there has been "a big shift" recently in the US's approach to China: they've gone from seeking to subjugate China to "implicitly accepting China as its peer competitor," in effect resigning themselves to coexistence as equals.

 https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1976108331501822115

Arnaud Bertrand

@RnaudBertrand

Singaporean statesman Kishore Mahbubani (

@mahbubani_k

), the former president of the UN Security Council, is imho one of the most astute geopolitical observers out there. He too believes there has been "a big shift" recently in the US's approach to China: they've gone from seeking to subjugate China to "implicitly accepting China as its peer competitor," in effect resigning themselves to coexistence as equals. This is not done out of kindness or goodwill, but - as Mahbubani explains - driven by structural forces: subjugation only works when there's asymmetry but once you know the other side can hurt you just as badly as you can hurt them, resignation to parity becomes rational. I've written a lot in the last 6 months on this, as I see this shift too (and so do many others), and I always get a lot of pushback from people arguing that the US is fundamentally imperialistic, that they'll never truly abandon their hegemonic ambitions and that this is merely strategic obfuscation or a tactical retreat. But that's not how power works. Obviously the US would prefer to remain hegemonic and would crush China in a heartbeat if they could - but they can't, and that's the entire point. Power isn't about what you want, it's about what you can do. And the fact is that the US simply cannot dominate China anymore. People focus on intent when it's almost irrelevant, as the saying goes people in hell want ice water... This also shouldn't be confused for what it isn't: the US isn't going to stop competing with China or attempt all sorts of efforts to gain or maintain advantages - accepting China as a peer doesn't mean friendship (which doesn't even exist in geopolitics, as De Gaulle said "no nation has friends, only interests"). It just means that domination has been ruled out as a foolish thing to pursue and that the game shifts from "how do we eliminate this rival" to "how do we gain advantage despite them."

1:11 PM · Oct 9, 2025

·

109.2K

Views

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1976108331501822115