Summary What happens if China wins? | John Mearsheimer and Lex Fridman (Youtube) youtu.be
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n/a What does a world with China's the soul dominant superpower look like? I mean, a little bit underlying our discussions this kind of idea that Us is the good guys and China is the bad guys. First of all, you know, they're, you know, dividing the world to good guys are bad guys seems to somehow missed the nuance of this whole. Human civilization project we're undertaking. But what does the world look like?
n/a Where China is the dominant soul superpower in a uni poll world.
John Mearsheimer Well, I I don't tend to think of the world in terms of good guys and bad guys as a good realist. I I think that, you know, states or states They're all black boxes, you know, I don't discriminate between democracies and auto democracies. Mh But having said that, I am an Americans. And as an American, I'm interested in the security of my country, the survival of my country. So I want the United States to be the most powerful state in the world, which means I want the United States.
John Mearsheimer To dominate the western hemisphere. I want us to be a regional hedge on, and I wanna make sure that China does not dominate Asia the way we dominate the western hemisphere. It's not because I think we're the good guys and they're the bad guys. If I were Chinese, and I were in Beijing, and I was Xi Jinping National security adviser. I'd tell him what we gotta do is make sure we dominate the world or dominate our region and then do everything we can't to undermine America's position, in the Western hemisphere.
John Mearsheimer Right? That that'd be my view. So I guess you could say I do view the world in terms of good guys and bad guys because I'm in America And I more
n/a like us and them
John Mearsheimer Yeah. It's. That's that's a nice way to put it. Yeah. It's us versus them.
John Mearsheimer Not so much good gust versus bad guy.
n/a Is it possible to have a stable peaceful world with a good balance of power with... You, where it's... China and Us as superpower. You it's a bipolar world, no longer Uni poll.
John Mearsheimer Yeah. Okay. So you're hypo the world, where they dominate Asia? Yeah. And we dominate the western hemisphere.
John Mearsheimer Yep. I believe there would be a great deal of security competition. Intense security competition between those 2 super superpower.
n/a Definition of intense matters here. So it could be small. Small military conflicts or it could be extremely large unstable military conflicts Right Well,
John Mearsheimer conflict let's use the word war. Okay. So I I distinguish between security competition and war. And what I'm telling you is you'll have an intense security competition where there's no shooting. Or if there's shooting, it's mainly proxies that are doing the fighting.
n/a Yeah.
John Mearsheimer Much like the Vietnam war. Right? Or you could have a case where 1 of those superpower was involved in a war against a proxy of the other super power. Mh. Korean war.
John Mearsheimer Think the Korean war. The United States fought the Chinese who were allied with the Soviets at the time Mh. But a war between the United States and China, just like a war between the United States. And the soviet union during the cold war. That's what you really want to employ avoid.
John Mearsheimer So I think you'd have an intense security competition. Right? You'd have wars involving proxies of each of those 2 super superpower. And you would probably have some wars where 1 of the super superpower was involved in a proxy see, Right? With the other super...
John Mearsheimer 1 of the super other super powers proxies.
n/a So it seems likely then if that's the the case then it would be Taiwan is the proxy and Us fighting China through the proxy of time.
John Mearsheimer What the Yeah. Well, that would assume the United States. But you wanna remember, you're hypo a situation where China dominates Asia. Oh, already has dominated. Yes.
John Mearsheimer It's already dominated Taiwan.
n/a I see.
John Mearsheimer We we... Well, wait
n/a where do you find the proxies?
John Mearsheimer Well, australia the Middle East could be a good case. Oh, wow. Right. Persian golf. Right.
n/a Oh, boy. And then our discussion of Israel becomes more dramatically
John Mearsheimer Well, Israel Israel gets involved. I think I think in this scenario, if you're talking about a Us China competition. Right? And you're talking about the Middle East. Yeah I think it's the gulf.
John Mearsheimer It's it's the Saudi, the Fridman, the Iraqis. It's the oil.
n/a Don't you think it could be Israel versus as Iran with... Some very 19 84 kind of dramatic partnership of Iran, Russia and China versus United States, Europe and Israel.
John Mearsheimer I think that's possible. Yeah. III think that's possible. Yeah. Now that I I mean, I hadn't thought about it and until you said it, But...
John Mearsheimer Yeah. I think that that that is possible.
n/a Is is not terrifying?
John Mearsheimer Yeah. Well, that you know, in your scenario, we're trying to already dominates Asia and we dominate the western hemisphere. I think you start talking about where the most likely places that the United States and China go head to head or or fight through proxies. I I think it is the gulf for the Middle East and the scenario that you pos.