politics

See this type of mentality is why I am not that optimistic about China's chances of peeling countries away for a big united front against the US on tariffs. We are getting the bloc situation or worse out of these tariffs.

You have the dogs like occupied Korea and probably Japan and a few others who would never turn on their master. You have the fellow white countries that would never sell out white supremacy and their centuries of European colonialism to a communist non-white power (China) in places like Europe, Australia, etc. These disciplined liberals who have shown with Ukraine they're willing to commit economic suicide to defend liberal capitalism. And you have compradors and wanna-be honorary whites. And you have the schemers and fence-straddlers who are in an abusive relationship with the world hegemon and are afraid to leave it just yet because it's still so strong and they just fear the world as they think it would be according to the abuser (US) if China rises and would prefer to maintain the status quo if forced to choose, at best to play China and the US off each other for benefits without siding with either which doesn't help China's cause.

Now occupied Korea is exceptionally bad in this degree I admit but the more the wind blows in the direction of countries bowing to US tariffs and China being isolated and alone the more countries shy away from joining them and join the pack and the path of what looks like least resistance. As after all though China or Russia can stand up to the US and live, most countries out there aren't big enough, nor economically strong enough, nor self-sufficient enough, nor nuclear powers or strong enough to resist US military or non-military economic coercion and battering.

Many countries are now presented with a choice "let China rise to a great power and diminish influence of the US: yes/no" and for many who believe they can play China and the US off each other they don't want to diminish US influence and they certainly don't want to end up locked into a trading bloc with China and locked out of the west which is the basis of Trump's threat. That either you throw a stab into China with us, don't even have to join our bloc, just reduce trade a bit and agree to do more trade with us or you get locked into a room (trading bloc) with China and locked out of the west and that's alarming to many countries. And the US will tailor their pressure to each country to reel them in while getting maximum extortion benefits up to the point where they might break off and go with China. And I don't think this will be a sudden demand, it won't be "decouple with China next year", it'll be things like within 18 months you have to have decreased reliance on China by x amount and increased reliance on the US/NATO bloc by x amount and then by 3 years that rises to amount x for both of those.

Now China is pushing back, they're threatening retaliation against countries that go along with that but it doesn't help them a lot except with countries who are very deeply economic intertwined with them as those straddling the fence will look at pressure like that with alarm, they will conclude the US was right, that China will use economic pressure to get their way with them regularly and be more inclined to join with the US in its gradualist demands rather than risk a sudden break which is what joining with China represents. This is a very tricky needle to thread and I hope China finds a way but it feels like the deck is somewhat stacked and it's going to be a matter of time and struggle rather than any master-strokes China can pull off to get the rest of the world on their side or to force the US to back down.

It's like the prisoner's dilemma, yes it would be best for all countries if they all stood together against the US on tariffs, it would force the US to back down. BUT because the US can single out countries, can in our prisoner's dilemma slap them with lesser charges (in this case sanctions) on another crime which it says it will waive if they cooperate there is this fear to break ranks and once people start cooperating everyone rushes to get the plea deal leaving only the hold-outs to then get hit with the full charges.

Now my hope is China's trade with the US is strong enough, important enough, vital enough that the bourgeoisie force Trump to drop sanctions on China to a level that's manageable like 25-40% (it's not going to zero or 10%, Biden alone slapped 100% tariffs on Chinese electric cars, this is a bipartisan project) and that results in a big obvious defeat for the US just like Ukraine. But I won't underestimate the US, they have a lot of strength, a lot of built up capital, a lot of levers to pull, a lot of leverage from their NSA spying and their Epstein blackmail rings and so on.