Up until recently there has been a clear division in terms of structure and perception between the West and China, with the West often superficially appearing to be a mess while the structure and institutions underneath are strong, leading to a fundamental confidence in it. China has been in many ways the opposite, superficially everything seems fine, but underneath due to a lack of transparency, things are much less solid, there is a sense of fluidity and opaqueness to the system and to the institutions. Which tends to not lead to greater confidence, except in bubbly times of huge growth.
The Trump-2 era has added a new factor, making the US less stable, more extremely divided, with the very nature of the structure and institutions now under question. Trump is trying to fire the leaders of the FED, the Supreme Court is already operating in a partisan way and the question is whether the GOP can gerrymander its way to a win in the mid-terms next year. These kinds of things don’t apply to China at all, but the fact that Trump is making America more divided, more weak, is unquestionably helping to Make China Great Again.
The shooting of Charlie Kirk has worsened the situation in America, and will be used as a way to worsen the division between the two Americas, the liberals and the Trumpists. The shooting ramps up considerably the extent to which the US system is fundamentally under threat and calls into question the institutional strengths of the West. How dark is it going to get? And will the US and others be able to transcend this moment? Who knows?
Some people have observed that there are curious similarities between the policy approach of Trump-2 and the China system, but the difference is that Trump is going to face the mid-terms, whereas the China system faces no such challenge, so therefore less chance of flexibility and change. And the great question we are facing right now, the one that transcends all the others, is which system, in the end, is more effective in terms of running human affairs, one that is highly centralized or one that is highly diverse. This is being tested right now.
Have a great weekend.