I see a lot of commenters below quibble with the view that China is more responsible for the current situation.
I don’t really have an opinion on the subject, but I wonder if people truly comprehend how different China is politically. Chinas policies aren’t something that change every election. Chinese policy is completely insulated from public opinion. China is run by very smart people who have long term goals, and who aren’t going to be persuaded by good will. They want to win. It’s not personal.
I used to assume that the internet would result in the Chinese population becoming more western, but if anything it’s has allowed the Chinese government to have even more control.
China already views themselves as in a Cold War with us. And there is not going to be glasnost.
I would like to propose that our impulse to say "cold war 2" is a mistake. An understandable one, because it's got self-professed communists on one side and self-professed capitalists on the other.
I believe a far more appropriate comparison is the Anglo-German Rivalry of 1871-1917. Both because it takes a more pragmatic look at China's allegedly communist ideology, and because it implies that the more likely consequences are different.
In 1871, the German Empire united. This move shocked basically all of Europe, despite being clearly inevitable in hindsight. An entirely new power had burst forth on the world stage. It was huge, it was economically powerful due to sheer population size, and it had industrialized at an incredible rate. Moreover, it was politically unfree, and discontent with the global order, feeling that it was all a bunch of fancy rules designed to keep them down. Germany hated the international rules and set to work disregarding them as a show of strength.
Most concerned by this was the United Kingdom. Germany was a Heartland empire. Their wealth came from a massively industrial and highly populated continental heartland. The United Kingdom however was a Merchant Empire. Their wealth came from sea power, trade, and diplomacy, and they depended heavily on a system of rules in foreign affairs, and a balance of power, to make trade and politics predictable and stable. The United Kingdom saw in Germany a potentially rivalrous economic power, with no respect for the geopolitical order on which the United Kingdom depended, and held much less sympathy to them for their authoritarian government. They were terrified.
The two powers would express this rivalry through diplomatic posturing, mostly. But also through expressions of Economic and Military power. Proxy Wars and Puppet Regimes weren't so common, though imperialism and competing for economic influence in underdeveloped nations was extremely common. The most notable peaceful manifestation of this rivalry was the Dreadnought Race, an arms technology race between Germany and Britain to build the largest High Seas Fleet possible to protect or distrupt Britain's naval hegemony.
Does any of this at all sound familiar?
Perhaps most concerning is that Britain didn't actually believe war with Germany was all that plausible. They were too economically intertwined, despite the competition and rivalry. Yet, in 1914, Germany invaded a country that was explicitly under British protection, in an attempt to once again assert Germany's prestige on the world stage. The United Kingdom honored their agreement and intervened, and the ensuing years of conflict would end the rivalry decisively for the British, but at an incredible cost in human life. The Great War.
I do not believe that this war is inevitable. However I do believe that Germany invaded Belgium because they didn't think Britain would actually be willing to go to war with Germany. And Britain believed Germany wouldn't invade Belgium because they didn't think Germany would actually be willing to go to war with Britain. By discounting the very real danger of war, both sides behaved so callously as to allow the war to happen. I only hope we do not make the same error.
I love the comparison, but I think the German decision-making process is a bit oversimplified.
Most of the powers in the fateful run-up to WWI were in roughly the same position: They each had recently betrayed some ally or another in order to make a peace deal, and had resolved to not compromise when the next crisis came along, in order to demonstrate their commitment to their remaining allies.
It's not that they just "didn't think [the other guys] would go to war". It's that all their leaders had spent months and years steeling themselves and telling themselves, "Not again; not next time. Next time we will stand tall!".
If Ferdinand hadn't been assassinated, any other crisis could have sparked the powder keg just as easily. It would have taken at least a decade for the underlying problem of mutually antagonized dogged-determination to dissipate - for the power in the keg to dampen and wash away.
I think this is what's keeping America, and the West overall, from overtly backing Taiwan. We're all watching the horrors in Hong Kong, and we're telling ourselves, "Maybe we can let this one go", and there's already the impulse here for us to say "But not next time" - not to be accusatory, but you're voicing it yourself, in a way. But what's different now is that locking ourselves in on Taiwan makes a nuclear war that much more likely.
Now, to be fair, you're also not wrong that Britain and Germany underestimated each other. But that underestimation didn't come out of nowhere. Their leaders suffered from motivated reasoning: They *needed* the other side to capitulate, because they'd convinced themselves (probably rightly) they couldn't suffer the blowback of another capitulation, so they estimated that the other side would capitulate. When they didn't... well, maybe doubling down will work?
You're right about two outcomes:
If America underestimates China, it'll be because we don't want a nuclear war, and we motivatedly reasoned our way towards avoiding one.
If China underestimates America, it'll be because we didn't back Taiwan.
But those aren't the only two outcomes. America can overcommit itself to defending Taiwan. America can *wait* too long to commit to Taiwan. America can abandon Taiwan.
And plenty of bad or good things can happen based on any of those outcomes. I submit that it's a mistake to focus too much on just the two you've identified, and we should focus more on how we can better understand the game we're locked in.
And that's because there's all kinds of mistakes to make in every game! But if you don't even know what game you're playing, then it doesn't matter if you can call out the one or two big pitfalls in every game.
I worry that China policy will be in the hands of people who are more interested in private interests, and/or idealists rather than realists. In other words, fighting the wrong Cold War.
I don't get what's in it for China risking Cold War 2? As Noah said, they already benefit immensely from the current economic status quo, so why would they jeapordize it? Because they want to own Taiwan and a useless island outside of Japan THAT badly? China stands to most to lose.
That is another way to frame the contradiction at the core of Noah's article. China has little to lose if it refuses the US geopolitical pushback in East Asia. But China has the most to gain in pursuit of its policy of world export of capital in developing countries where the US (and Europe and Japan) have little to gain economically in competition - assuming they would have the capacity to compete.
When you say "the HK takeover" do you mean the one in 1997 or the one over the past few years? China did just fine with the one in 1997. It is far less clear what the net result of the current one is. It's not in any way obvious that it is a "win" for the Chinese government if they end the separate political system of Hong Kong while Hong Kong's economic significance drops. (If they end the separate political system of Hong Kong while its global economic significance remains the same or grows, then that *would* be a win. We just don't yet know the outcome.)
This seems to be a recurring trope in US foreign-policy circles post-2017: "We wanted to be China's friend but China chose antagonism". Its a nice-sounding platitude and i'm sure that foreign-policy/defense apparatchiks can expect to sell it to the American public with a good chance of success. The problem is that its largely self-serving nonsense which nobody outside of the US should be paying too much attention to.
The opinions/feelings of the Chinese and their experiences over the period 2000-2012 are apparently unnecessary. The very real concerns (floated under a pre-9/11 Bush regime) of Taiwan as an unsinkable aircraft carrier used to threaten South China are discounted out of hand (Not to say that they should be given Taiwan, but you can't dismiss the real geo-strategic quandaries). The distrust that Obama's much-hullabaloo'd 'Pivot' generated is again ignored. Especially given a) the wealth of Chinese literature that it generated and b) the fact that it came a good 1-2 years before the first real signs of Chinese assertiveness. Also, does noone (except maybe Tanner Greer) acknowledge just how nauseatingly condescending and hypocritical all that 'responsible stakeholder' crap must have sounded to the Chinese when the US was busy illegally bombing countries and torpedoing the world economy.
Forgive me, but I don't think the Chinese necessarily saw all this as a sign of 'friendship' and 'benign intentions'. America ultimately needed cheap manufacturing and a quiet Asia-Pacific whilst it got itself entangled into multiple wars and economic hardship. All this 'we wanted to be friends' post-facto malarkey is akin to shooting an arrow into a barn and painting a target around it. It may have actually existed 1990-2000, but in this century, its been little more than an ideological justification/legitimization for policy actions that the US had to undertake anyway.
Now, that's not to say that what China is doing in the SCS and Taiwan is great and we should all applaud them. But this Hollywood narrative of some grand geopolitical betrayal and a pending fightback is not something that non-Americans should be caring too much about.
How were there attitudes towards China 2000-2012? Remind me.
And using a country's neighbors as excuses just sounds stupid. By that logic, other nations should be running to station troops, missiles and jets in Venezuela, Cuba, and a host of other Latin American countries. The same logic holds.
Suck it up son - Your argument is nothing but a boilerplate US-centric response that most people will just scoff at.
I think all discussion of hypocrisy should be left out of this. One person being hypocritical doesn't absolve another of all moral responsibility. We can do what we can to try to hold each to account for their moral failings, even if that involves working with others who have moral failings of their own while doing so.
I'm not in anyway trying to absolve the Chinese of blame. That's not my intention and I've clearly stated that numerous times.
I agree in-so-far as I also don't think US hypocrisy should excuse China's recent high-handedness towards its Asian neighbours. I do think however that US hypocrisy should automatically remove any moral high-ground that the Americans might try to claim. But that's another debate.
What I am getting at is that from the Chinese view, America wasn't exactly looking like the non-threatening, gracious, predictable hegemonic patron/partner that today's US foreign-policy apparatchiks make it out to have been through the period 2000-2016. There was a hell of a lot that America did which made China uneasy, but all of these fears and signs of Chinese displeasure were dismissed out-of-hand as nothing more than Chinese insecurity stemming exclusively from the CCP's lack of political legitimacy and certainly nothing to do with American actions, words and intentions.
My second point is/was that whilst the 1st decade of post-cold war engagement may have had real intellectual backing from the literati and 'establishment', the 2000-2016 period saw China policy run on autopilot. Distractions and problems were simply far too many to contemplate opening a new front with China.
First, the communist party has been talking about the color revolution for decades. I don't understand why you guys seem to believe the regime suddenly changed its attitude after Xi. The only difference between Xi and other guys is that Xi has the support from Hu and Jiang to consolidate power and push a new agenda as the development enters a new era. Hu's attitude towards a lot of issues is very similar to Xi, except that Hu does not have power to push agenda like Xi.
Second, China has massively invested in renewable energy. In fact, China's electricity production share from renewable energy(excludes nuclear) is growing very fast in the past decades. In absolute terms, renewable energy electricity production in China is three times greater than that in the US. In relative share, China's share is 26% and the US is 20%. Also, China is trying very hard to move to EV in the near-decade. I don't understand why an American can blame China for not doing much about climate change. Read some scientific research instead of reading your English propaganda. By the way, China significantly contributes to lowering the price of solar panels and batteries. That is why China dominates the solar panel industry and plays a very important role in battery industry.
Third, PRC inherits South China Sea's claim from ROC. And US supports ROC‘s claim of the South China Sea in the good old days as the gift of the WWII victory. Generally speaking, ROC government aka the Taiwan government still claim the South China Sea and has several islands there. Same for the Diaoyu island(disputes with Japan). You seem to have no knowledge that both the governments in mainland and Taiwan make these claims.
I'm not "pro-(state capitalist) China", but one possible reason for China's move into either renewable energy or any other carbon-footprint-reducing industry is to capture the world market in that high tech frontier. Same with space exploration.
I didn't take the claim to be that *occupying* the islands is bad. I took the claim to be that *changing* the occupation of the islands is bad, unless all parties to the transfer agree.
I really don't know how to engage with this. I subscribed to your work because you bring some thoughtful and diverse perspectives to economics and cultural questions, but your China screeds are suffused with the same old tropes and talking points that Foggy Bottom peddles to all the stenographers.
Are you really trying to sell the idea that the US attitude to China "for decades" has been one of consistent, constructive engagement? And it was only Xi's arrival that sabotaged that? And Trump's trade war (and other bullshit) is a trifling footnote?
And as for the two countries' relative performance on climate change.... jeez
U.S. policy toward China was one of consistent engagement up until Trump, yes. And China benefitted massively -- absolutely enormously, to an unprecedented, country-altering degree -- from that engagement.
It was Trump's arrival that ended engagement, not Xi's arrival.
Trump's trade war was probably an inevitable shift, given the unilateral trade war that China had been waging for decades, which we excused and didn't respond to in the name of engagement. Trump's tariffs were stupid, and I'm still not sold on export controls, but CFIUS restrictions were inevitable and some kind of pushback against Chinese mercantilism was probably inevitable.
And China's emissions have continued to rise robustly while America's have declined in recent years. So that's worth thinking about.
Noah, does the fact that the world's most populous country, the hardest working and most diligent country - does the fact that China is becoming the biggest economy on earth bother you? I'd suggest you'd take an aspirin and have lie down. Breath in and out slowly. You can cope with China's rise. You just need to accept its happening. Be happy for the hundreds of millions of Chinese people who's lives are much better now. Reflect on the fact that the Chinese dealt with their minorities in a much more humane way than North Americans and Australians did and are doing to their indigenous peoples. I know that this may be confronting. You may need to see a therapist. But China has arrived and they've arrive peacefully. Far more peacefully than when the US was rampaging through the West. Far more peacefully than Japan terrorizing Asia. Far more peacefully than Britain, who went about colonizing the world and robbing from the natives. The Chinese don't wish the US any harm. They want you to improve your infrastructure. They want the US to focus on improving themselves rather than trying to destroy Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa. I know that the Western mindset is naturally egotistical and rather racist. But this disease can be overcome. It's just a matter of adjusting your perceptions of the world and the West's place in it. Hoping against hope that China fails will only frustrate and infuriate you. You'll keep pumping out articles like this, raging against China's progress. Seeing what China will achieve in the future will no doubt be perplexing for you. But with a bit of self reflection and honesty, I hope you can overcome this condition.
- "engagement" is doing some heavy lifting here. Was it consistent and constructive, as I asked above? You're tying to suggest so, but the facts are otherwise.
- Yes, it was Trump's arrival. Another fact that you did not make plain.
- "the unilateral trade war that China had been waging for decades" ?? Please do elaborate. (And if you do, please make sure you distinguish between actions in support of legitimate self interest and "stuff I don't agree with." Also include context about accepted norms and historical precedents in global trade policies among emerging nations.)
- China's emissions have indeed been rising. But once again, please consider some context. Emissions per capita, for instance. And the same historical precedents I mentioned above. And the relative strategic efforts to address the climate challenge that China and the US have been making in recent years.
Not buying it. "We tried engagement, remember?" Sounds like you are blaming China for our aggression. "But they were supposed to reform and didn't." Sorry, that doesn't cut it.
Also, everything under "China’s aggressive moves" is one sided to the point of dishonesty. There are many good Asian news sources that publish in English, and when you read them it is quite obvious Asian countries by and large want to solve their troubles with China on their own, and do not want unchecked aggression from the US foisted upon them. This sounds more like a case of white savior complex, they way described here.
No, the real issue is the US doesn't want any competitors to their hegemony, pure and simple. Doesn't matter who the competitor is or what they have done, those making the decisions here in the US will say and do anything to damage them.
Noah, as always I'm a fan of your writing and this is a very important topic that needs to be addressed.
I think part of the skepticism of the left (and not just the left I'm sure there are some moderate liberals, centrists, and heterodox conservatives) is the experience of the Iraq war.
I remember listening to liberal hawks on why and how we needed to go to war with Iraq and at the time I thought "I would have more confidence about this war if you mr. liberal war were in charge but this war will be waged by the Bush administration, not by you".
I think at least some people who are skeptical about a new cold war are at least open to Biden pursuing a rational foreign policy but are concerned about what a Trumpist and more broadly xenophobic and racist GOP will do with a cold war with China once they are back in office.
Defending Taiwan isn’t just about defending a democracy (although it certainly is that) or economic interests.
If China occupied Taiwan it would provide the Chinese navy with open access to the Pacific Ocean & improve their capacity to target important trade routes.
It would bring China in close proximity to islands which are territory of Japanese & The Phillipines, including those it claims as territory. This would undermine Japanese, South Korean & Filipino security in the long term.
It also would be a threat to Guam, an American territory.
It also would put Guam in range of Chinese missiles.
Taiwan is China, so occupation is the wrong term. Guam didn't choose to be American. Neither did Hawai'i. How democratic is that?
Yes Taiwan is strategically important. It is also China. The West wishes China did not exist.
The Philippines and Korea have issues with China, but they certainly don't think they will be colonised by them. Japan is a de facto American colony. If they were independent, they'd surely be far more interested in making up with China and benefiting from the massive opportunities there.
This comment reads like you're a paid CCP commenter. Perhaps that is uncharitable of me, but it feels to propaganda-y to be honest, along with some other comments in this thread.
Honestly, why do some people think that just because someone else doesn't think China is a threat, that they must be a paid CCP commenter? Deal with the arguments on their merits. To China hawks, Chinese "propaganda" is stating the facts of their incredible rise and competent governance. These facts are what anti-China commenters cannot come to terms with because in their ideological worldview, an Asian country can't be equal to a Western one. A communist governed Asian country is even worse. Well, reality tells a different story. How about all this wumao, China bot talk cease, and people actually have a look at what is going on in China
Because your comment was terrible. Saying "It is also China" is just factually incorrect wishful thinking. It's like me saying "I already am a Nobel prize winner". You also said "Japan is a de facto American colony", which is also factually incorrect. Similarly, saying "The West wishes China did not exist" is both incorrect and incendiary. So, I didn't engage with your comment because it didn't make good points because all its premises are wrong.
Perhaps saying the West China did not exist was provocative, but I'm sure the West would prefer a country the size of China was not as big and not as influential. Why is it that the West cannot fathom different governance models? Perhaps some self reflection is needed.
I stand by my comments on Japan. They house US military bases against the will of local residents. The independence of their foreign policy is also debatable. Japan are expected to fall into line in China containment policy and even participate in fighting wars against China, which is fraught given the history between the two countries. None of this is in Japan's interest. I completely stand by my comments about Japan's subservience to and dependence on the US.
It’s ridiculous to say Japan is an American colony or that they depend & are subservient to the US. How many trade disputes have they had over the years with the US?
The Japanese people mostly support American bases (although there is certainly local opposition in Okinawa) more so now with recent Chinese actions. Japan is allied with the US & house American bases today because it is in their interests.
Japan is a significant power with the world’s fourth largest navy.
The focus on the Cold War between America and China is myopic. It misses the fact that, in this time, authoritarianism and bellicose rhetoric are on the rise globally. Are we Chinese and Americans to proud to give credit to Modi's Hindu Nationalism or MBS' strongman crushing of the population in Yemen?
Seeing the local chinese influence operations in my European country, I am very sure there is a chinese influence behind those China-appeasement campaigns.
I would love having this mentioned in the article, China sees everything as a wepon, and influence ops have a effect/cost ratio out of charts.
"The main cause of Cold War 2 is not economic. Yes, Trump did start a trade war with China, and Biden is continuing that trade war. But China had for decades been engaging in mercantilist policies against the U.S. that were far more aggressive than anything Trump or Biden has done — mercantilism that is increasingly difficult to justify on the grounds of national development. So China really started that".
This statement is a mass of contradictions. Starting a trade war, is that not economic policy and an "economic cause"? Is not "mercantilism" an economic policy and "economic cause", regardless of "who started it"? More generally, how is it not possible that China's enormous and historically unprecedented economic expansion isn't the real cause of the angst of Americans from Noah Smith to Donald Trump?
That's not a celebration of China's economic achievements, capitalist and not "socialist" ones as should be made clear, but the citing of a historical fact.
The U.S. anti-capitalist Left is not to take sides in an inter-imperialist conflict between capitalist state powers. But that is exactly what Noah Smith is trying to drum the Left into: Taking sides. We saw what that led to in Germany in 1914. Catastrophe.
What he is saying is that the trade war and the mercantilism may be real things, but they are not the new cold war, and they aren't even causes of the new cold war. He is saying that the new cold war is an unrelated set of conflicts, often between China and its neighbors, not the economic policy of China and the US.
That then is a redefinition of "Cold War". I don't think the term then has any real meaning without the U.S. engaged on one side. And the trade war and the mercantilism (where here Smith was referring to China) clearly feed into an intensification of a "Cold War" as causes contributed by both sides. Otherwise it is "just" China bullying its neighbors, rather as the U.S. does (with much more vigor in the past) in Latin America. Nobody calls U.S. Latin American policy "Cold War".
This is one of the more misinformed articles I have seen, Noah.
Yes, China has been more aggressive lately around its own borders.
That's because up until 40 years ago, it was so weak that other countries could pursue their interests against China more or less at will.
The issue which neither you, nor the US State and Defense Departments nor the US Deep State ever go into is: what is legitimate sovereign self interest vs. meddling from far-afield outsiders?
Yes, China building artificial islands is dubious. But what about the rings of US bases surrounding China's ocean facing coastline?
Taiwan: more Janus lunacy. The US can fight a Civil War and suffer 1.2% wartime population deaths to pacify its secessionist Southern states but its ok for Ukraine, Taiwan, etc to go their own way. What about the US meddling in Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan?
Hrm, apologia for territorial aggression: which nation has 100+ bases all over the world and troops to match?
Was Taiwan a part of China prior to the Communist takeover - and is the present Communist government of China the legitimate government ruling over the nation and its people?
Noah, your stuff on China is pure copium. For people like you, China's rise was just not supposed to happen. Territorial aggression? Your kidding right? Why look at the speck in your neighbour's eye when you have a log in your own eye?
This is a very pro-China comment; but it's interesting to me to see what I assume is the Chinese perspective on this.
You express culture of resentment against historical victimization, saying that "[China] was so weak that other countries could...". It worries me, because that's a common justification for violence, and it's especially troubling since China is objectively now quite militarily powerful. Do you feel like China is justified in "taking back" things that were taken from it in the past? E.g. Taiwan or regional hegemony?
Why is it "pro-China" to understand that other nations have their own interests, too?
I never said that China's past history excused its present behavior any more than I said that the US' self appointed role as arbiter of "world justice" is acceptable either.
Yes, they could stop threatening the ICJ in The Hague, they could sign onto the 1982 Convention of the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC), they could keep agreements already made in Paris on climate, and with Iran on nukes and sanctions, they could start honoring in practice, international law on Palestine. That's likely the short list.
It is the first duty of citizens to hold their own governments responsible. That's because, as a U.S. citizen, you can't directly hold Beijing responsible as you are not a citizen of China. That's the basic fact of the matter. The rest is but opinion about other countries, which we can certainly argue and debate, but can't put into positive practice. That's the reality of a world system of multiple states - you can only have practical leverage in one country, or perhaps two for certain dual citizens.
> The US can fight a Civil War and suffer 1.2% wartime population deaths to pacify its secessionist Southern states but its ok for Ukraine, Taiwan, etc to go their own way. What about the US meddling in Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan?
I'm not sure what you mean by "can" here. You seem to be alleging that there is some set of people that agree with you that the US Civil War of the 1860s was about the same sort of separatism as the fall of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Civil War of the 1940s, and yet say that it was appropriate for the US to reconquer it's breakaway colonies, while it is inappropriate for Russia and China to reconquer their breakaway colonies after several decades of independence.
You also seem to be alleging that there are people that see US meddling in Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan in previous decades as the same sort of thing as external Chinese pressure against Vietnam, Philippines, and Japan right now, and yet think the former was acceptable and the latter was not.
I think most people see major differences between a war at the time of separatism and a war to reclaim a separatist region several decades later. And most people see a difference between taking sides in a domestic dispute in war-torn countries and putting external pressure on countries that are otherwise peaceful. And furthermore, a lot of commentators actually comment negatively on *both* historical US *and* contemporary Chinese "meddling" with Vietnam, *even though* the two are very different in character.
Most people think that it's not an "arbitrary quibble" to differentiate between waging war on a current breakaway province, and declaring war on a province that has been functionally independent for 70 years. But in any case, the people who don't think these differences matter usually agree that everyone involved has the right to self determination, so that both the US *and* China should allow their breakaway regions to split.
First of all, there is no active waging of war against Taiwan. Thus "most people's" thoughts on that - even if they are what you say they are - would not be relevant.
But more importantly - the US has flip flopped on self determination. It was fine for the breakup of Yugoslavia, but not ok for Ukraine. It was ok for the Kurds to form their own governments in Iraq and Syria but not ok for Crimea.
Thus it is also unclear what "agreement on the right to self determination" is.
I don't care what the US position is, or how hypocritical the US government is. We should expect every government to be hypocritical.
I care what is right, and in these cases I think it is not right to pressure an area that has been effectively autonomous for many decades to submit to another government.
Is there some principle that you want to hold to here? Or just a policy that no one should criticize the Chinese government policies on Taiwan?
Taiwan has been no more autonomous than any other US satrapy - it has been heavily economically subsidized by the US, both directly and indirectly, since the Chiang Kai Shek's Kuo-ming tang party and its supporters fled there.
Nor were they being supported out of altruism.
The principle that international order is based on, via the UN, is sovereignty. Does a nation have the right to make its own sovereign decisions within its own borders?
The US does not believe so when inconvenient - but likes to brandish R2P and similar policies when desired.
I see a lot of commenters below quibble with the view that China is more responsible for the current situation.
I don’t really have an opinion on the subject, but I wonder if people truly comprehend how different China is politically. Chinas policies aren’t something that change every election. Chinese policy is completely insulated from public opinion. China is run by very smart people who have long term goals, and who aren’t going to be persuaded by good will. They want to win. It’s not personal.
I used to assume that the internet would result in the Chinese population becoming more western, but if anything it’s has allowed the Chinese government to have even more control.
China already views themselves as in a Cold War with us. And there is not going to be glasnost.
I would like to propose that our impulse to say "cold war 2" is a mistake. An understandable one, because it's got self-professed communists on one side and self-professed capitalists on the other.
I believe a far more appropriate comparison is the Anglo-German Rivalry of 1871-1917. Both because it takes a more pragmatic look at China's allegedly communist ideology, and because it implies that the more likely consequences are different.
In 1871, the German Empire united. This move shocked basically all of Europe, despite being clearly inevitable in hindsight. An entirely new power had burst forth on the world stage. It was huge, it was economically powerful due to sheer population size, and it had industrialized at an incredible rate. Moreover, it was politically unfree, and discontent with the global order, feeling that it was all a bunch of fancy rules designed to keep them down. Germany hated the international rules and set to work disregarding them as a show of strength.
Most concerned by this was the United Kingdom. Germany was a Heartland empire. Their wealth came from a massively industrial and highly populated continental heartland. The United Kingdom however was a Merchant Empire. Their wealth came from sea power, trade, and diplomacy, and they depended heavily on a system of rules in foreign affairs, and a balance of power, to make trade and politics predictable and stable. The United Kingdom saw in Germany a potentially rivalrous economic power, with no respect for the geopolitical order on which the United Kingdom depended, and held much less sympathy to them for their authoritarian government. They were terrified.
The two powers would express this rivalry through diplomatic posturing, mostly. But also through expressions of Economic and Military power. Proxy Wars and Puppet Regimes weren't so common, though imperialism and competing for economic influence in underdeveloped nations was extremely common. The most notable peaceful manifestation of this rivalry was the Dreadnought Race, an arms technology race between Germany and Britain to build the largest High Seas Fleet possible to protect or distrupt Britain's naval hegemony.
Does any of this at all sound familiar?
Perhaps most concerning is that Britain didn't actually believe war with Germany was all that plausible. They were too economically intertwined, despite the competition and rivalry. Yet, in 1914, Germany invaded a country that was explicitly under British protection, in an attempt to once again assert Germany's prestige on the world stage. The United Kingdom honored their agreement and intervened, and the ensuing years of conflict would end the rivalry decisively for the British, but at an incredible cost in human life. The Great War.
I do not believe that this war is inevitable. However I do believe that Germany invaded Belgium because they didn't think Britain would actually be willing to go to war with Germany. And Britain believed Germany wouldn't invade Belgium because they didn't think Germany would actually be willing to go to war with Britain. By discounting the very real danger of war, both sides behaved so callously as to allow the war to happen. I only hope we do not make the same error.
I love the comparison, but I think the German decision-making process is a bit oversimplified.
Most of the powers in the fateful run-up to WWI were in roughly the same position: They each had recently betrayed some ally or another in order to make a peace deal, and had resolved to not compromise when the next crisis came along, in order to demonstrate their commitment to their remaining allies.
It's not that they just "didn't think [the other guys] would go to war". It's that all their leaders had spent months and years steeling themselves and telling themselves, "Not again; not next time. Next time we will stand tall!".
If Ferdinand hadn't been assassinated, any other crisis could have sparked the powder keg just as easily. It would have taken at least a decade for the underlying problem of mutually antagonized dogged-determination to dissipate - for the power in the keg to dampen and wash away.
I think this is what's keeping America, and the West overall, from overtly backing Taiwan. We're all watching the horrors in Hong Kong, and we're telling ourselves, "Maybe we can let this one go", and there's already the impulse here for us to say "But not next time" - not to be accusatory, but you're voicing it yourself, in a way. But what's different now is that locking ourselves in on Taiwan makes a nuclear war that much more likely.
Now, to be fair, you're also not wrong that Britain and Germany underestimated each other. But that underestimation didn't come out of nowhere. Their leaders suffered from motivated reasoning: They *needed* the other side to capitulate, because they'd convinced themselves (probably rightly) they couldn't suffer the blowback of another capitulation, so they estimated that the other side would capitulate. When they didn't... well, maybe doubling down will work?
You're right about two outcomes:
If America underestimates China, it'll be because we don't want a nuclear war, and we motivatedly reasoned our way towards avoiding one.
If China underestimates America, it'll be because we didn't back Taiwan.
But those aren't the only two outcomes. America can overcommit itself to defending Taiwan. America can *wait* too long to commit to Taiwan. America can abandon Taiwan.
And plenty of bad or good things can happen based on any of those outcomes. I submit that it's a mistake to focus too much on just the two you've identified, and we should focus more on how we can better understand the game we're locked in.
And that's because there's all kinds of mistakes to make in every game! But if you don't even know what game you're playing, then it doesn't matter if you can call out the one or two big pitfalls in every game.
I worry that China policy will be in the hands of people who are more interested in private interests, and/or idealists rather than realists. In other words, fighting the wrong Cold War.
It's definitely a worry.
"When we hang the capitalists, they'll sell us the rope to do it with."
I’m thinking of the private interests that promote things like “punitive” tariffs that actually only benefit them and no value in resolving conflict.
I’m thinking of FP idealists who support invading countries they perceive to be violating human rights.
I don't get what's in it for China risking Cold War 2? As Noah said, they already benefit immensely from the current economic status quo, so why would they jeapordize it? Because they want to own Taiwan and a useless island outside of Japan THAT badly? China stands to most to lose.
That is another way to frame the contradiction at the core of Noah's article. China has little to lose if it refuses the US geopolitical pushback in East Asia. But China has the most to gain in pursuit of its policy of world export of capital in developing countries where the US (and Europe and Japan) have little to gain economically in competition - assuming they would have the capacity to compete.
When you say "the HK takeover" do you mean the one in 1997 or the one over the past few years? China did just fine with the one in 1997. It is far less clear what the net result of the current one is. It's not in any way obvious that it is a "win" for the Chinese government if they end the separate political system of Hong Kong while Hong Kong's economic significance drops. (If they end the separate political system of Hong Kong while its global economic significance remains the same or grows, then that *would* be a win. We just don't yet know the outcome.)
This seems to be a recurring trope in US foreign-policy circles post-2017: "We wanted to be China's friend but China chose antagonism". Its a nice-sounding platitude and i'm sure that foreign-policy/defense apparatchiks can expect to sell it to the American public with a good chance of success. The problem is that its largely self-serving nonsense which nobody outside of the US should be paying too much attention to.
The opinions/feelings of the Chinese and their experiences over the period 2000-2012 are apparently unnecessary. The very real concerns (floated under a pre-9/11 Bush regime) of Taiwan as an unsinkable aircraft carrier used to threaten South China are discounted out of hand (Not to say that they should be given Taiwan, but you can't dismiss the real geo-strategic quandaries). The distrust that Obama's much-hullabaloo'd 'Pivot' generated is again ignored. Especially given a) the wealth of Chinese literature that it generated and b) the fact that it came a good 1-2 years before the first real signs of Chinese assertiveness. Also, does noone (except maybe Tanner Greer) acknowledge just how nauseatingly condescending and hypocritical all that 'responsible stakeholder' crap must have sounded to the Chinese when the US was busy illegally bombing countries and torpedoing the world economy.
Forgive me, but I don't think the Chinese necessarily saw all this as a sign of 'friendship' and 'benign intentions'. America ultimately needed cheap manufacturing and a quiet Asia-Pacific whilst it got itself entangled into multiple wars and economic hardship. All this 'we wanted to be friends' post-facto malarkey is akin to shooting an arrow into a barn and painting a target around it. It may have actually existed 1990-2000, but in this century, its been little more than an ideological justification/legitimization for policy actions that the US had to undertake anyway.
Now, that's not to say that what China is doing in the SCS and Taiwan is great and we should all applaud them. But this Hollywood narrative of some grand geopolitical betrayal and a pending fightback is not something that non-Americans should be caring too much about.
This completely ignores China's neighbors and their attitudes toward China. Try again!
How were there attitudes towards China 2000-2012? Remind me.
And using a country's neighbors as excuses just sounds stupid. By that logic, other nations should be running to station troops, missiles and jets in Venezuela, Cuba, and a host of other Latin American countries. The same logic holds.
Suck it up son - Your argument is nothing but a boilerplate US-centric response that most people will just scoff at.
It addresses issues that were ignored in the original article, and are once again being dismissed
I think all discussion of hypocrisy should be left out of this. One person being hypocritical doesn't absolve another of all moral responsibility. We can do what we can to try to hold each to account for their moral failings, even if that involves working with others who have moral failings of their own while doing so.
I'm not in anyway trying to absolve the Chinese of blame. That's not my intention and I've clearly stated that numerous times.
I agree in-so-far as I also don't think US hypocrisy should excuse China's recent high-handedness towards its Asian neighbours. I do think however that US hypocrisy should automatically remove any moral high-ground that the Americans might try to claim. But that's another debate.
What I am getting at is that from the Chinese view, America wasn't exactly looking like the non-threatening, gracious, predictable hegemonic patron/partner that today's US foreign-policy apparatchiks make it out to have been through the period 2000-2016. There was a hell of a lot that America did which made China uneasy, but all of these fears and signs of Chinese displeasure were dismissed out-of-hand as nothing more than Chinese insecurity stemming exclusively from the CCP's lack of political legitimacy and certainly nothing to do with American actions, words and intentions.
My second point is/was that whilst the 1st decade of post-cold war engagement may have had real intellectual backing from the literati and 'establishment', the 2000-2016 period saw China policy run on autopilot. Distractions and problems were simply far too many to contemplate opening a new front with China.
So many mistakes.
First, the communist party has been talking about the color revolution for decades. I don't understand why you guys seem to believe the regime suddenly changed its attitude after Xi. The only difference between Xi and other guys is that Xi has the support from Hu and Jiang to consolidate power and push a new agenda as the development enters a new era. Hu's attitude towards a lot of issues is very similar to Xi, except that Hu does not have power to push agenda like Xi.
Second, China has massively invested in renewable energy. In fact, China's electricity production share from renewable energy(excludes nuclear) is growing very fast in the past decades. In absolute terms, renewable energy electricity production in China is three times greater than that in the US. In relative share, China's share is 26% and the US is 20%. Also, China is trying very hard to move to EV in the near-decade. I don't understand why an American can blame China for not doing much about climate change. Read some scientific research instead of reading your English propaganda. By the way, China significantly contributes to lowering the price of solar panels and batteries. That is why China dominates the solar panel industry and plays a very important role in battery industry.
Third, PRC inherits South China Sea's claim from ROC. And US supports ROC‘s claim of the South China Sea in the good old days as the gift of the WWII victory. Generally speaking, ROC government aka the Taiwan government still claim the South China Sea and has several islands there. Same for the Diaoyu island(disputes with Japan). You seem to have no knowledge that both the governments in mainland and Taiwan make these claims.
I'm not "pro-(state capitalist) China", but one possible reason for China's move into either renewable energy or any other carbon-footprint-reducing industry is to capture the world market in that high tech frontier. Same with space exploration.
I didn't take the claim to be that *occupying* the islands is bad. I took the claim to be that *changing* the occupation of the islands is bad, unless all parties to the transfer agree.
nice post. Imagine both sides-ing genocide. sad
Excellent. Avoidance of Chamberlainism again achieved.
I really don't know how to engage with this. I subscribed to your work because you bring some thoughtful and diverse perspectives to economics and cultural questions, but your China screeds are suffused with the same old tropes and talking points that Foggy Bottom peddles to all the stenographers.
Are you really trying to sell the idea that the US attitude to China "for decades" has been one of consistent, constructive engagement? And it was only Xi's arrival that sabotaged that? And Trump's trade war (and other bullshit) is a trifling footnote?
And as for the two countries' relative performance on climate change.... jeez
U.S. policy toward China was one of consistent engagement up until Trump, yes. And China benefitted massively -- absolutely enormously, to an unprecedented, country-altering degree -- from that engagement.
It was Trump's arrival that ended engagement, not Xi's arrival.
Trump's trade war was probably an inevitable shift, given the unilateral trade war that China had been waging for decades, which we excused and didn't respond to in the name of engagement. Trump's tariffs were stupid, and I'm still not sold on export controls, but CFIUS restrictions were inevitable and some kind of pushback against Chinese mercantilism was probably inevitable.
And China's emissions have continued to rise robustly while America's have declined in recent years. So that's worth thinking about.
Noah, does the fact that the world's most populous country, the hardest working and most diligent country - does the fact that China is becoming the biggest economy on earth bother you? I'd suggest you'd take an aspirin and have lie down. Breath in and out slowly. You can cope with China's rise. You just need to accept its happening. Be happy for the hundreds of millions of Chinese people who's lives are much better now. Reflect on the fact that the Chinese dealt with their minorities in a much more humane way than North Americans and Australians did and are doing to their indigenous peoples. I know that this may be confronting. You may need to see a therapist. But China has arrived and they've arrive peacefully. Far more peacefully than when the US was rampaging through the West. Far more peacefully than Japan terrorizing Asia. Far more peacefully than Britain, who went about colonizing the world and robbing from the natives. The Chinese don't wish the US any harm. They want you to improve your infrastructure. They want the US to focus on improving themselves rather than trying to destroy Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa. I know that the Western mindset is naturally egotistical and rather racist. But this disease can be overcome. It's just a matter of adjusting your perceptions of the world and the West's place in it. Hoping against hope that China fails will only frustrate and infuriate you. You'll keep pumping out articles like this, raging against China's progress. Seeing what China will achieve in the future will no doubt be perplexing for you. But with a bit of self reflection and honesty, I hope you can overcome this condition.
- "engagement" is doing some heavy lifting here. Was it consistent and constructive, as I asked above? You're tying to suggest so, but the facts are otherwise.
- Yes, it was Trump's arrival. Another fact that you did not make plain.
- "the unilateral trade war that China had been waging for decades" ?? Please do elaborate. (And if you do, please make sure you distinguish between actions in support of legitimate self interest and "stuff I don't agree with." Also include context about accepted norms and historical precedents in global trade policies among emerging nations.)
- China's emissions have indeed been rising. But once again, please consider some context. Emissions per capita, for instance. And the same historical precedents I mentioned above. And the relative strategic efforts to address the climate challenge that China and the US have been making in recent years.
Not buying it. "We tried engagement, remember?" Sounds like you are blaming China for our aggression. "But they were supposed to reform and didn't." Sorry, that doesn't cut it.
Also, everything under "China’s aggressive moves" is one sided to the point of dishonesty. There are many good Asian news sources that publish in English, and when you read them it is quite obvious Asian countries by and large want to solve their troubles with China on their own, and do not want unchecked aggression from the US foisted upon them. This sounds more like a case of white savior complex, they way described here.
No, the real issue is the US doesn't want any competitors to their hegemony, pure and simple. Doesn't matter who the competitor is or what they have done, those making the decisions here in the US will say and do anything to damage them.
Noah, as always I'm a fan of your writing and this is a very important topic that needs to be addressed.
I think part of the skepticism of the left (and not just the left I'm sure there are some moderate liberals, centrists, and heterodox conservatives) is the experience of the Iraq war.
I remember listening to liberal hawks on why and how we needed to go to war with Iraq and at the time I thought "I would have more confidence about this war if you mr. liberal war were in charge but this war will be waged by the Bush administration, not by you".
I think at least some people who are skeptical about a new cold war are at least open to Biden pursuing a rational foreign policy but are concerned about what a Trumpist and more broadly xenophobic and racist GOP will do with a cold war with China once they are back in office.
Defending Taiwan isn’t just about defending a democracy (although it certainly is that) or economic interests.
If China occupied Taiwan it would provide the Chinese navy with open access to the Pacific Ocean & improve their capacity to target important trade routes.
It would bring China in close proximity to islands which are territory of Japanese & The Phillipines, including those it claims as territory. This would undermine Japanese, South Korean & Filipino security in the long term.
It also would be a threat to Guam, an American territory.
It also would put Guam in range of Chinese missiles.
Taiwan is China, so occupation is the wrong term. Guam didn't choose to be American. Neither did Hawai'i. How democratic is that?
Yes Taiwan is strategically important. It is also China. The West wishes China did not exist.
The Philippines and Korea have issues with China, but they certainly don't think they will be colonised by them. Japan is a de facto American colony. If they were independent, they'd surely be far more interested in making up with China and benefiting from the massive opportunities there.
This comment reads like you're a paid CCP commenter. Perhaps that is uncharitable of me, but it feels to propaganda-y to be honest, along with some other comments in this thread.
Honestly, why do some people think that just because someone else doesn't think China is a threat, that they must be a paid CCP commenter? Deal with the arguments on their merits. To China hawks, Chinese "propaganda" is stating the facts of their incredible rise and competent governance. These facts are what anti-China commenters cannot come to terms with because in their ideological worldview, an Asian country can't be equal to a Western one. A communist governed Asian country is even worse. Well, reality tells a different story. How about all this wumao, China bot talk cease, and people actually have a look at what is going on in China
Because your comment was terrible. Saying "It is also China" is just factually incorrect wishful thinking. It's like me saying "I already am a Nobel prize winner". You also said "Japan is a de facto American colony", which is also factually incorrect. Similarly, saying "The West wishes China did not exist" is both incorrect and incendiary. So, I didn't engage with your comment because it didn't make good points because all its premises are wrong.
Perhaps saying the West China did not exist was provocative, but I'm sure the West would prefer a country the size of China was not as big and not as influential. Why is it that the West cannot fathom different governance models? Perhaps some self reflection is needed.
I stand by my comments on Japan. They house US military bases against the will of local residents. The independence of their foreign policy is also debatable. Japan are expected to fall into line in China containment policy and even participate in fighting wars against China, which is fraught given the history between the two countries. None of this is in Japan's interest. I completely stand by my comments about Japan's subservience to and dependence on the US.
It’s ridiculous to say Japan is an American colony or that they depend & are subservient to the US. How many trade disputes have they had over the years with the US?
The Japanese people mostly support American bases (although there is certainly local opposition in Okinawa) more so now with recent Chinese actions. Japan is allied with the US & house American bases today because it is in their interests.
Japan is a significant power with the world’s fourth largest navy.
I think Guam is already in the range of Chinese missiles.
The focus on the Cold War between America and China is myopic. It misses the fact that, in this time, authoritarianism and bellicose rhetoric are on the rise globally. Are we Chinese and Americans to proud to give credit to Modi's Hindu Nationalism or MBS' strongman crushing of the population in Yemen?
Seeing the local chinese influence operations in my European country, I am very sure there is a chinese influence behind those China-appeasement campaigns.
I would love having this mentioned in the article, China sees everything as a wepon, and influence ops have a effect/cost ratio out of charts.
"The main cause of Cold War 2 is not economic. Yes, Trump did start a trade war with China, and Biden is continuing that trade war. But China had for decades been engaging in mercantilist policies against the U.S. that were far more aggressive than anything Trump or Biden has done — mercantilism that is increasingly difficult to justify on the grounds of national development. So China really started that".
This statement is a mass of contradictions. Starting a trade war, is that not economic policy and an "economic cause"? Is not "mercantilism" an economic policy and "economic cause", regardless of "who started it"? More generally, how is it not possible that China's enormous and historically unprecedented economic expansion isn't the real cause of the angst of Americans from Noah Smith to Donald Trump?
That's not a celebration of China's economic achievements, capitalist and not "socialist" ones as should be made clear, but the citing of a historical fact.
The U.S. anti-capitalist Left is not to take sides in an inter-imperialist conflict between capitalist state powers. But that is exactly what Noah Smith is trying to drum the Left into: Taking sides. We saw what that led to in Germany in 1914. Catastrophe.
What he is saying is that the trade war and the mercantilism may be real things, but they are not the new cold war, and they aren't even causes of the new cold war. He is saying that the new cold war is an unrelated set of conflicts, often between China and its neighbors, not the economic policy of China and the US.
That then is a redefinition of "Cold War". I don't think the term then has any real meaning without the U.S. engaged on one side. And the trade war and the mercantilism (where here Smith was referring to China) clearly feed into an intensification of a "Cold War" as causes contributed by both sides. Otherwise it is "just" China bullying its neighbors, rather as the U.S. does (with much more vigor in the past) in Latin America. Nobody calls U.S. Latin American policy "Cold War".
This is one of the more misinformed articles I have seen, Noah.
Yes, China has been more aggressive lately around its own borders.
That's because up until 40 years ago, it was so weak that other countries could pursue their interests against China more or less at will.
The issue which neither you, nor the US State and Defense Departments nor the US Deep State ever go into is: what is legitimate sovereign self interest vs. meddling from far-afield outsiders?
Yes, China building artificial islands is dubious. But what about the rings of US bases surrounding China's ocean facing coastline?
Taiwan: more Janus lunacy. The US can fight a Civil War and suffer 1.2% wartime population deaths to pacify its secessionist Southern states but its ok for Ukraine, Taiwan, etc to go their own way. What about the US meddling in Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan?
This is pure propaganda; apologia for territorial aggression.
Hrm, apologia for territorial aggression: which nation has 100+ bases all over the world and troops to match?
Was Taiwan a part of China prior to the Communist takeover - and is the present Communist government of China the legitimate government ruling over the nation and its people?
Once again - double standards.
Noah, your stuff on China is pure copium. For people like you, China's rise was just not supposed to happen. Territorial aggression? Your kidding right? Why look at the speck in your neighbour's eye when you have a log in your own eye?
This is a very pro-China comment; but it's interesting to me to see what I assume is the Chinese perspective on this.
You express culture of resentment against historical victimization, saying that "[China] was so weak that other countries could...". It worries me, because that's a common justification for violence, and it's especially troubling since China is objectively now quite militarily powerful. Do you feel like China is justified in "taking back" things that were taken from it in the past? E.g. Taiwan or regional hegemony?
Why is it "pro-China" to understand that other nations have their own interests, too?
I never said that China's past history excused its present behavior any more than I said that the US' self appointed role as arbiter of "world justice" is acceptable either.
Yes, they could stop threatening the ICJ in The Hague, they could sign onto the 1982 Convention of the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC), they could keep agreements already made in Paris on climate, and with Iran on nukes and sanctions, they could start honoring in practice, international law on Palestine. That's likely the short list.
It is the first duty of citizens to hold their own governments responsible. That's because, as a U.S. citizen, you can't directly hold Beijing responsible as you are not a citizen of China. That's the basic fact of the matter. The rest is but opinion about other countries, which we can certainly argue and debate, but can't put into positive practice. That's the reality of a world system of multiple states - you can only have practical leverage in one country, or perhaps two for certain dual citizens.
> The US can fight a Civil War and suffer 1.2% wartime population deaths to pacify its secessionist Southern states but its ok for Ukraine, Taiwan, etc to go their own way. What about the US meddling in Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan?
I'm not sure what you mean by "can" here. You seem to be alleging that there is some set of people that agree with you that the US Civil War of the 1860s was about the same sort of separatism as the fall of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Civil War of the 1940s, and yet say that it was appropriate for the US to reconquer it's breakaway colonies, while it is inappropriate for Russia and China to reconquer their breakaway colonies after several decades of independence.
You also seem to be alleging that there are people that see US meddling in Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan in previous decades as the same sort of thing as external Chinese pressure against Vietnam, Philippines, and Japan right now, and yet think the former was acceptable and the latter was not.
I think most people see major differences between a war at the time of separatism and a war to reclaim a separatist region several decades later. And most people see a difference between taking sides in a domestic dispute in war-torn countries and putting external pressure on countries that are otherwise peaceful. And furthermore, a lot of commentators actually comment negatively on *both* historical US *and* contemporary Chinese "meddling" with Vietnam, *even though* the two are very different in character.
I think most people don't quibble between arbitrary definitions on when it is acceptable to use force to keep secession from happening.
Either the secessionists have the right to self determination or they don't.
The sad fact is that you are doing nothing more than Twister to justify American actions as opposed to identical actions undertaken by other nations.
Most people think that it's not an "arbitrary quibble" to differentiate between waging war on a current breakaway province, and declaring war on a province that has been functionally independent for 70 years. But in any case, the people who don't think these differences matter usually agree that everyone involved has the right to self determination, so that both the US *and* China should allow their breakaway regions to split.
First of all, there is no active waging of war against Taiwan. Thus "most people's" thoughts on that - even if they are what you say they are - would not be relevant.
But more importantly - the US has flip flopped on self determination. It was fine for the breakup of Yugoslavia, but not ok for Ukraine. It was ok for the Kurds to form their own governments in Iraq and Syria but not ok for Crimea.
Thus it is also unclear what "agreement on the right to self determination" is.
I don't care what the US position is, or how hypocritical the US government is. We should expect every government to be hypocritical.
I care what is right, and in these cases I think it is not right to pressure an area that has been effectively autonomous for many decades to submit to another government.
Is there some principle that you want to hold to here? Or just a policy that no one should criticize the Chinese government policies on Taiwan?
Right is always a matter of perspective.
Taiwan has been no more autonomous than any other US satrapy - it has been heavily economically subsidized by the US, both directly and indirectly, since the Chiang Kai Shek's Kuo-ming tang party and its supporters fled there.
Nor were they being supported out of altruism.
The principle that international order is based on, via the UN, is sovereignty. Does a nation have the right to make its own sovereign decisions within its own borders?
The US does not believe so when inconvenient - but likes to brandish R2P and similar policies when desired.