China and East Asia

The region is for China to own as a benign hegemon. Two obstacles stand in the way: entrenched American presence, and norms of interstate relations in the region. Hence, Chinese actions are caught between a rock and a hard place. The Chinese are caught in a Chinese finger trap. To sidestep this: China needs to evolve a liberal Confucianism, and to become an American "partner". Second, it needs to gain buy-in from countries in the region. Third, it needs to become the key facilitating node in the service economy in Asia, with its associated economic, socio-cultural, and people-to-people flows. This is not easy.

It's hegemony will not be absolute. This is not how the region works and it knows this.

China must avoid conflict at all costs. This would upend everything it should seek in the region. America's presence in the region would probably scale down over the long term, if its currency loses reserve status. But it's influence will not be critically predicated on American military presence, but on Chinese political, economic, institutional and cultural evolution and it's corresponding soft power in the region. This will legitimate its structural power. In short, Chinese diplomacy is best served by focusing on internal development. That is the only way out of its finger trap.

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Of course, China would probably find it easier to work within existing systems and institutions, such as international law and UN, while gradually tilting them, alongside other multilateral frameworks, to its interests.

Note 80

Why something not nothing is a question nothing asks of something. The answer cannot be found in something, but within nothing itself. But something cannot come out of nothing. The answer cannot be thought, but is implied in the question; but even though it is implied in the question, it cannot be answered.

Why something not nothing, and why nothing not something to begin with, arise from the same problem of defining the relation between something and nothing.

Note 79

Sadhguru in a sentence: to hell with externalizations!

Note 78

The self is of no relevance. It is the form of humanity, or the transcendence of it, that avails the significance of existence. Dharma is hence the expression of universal form.

Quotes 12

"Central banking can be successful only if central bankers know how the institutional structure behaves and correctly assess how changes affect the system. Central bankers have to steer the evolution of the financial structure." - Hyman Minsky

The same could be said of policymakers more generally.

Also of note is the constant cycle of reform, restructuring, growth, and fragility.

Note 77

Understanding:
Understanding capacities, not resolutions. Principles not facts.

Economic policy:
Conditions (demographic, cultural, capacities) - structures (profit models, institutions) - processes (policy, relationships between variables)

Note 76

The self is the totality of the relation to the cosmos. If you see that, then you see that you do not have full ownership of the self, that it belongs to the cosmos too.

Note 75

Globalisation is stuck, but not in reverse. This should be noted upfront.

But why so? Because the liberal elites driving globalisation failed at the start to develop a cosmopolitan liberalism which is essentially complementary to existing national cultures which continue to dominate political and social life. They mistakenly saw them as opposed, and were undone by the belief in that opposition which meant that they ignored it, rather than incorporated it.

Once again, philosophical oppositions do not entail political polarity and the inability of western political culture to separate philosophy from politics has undone their work. Over historical time, means do not define ends because they can change the conditions in which ends can be achieved.

Singapore, which has done so by sublimating this opposition into pragmatic ideology, presents an alternative to western politics. Of course there are institutional vulnerabilities and disruptive regime change due politics being unable to incorporate ideological positions at a deeper level, but it represents a smarter form of politics, a wider range of the possible to incorporate oppositions.

Note 74

For Nietzsche, the inadequacy of metaphysics lies in its inability to incorporate life. Hence his metaphysics is fundamentally aimed at the breaking down the categorical barriers that distinguish and separate the two; that is, being in its totality, and idea.