Excellent convo. Hsu is one of the smartest generalist bloggers on the internet, with impressive real-world accomplishments to boot.
Much less bullish then you are on Chinese fertility. Many governments going back to the Roman Empire have tried to raise fertility, including almost all developed countries to some extent in the past few decades. France has been trying since the 1920s IIRC. Some of them have managed to squeeze out a few tenths of a point of TFR, but nothing dramatic. Even highly-competent govts like Singapore haven't been able to do better. Only Israel combines an urban, wealthy, high-tech society with above-replacement fertility, and while the CCP is clearly highly capable and willing to do unusual things, I doubt a mass conversion to Orthodox Judaism is in the cards (would be hilarious though). If the Manospherians are correct that patriarchy is the prime determinant of fertility, very hard for the CCP, which has been ideologically feminist since its inception, to walk that back (and a shrinking, male-dominated young population gives young women enormous power from simple supply and demand, making it even harder). If religion, hard for the officially atheist CCP to deal with that either. Economics and nationalism historically can give a few tenths of a point of TFR, but not enough to dig the PRC out of "lowest low" fertility. My prediction is China goes down the same demographic route as S. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Easily the biggest headwind for medium-term Chinese dominance, although every other major country (except Israel - blessed by G-d!) has similar trends, so relative power is less affected.
If China really is able to maintain a meritocracy in its Chinese National Communist (=fascist) economy, and military, it will continue to increase in formidability. It seems that Xi has become a "fuhrer", a semi-God emperor - but will he attack Taiwan too soon? Or ever?
If no attack, when and how is the next succession? One huge advantage of democracies is changing their leaders peacefully. Deng started 30 years of that in China, but it looks like Xi is ending it - isn't he leader for life, now?
Neither the positive here nor the negative there include the factoid about some never-occupied modern apartments being torn down in China sue to sub-standard construction. In USSR dominated Europe, lousy building was endemic. We won't know for years, decades, how common it really has been in the last decades of China's astounding growth.
IVF babies seem unlikely to be 10% of Chinese babies for the next 10, nor 20, years. I can easily imagine poor Uyghur or Tibeten women becoming surrogate mothers for (spoiled?) Chinese career women unwilling to bear more than their first child, if even that. In the hundreds, even the thousands. But not millions.
1. No mention of the situations in Xinjiang or Hong Kong, or other Chinese government policies such as suppression of native language teaching in Inner Mongolia. I'm not sure how you can have serious discussion about China or comparing US and Chinese systems without going into this. These are not vague rumors, they are well documented. In Xinjiang, even if you reject the genocide label, what you have is a national government imprisoning large numbers of an ethnic minority and imposing restrictions on basic cultural practices and language amongst others with the intent to eliminate cultural difference, enforce cultural uniformity, not to mention forcibly reducing population growth and allowing demographic domination by the ethnic majority.
2. "So if you agree with that analysis, then what you’re basically saying is the US is going to risk World War III to remain the hegemon in Asia, right? So how important is it for us to be the hegemon in Asia?" Disappointed there was no discussion on what this entails. It means Asian countries will be pressured to adopt not only Chinese-friendly policies but over time change their political systems which satisfy China, allowing Chinese extraction of economic rents and bulwarking of Chinese security, with no dissenting voices allowed within those countries, and with corresponding corruption and diminishing of rights. Singapore, for example, would be become a Chinese client state. The admittedly flawed democracies of Malaysia and Indonesia would slip toward Cambodian style systems or backwards to a Suharto type strong man rule.
3. Also strangely absent from the discussion was any mention of the advanced surveillance state China has been building and has started to perfect during the pandemic.
Thank you so much for this endlessly fascinating conversation. I'm half way through watching the video and already it explores so many points that are on my mind. Steve's description of how his family have tracked their genealogy over 3,000 years is a whole mind-bending topic on its own. Thank you for all of it.
This was a great read, and today, a looming question for our country would be China's takeover of Taiwan. We're currently wandering around Eastern Europe and are told Russia will invade Ukraine on Wednesday, February 16, 2022 and the majority of Americans are scratching their heads and asking why.
As China and Russia join together in a very intimidating and overreaching agreement with each other, it would be extremely foolish of the U.S. to ignore Taiwan at this time. Both China and Russia are trading in each other's currencies and energy is at the center of the ties that bind them. China has recently moved a nuclear icebreaker into the Arctic and joined Russia in its military and exploration efforts. Although Russia hasn't met its quota on spare capacity for crude under its OPEC agreement for the last 2 months, the Arctic is where the rubber will meet the road. Vast amounts of resources exist in this environmentally sensitive area and the U.S. and the rest of the world seem to be ignoring the consequences of this alliance in the Arctic, together with a pipeline across Siberia.
Russia and China may not be friends, but they are certainly important to each other and will continue to move to protect their interests and unfortunately the U.S. is weakening its position by using its military forces which, in the long run, would not be successful. After Afghanistan, the U.S. is looking like a paper tiger and the President can barely string a sentence together. Steve Hsu is right that our strategies need to emphasize a stronger level of creativity in building solid military and energy innovations, that surpass other nations since, right now, we are relying on China and are currently importing oil from Russia, which is the worst position to be in, no matter what we believe about either of these countries and the politics they share.
I’d like to hear you grapple with two other thinkers on China. First Michael Pettis at Tshingua University who sees Chinese growth slowing to 1-2% going forward as they work through the transition to a consumer economy. Very similar to Japan. Also Peter Zeihan. His take is that if China invaded Taiwan, the US can sit offshore and interdict their shipping. They have no blue water navy and can’t protect oil and raw material shipping. Also similar to Japan in WW2 but with no real navy. Add on that the demographic time bomb and I don’t see your optimism about their future prospects.
Richard, you should talk to Jamie Metzl and his book Hacking Darwin. He writes a lot about the same topics. Preimplantation Genetic Testing using GWAS scores to select for the best quality embryos. It is the future and it will change everything.
PS: I reread/relistened the entire podcast once again. Rarely I enjoyed and learned more in an eloquent. fast-moving and thoughtful interview/conversation. My sincere congratulations -- impressive !!
Very interesting - thank you. No mention though that the same team that organized Russia-gate hoax and 2014 bloody coup in Ukraine is now alarming about immediate invasion of Ukraine!?
Biden’s own CIA director, career diplomat and Russia hand William Burns, has long argued that NATO expansion, especially with regard to Ukraine, is a provocative miscalculation that will enrage Russia and exacerbate tensions across eastern Europe. In a 2008 memo to Condoleeza Rice, then Bush’s Secretary of State, Burns wrote:
“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
Excellent convo. Hsu is one of the smartest generalist bloggers on the internet, with impressive real-world accomplishments to boot.
Much less bullish then you are on Chinese fertility. Many governments going back to the Roman Empire have tried to raise fertility, including almost all developed countries to some extent in the past few decades. France has been trying since the 1920s IIRC. Some of them have managed to squeeze out a few tenths of a point of TFR, but nothing dramatic. Even highly-competent govts like Singapore haven't been able to do better. Only Israel combines an urban, wealthy, high-tech society with above-replacement fertility, and while the CCP is clearly highly capable and willing to do unusual things, I doubt a mass conversion to Orthodox Judaism is in the cards (would be hilarious though). If the Manospherians are correct that patriarchy is the prime determinant of fertility, very hard for the CCP, which has been ideologically feminist since its inception, to walk that back (and a shrinking, male-dominated young population gives young women enormous power from simple supply and demand, making it even harder). If religion, hard for the officially atheist CCP to deal with that either. Economics and nationalism historically can give a few tenths of a point of TFR, but not enough to dig the PRC out of "lowest low" fertility. My prediction is China goes down the same demographic route as S. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Easily the biggest headwind for medium-term Chinese dominance, although every other major country (except Israel - blessed by G-d!) has similar trends, so relative power is less affected.
Great post/ discussion.
If China really is able to maintain a meritocracy in its Chinese National Communist (=fascist) economy, and military, it will continue to increase in formidability. It seems that Xi has become a "fuhrer", a semi-God emperor - but will he attack Taiwan too soon? Or ever?
If no attack, when and how is the next succession? One huge advantage of democracies is changing their leaders peacefully. Deng started 30 years of that in China, but it looks like Xi is ending it - isn't he leader for life, now?
A "China as paper tiger" take is here:
https://unherd.com/2022/02/the-myth-of-chinese-supremacy/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=5948350043
Neither the positive here nor the negative there include the factoid about some never-occupied modern apartments being torn down in China sue to sub-standard construction. In USSR dominated Europe, lousy building was endemic. We won't know for years, decades, how common it really has been in the last decades of China's astounding growth.
IVF babies seem unlikely to be 10% of Chinese babies for the next 10, nor 20, years. I can easily imagine poor Uyghur or Tibeten women becoming surrogate mothers for (spoiled?) Chinese career women unwilling to bear more than their first child, if even that. In the hundreds, even the thousands. But not millions.
A few things:
1. No mention of the situations in Xinjiang or Hong Kong, or other Chinese government policies such as suppression of native language teaching in Inner Mongolia. I'm not sure how you can have serious discussion about China or comparing US and Chinese systems without going into this. These are not vague rumors, they are well documented. In Xinjiang, even if you reject the genocide label, what you have is a national government imprisoning large numbers of an ethnic minority and imposing restrictions on basic cultural practices and language amongst others with the intent to eliminate cultural difference, enforce cultural uniformity, not to mention forcibly reducing population growth and allowing demographic domination by the ethnic majority.
2. "So if you agree with that analysis, then what you’re basically saying is the US is going to risk World War III to remain the hegemon in Asia, right? So how important is it for us to be the hegemon in Asia?" Disappointed there was no discussion on what this entails. It means Asian countries will be pressured to adopt not only Chinese-friendly policies but over time change their political systems which satisfy China, allowing Chinese extraction of economic rents and bulwarking of Chinese security, with no dissenting voices allowed within those countries, and with corresponding corruption and diminishing of rights. Singapore, for example, would be become a Chinese client state. The admittedly flawed democracies of Malaysia and Indonesia would slip toward Cambodian style systems or backwards to a Suharto type strong man rule.
3. Also strangely absent from the discussion was any mention of the advanced surveillance state China has been building and has started to perfect during the pandemic.
Thank you so much for this endlessly fascinating conversation. I'm half way through watching the video and already it explores so many points that are on my mind. Steve's description of how his family have tracked their genealogy over 3,000 years is a whole mind-bending topic on its own. Thank you for all of it.
The future is IVF babies? What nonsense.
This was a great read, and today, a looming question for our country would be China's takeover of Taiwan. We're currently wandering around Eastern Europe and are told Russia will invade Ukraine on Wednesday, February 16, 2022 and the majority of Americans are scratching their heads and asking why.
As China and Russia join together in a very intimidating and overreaching agreement with each other, it would be extremely foolish of the U.S. to ignore Taiwan at this time. Both China and Russia are trading in each other's currencies and energy is at the center of the ties that bind them. China has recently moved a nuclear icebreaker into the Arctic and joined Russia in its military and exploration efforts. Although Russia hasn't met its quota on spare capacity for crude under its OPEC agreement for the last 2 months, the Arctic is where the rubber will meet the road. Vast amounts of resources exist in this environmentally sensitive area and the U.S. and the rest of the world seem to be ignoring the consequences of this alliance in the Arctic, together with a pipeline across Siberia.
Russia and China may not be friends, but they are certainly important to each other and will continue to move to protect their interests and unfortunately the U.S. is weakening its position by using its military forces which, in the long run, would not be successful. After Afghanistan, the U.S. is looking like a paper tiger and the President can barely string a sentence together. Steve Hsu is right that our strategies need to emphasize a stronger level of creativity in building solid military and energy innovations, that surpass other nations since, right now, we are relying on China and are currently importing oil from Russia, which is the worst position to be in, no matter what we believe about either of these countries and the politics they share.
I’d like to hear you grapple with two other thinkers on China. First Michael Pettis at Tshingua University who sees Chinese growth slowing to 1-2% going forward as they work through the transition to a consumer economy. Very similar to Japan. Also Peter Zeihan. His take is that if China invaded Taiwan, the US can sit offshore and interdict their shipping. They have no blue water navy and can’t protect oil and raw material shipping. Also similar to Japan in WW2 but with no real navy. Add on that the demographic time bomb and I don’t see your optimism about their future prospects.
"Xi Jinping is, in terms of being the single most powerful actor on the planet, maybe he is actually an autonomous actor"? Far from it!
Xi requires the unanimous vote of the Steering Committee even to advance legislation and, possibly, even to make a speech.
The single most powerful actor on the planet has–and regularly exercises–these powers:
* Declare war. Frequently.
* Issue 300,000 national security letters (administrative subpoenas with gag orders that enjoin recipients from ever divulging they’ve been served);
* Control information at all times under his National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions.
* Torture, kidnap and kill anyone, anywhere, at will.
* Secretly ban 50,000 citizens from flying–and refusing to explain why.
* Imprison 2,000,000 citizens without trial.
* Execute 1,000 citizens each year prior to arrest.
* Kill 1,000 foreign civilians every day since 1951
* Massacre its own men, women and children for their beliefs
* Assassinate its own citizens abroad, for their beliefs.
* Repeatedly bomb and kill minority citizens from the air.
Anyone?
Richard, you should talk to Jamie Metzl and his book Hacking Darwin. He writes a lot about the same topics. Preimplantation Genetic Testing using GWAS scores to select for the best quality embryos. It is the future and it will change everything.
PS: I reread/relistened the entire podcast once again. Rarely I enjoyed and learned more in an eloquent. fast-moving and thoughtful interview/conversation. My sincere congratulations -- impressive !!
Very interesting - thank you. No mention though that the same team that organized Russia-gate hoax and 2014 bloody coup in Ukraine is now alarming about immediate invasion of Ukraine!?
Biden’s own CIA director, career diplomat and Russia hand William Burns, has long argued that NATO expansion, especially with regard to Ukraine, is a provocative miscalculation that will enrage Russia and exacerbate tensions across eastern Europe. In a 2008 memo to Condoleeza Rice, then Bush’s Secretary of State, Burns wrote:
“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”