Jordan Schneider

And

Like it's there to remind me that this stuff is really serious and this stuff matters.

And as much as I try to like make light of these dynamics between the U S and China, like things can go incredibly poorly.

I would very presumptuously say that the point of China talk and the work I've been doing for the past eight years is actually aimed at avoiding great power war.

I don't know.

That's a lot to put on a podcast and newsletter.

I think that America needs to make it really clear, both from a diplomatic and from a sort of military hardware perspective, that a war in Taiwan is a war that China would lose.

And then this is the harder one, is that in order for the two countries to like really get to a different phase than the phrase that we've been in since 2015 of my little periodization of these are two countries that are competing.

I think there needs to be a different understanding of from Chinese leadership that they can play a role in the world, which is not a sort of inherently sort of threatened and confrontational one.

There is like deep psychological trauma and wounds that has led not just one generation, but multiple generations of PRC leadership to that conclusion.

So I don't know what it takes to get there.

And you have this tension of on the one hand,

The things that I think are most important to preserving the balance of power between America and its liberal allies in China that would deter that war in Taiwan are also the things that are sort of reinforcing the view among Chinese leadership that these guys are out to get us and we need to push back every which way.

But hope springs eternal.

There have been many moments in Chinese history where the trajectory has been different than the one we've been on since

I don't know, 2010.

And I'm hopeful that the dynamics will change.