It's fairly accurate. That was one of the goals of the Trump administration and his supporters. He wants to focus on America as opposed to the rest of the world which means that your soft power will weaken. This statement should make you ecstatic.

No it's not you would have to be really ignorant of recent events to think China is somehow in a better position than they were pre-Trump.

Just today India banned TikTok and other Chinese social media apps.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-blocks-dozens-of-chinese-apps-including-tiktok-following-border-clash-11593447321

Australia has moved significantly to address Chinese influence and their relations are further straining. More and more countries all over the world are more aware today of Chinese predatory actions. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, etc are all digging in because they see China as a threat. Their growth has stagnated significantly due to tariffs and Covid. Many corporations are moving their supply chains out of China because they see the winds of Change.

Just because we're moving troops out of Afghanistan & Germany doesn't somehow mean we are weaker geopolitically especially considering that the threat is China not the Taliban or Russia.

Like it's something that constantly parroted in the media as a limp wristed dig at Trump but can you articulate how China has taken the lead on the global stage, specifically as a result of Trump's actions?

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jun 29 2020 02:01pm

I think China IS in a better position than they were pre-Trump. They've made a substantial amount of foreign investments everywhere in the world. The original statement isn't that they ARE the world leader. It's that they are in the process of becoming the world leader. The process is happening as we speak.

Also, soft power is by DEFINITION non-military. Troop removal has nothing to do with soft power. Our state department has seen the degradation of soft power by design. Again, you should be happy that Trump is doing this because it's one of his many successes.

No, it is not. China will not become the world leader. Like offthevoid said, many big players have turned on them recently over their aggressive, imperialist foreign policy, their brazen censorship efforts on foreign soil, their theft of intellectual property and their dishonesty with coronavirus. China making inroads with economic and geopolitical dwardf in Africa and Central Asia does not mean that they are getting closer to geopolitical dominance.

What's happening is that the world order is moving away from American hegemony and towards a multipolar order which will have the United States and Chinas as the big poles, and the EU as the third pole on those issues where the EU is unified and engaged. But even in this multipolar world order, there will be plenty of unaffiliated middle powers like Russia, China or Brazil, and "swing blocs" like the African Union or the ASEAN countries.


At the end of the day, the ascent of China and the descent of the US had already been going on since the early 2000s. Considering China's huge population and the low economic level they were coming from (lots of room for growth), it was inevitable that they would eventually become a major major power and rival the US. The trend of the US losing soft power, losing its grasp on the world, was already far advanced and clearly visible during Obama's tenure. Trump's disinterest in diplomacy has merely accelerated the already ongoing erosion of American soft power.

This is fair I suppose. If the West can remain unified, China won't become THE world leader but they will certainly be a more powerful pillar. Either way, America's soft power is weakening which allows for the EU and China to consolidate. This isn't good or bad, it's just different.

The sentence was of course supposed to read "[...]even in this multipolar world order, there will be plenty of unaffiliated middle powers like Russia, India or Brazi [...]l".



China becoming more powerful was absolutely inevitable given their size, their location and also the prominent role they have played throughout history. With the exception of the Century of Humiliation ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation ), China has always been one of the most technologically and culturally advanced societies on the planet. They are simply claiming back their "rightful place on the world stage".

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Honestly, I think the U.S. no longer playing "world police" is better for everyone, including the US itself.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jun 29 2020 03:13pm

Thanks to people who defend for-profit healthcare, Gilead gets to continue to be a blood-sucking pharmaceutical company and is looking to charge 2 - 3 thousand dollars for Remdesivir, one of the first Covid-19 antiviral medications.

>paste-eating leftist doesnt understand economics

uh oh? https://twitter.com/bbchealth/status/1277682813333012481

Your sense of grandiosity is not matched by your abilities.