By clinging to American primacy through force and intimidation, Donald Trump is, ironically, undermining US global power. A saboteur trying to subvert US interests from the inside could hardly do better than what he’s accomplished through sheer incompetence.
Especially notable to me that the article made its point without even getting into things like Trump effectively handing leadership in EV technology and alternative energy broadly to China, or giving the Chinese chip-making industry just the boost it needed to potentially be able to supply China’s needs on its own, or making the US so hostile to scientific reseach that China will likely end up leading the world in that as well.
Yes - he could hardly do more to more thoroughly destroy the US’s standing in the world if he set out to deliberately do exactly that.
Oddly though, that at least provides him with a bit of cover - if he wasn’t such a blithering idiot, I’d suspect that that really was his goal. But I don’t think he’s even capable of maintaining focus on a straightforward strategy, much less a subtle and multilayered one.
That’s already the case
https://theconversation.com/china-now-publishes-more-high-quality-science-than-any-other-nation-should-the-us-be-worried-192080
And that’s scary because the standard for scientific publishing in China was mostly shit. I haven’t kept up, but I hope they’ve cleaned up their act. No hate on China, but their actions were speaking volumes not too long ago.
I would’ve guessed that but didn’t know it. Thanks for the clarification.