Marco Rubio will be the next Secretary of State in the following Trump presidency, according to press reports.
The senior senator from Florida offers as a vocal China hawk, like the whole of his Democratic gathering, but with a essential difference: In September, Rubio published a 60-page statement,” The World China Made“, with a complete and painstakingly researched study of China’s financial success.
Some observers have already speculated that Nixon’s 1972 China trip might be influenced by the hiring of a seasoned China hawk like Rubio.
According to this theory, Secretary of State Rubio could negotiate with China without making any claims that he would sell out, and Secretary of State Rubio could do the same. Without second-guessing the incoming president’s negotiating strategy with China, Rubio’s published thoughts about China speak for themselves.
Full disclosure: the report cites Asia Times and this writer in particular, including our groundbreaking analysis of China’s export success in the Global South. By creating supply chains for Vietnam, Mexico, India, and other nations for export to the United States, China evaded Trump and Biden tariffs by building factories in third countries.
A bright line divides realists from Utopians among Washington’s China hawks. According to neoconservatives like Dan Blumenthal, well-known figures like Gordon Chang and Peter Zeihan, and real believers like former US Secretary of State and CIA director Michael Pompeo, China is about to collapse, and the US should prepare to do so militarily and economically.
If the US had shut down ZTE, he claimed, he would have led a group of unemployed engineers to march on Beijing and toppled Xi Jinping. A senior official from the first Trump administration told this writer in 2018 that the then-president had made a mistake by agreeing to that deal.
Realists on the other side of the coin may despise China and accuse it of scheming, but they acknowledge that it has made significant progress in both domestic and international trade. Rubio dismisses the utopian vision in the report’s conclusion as the best-informed among the realists:
Commentary on China’s economy swings wildly between extremes. On the one hand, the Chinese economy is often portrayed as deeply troubled, perhaps even on the verge of collapse. Stories in this vein emphasize China’s very high debt burden, slowing growth, distressed real-estate sector, and aging population—all real problems. In an interview with Time magazine in June, President Joe Biden made the claim that China’s economy is “on the brink.” ‘ …
China’s export- and manufacturing-oriented development model may have been successful enough in the short term to push the country toward the cutting-edge of technology, but not enough to enable it to overcome its structural issues over the long term. Many in Washington favor this narrative because it brings back our Cold War victory.
Then, a revolutionary, dynamic, and capitalist United States triumphed over a repressive regime with a dysfunctional, gerontocratic political class and a failed communist economic system incapable of navigating the information age. Our country’s past success has led to a similar triumph, which is tempting to believe. We win, they lose. But an invincible belief in one’s own success is a recipe for complacency. And increasingly, this belief is at odds with the evidence in front of our faces.
Let’s say the United States ca n’t be complacent about Communist China if this report serves as a message. Think-tank scholars and economists may bank on China’s coming collapse. The wager is being flipped by Beijing. It believes that manufacturing, exports, and ‘ new quality productive forces’ are the keys to regime survival and indeed to the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. It thinks that modern technology and production will help it maintain its communist system while achieving wealth.
It has succeeded so far in establishing an alternative development path. But suppose today is the high-water mark of China’s power. Even in such a promising world, the CCP will continue to be a real, existential threat to American workers and industry for years to come. Additionally, Communist China will continue to be a formidable adversary unlike anything the US has ever faced. The CCP’s project’s critics, who claim that it is doomed to fail, should bear the burden of proof at this point.
Some highlights from Rubio’s report include:
- In terms of industrial robot installations, China is the world’s top installers, with more installed in 2022 than the rest of the world combined.
- Given the size of China’s manufacturing workforce and wage levels in comparison to those of the United States, China’s robot density exceeded our own in 2021, a remarkable achievement.
- China’s extensive 5G telecommunications network, which consists of more than 3 million 5G base stations, makes it a leader in smart manufacturing.
- Chinese entrepreneurs are assisting China in overcoming its reliance on imported tools and robots. Despite record installations, China’s imports of industrial robots have declined the past two years. This is due to Chinese companies ‘ steadily expanding business, which are thought to have had a 35.5 % domestic market share. share in 2022, up from 17.5 % a decade ago. China’s position is even stronger in the incredibly fragmented machine-tool market, wherein Chinese manufacturers will account for nearly a third of global production in 2022.
- Chinese businesses are establishing sophisticated factories that will enable them to enter foreign markets and halt criticism of export practices.
Rubio’s message is that the United States must make extraordinary efforts to stay ahead of China and that it should n’t believe that a pen-waving device can stop this technological behemoth.
It is not difficult to draw any conclusions about foreign policy based on this analysis.
Follow David P Goldman on X at @davidpgoldman