One thing you can personally do is try to cultivate friendships on both sides, and make an effort to share and appreciate the culture, history, and daily challenges of each. If we have populations that really don’t want to fight, maybe that will help de-escalate things a bit.
China is my neighbor now (I immigrated to Asia). Some of their literature and history is really quite interesting! I’m not an expert, but I could make a suggestion or two if you like.
What Chinese literature do you enjoy?
Sun Tzu’s Art of War /s
Why sarcasm? It’s a good read and it occasionally comes to mind.
I’ve read it too (a long time ago, in a galaxy far… ehm, you know what I mean). I remember it was pretty good and interesting read. This sarcasm is more like a joke - when OP asks why superpowers can’t get along, just recommend book about warfare and getting upper hand on your enemy.
Ahh it flew over my head thanks.
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” is often misattributed to Sun Tzu, but it’s still a good joke in context lol.
I enjoyed Romance of the Three Kingdoms quite a bit. It was legitimately entertaining! I would recommend an abridged translation.
I’ve studied some Analects / Dialects / Neoconfucianism in school, Tao Te Ching, and Art of War. Those had some useful ideas in them, but were not exactly a laugh a minute (although Tao Te Ching has some funny bits). Those last two are very short texts as well.
Still on my list: Bandits of the Marsh, Journey to the West, and one other I can’t remember the title of right now.
What two superpowers?
Why of course the US and Bhutan.
America and Communism obviously 😎
I suspect this question assumes that all “superpowers” are the same, namely that they’re all capitalist imperialist states.
A recent video by Veritasium tries to answer this exact question : https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM?si=ubCMDqPrrlqYBQI8
They know the answer already, and are probably both trying it.
In US terminology, since that’s the language I know, they try for “competition” rather than “conflict”. The difference being whether they respect each other’s sovereignty for the most part while trying to bury the other, and don’t take straight-up military actions.
To achieve this, you provide a long series of “offramps” - opportunities to pause and de-escalate - on the path between peace and MAD, and ensure there is no benefit to either party to do any specific escalation. Mistakes will happen, both deliberate and accidental, but they’re very unlikely to all happen at the same time, so even if things get tense there’s offramps left, and game-theoretically they will take one because nobody wants a full-scale nuclear conflict.
Superpower wars are expensive and extremely unrewarding. Neither wants them. Sometimes they may talk the talk but when it comes to dedicating the next 10 or 20 years to a constant resource drain with no chance of recovering any of that, they’ll find any excuse to get out of it.
What two superpowers?
I’ll assume we’re talking about the USA and China here.
It may sound reductive, but a peaceful coexistence between liberalism (aka capitalism / other ideologies where private property rights are enshrined) and communism (in this case used as a blanket term for ideologies which are against the concept of private ownership of the means of production) is not stable and will inevitably collapse.
All that needs to happen to avoid a war is for the US capitalist class to keep their grubby greedy hands to themselves. They can’t do that though, for capital must grow. They must find more raw materials, more human labour, and more consumers to maintain their profits. They are incapable of cultivating good relations with anyone, let alone anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist entities, because every relationship they enter into is an economic one in which they want to be the exploiters, the winners, extracting obscene wealth from the losers.
The rest of the world is moving in a positive peaceful direction, but I’m concerned about what the capitalist empire will do as it becomes more and more desperate. It’s already done some of the most horrific things in human history while in a position of unchallenged or nearly unchallenged hegemony. I can’t imagine what it will try when it realizes it’s about to lose everything.
Isn’t China the biggest capitalist country in the world?
No, China is socialist.
The USA or India are by economy and population respectively the largest capitalist nations.
I’m confused… Do you know what the terms that you use even mean?
To get a baseline here… Do you think France is socialist or capitalist?
China has been mixed market economy for decades. You were talking about private property ownership. Are you not aware that China has one of the highest home ownership numbers in the world?
I do have a grasp of what capitalist and socialist mean. I’m confused by your mixing and matching of terms. I’m consistently using Marxist definitions here.
France is a country with a capitalist mode of production.
China is socialist. China has home ownership for personal use, but no private land ownership and ever dwindling private ownership of the means of production. Homes for the purpose of living in, ie personal property, are not a means of production, and houses for rent for the purpose of enriching the owner at the expense of the tenant, ie private property, basically don’t exist.
Markets have nothing to do with the distinction between capitalist and socialist modes of production, the ownership of the means of production and thus also the class in control of the state is the defining characteristic.
If you’re interested in learning more about SWCC here are some resources.
An older but still relevant essay on how China is not capitalist: https://chinareporting.blogspot.com/2009/11/class-nature-of-chinese-state-critique_26.html?m=1
Are you sure you’re a Marxist? Sound more like an American from the 50s…
Socialism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive.
Capitalism is an economic system where the capital owner holds the means of production and their operation for profit.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but China does have companies that operate globally and are for profit, and some of them are even privately owned.
There are different forms of capitalism. For example: France is mainly welfare capitalism, China is state capitalism (party state capitalism to be more precise) and people would argue that USA is laissez-faire capitalism.
There are also different types of socialism… France for example is a socialist democracy. China is totalitarian socialism.
France is a country with a capitalist mode of production. Markets have nothing to do with the distinction between capitalist and socialist modes of production, the ownership of the means of production and thus also the class in control of the state is the defining characteristic.
Most of the biggest industries in France, from energy to rail, are state owned.
China is socialist. China has home ownership for personal use, but no private land ownership and ever dwindling private ownership of the means of production. Homes for the purpose of living in, ie personal property, are not a means of production, and houses for rent for the purpose of enriching the owner at the expense of the tenant, ie private property, basically don’t exist.
Seems like you live in a dream world. 20% of home owners in China have a second (and more) home/s, and they definitely use it for profit.
Also, leasehold of state property exist all over the globe. It’s not unique to capitalism or socialism or any other ism.
I can’t respond to this, it’s so absurd and distortionist. In the context of tried and true Marxist-Leninist theory, the word philistine comes to mind.
In any case, this theory is all available online for free if you’re interested. Marxists.org js a good place to start.
As I thought, you’re not here to debate in good faith with facts. Just spew your version of events and propaganda. Thanks for clarifying.
Just think this needs to be said: you don’t have to support China’s form of Socialism to be a Socialist, but it’s worth understanding that personal and private ownership are completely different. There absolutely does exist a bourgeois class in China and it still has Capitalism, but owning homes for personal use rather than as a landlord does not make China more Capitalist in any form.
China has been mixed market economy for decades. You were talking about private property ownership. Are you not aware that China has one of the highest home ownership numbers in the world?
Right.
And if the user of the home owns it, then it’s not being used as capital.
So it has one of the lowest rates of homes being owned by capital. Good point.
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Just wait until the US stops being a superpower. It’s inevitable.
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Only by ceasing to exist.
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United States
So, again who is the second?
Believe it or not, also United States.
Andorra
there’s only been one, post world wars. ussr/russia has always been a wannabe–with nukes.
Yeah, OP doesn’t mention who the 2 superpowers are. Leaves us to draw our own conclusions as to who they are, and currently only one nation has any real ability to project power wherever they need it. So, other than the USA, who is a superpower?
