I asked the same question your friend asked you, in the replies to your China Can't Win article, a week ago. Your certainty seemed unwarranted then, and this latest attempt to prove your case is also disappointing. You're trying to treat extremely complex realities as if they can be solved like mathematical equations. Sorry, but you haven't yet developed psychohistory.
The UK-Germany decoupling is one example where economic decoupling arguably led to war, but there are any number of historical counter examples that 'prove' the opposite.
e.g. US-China decoupled before, in the decades following the 1949 Chinese revolution, and somehow that didn't lead to World War III. Instead it led to eventual recoupling. Who knew?
Or, as an example of rival 'great powers' that economically decoupled and then recoupled, the US-USSR detente in the 1970s, following the cold war.
Very interesting article.
I asked the same question your friend asked you, in the replies to your China Can't Win article, a week ago. Your certainty seemed unwarranted then, and this latest attempt to prove your case is also disappointing. You're trying to treat extremely complex realities as if they can be solved like mathematical equations. Sorry, but you haven't yet developed psychohistory.
The UK-Germany decoupling is one example where economic decoupling arguably led to war, but there are any number of historical counter examples that 'prove' the opposite.
e.g. US-China decoupled before, in the decades following the 1949 Chinese revolution, and somehow that didn't lead to World War III. Instead it led to eventual recoupling. Who knew?
Or, as an example of rival 'great powers' that economically decoupled and then recoupled, the US-USSR detente in the 1970s, following the cold war.
Visited Beijing in 2001 Summer. River beds were all dried. They choked themselves long before.