Is “Out-Competing” China Worth Destroying the Global Economy?

The question nobody wants to ask

The New York Times just had a good piece from David Wallace-Wells called, “What Can Replace China as a Global Economic Engine?”

Wallace-Wells’s analysis is surprisingly thorough and up on a lot of the latest literature. But the anti-climactic conclusions that the piece draws are suggestive about why the title question is the wrong one to ask.

I get why he framed it that way—he knows his audience.

American elites read the NYT like a bible, and elite-serving policies like techno-containment, impeding Chinese economic growth, and incentivizing firms to not invest in China—these are deliberate aims of the Biden administration. They also work at cross-purposes with the existence a prosperous, stable China.

So is America’s economic approach to China good for the world? And if it’s bad for the world, how can it be good for the US?

In light of those questions, I want to highlight 3 crucial points that Wallace-Wells is right to fixate on.