Thread by @BaldingsWorld

The Foreign Affairs piece on Xi's New World Order: Can China Remake the International System? is finally moving in the right direction but Galaxy Brains have a long long way to fully grasp the problem and understand how to respond to it. Follow me a second 1/n

The piece lays out very realistically how China is changing the world for the worse if you believe in democratic liberalism. There are three problems with the piece. First, China already has REMADE the international system. That is fait accompli. The piece does not go far 2/n

Enough recognizing how cooked the frog is. The UN, WHO, WTO, on and on are under effective Chinese control and this was the result of work that started decades ago, not a year or two ago. Second, this same exact piece could have been written two years ago and except updating 3/n

Specific points would be the same exact piece. Why do I say two years ago? Two years a professor who is now in the Biden administration planning how to deal with China wrote how China was not out to export its system or revise the international system or order. This leads to 4/n

The last point. Third, there is no plan or interest here or else where for sustained action to challenge and confront China. I viewed Trump as the first step a down payment if you will on moving on China. Make no mistake it was imperfect but my biggest critique was that they 5/n

Did not go big ENOUGH against China. Oddly, many of Biden's biggest supporters said the same exact thing. They were the real China hawks, we are better suited to challenge China. We are in the midst of an ongoing quiet roll back of US policies on China. At the same time 6/n

we have added Chinese companies to the entity list, we are handing out waivers for those same EXACT companies to actually code a USG backed system for 5G. At the same time we are diplomatically boycotting Beijing Olympics, the Biden administration is lobbying to keep 7/n

Uyghur forced labor. On and on and on. There is lots of public symbolism but behind the scenes the policies and tools needed to challenge China are being hollowed out. On and on and on. So why does this matter? Two reasons. I do not want to even entertain military conflict 8/n

So what we need is to raise pressure on China across the board. Turn the pressure up little by little. China is not a competitor. China is an adversary. Period. Second, I am a firm believer that most decisions especially in government do not have immediate effect but 9/n

Start showing up 1-3 years later. As business leaders tell you, if you have a good year, its normally because of things you started the year or two before not because you woke up this year and were smarter. Trump laid a good table for the Biden people to take over 10/n

In that there was a lot of good material to push the issues, leverage created, and areas to take advantage of. At best we are doing nothing more than standing still for the past year. At worst, we are looking at a moderate roll back with no urgency or interest in pushing 11/n

China and other authoritarians like Russia or Iran. The reality is Galaxy Brains remain years behind the reality of what needs to happen and policies that need to be enacted now to create a better environment for the US to push 1-3 years in the future. Done.