6 Comments
User's avatar
Mark Eaton's avatar

I remember listening to Jimmy Goldsmith warning everyone about this back in the early 90s. I believe it was an interview with Charlie Rose, but I can’t be certain. He also wrote about it in a book called ‘The Trap’. It makes for an interesting read in hindsight.

Expand full comment
SP's avatar

This will be an underrated piece. We need to live in the world as it is, not how we would like it to be. This article recognises this. Realism versus the naivety of modern (political) thinking.

Expand full comment
jcbird's avatar

Agreed. And I think all Pete's pieces are underrated.

Expand full comment
Pottotto's avatar

Ironically, China has also made itself have immense fertility problems due to all the wastes put into their lands. You may think I'm joking but many, many women struggle to even conceive just one healthy child. Not to mention, the massive youth unemployment.

Things fall apart lol

Expand full comment
Richard G Chapman's avatar

“European elites just haven’t woken up to the new reality yet. They remain wedded to the ever shrinking, soon to be defunct “international rules based order”.”

In my humble opinion if the human race is to survive more than the shorter term it must accept globalisation. The “international rules based order” is one step in that direction; the ending of the nation state is another.

I say this because, assuming it hasn’t obliterated itself with nuclear weaponry or the Earth hasn’t collided with such as a large enough asteroid in the meantime, if it is to survive in any longer term the human race as a whole must adapt to living a lot more sustainably with nature.

And to live a lot more sustainably with nature requires unilateral global direction; not competing factions of nation states.

To not adapt to globalisation now, for example by the defunction of the “international rules based order”, is delaying having to adapt to globalisation later; with ever more drastic penalties for not doing so sooner.

Notwithstanding the lunacy of Net Carbon Zero; as if adapting to living a lot more sustainably with nature now is not drastic enough!

Expand full comment
Rolf Norfolk's avatar

It's not China that waged economic war but the treacherous Western business class that undermined our own workers by offshoring productive capacity.

As to shoddy export goods, that was an issue in postwar Japan, until Deming taught them the benefits of quality control. In a decade or two China too may become a byword for efficiency and 'continuous improvement.'

Meanwhile our politicians will continue to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage.

Expand full comment