Geo Political Risk

[Davexl]

As crazy as Trump has been he has somehow pulled his fellow nationalist Modi off India's non-aligned fence and got them used to the idea of collective co-operation and containment. That and another strategic blunder by Xi Jinping in building that road along/into India's territory and allowing an attack on their troops. The four (US, Japan, India and Aus) aren't as clever a strategy as TPP was but it's a solid foundation for future expansion and co-operation.

Other East Asian nations (South Korea, Taiwan and Japan) managed very successful transitions from authoritarian, even dictatorial regimes to thriving market based social democracies. Was worth trying with China but I feel their sense of manifest destiny and historical grievance is stronger. Hopefully will just take a bit longer.

Until quite recently I thought that supporting Huawei was an excellent idea, not just technically but geopolitically - it was a 'global' technology that would help to cement the bonds between China & the West to allow time for China to possibly liberalise further. I even wrote items in the South China Morning Post & in the Financial Times supporting Huawei and the mostly European countries that chose them on both technical and security manageability grounds as asserted earlier by both New Zealand and Britain not long ago.

It also seemed that the US definately bullied 5-Eyes countries to get onside with their view which in my opinion was both anti-sovereign for the countries making the choice, and anti-competitive in the free-market trade sense too. The security claims by the US were bogus also according to the UK earlier, "UK says Huawei is manageable risk to 5G" in the Financial Times (Paywalled) and from Alex Younger MI6 in the UK, Total ban on China’s Huawei may be a mistake and it’s ‘more complicated than in or out’,

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2186414/total-ban-chinas-huawei-may-be-mistake-and-its-more-complicated-or

Huawei in the UK was finally put paid to by a combination of right wing pressure from a Conservatives clique, and the dismantling of Huawei's supply chain (by cutting out TSMC chip supply) by the US rendering Huawei adoption by the UK untenable. Germany & Canada will likely now follow the UK with their decision making.

But after China's earlier lies on their South China Seas commitments, the New York Times papers published on Xinjiang abuses, and then the complete deceit over Hong Kong I for one decided that under President Xi there was no chance for a reconciliation between East & West, the gaps remain too wide and the trust was gone. China not even allowing Taiwan into the WHO in the middle of a global pandemic didn't help either.

The decoupling will take time however, plenty long enough for the idiot Trump regime (you can't really call it an Administration) and President Xi to be challenged & replaced by more rational & less nationalistic forces for a safer world.