Senior Analyst for Global Macro-Geopolitics, @EurasiaGroup | BOOK: "America's Great-Power Opportunity" (Polity, 2022)
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Dec 28, 2023 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD: Here are ten pieces published this year that clarified my thinking on China’s economic development and foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and cross-Strait tensions.
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#1: “Transcript: @ezraklein Interviews @yuenyuenang,” New York Times (January 24, 2023)
THREAD: One of America's foremost foreign policy imperatives is to rightsize the competitive challenge that China poses, avoiding both complacence and consternation.
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Given how much attention the new House Select Committee's work has received and will continue to generate, it has a unique and compelling opportunity to advance fresh thinking on a number of questions.
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Feb 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
THREAD: @dhpierson warns that "a China aligned with Russia would be a far more daunting adversary to the United States should the world's two superpowers ever come to blows."
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Zbigniew Brzezinski observed in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard" that "the most dangerous scenario would be...an 'antihegemonic' coalition united...by complementary grievances." He envisioned that "China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower" (p. 55).
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Feb 22, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD: Here are a few reflections on the panels that I attended and the conversations that I had at last week's @MunSecConf.
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#1: Russia's invasion of Ukraine makes "Westlessness" (the theme of the MSC's 2020 report) seem like a distant phenomenon—NATO and the EU are newly invigorated—and talk of systemic U.S. decline isn't as prevalent as it was before the Biden administration took office.
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Mar 9, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
THREAD: I'm pleased to share that my book "America's Great-Power Opportunity" is now available for preorder.
@politybooks will publish it in the UK on April 29th and elsewhere on July 5th.
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"Great power competition and disputes between wealthy and low-income nations will threaten progress on the collective action that will be needed to meet global goals for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions" (p. 5).
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Jan 24, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
THREAD: Fears over crises involving Ukraine and Taiwan have elicited a new wave of commentary on America's seeming weakness, similar to that which followed Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Here are a few scattered reactions.
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First, beyond overstating Washington's agency and understating that of its competitors, the charge of U.S. weakness discounts the number of serious strategic setbacks that the United States was unable to forestall even when its relative power was far greater.
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Dec 23, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
THREAD: @hallbenjamin reports that "[n]egotiators on the EU side say China made a series of concessions in recent weeks that would have been unthinkable a few months ago and Brussels wants to capitalise on Beijing's sudden eagerness to cut a deal."
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ft.com/content/add9a1…
An agreement would likely "fall well short of European business groups' demands that the EU and China enshrine the notion of reciprocity in their investment relationship and provide a high level of protection for investors and their investments."
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Oct 18, 2020 • 21 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD: Per an earlier tweet, I wanted to share some questions about great-power competition (GPC) that were inspired by this rich set of responses.
THREAD: This illuminating piece by @davelawder affirms the need for deep dives that explore what "decoupling" between the United States and China would mean in practical terms and how, if at all, it'd be achieved.
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Despite the growing frequency with which the term is used, it's not often defined beyond broad brushstrokes, if at all.
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Apr 19, 2020 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
THREAD: Many observers have ventured that America's response to the coronavirus pandemic could streamline China's path to replacing the United States as the world's preeminent power.
It's important, though, to assess both Beijing's capacity and its willingness to do so.
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Beyond confronting a poor demographic outlook and an increasingly inefficient growth model, China is surrounded by highly capable democracies, has only transactional partners, and confronts growing global disquiet.
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Apr 10, 2020 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD: The United States and China are both incurring significant reputational damage, albeit for different reasons.
Middle powers such as Taiwan and South Korea, by contrast, continue to be exemplars for the rest of the world.
A U.S.-China power transition seems unlikely, for while Washington is in relative decline, it maintains significant strengths; and while Beijing has undergone an extraordinary resurgence, it possesses critical liabilities.
THREAD: I contributed an essay to the new issue of @TWQgw that weaves together several thoughts I've been trying to develop on formulating a more sustainable U.S. approach to China, and I wanted to outline them in this thread.
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The piece is part of a package, "Decoupling Global Order?", that features an essay by @Joe_Nye and another by @AaronFriedberg and Charles Boustany.
I'm very grateful to @atjlennon for helping me refine my thinking and for permitting me to flesh out my thoughts at length.
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Mar 15, 2020 • 25 tweets • 11 min read
THREAD: Here are some books I'm looking forward to reading over the coming months, arranged in ascending chronological order:
@CooleyOnEurasia and @dhnexon, "Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order" (4/1)
THREAD: Question for the Twitterverse: what major reports have been published in the past year or so that aim to articulate a new U.S. strategy towards China?
Here are the ones I have on my list so far:
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.@elyratner et al., "Rising to the China Challenge: Renewing American Competitiveness in the Indo-Pacific" (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2020)
THREAD: The 2017 national security strategy (NSS) cites "[t]hree main sets of challengers...[that] are actively competing against the United States and our allies and partners".
Set 1: China, Russia
Set 2: Iran, North Korea
Set 3: (Primarily) Jihadist terrorist groups
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Taking stock of ongoing trends as well as developments of this year (it's amazing how much can happen in just one week...) leads to some sobering conclusions.
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Dec 4, 2019 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD: Mel Leffler's new piece for @TheAtlantic is probably the most compelling short-form rejoinder I've seen to the conclusion that contemporary tensions between the United States and China amount or are akin to a new Cold War.
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Another essential rebuttal, though a bit longer, is @OAWestad's essay in the September/October 2019 issue of @ForeignAffairs, "The Sources of Chinese Conduct: Are Washington and Beijing Fighting a New Cold War?"
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