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Notes -
Dwarkesh Patel interviews Jensen Huang.
I'm no tech expert, and I'm pretty much a single-issue poster on China here, so I pay attention only from the 57th minute. It's worth a listen.
Here's my interpretation of the case laid out by Dwarkesh, although he didn't spell it all out. Some in the US, especially the Silicon Valley tech bros (exactly the kind of attitude Dwarkesh puts on display, and also Dario Amodei and his cult followers, and some here), believe that in the brief window before we hit the technological singularity, America can and will ride its computing power advantage to total dominance over AI and, by extension, the future of humanity. Under this logic, any computing power exported to China during this window is a direct blow to American national interests. The goal is very focused: sprint past the finish line, and everything else will sort itself out afterward, China included. If you want to solve the energy crisis? Invest in AI. If you want to end world hunger? Invest in AI. If you want to make sure the yellow vermin stay in their place? Invest in AI, told you already.
But 1) how far away that singularity actually is remains unclear (I'm not sure, again I am no expert on AI or anything this forum is familiar with, so feel free to lay out your thoughts on why the tech singularity is in sight). 2) US-China competition is a long game. Both countries are formidable, and in different ways. Both countries largest threat is from the inside, not the outside. There is no silver bullet that delivers a knockout blow. It's naive to think that restrictions on computing power, rare earths, or the like can permanently lock the other side out. What it will for sure do is generate animosity and bellicosity, with intensity up to a scale never seen before on this planet. This is probably partly why rare earth controls, effective as they are, haven't been deployed on a permanent basis. 3) There is a profound deficit of goodwill between the US and China, and that poses an enormous security risk to both nations and the world at large. This risk is far more real than the doomsday anxieties peddled by those types who love to brand themselves as "effective altruism" advocates, wringing their hands over alignment and the specter of a superintelligent AI annihilating the world. Export controls and measures of that sort are therefore much harm and dubious gain. At their core, they reflect a desire by certain people to take a shortcut, convinced that this one move alone can defeat China and "secure the light cone." I think this is pure fantasy, likely just another manifestation of a weird complex.
Which brings me to something more personal, because I realize I can't talk about this purely in the abstract. I love my country (contrary to what some seem to believe, people in China do love China, not all, but still. I can't believe this needs to be spelled out but apparently so). But I also like the Americans, in fact more so than most other peoples. I like power and I like a country that is strong and powerful, and I think that is a virtue in its own right. It demonstrates the vitality of the culture that country is founded on, which I think provide a lot for Chinese to learn from. I think for the most part the Americans I've met and know have treated me well, and respected me, and I think it is my duty to return that. But something has been puzzling me for some time, maybe because of my apparent inability to understand conflict. I do not understand why China and America have to be in conflict. I don't think the current situation is only any particular country's fault; it's complex and in many ways an extension of domestic issues; it's fueled by mutual misunderstanding which I think is somewhat lopsided given the lack of American in China but not vice versa; it's also because China for a long time until recently was not a functional society and ran by either corrupt (physically and/or spiritually) or megalomaniac people, and that itself creates all sorts of troubles that overflow beyond the border; it's also because of the growing anxiety among Americans due to societal rot, and the impulse to seek a simple explanation and target to avoid facing the real issues. But I do not understand it. To use what Xi said, the Pacific seems wide enough to contain two powers, and I think the years of collaboration and positive competition between China and the US have benefited both, tremendously so. I also believe that the right position on a wide variety of social and economic issues is somewhere in between those of China and the US, and that losing either one is like losing a mirror to reflect upon, which hastens the decadence of each. I can't think of "rational" reasons why this has to be confrontational.
Maybe this is all motivated reasoning, but all reasoning is motivated. Anyways, thoughts?
I strongly recommend the book "The Hundred Year Marathon" by Michael Pillsbury. The short version is that in the 20th century, Americans agreed with this, and made many efforts to support the fledgling Chinese state and connect economically. Unfortunately, during this entire period, China was doing everything in its power to subvert and take advantage of America. One of the best known examples is industrial espionage, which China continues to this day.
I know it may seem reductive to say "The Chinese are to blame" but the history backs this up. China and America are in conflict because China believes only one country can be on top, and that global relations are a zero-sum game. I personally think this is the natural consequence of a communist mindset, which is notably zero-sum about everything.
Of course there are plenty of people in China who don't think this way, mainly businessmen, but China is structured in such a way that those people are subject to the control of the ideologically driven politicians.
I do not like this "you started it first", "no, you started it first" nonsense. As with every competition before and after this one, the situation is complicated and dynamic. It does not have a simple, elegant explanation you can point to and say, "this is why we hate them!". I do not want to waste your time or mine digging up why the Chinese think it was the Americans who failed us. You can try asking Claude or ChatGPT or GLM or whatever, it will give you our point of view more eloquently than I can. It's a paralyzing train of thought, and it is why I think many disputes can never get resolved, whether Republican-Democrat fissures or the conflicts in the Middle East.
It means nothing to me, because it is not constructive. Where we go from here, and how people can solve this without putting everyone's lives on this planet at risk, that is what matters.
I don't intend this as confrontational, but you are also controlled by ideologically driven politicians. This is a simple fact. You yourself are also likely not one of those ideologically driven politicians. Your position is not meaningfully different from that of the Chinese businessman you disagreed with.
I have never understood this point about "being controlled by X". What does that even mean? Everything is "controlled" by something else if you think about it long enough. What is the whole point of pretending to have "individual thoughts" (of course it brings you comfort and I think that's good) in a debate? Have you ever thought about where those individual thoughts come from?
Speaking in terms of industry, China did, indeed, start it first. China can claim the british/japanese started things even firster, but excepting perhaps the boxer rebellion, the United States didn't make any particular effort to stifle china's economic growth until well after china began it history of stealing american IP. I don't judge china for doing that because intellectually property law-- i.e. government-issued monopolies on ideas-- is fundamentally bullshit rent-seeking. But relative to the diplomatic agreements in place, the chinese government promised one thing and delivered another.
This isn't even going to be a debate in 100 years-- just like Americans don't bother denying our rampant theft of british IP during the early industrial revolution.
I don't count Japanese crimes as American crimes. I don't really think British crimes should be laid at American hands either, though Britain is no longer a country I can hold a grudge against. For many people, everything white people did naturally falls on the major white country with agency, but I don't agree with that view.
I agree with you that the Americans were particularly benevolent even during the most chaotic years of the Chinese nation. Of all the powers, America perhaps took the least advantage of us and helped us the most, owing partly to the missionaries and the old China hands. I think the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program is obvious evidence of that. It is taught in Chinese schools.
I disagree. The US was hostile toward communist China well before China began its history of stealing American IP. You can argue the hostility was directed at communism, not at the Chinese people, but for the Chinese people, like the Iranian people right now, what difference does that really make? Should we really say thank you?
Anyways, I don't think this discussion is particularly fruitful. These "who's to blame" questions make my country revanchist and give us an inferiority complex that's hard to root out. It's also not helpful for Americans to see things through that lens, for the reasons I've already said.
Look, maybe the problem is that a lack of education is responsible for my ignorance of american attempts to restrict chinese economic growth. But if it is... what history lesson am I missing? As far as I remember, the rough chain of events was, WW2 -> chicoms defeat republican china -> korean war (attempt to constrain china's hard power, not economic power) -> sino-soviet split (leading to us/china rapproachment) -> vietnam war (again, not an attempt to restrain china's economic power specifically) -> nixon goes to china -> US/chinese economic alignment (including chinese stealing american IP) -> modern worsening of relations. Did I miss america backstabbing china industrially during the sino-soviet split?
I don't think it's a lack of education. Until very recently there was no reason or incentive for Americans to care about what the Chinese think. And until now there's been no reason for American media or policy wonks to represent Chinese perspectives.
From 1949 until Nixon, the US maintained a comprehensive embargo on China (through CoCOM/CHINCOM, which is even stricter than against the Soviets). You can frame that as anti-communism and constraining hard power, but it absolutely hurt and was meant to hurt the Chinese economy, which was already reeling from internal mismanagement and near-total isolation from the productive world. It's hard to imagine a country acting militarily against another without also acting economically, right? I'm not assigning blame here, because China did align with the Soviets.
A few things worth noting in this timeline.
There is a genuine window of collaboration, after Nixon and most notably during the Reagan era.
In 1989 after Tiananmen the US and the west placed comprehensive sanctions against China. The US suspended military sales, blocked World Bank loans to China, and imposed restrictions on technology transfer. Some of these were never fully lifted to start with.
In 1996, CoCOM, a Cold War era economical sanction against the eastern bloc, was succeeded by the Wassenaar Arrangement, which continues to prohibit a wide range of goods and technology sales to China. So even during the period of supposed "economic alignment," the US and its allies maintained significant restrictions on technology transfer. And there are the Cox Report followed by the Wolf Amendment, which China sees as baseless.
It's also important to consider the reasons the US gives for sanctioning China, usually framed around "dual-use technologies" and "human rights abuses." Especially given how the current administration behaves, it is very difficult for us to believe that these measures are genuinely motivated by concern for human rights in China, and even if a fraction of the American policy makers did genuinely believe that, I think they're usually carrying water for the hawkish Cold War types still. They are far more easily read as a hypocritical use of human rights to justify economic encirclement. And also what exactly do Americans want China to do to lift those sanctions? Regime change is off the table, there is a period (2000-2010s) where there is genuine improvement on the human rights front, does that lift the sanctions? My reading is that nothing can result in lifting the sanctions because sanction is the point.
And one cannot expect the other party to overlook outright provocations even if not economic, most importantly US arms sales to Taiwan, especially in the period surrounding the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. For added context: during that period the US Congress and the State Department were sending contradictory signals, which is part of why I've argued that the current worsening of relations is often an extension of domestic politics. In this case, it was the active sabotage of executive branch policy by the opposition party in Congress. One example here:
Edit: and this soured the relationship from the very beginning. Another example of the president's policy being sabotaged by opposition.
Things like this happens multiple times and I don't want to list them all. Just to show you that from the Chinese perspective it is difficult to trust the Americans, because when you negotiate with Americans you cannot guarantee that the other branches of the government, or the next government, will honor their promises. I think Iran understands that pretty well by now.
Again I think this particular practice of finding out who shoot first is unproductive. I think for China and the US, we're roughly even. And more importantly moving on is to find common ground and collaborate, which I think has great potentials.
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