Instead of saying China has taken primacy over the US in 2020 - or even started that process - it's more accurate to say that 2020 marks the start of multipolarity's return to global politics
The US still has a plurality of the world's "critical bottleneck" technologies, supremacy in the maritime and orbital commons, financial centrality, and a global media nexus
3/
I've said this again and again: the road to 'Hong Kong democracy' runs through earning Beijing's trust, not international sympathy. Only when China's core constituents view Hong Kong democrats as a loyal advocates of their perspectives will HK dems ever have relevance
Unfortunately, HK dems adopted a xenophobic and Anti-China stance from day 1. They bound, gagged, and tortured a Global Times reporter, burned a man alive, and killed another with a brick, while looting businesses perceived as pro-China. They dug their own graves
2/
Now, international sympathy is all that they have. They had protectors in the Chinese system, but those protectors have all abandoned them. By exiling themselves from China's political scene, they've consigned themselves to being eliminated as a political force...
3/
ICYMI, Matt Pottinger commissioned a 30,000 word screed to cover up his failure to contain COVID in the US. This was the most hagiographic piece of journalistic fiction I read in 2020. It’s as accurate as the score in a round of golf with Kim Jong-Il 1/ newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…
Here’s a brief summary to save you some eye bleach: “Me, my brother, and my wife did the best we could. The rest of the administration, state and local governments, corporate America, and the US people failed.” 2/
“Depending on whether the COVID response is portrayed positively or not, I either heroically led – or was just a powerless pawn on – the COVID Interagency Task Force” 3/
Basically, I really don't get why he thinks that opening up trade with Europe (and giving EU firms opportunities to scale in the Chinese market) means China loses something
2/
EU MNCs growing in China's mkt is good for both the EU and China, for two reasons:
A) Relative to US MNCs, EU MNCs are more complementary to Chinese firms
B) Localized EU MNCs compete for Chinese workers and customers, upgrading productivity and the 'standard of demand'
3/