We are all Slave now.

[ferrets_bueller]

Quote:
I have just spent a week in Beijing talking to officials and intellectuals, many of whom are awed by his skill as a strategist and tactician…He [Yafei] worries that strategic competition has become the new normal and says that “trade wars are just the tip of the iceberg”.

…In Chinese eyes, Mr Trump’s response is a form of “creative destruction”. He is systematically destroying the existing institutions — from the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement to Nato and the Iran nuclear deal — as a first step towards renegotiating the world order on terms more favourable to Washington. Once the order is destroyed, the Chinese elite believes, Mr Trump will move to stage two: renegotiating America’s relationship with other powers. Because the US is still the most powerful country in the world, it will be able to negotiate with other countries from a position of strength if it deals with them one at a time rather than through multilateral institutions that empower the weak at the expense of the strong…

My interlocutors say that Mr Trump is the US first president for more than 40 years to bash China on three fronts simultaneously: trade, military and ideology. They describe him as a master tactician, focusing on one issue at a time, and extracting as many concessions as he can. They speak of the skillful way Mr Trump has treated President Xi Jinping. “Look at how he handled North Korea,” one says. “He got Xi Jinping to agree to UN sanctions [half a dozen] times, creating an economic stranglehold on the country. China almost turned North Korea into a sworn enemy of the country.” But they also see him as a strategist, willing to declare a truce in each area when there are no more concessions to be had, and then start again with a new front.
That's an FT reporter, via Tyler Cowen. __________________


Interesting, but I disagree. Trump has no strategy whatsoever. That gives him far too much credit. He takes random positions, reverses them, and then reverses the reversal when it is proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that his head is squarely up his posterior at all points of a particular issue.



I've been to China ten times in the last fifteen years. The Chinese really do have a long, long term outlook. Invest in Africa. Invest in infrastructure projects worldwide. Turn the South China Sea into a Chinese lake. Turn the outer provinces tame by infusing more Han people. Control the people with an internal intelligence apparatus that is extensive beyond anything Orwell could imagine.



Trump's long term strategy begins and ends with the question of whether a given policy leads to an opportunity for him to see that his actions...on any particular day...lead to praise from his base. He increases the possibility of praise by denying any previous position the base finds offensive, declaring it to be fake news. Change one's position and then excoriate anyone who points out that your position has changed.



In his own way, Trump is also Orwellian. Europe is now our enemy. Russia is now our friend. Except this week he claims he is harder on Russia than previous Presidents, and that Russia wants Democrats to win. And the EU and the USA will sing kumbaya on trade. If "random" is a strategy, Trump has one.