Comment by _DeadFred_
7 hours ago
But China is already in decline before reaching this ascendancy.
I think new models will result in new structures, not just a switch from the US to China.
7 hours ago
But China is already in decline before reaching this ascendancy.
I think new models will result in new structures, not just a switch from the US to China.
A multipolar world where every pole is a decadent husk or a former (or not even former) great empire.
Yeah, sounds about right for this timeline.
Sure. What difference does it make if they're 1.2b or 800m? It's still huge by any metric. The current US administration is definitely clearly working in their favour. That's part of why Detusche Bank is a yuan clearing house now.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-thucydides
China's population is declining while building and operating the largest fleet of manufacturing robotics in the world. The US population is not declining as quickly while having limited capability to do anything. A recent example is $500M of taxpayer dollars spent on a munition manufacturing facility that did not build a single munition.
The US has coasted just about as far as it can go on it's exorbitant privilege while failing to invest in the future.
TLDR China builds, and will continue to build long into the future, the US prospers (for now) from financialization but cannot build, nor has the will to attempt to.
China Makes AI-powered Robots Core of National Strategy: China´s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) marks pivot to innovation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege
That sounds like a wish? China has 1.3 billion people in an area the size of 1/3 of the United States (basically the area from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi river Florida to Maine). Imagine if the United States had 1.3 billion people just in that area with the rest of the country being the equivalent of the Tibetan Plateau). One could argue that you would need/want to have fewer people not more.
I am arguing that population is not a component of success criteria, but steady state manufacturing capacity is. China has it, the US doesn't, China continues to cultivate and prioritize it, the US doesn't. If I want to build something of high value at scale, am I going to do it in the US or China? The answer to that remains clear, I'm on the next flight to Shenzhen.
For example, China can build ~20M EVs a year, the US ~1-3M per year, as of this comment.
Ember Energy: China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... (updated monthly)
> As the world’s largest manufacturer of clean technologies, data on China’s cleantech exports provide an important early insight into the pace and scale of the energy transition. In 2024, China produced around 80% of the world’s solar PV modules and battery cells, and 70% of electric vehicles.