What's up everybody today's episode was originally recorded as a live Q&A for members of our genius community that I opened up to the larger hidden forces audience

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The guest speaker was Diana Shoileva and the subject of the Q&A is US-China relations with an emphasis on some of the most recent headlines related to Huawei's latest 5G phone

with its domestically produced 7nm chip China's naval exercises and the Pacific as well as some of the ongoing headlines around the state of its economy.

Before you start listening to that Q&A I want to share some thoughts about what I've been trying to do with my episodes on China

and US-China relations because I think it's easy to listen to a single episode and maybe come away with the wrong impression about what I think

and what my position is on some of the issues that we've been tackling on this podcast.

In doing these episodes, especially episodes like my recent one with Alex Flas Green or past episodes with Albert Colby, Chris Bros and others,

I'm not advocating for an escalation and military trade relations with China.

In fact, I'm not sure what I'm advocating for beyond trying to make the case to really pound it into people's heads that this is not 2003.

The China is a military and economic colossus that needs to be taken seriously and that needs to be treated as a legitimate peer competitor who could even if we do everything right.

Displace the United States as a preeminent military and economic power in the world and therefore be in a position to impose its vision and its values on international governance and commerce for the rest of the century.

Now what follows from the observation and what many of you are probably thinking is why should I care?

Why should I care which country sets the rules of the game? It's not like the US has been super great at it.

We've done plenty of things to screw it up, so who the hell are we to lecture people on moral conduct and superior systems of government?

We've been assassinating foreign leaders and overthrowing governments for decades. Look at the Middle East. Look what our legacy has been over there.

Maybe the Chinese can do it better.

And my short response to that is that I agree with much of the sentiment, which is why I believe that if you want to support a foreign policy that demands material sacrifices of the America,

in order to try and maintain the US liberal international order as I do, then you need to also support domestic reforms that spread both the costs and benefits of maintaining that order across the whole of society.

But that's not enough. You need to also support policies and politicians that work to reverse or at least stabilize the moves towards the liberalism and the centralization of power that have defined the trend lines in US domestic policy.

Since at least the attacks of 9-11 and the war in Iraq.

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