How the Wheels Came Off: China's Economic Malaise (with Logan Wright)

No, I think that's right.

There's a reason I framed this episode in terms of the China question.

Because if we lived in the timeline where China had figured out a way to deliver 10% real GDP growth every year indefinitely, then they are going to go past, not today, not tomorrow, but in a couple of years, they're going to go past us like they got rockets on their shoes.

And the gap is only going to get larger and larger and larger.

And you give it another few decades and people will look at China and be like, man, that's the Star Trek future right there.

They built it.

They figured out some system that can deliver a completely different pace of technological growth, a completely different level of prosperity.

And the whole rest of the world, including the West, including the United States, is going to have to do something to make some... absolutely fundamental change to their society and their forms of government to try and keep up with that.

But if we don't live in that future, if we don't live in that timeline, and I think you're right that we don't, if they're just going to be a developing middle income country that has, you know, again, a communist, Leninist party state system, then the shape of strategic competition looks completely different.

It's like, okay, there are specific sectors that matter.

You're going to have to, you want to be able to build your own rare earth magnets or whatever.

Maybe that's really important, but that's just fundamentally about managing specific important sectors as maintaining a military industrial base.

on a fundamental level, like you say, time is on our side.

They might not think that,

but...

And it also, and I say this because I fundamentally mean the book is a hopeful book, because I think that people who underestimate the argument you're making, they underestimate the fact that this is a, you know, these threats from China are deterrable, they are not inexorable.

And it's the trajectory that matters.

Yes.

And the whole point is that if you think that this is fundamentally changed over the last few years, but that China hasn't really adjusted their strategy, that is a moment of opportunity in which you can actually negotiate over a different kind of managed decoupling of the global economy and a relaxation of strategic competition, because both sides basically think that things are going very well for them.

Um, at the same time.

And so, yeah, I, I, I honestly think that

if they were really going to be growing at 10% a year for the foreseeable future, then like, and you're focusing on like, oh, we gotta like fix our strategic mineral situation.

Then like, it would be irrelevant.

It would be irrelevant.

You'd be thinking about something

No, I think that's right.

There's a reason I framed this episode in terms of the China question.

Because if we lived in the timeline where China had figured out a way to deliver 10% real GDP growth every year indefinitely, then they are going to go past, not today, not tomorrow, but in a couple of years, they're going to go past us like they got rockets on their shoes.

And the gap is only going to get larger and larger and larger.

And you give it another few decades and people will look at China and be like, man, that's the Star Trek future right there.

They built it.

They figured out some system that can deliver a completely different pace of technological growth, a completely different level of prosperity.

And the whole rest of the world, including the West, including the United States, is going to have to do something to make some... absolutely fundamental change to their society and their forms of government to try and keep up with that.

But if we don't live in that future, if we don't live in that timeline, and I think you're right that we don't, if they're just going to be a developing middle income country that has, you know, again, a communist, Leninist party state system, then the shape of strategic competition looks completely different.

It's like, okay, there are specific sectors that matter.

You're going to have to, you want to be able to build your own rare earth magnets or whatever.

Maybe that's really important, but that's just fundamentally about managing specific important sectors as maintaining a military industrial base.

on a fundamental level, like you say, time is on our side.

They might not think that,

but...

And it also, and I say this because I fundamentally mean the book is a hopeful book, because I think that people who underestimate the argument you're making, they underestimate the fact that this is a, you know, these threats from China are deterrable, they are not inexorable.

And it's the trajectory that matters.

Yes.

And the whole point is that if you think that this is fundamentally changed over the last few years, but that China hasn't really adjusted their strategy, that is a moment of opportunity in which you can actually negotiate over a different kind of managed decoupling of the global economy and a relaxation of strategic competition, because both sides basically think that things are going very well for them.

Um, at the same time.

And so, yeah, I, I, I honestly think that

if they were really going to be growing at 10% a year for the foreseeable future, then like, and you're focusing on like, oh, we gotta like fix our strategic mineral situation.

Then like, it would be irrelevant.

It would be irrelevant.

You'd be thinking about something