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Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
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3 Nov, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Hot take: China is scary precisely because it's so much like early 20th century America.
1. Coal-powered manufacturing-based industrial supremacy with ambitions to catch up in science

2. Disinterest in global politics but ambitions to dominate neighbors

3. Repression of minorities

4. Drive for homogeneity, jingoism, repression of press freedom
Not that this reflects particularly well on China.

The alternatives to America, 100 years ago, were Germany, Russia, Japan, and the British Empire. The alternatives to China today are far more benign.

Being a 1920 superpower in 2020 is...not a great thing to be.
Oh and China's staggering inequality is similar to Gilded Age America.

qz.com/1897668/china-…

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