How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
China is an extremely interesting study in geopolitics.<p>Nations should <i>never</i> be able to do this, rise in prominence completely unobjected. You see examples of this throughout history, whenever one nation starts to expand its power and influence, another nation or group of nations tends to deploy power to check the rise.<p>Accession of new geopolitical powers is therefore an extremely rare event, a complete failure of the nation&#x27;s rivals to provide an adequate check. Those checks go all the way to declaration of war if it becomes necessary.<p>We&#x27;re seeing that with China, and no one is quite sure why. Russia is falling in line with Chinese interests, the US is just keeping mum, in the same way Europe kept mum for decades while the US rose in prominence.<p>My theory has to do with nuclear weapons making the &#x27;buck-stops-here&#x27; solution politically infeasible. Nuclear weapons didn&#x27;t meaningfully change conventional warfare, but it threw a monkey wrench into international diplomacy, creating a situation in which China can push relentlessly hard to rise without a corresponding check.