Interesting because Marco Rubio when he running for President against Trump, he all of the sudden sounded realistic in regards to foreign policy compared to him. Now he's back to being absurd but who knows when it comes to Trump. Trump recently in an interview was coy when answering questions about raising tariffs, he said it might be lower than is expected in regards to China. Elon Musk has to be aware his Tesla factory in Shanghai might get nationalized if Trump carries out his threats. Tesla might take a huge hit having Trump's ear or the other way around might be happening.
It’s basically irrelevant who is appointed into which post. What they say and what they do once in office will have almost zero impact on the underlying hard power dynamics between America and China. That is the only contest that matters.
There will never be a perfect time for China to take on America, but today’s China is radically different from the one Trump first encountered when he was first in office.
While American talking heads like Rubio have only talked about de-coupling and de-risking, China has been the one who has actually done the de-risking.
America today is as reliant on Chinese imports as ever before, if not more so. OTOH, China has grown its economy so much and diversified so widely that even if it stop all exports to America overnight, it’s economy is still going to growth faster than America’s even if America by magic didn’t suffer any supply shocks from loosing all imports from China, which it will, and those shocks will be crippling all by themselves.
So the likes or Rubio call talk all they want, but if they take any concrete action that crosses Chinese red lines, the China today has far more levers to pull to hit America back. Those punches will hit America harder and cost China far less than the first time around. So I am not expecting China to be as restrained and proportional in its retaliation as it was last time.
And if America wants to throw its dummy out the pram, the PLA is also far better prepared.
