Network States

Gross cherry picking to call American State falling and China ascending

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/china-100-year-storm-horizon-how-five-big-forces-playing-ray-dalio-wysbc

This is a good post by Dalio, but doesn’t really contradict my view in any way.

Xi’s view is essentially: what does he have to do to not end up like Saddam, Qaddafi, and everyone else who got regime changed?

1) First, he was starting with a much stronger country than Iraq, Libya, or even Russia. China can’t truly be sanctioned as it’s the world’s factory.

2) Second, Xi has doubled down on the Great Firewall and existing tools for internal control. From China’s perspective they successfully defeated the color revolution attempted in Hong Kong in 2019, where Julie Eadeh and the State Dept backed Joshua Wong.

3) Third, Xi has de facto nationalized many tech companies like Alibaba and ensured that the entrepreneurs aren’t too friendly or dependent on the West. This is one of China’s biggest weaknesses because those founders drove China’s high-tech rise. However, Xi’s bet is that a younger generation of ultranationalist founders will step up.

Great points. Xi's strategy seems to leverage China's strong position, enhance internal control, and cultivate a new generation of nationalist entrepreneurs. It looks like he's trying to avoid regime change and maintain stability this way