Well, this was quite unexpected. Doing my weekly watch of Rabbit Hole Recap and lo and behold @Marty Bent and @ODELL start talking about yours truly.
Marty, very much looking forward to our conversation later today. As mentioned, there’s not a single topic that is off the table. Matt, my thanks for the points made.
To their conversation, it is very understandable for many/most to view my Notes here as some sort of universal acceptance or approval of the China model. My actual aim is to provide insight into how China is operating on the global stage with the aim of destabilizing the American-led “rules-based international order”. There’s been a brilliance in the approach. That’s not meant as admiration, rather a stark warning. I’ve found that there is just too much Beltway Consensus cope with zero focus on addressing the issue head on.
I am a red-blooded American who, through a series of life events, just so happens to have lived in China for 30 years. In that time, I’ve watched the emboldened optimism of the American way of life, my lived experience growing up in New England, become a shell of what I once knew. Wars, corruption, power never held to account ….. I watched on as the America I once knew descended into “rules for thee and not for me”. A vacuum was created, and power abhors a vacuum. China saw the opportunity.
My objective is to present the Strum und Drang landscape as it is. China isn’t winning, America is losing. All energy must be directed towards a return of an America of true freedom and individual agency and self-determination. An unshackling from the chains of fear. Present to the world the option of two starkly different governance models, and there’d be no competition. America wins!