actual wartime conditions, it's not even clear why this particular instance is notable.

China isn't in wartime, it is in a build up phase and there's perfectly good reasons to dismiss underperforming generals.

Which isn't to say that's what happened here, but China sacking a general as a data point doesn't mean anything without appropriate context.

He's doing a better job than Zhao Ziyang, that's for sure.

Yep, China was on a massive and insane growth trajectory prior to Xi. Xi's policies and constant banging of war drums at Taiwan's door has cost China massively in terms of foreign investment and even knowledge transfer opportunities (by the ever-gullible West).

> Look at where America is today. Both are richer than they’ve ever been. More militarily potent than ever.

just don't look at the first derivative vs china

Not that I disagree, but I’m curious how you define national interests.

> Where could China have been today if it started opening up decades earlier?

Or without Mao being a trash fire of a leader. (Flip side: where would they be without Deng or Zemin, or others in the CCP who put nation above personal interest? The folks Xi is killing because they threaten his personal interests.)

The US is not an autocracy, is a mix between a plutocracy and a gerontocracy.

> if you are American and still talk all this shit about China being a dictatorship and authoritarian this and “purge” that, I wish you would honestly shut the fuck up. Really. You are in no position to have an informed opinion on this because all of your information is force fed

Bit defensive there, eh?

China is an autocracy and Xi is acting in the predictably self-destructive ways a dictator does. The U.S. is heading down that same path, with Trump practically mimicking Xi. N = 2 doesn’t weaken an argument. And folks who lived through the Nazis saying they see similar veins today doesn’t undermine their credibility.

(The hilarity of it is if you take your comment and replace China and America with partisan or pro-American coding, you could pop it out of Hegseth’s office and it would be right at home. Your comment almost seals the point that Xi is all the problems of MAGA, except polling China instead.)

Right, and everyone else has the right to an opinion on it. The point seemingly being made above is Trump's swingeing cuts seem to be driven more by ideology than administrative efficiency. Xi's dismissal of his top general (which seems to be equivalent to sacking the Secretary of Defense or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff) is perplexing due to the opacity, but it doesn't seem to be indicative of any bigger or broader trend.

Guess it works that way in China too...

> Trump was elected by the people of the United States. Twice. Soundly. Not a dictator

Trump is not a dictator, but not because he was elected, but because of our courts and federal system (and theoretically Congress).