Changing complexion

Really since Graham Allison's book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap came out, the complexion of thinking about China has changed, and Trump has really ramped it up. Now everyone is very much focused on China more as an adversary than as a partner.

A few thoughts

1. We need to be very careful about Russia. We know they don't really regard us as their friend, at least the current leadership, which generally enjoys support. I spend some time within the last year watching Russian tv (in Russian, not RT), and one thing that's clear is that they are courting China. So when Pompeo starts sabre-rattling (as he did this week) about pulling out of nuclear arms treaties with Russia, that's a big fucking deal.
2. We need to be very clear what we believe in, and who we support. Throughout the Cold War we has a clear stated goal of supporting human rights in the Soviet Union. Our attitude was "we don't oppose the Soviet people, we oppose the Soviet regime." We need to keep this idea front and center now. The Chinese -- via the Belt and Road initiative and whatever other means necessary -- are exporting an ideology of China first, human rights be damned. We need to oppose that on principles. We need to watch with great care the panopticon police state the Chinese are establishing in Xinjiang as a test bed for elsewhere. Right now the Chinese have a "fuck it, who cares about those Muslim Uighurs" attitude. But it's bad, and they are honing the tools that they could use elsewhere, and you'd better believe that Google, Facebook, Palantir, and Amazon are watching the Chinese experience there, how the rest of the world reacts to it, and what it means for them.
3. We need to be very open to and solicitous of the Chinese in America. Make no mistake, they are for the most part not spies. They were pissed off when Trump accepted Stephen Miller's suggestion that they mostly are. They have come here because of what America has historically stood for and what we strive to be: a good place to live, have a career, raise a family -- with as many kids as you want and without breathing shitty air. They form the backbone of our scientific class now, and they are important.
4. But we need to anticipate more Chinese PhDs moving back to China -- as they have been -- because of a better atmosphere there for entrepreneurialism, as well as tensions here. That means we need to be serious about figuring out how to develop a scientific cadre here -- and not just from blue zip codes. Reading the biographies of Norman Borlaug and John Hope Franklin in the last year reminded me of how the path from rural places into the highest ranks of academia used to be much more plausible and open. Partially it's because the barriers to entry in terms of early academic achievement are a little higher, and the average quality of public schools in red counties lower. I think. But it also may be because the academy has become so stultifyingly blue and not an attractive place for someone who grew up in a red county.

OK, I am rambling and speculating. So shoot me.