Still supporting China, but pretending not to.

Following failure in Afghanistan after 20 years of trying to build a nation, "What are we doing today in foreign policy that we might look back in twenty years from now and say, 'If only we knew back then what we know now, we would never have gone down that path'?" wrote Thomas L Friedman for left-wing New York Times (NYT). "My answer can be summed up in one word: 'China'." "The depth of that US-China integration helped to fuel a much deeper globalization of the world economy and buttress four decades of relative peace between the world's two great powers. And remember, it's great-power conflicts that give us enormously destabilizing world wars." That was a one-sided relationship in which, "The US has lost 3.7 million jobs since 2001 due to its trade imbalance with China, with most of the damage done to manufacturing, according to a report," CNBC. "As the deficit has continued to swell, American workers have suffered, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC, generally considered to be left leaning," Like NYT. Clearly a supporter of China, Friedman lists some of the negatives that make China such a dangerous nation, so as not the be accused of being unpatriotic, but writes, "But before we transition from 'co-opetition' to confrontation with China, we should ask ourselves some hard questions." The opposite view is that, "Now, there is a new Evil Empire on earth. Its name is the People's Republic of China. The Communist Party of China (CPC) under Xi Jinping has launched a plan to dominate the world," wrote Ravi Shankar. "China has a well-deserved reputation for deceit," wrote John Barrasso. 'We're seeing almost weekly news stories detailing how researchers connected to China's military and intelligence services have penetrated our universities and research institutions. They are exploiting the free exchange of ideas to pilfer intellectual property. We need to wake up to the threat." "Tele communications networks supported and funded by China are taking over Africa's cyber space, a dependence that analysts suggest puts China in a position of power where it can exert political and social influence in some of the continent's countries," Economic Times (ET). Unable to pay its loans to China, Sri Lanka leased its Hambantota port to China for 99 years, Business Standard. "Sri Lanka recently passed the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill. The legislation gives China absolute authority in an area that is just 700 km away from Chennai in India," News18. Some Sri Lankans do not seem to agree with the Rajapaksa family which has completely taken over control of Sri Lanka, India Today. "With an integrated country strategy paper drafted under Sri Lanka's new High Commissioner Milinda Moragoda, the island nation is looking to bolster defence and security ties with India amid growing concerns of China's footprints in the region," ET. However, China may have been too confident of its power and may have dismissed the law unintended consequences, which "illuminates the perverse unanticipated effects of legislation and regulation", sas.upenn.edu. By unleashing the coronavirus from its laboratory in Wuhan, BBC, China may have thought that it would destroy world economy, especially those of the US and Europe, and thereby become the strongest, most dominant economy in the world because it controlled the virus fastest. But the pandemic disrupted global value chains and may result in widespread reshoring which means "the process of returning the production and manufacturing of goods back to the company's original country", Investopedia. "Long before COVID-19, industry 4.0 technologies were already fostering a reorganization of GVCs (global value chains) involving significant relocation (and reshoring) of productive activities," UNCTAD. Intel has revealed plans to invest up to 80 billion euros in manufacturing semiconductors in Europe, Reuters. In his desire to rule China for life, Xi Jinping has reverted to Mao Zedong's idea of "common prosperity" by eliminating accumulation of wealth by a few individuals and preventing any company from becoming too large, Indian Express. Could there be another 'Cultural Revolution' in China (wikipedia)? Not possible, wrote Andrew Browne, because Xi is not like Mao and does not intend to damage the economy. With complete control Xi may think that no consequence will be unintended. However, has he heard about Sod's Law?