A U.S.-China Cold War, With Robin Niblett

Sir Robin Niblett, distinguished fellow at Chatham House, sits down with James M. Lindsay to discuss a potential second Cold War between the United States and China.

This episode was originally released by The President’s Inbox on July 23, 2024.

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Host

Jim Lindsay
Director of Studies, CFR

Episode Guest

Robin Niblett
Distinguished Fellow and former Director, Chatham House and Senior Adviser, Hakluyt

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[davidrogers]

Robin Niblett doesn’t seem able to analyse the present situation objectively. For example, he characterise liberal democracies as transparent systems in which governments are accountable to the people. But this is clearly not true. Policy outputs do not reflect popular will and populations have no means of controlling governments between elections. The conventional picture is that MPs are elected to represent their constituents, however it is obvious that they are there to represent their parties, who are there to represent their donors. As both parties in the UK system have the same or similar donors it follows that they have the same or similar policies, which in fact they do. This point is important for Niblett’s argument, because it requires that liberal democracy be superior to “authoritarianism” if the rest of his observations are to have any persuasive power. However if we look at the performance of the two systems is clear that “authoritarianism” is considerably more democratic in the sense that it better reflects the will of the people. Furthermore the CPC is not “self-selected”, rather it is a group of 100 million people that anybody can join if they wish to. Compare this with our hollowed out system of, shall we say, plutocratic oligarchy.

[michaelsomething]

It was said that Athen the democracy is the USA, and Sparta is China. But it was Sparta who was the original greek power and Sparta the military power. Hence, should it be the USA who Sparta. Of all its history, the USA only has 16 years of peace. While Athen is China because China has not fought a war since Vietnam, which is over 40 years now.

[michaelsomething]

Sorry uk should not gotten brexit. And unless they go back in. It would not even be a regional power in the next decade.