CLEVELAND — China is far less the globally threatening bogeyman it projects as its 40-year economic boom cycle ebbs, geopolitical strategist George Friedman says.
And all the saber-rattling about China invading Taiwan needs to be taken with a grain of salt as well.
“The United States has done something really cool that very few people have noticed,” Friedman told FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller in a fireside chat on the opening day of the two-day Future of Supply Chain event. “In the past month, we signed a treaty with the Philippines that gives us four bases right off the Chinese coast.”
Separate deals with New Guinea and Fiji provided missile bases. Together, those arrangements that effectively give the U.S. control of China from the Aleutian Islands to Australia.
“And that’s changed the balance of power dramatically. China’s basic fear has always been that the United States would blockade their ports and make it impossible for them to trade,” Friedman said. “Now that fear is really a fear.”
Friedman is an internationally recognized geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs. He is founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, an online publication that analyzes and predicts the international system.
Friedman is a New York Times bestselling author. His 2009 book “The Next 100 Years” remains relevant because his geopolitical predictions are unfolding in many countries.
Evidence of a fast thaw in U.S.-Sino relations
Friedman said the recent “very pleasant meeting” between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China Premier Xi Jinping is evidence of a fast thaw in the U.S.-Sino relations.
The U.S. and China need each other as trading partners, not engaged in brinkmanship over Taiwan, which China has considered to be a rebel region since the unofficial end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
Despite its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan, if China could successfully invade the island nation without attracting an American military response, it would have, Friedman said. After policy missteps over COVID and a declining economy, Xi cannot afford a military failure.
“What’s happening here is that American power is asserting itself. And most of the players, including India, are shading to a pro-American stance. This has China extremely worried. If the United States chooses to freeze China out, there’s a chance they could do it.”
The U.S. is also cozying up to India. Premier Narendra Modi wants to supplant China as a U.S. trading partner. Air India on Tuesday firmed an order for 470 Airbus and Boeing aircraft with a list price of $70 billion.
“They’re very hostile to China,” Friedman said. “If we also had India in the American relationship, now China’s really worried. India very much wants to take China’s place in the U.S. markets. Taiwan just doesn’t reach that level.”
ROLAND WEE
mr friedman, I am the man with eyes that is on the internet. you are an old coot that is afraid of america. you are a corrupt little a hole!
the cia is using the starlink satellites to destroy my head, teeth, gums, and body to kill me so they can have me for military research and development.
My eyes are on the internet without cams. I have given advice to 4 us presidents. and what america is doing to me is horrible. I have not done anything bad to America
My eyes are of GOD. the antiGod, antichrist elon musk is giving money to the cia and the starlink satellites engineers to kill me. they are paying the police here not to investigate so the 2 chinks at the back of my house, outside its walls can give my location to the starlink satellites.
We have to stop this satanist elon musk.
Patrck J Garez
Very accurate comment from Friedman re Taiwan about 1949. Few people are old enough to remember, including the political circumstances at the time.
Naksuthin
China is way ahead of Friedman.
China is winning friends in the developing countries of Africa, the Middle East, South America and S E Asia.
China is opening up The Northern Sea Route (NSR)over Russia or the Northeast Passage which cuts down shipping by 7000 kilometers and bypasses the S. China sea
China is building. rail lines to new ports in Pakistan..by passing the S. CHINA SEA
Saad
This is just “The weapons of mass destruction” part ii. Part i was of course the attack on lraq and its destruction killing more than a hundred thousand people. All this wailing about China is bogus
Rolfhu
Friedman sounds just like a castrated old man. Agree, the book was not bad at the time. But time have changed. The US is controlled by big corporations, and they want business not war. The old puppy in the withe house are there, as long the big corporations allowing it. China made big progress in last decades. Big cities are cleaner with better infrastructures than the US have. The economy in the US will soon get a big hit and then we will see what happen. I not worry about China, they have time and plan for long term success.
Adrian P
Two populists, Bernie Sanders and Indicted Donald destroyed the TPP which would have opened a burgeoning Asian Middle-Class with purchasing power to U.S. companies. Instead, the radical on the left and the radical on the right won the economic minds of American, unfortunately. TPP would was ready to provide a slew of sales prospects to convert into customers, growing businesses and producing the need for more jobs, not that the labor market isn’t historically healthy right now.
Russia and Mr. Putin aim to change the US led world order since the end of WWII. If the Isolationists do not comprehend that, then they are being partisans just for the sake of being partisan, playing team politics rather than looking at American national interests.
Cliff B
Just remember the words of Henry Kissinger: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
Friedman can’t see the long view strategic game the Americans and the Chinese are both playing.
China is slowly economically decoupling selected nations away from the West and away from the dollar, albeit slow but steady.
Correspondingly, the U. S. Is moving to economically decouple from China and to return manufacturing to to the U.S. Further, China is cheering on the U.S. Chip wise moving to decouple from Taiwan — Morris Chang knows that and has written articles about that being America’s strategic objective. A strategically smart move on this country’s part.
The Chinese are willing to see the Russians defeated in the Ukraine — that will make them more economically dependent on China. And, the longer that ear takes, the more it costs the U.S. and European countries supplying the Ukraine. And, who will pay to rebuild the Ukraine.
The military drum beating is all noise — to distract others, especially America’s supposed Allies. We are not blockading China. We know they have a missile force capable of hitting and destroying every U.S. base and Naval Force across the Pacific. And if the U.S. tried hitting the Chinese mainland — goodbye America. We’re not strategically stupid.
Terrence Malice
Didn’t this dude think we’d be at war with Japan in the 2010’s? Lolz.