[opt-skept]

Note, this isn't going to be a surprise attack. China is developing access to hold the infrastructure at risk as a retaliation/deterrent for an American attack on China.

It is highly likely that the US has achieved similar levels of penetration into Chinese critical infrastructure for its own use in conflict contingency.

The actual deterrent effect of this is unlikely to, on its own, prevent the US from agitating a war on or within China. War is not inevitable, just structurally likely, due to the so called "Thucydides Trap." China's rise in economic and military power in an of itself critically endangers US security interests of being uncontested dominant power.

[consumer451]

> retaliation/deterrent for an American attack on China.

Just to be clear, what are we talking about here exactly?

I am 99.99999%, no I am 100% sure, that even "US China hawks" do not want to invade China. The alternative sounds like "NATO invading Russia" irrational paranoia which serves to keep the local population in nationalist fervor, while there is no actual threat.

It really sounds like we are calling the free-world's reaction to the possible CCP invasion of Taiwan, to be an attack on China?

Is the USA training its population for war like China? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUaYNhzEq_E

Please note that the YouTuber linked above, used to live in, and loved living in China, prior to the Xi Jinping take-over.

[opt-skept]

> Just to be clear, what are we talking about here exactly?

An ostensible war would be to set back China's growth and its trajectory of growth. The US has little interest in governing such a large country.

[consumer451]

I feel like we, as in our press and tbh all of us, repeat terms as they are presented by other countries as if they were peer Democracies, no questions asked.

Putin is President of the Russian Federation. Not dictator, not authoritarian leader who murders his opponents, nope "President."

Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China. Yup, it's a Republic. Not a single party state, and he is not the Emperor, whose opponents keep mysteriously dying. It's totally normal. He's just the "President" of China.

Can anyone with journalism experience explain to me how this works?

[opt-skept]

I'm a bit confused about the question and how this relates to the topic.

I don't know how many journalists are lurking non-front page HN stories, so you'll probably get a non-journalist answer to the question (if anyone ventures, I'll try).

I think you may be trying to ask a question about structuralist/realist theories of international relations, vs constructivist theories of international relations. Basically "sure there's some structuralist arguments, re: Thucydides, that the US should be expected to agitate for conflict, but what about democracy vs non-democracy - can't that better or equally explain sources of conflict?"

If that's what you mean you could look at the many places in the world where authoritarianism is recognized, accepted, even partnered with the United States (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, ...). In these cases you'll find the US partners with these allies, emboldens and arms them, due to shared structural/realist interests.

As far as the naming of people's titles around the world. I very often read glib/vitriolic denigrations of the specific people you've mentioned in US press. These articles tend to be intended more for domestic catharsis/rallying than it is to be accurate/analytical, although sometimes the articles are very good and I assume the editors make those changes based on guidelines/policy.

To learn more about governments around the world I would point to the CIA World Fact Book, which uses a taxonomic approach to classifying various systems. The CIA considers Russia to be a "semi-presidential federation" and indeed Putin is elected and extremely popular. (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/russia/#gov...). The CIA considers China to be a "communist party-led state" and indeed Jinping is the factually elected president of the single communist party. (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/china/#gove...).

Learning more about other leaders in these countries - their parliaments, their ministries, their election processes, their legislation drafting processes, etc - can help to abate some of the instincts to assume that political systems, because they aren't understood, are hostage/authoritarian situations. A good exercise is to learn at least ten other important officials from a given country and their roles for leading that country. I think trying this exercise yourself could help you answer your question above.

[consumer451]

> I'm a bit confused about the question and how this relates to the topic.

I'm sorry, while I did in-fact respond to your comment, I was just complaining out loud. I should have made a top level comment. However, you did give me a thoughtful reply. My apologies for only responding to this paragraph:

> As far as the naming of people's titles around the world. I very often read glib/vitriolic denigrations of the specific people you've mentioned in US press. These articles tend to be intended more for domestic catharsis/rallying than it is to be accurate/analytical, although sometimes the articles are very good and I assume the editors make those changes based on guidelines/policy.

I do believe in the supremacy of democracy. I have lived in an alternative, and it was bad. I do not have some theoretical respect for other government systems in this regard. Democracy is best for everyone, and I am not ashamed of this opinion. Nobody should be ashamed of this opinion. If a society is not ready for democracy, then it should be carpet bombed with Wikipedia.

There are multiple versions of democracies, for example, compared to the US system, a parliamentary system may have advantages.

The baseline that I wish journalists, and our "western" philosophy communication at-large could coalesce around is basically:

Single-party != democracy

If there is no democracy, then there can be no "president."

If you need a neutral term for that, maybe demote to a "leader."

If a "leader" has murdered all of his opponents, then we should go with something actively derogatory. Not only should no respect be given, but the title should be extremely negative.

[opt-skept]

Thank you for the thoughtful response and for sharing your opinion.

About the standard you propose. It's interesting, but there might be some issues with it. I am writing this not to change your opinion but to expand on the idea with you.

> Single-party != democracy

The concept of parties being associated with democracy is somewhat new or "hyper-local" I think. In the West we often trace democracy to ancient Athens, crediting them with inventing democracy (although I'm sure historians would debate). From Wikipedia: a party system in ancient Athens did not exist, but voting for representation did (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#:~:text=Tho....). This immediately disassociates the idea of democracy with the idea of parties. Parties are one way to organize coalitions of shared interest. Whereas democracy is a way for citizens to register their interests so that a government may address those interests.

As you suggested there are a wide range of different ways to organize democracy (parliament vs congress, representative vs direct, ...). There is in fact a Wikipedia article on different types of democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_democracy . An interesting thing I learned reading this is most of 1700s Britain was a one-party (Whig) system and by this standard would not have been considered by your proposed standard.

> If there is no democracy, then there can be no "president."

Again here's something I found on Wikipedia. The history and meaning of the word president means "presides over" rather than it meaning anything in particular in association with democracy. Its first recorded uses were in Aramaic and in the Bible. Today's common usage today means "head of state, usually of a republic", but has no common meaning associated with democracy as a form of government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_(government_title)#:....

> If you need a neutral term for that, maybe demote to a "leader."

I would just like to offer that if president means "presides over" and leader means "leads", someone else could have a similar objection you have to the use of "president" to the proposal to use "leader" - i.e. that we should not use it for persons who lead governments we don't consider to be "true democracies" because it shows some kind of respect or legitimacy.

> If a "leader" has murdered all of his opponents, then we should go with something actively derogatory. Not only should no respect be given, but the title should be extremely negative.

I suppose the idea here is that using a title that describes their role "quarterback Bob", "person who presides over, president, El-Sisi" gives some respect for their having that role, and we shouldn't give them that respect even if its technically accurate to describe them as the role they have. And if we think they've done something heinous we should give them a title that is heinous to disrespect them. "Smelly Bob", "Dipshit El-Sisi".

Here I think its fine for politicians, whose role is swaying public opinion and rousing people, to show disrespect or to not show respect. But I worry about setting standards for journalists because restricting them from accurately describing the roles of persons could undermine their job of communicating context and information, and it suggests that a journalist's role is to disrespect or respect persons, rather than focusing on being as accurate and informative as possible. I worry about the quality of information available in the US (where I live), and so I would worry this could further deteriorate what I perceive to be vulnerable.

In fact, I'll go further and say that I don't like it when journalists/editors go about trying to tell me what to think about a topic. I prefer that they law out a clear, accurate, precise and reproducible set of facts, observations and analysis - from which I can draw my own conclusions. Said another way, I like facts changing people's minds, rather than opinions changing people's minds, at least whenever we can afford it.

In terms of how often such a proposal could actually be used? I think there'd be some subjectivity in this, a "no true scotsman" type argument that would come up if the proposal were taken serious and made a standard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)

For example, take Vladimir Putin. One could try to argue that he's murdered all of his opponents. On the other hand this man was part of 5 presidential elections. In 2000 he faced 10 opponents. In 2004 he faced 5 opponents. In 2012 he faced 4 opponents. In 2018 he faced 7 opponents. In 2024 he faced 3 opponents. If one researches these opponents they were serious contenders for election (for a multi-party system).

The point is that I think some persons, using your proposal, would wish to apply it to an adversary of the United States, because disrespecting an adversary is a popular thing to do. Others would choose not to, instead making a judgement call that 29 serious non-murdered opponents qualifies him as president or leader.

And if we get to that case, were baseline is actually a judgement call instead of an objective editorial policy, I think the standard becomes more of a signal of a journalist's opinion or the outlet's editor than it is communicating to the audience some consistent message. And we're a little bit back in the boat we are already in (without a real baseline established).

Therefore overall I think the proposal might be benefitted by a rethink, as there are multiple ways in which it might not achieve the objectives it may be inspired by?

[haburka]

I don’t think the US has a similar level of penetration. They don’t let people who smoke weed work for the federal government. Additionally, the pay and job is just worse than doing cyber security for big tech. This means any decent hackers stay very far away from working for the feds.

[Starman_Jones]

I understand where you're coming from, but let me offer a different perspective. There's a certain class of individual who loves the challenge of "breaking" something, but prefers the reduced problem space, risk mitigation, and formal validation that such a job provides. Look at the schools with the top cybersecurity competition teams, and you'll find fertile recruiting ground for such individuals. The NSA knows this, and actively recruits these individuals from these schools. Arguably, they provide a more comfortable working environment for those so inclined than your typical big tech job would provide. With regards to the effectiveness, the recent Kaspersky hacks should show that the feds have some capability in this regard.

[CobaltFire]

There are quite a few scary competent people working on this type of thing in various places in the federal government.

Not everyone wants to work on the stuff that SV pays for, or the finance people pay for.

[wumeow]

This is some wild mental gymnastics. The US is not the one agitating a war.

[opt-skept]

Could you add some more information about what steps of reasoning you find unsound, or what reasons you believe China would have to agitate for a conflict?

The "Thucydides Trap" and its application to Sino-American conflict is not something that I've made up or is a personal opinion. I've merely captured what US defense and security analyst perspective here for those wanting more context on the article. Namely China wants to avoid conflict because it is the weaker power, and the US wants to create conflict now while China is a weaker power, to prevent China from becoming a stronger competitor in the future.

There are certainly some US security analysts who argue against the "Thucydides Trap" being the right framework to analyze Sino-American relations. However most of those criticisms are just pointing out that conflict isn't inevitable - that there's nuance. For example the US might become distracted with other priorities (domestic political issues, for example), and never initiate a conflict. Or perhaps China will see a slow down in the growth of its own power, and the US will no longer perceive it as a threat (much the same happened with Japan in the 90's, when Japan was considered a top security threat).

[wumeow]

China needs to do two things to avoid war with the US: don’t invade Taiwan, don’t start fights with US allies in the Pacific. So far, they have been agitating for both of those things.

[opt-skept]

While I disagree with this on its own merit, its important to point out this does not address the question/topic.

Asked above was: (a) What steps of reasoning do you think are unsound? (b) What reasons do you believe that China has to agitate a conflict with the US?

You answered (c) here is how China could avoid a conflict with the US

I'm sure you have questions about why this is disagreeable. But could we first resolve the open questions (a) and (b)?

[wumeow]

Ok I’ll spell it out.

A) China is not infiltrating US infrastructure to prevent the US from “agitating” a war on China, they’re doing it to deter the US from coming to the defense of Taiwan or other allies or partners in case a war breaks out in the Pacific, a war overwhelmingly likely to be started by China.

B) They don’t want to directly, but they definitely want to with their neighbors to expand their borders, legitimize the ruling party, and project naval power into the pacific and South China Sea. They hope their large navy and cyber capabilities will deter a US response

[opt-skept]

Okay, so for (b) we agree that China does not want to agitate a war with the US; that it would like to avoid it.

For (a) you do not have an area of critique where you believe any chain of logic presented earlier in the thread in unsound. Instead for (a) you have an alternative theory that you would advance.

The reason I thought you had some critique of soundness in (a) is that you had commented earlier you thought there was wild mental gymnastics, which would imply that you thought there was some unsound/crazy/wild leaps of thought.

This I think leaves us to discuss (a). Your proposed alternative theory agrees on the premise that the US would be the one choosing to engage military with China - that China would not choose to attack the United States. The key difference in your theory is that the United States "begrudgingly" would be obligated to engage militarily with China such as due to a legal commitment. This is opposed to the characterization that I advanced, which is that the United States is "leaning into" reasons to engage militarily with China.

I can explain why I do not think that the US would "begrudgingly feel obligated" and instead is "leaning into reasons". This is quite simple (I will spare spilled ink).

The US established in 2009 that China was its primary rival (in 2009 the Obama Administration announces the "Pivot to Asia", which Wikipedia describes as "represented a significant shift in the foreign policy of the United States ... invest heavily and build relationships in [Asia] ... to counter [China's] rise as a rival superpower"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_foreign_policy_of_t...

Since that time the reasons for a potential US conflict with China have kept changing. Once it was because of "unfair trade practices". It became for a while "Uighurs". "Tibet". "Defense of India". "South China Sea". "Taiwan". The constant over time is the explicitly and carefully articulated reason given by the US government itself that it needs to counter China as a rising superpower. The areas of conflict have been, are, and will continue to be, subject to change.

The US had almost certainly has no legal obligation to intervene on part of its "allies" (the Philippines only unless you have other legal allies in mind?) nor does it have any obligation to intervene for Taiwan. From a legal perspective again the Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines (who I assume you refer to by "allies") was effectively dead (with US bases, soldiers, exiting the region by early 1990s). It was only in 2021 (!) long long after the US identified the need to confront China that the US renewed this treaty (after the Philippines suggest it be scrapped). Neither the Philippine's specious claims to the Spratly Islands the a BRP Sierra Madre scenario would obligate a US intervention.

I would add that the US even insisted on intervening on behalf of the Philippines even when the Philippines itself rejected the United States and called for it to not engage in the area. This is how desperate the US has been to try to engineer something here. (The new Philippine administration has been easier for the US to work with).

Indeed the United States has been accelerating its efforts to grow treaties, obligations, and military basing in China's near abroad. From the Compacts of Free Association to the Nuclear "AUKUS" to the Quad, to its quite scandalous attempt at the Trans Pacific Partnership, the US's foreign policy has attempted to constrain the growth of China and attempted to engineer plausible scenarios in which it might escalate tensions with China into a victory.

China's interest in the South China Sea? To prevent an existential economic blow severing its ability to trade, a la the blockade that occurred during the Anglo-Chinese War. (Interestingly, and an aside only, Taiwan agrees with the Republic of China on Qing and earlier Chinese historical rights to the area).

Regarding such a confrontation? What would a war scenario look like? It would involve much more than the defense of the Sierra Madre or the defense of the Taiwan strait. The US military's footprint and conflict plan escalation from where-ever a conflict may arise to a blockade and strikes into China, even if it is not operationally called for (to defend a littoral, or whatever).

The US and Taiwan? The US's policy since the inception of relations with the island (despite being legally obligated to recognize Taiwan as part of the Republic of China) has been "strategic ambiguity" - to be purposefully vague about whether it will come to the defense of the island in order to discourage the status quo from changing.

The US, only after identifying its grand strategic need to prevent the rise of its superpower rival, has changed this policy, explicitly stating the US will defend Taiwan (again, no legal obligation) to encourage it to declare independence (again - despite US legal recognition).

US President Trump - China hawk of China hawks - first action as president was to call the leadership in Taiwan, a protocol breaking and intentionally provocative move intended to signal the US's intention to rock the boat and agitate for conflict with China.

I submit to you the "Pivot to Asia". The US first identified the need to confront a rising China as a rising superpower competitor more than a decade ago, and has since found various potential plausible means by which a conflict might occur and the US might escalate to situation in which China's potential is diminished.

[butterchaos]

Thucydides Trap is just the nonsense of historicism.

What rising power went to war with the hegem with a currency peg?

What rising power went to war with a hegem with a currency peg and its largest trading partner? A coalition that would include several of the top trading partners.

Like all points in history, the current moment is unique and pretending you can predict the future from the past is stupid.

[opt-skept]

The Belfare Center for Science and International Affairs has a nice report (https://www.belfercenter.org/thucydides-trap/case-file) indicating this is a good predictor for conflict (and lists examples that you can use).

Although, I'll definitely agree with you that all points in history are unique. Thucydides Trap shouldn't be understood as predicting the future using the past (that's absurd by definition). That would be a reductio ad absurdum, but it isn't what foreign policy scholars are actually arguing here.

Instead, it's a description of set of incentives that shape the relationship. What the individuals in power choose to do with those pressures/incentives on the relationship is absolutely a different question. The point the "foreign policy elite" in the United States are making is that it has strong incentives to agitate for a fight with China, before it becomes an competitor (as opposed to a "near peer competitor" or "pacing challenge" - the current language).

I suppose its worth clarifying. Do you deny that there are such structural elements of the Sino-American relationship? Or is your argument wrt Thucydides Trap that it isn't deterministic? Or something else?