This is the truth the way I see it. I don’t care if I have to go back to coming over a wood stove with a stick if it meant stopping China. The only area of concern I do see is they provide a lot of pharmaceutical with the chemicals they need and they would not be able to produce the drugs they currently make. As for the rest, I’ve lived without a cell phone for decades I would love to go back to suck a time. Is there any other critical industries reliant on China and for what?
You might be content with living like a pre-industrial peasant but how many other Americans or Europeans would be? I would wager very few. People care about their own immediate needs (or what they perceive to be their immediate needs) first and things like China, HK, Taiwan do not even register in their minds. I would bet that most Americans would rather live in a vassal nation than to not have any of the convinces of modern day living, and I quite frankly, would also. When gas gets over 4 dollars a gallon, people get mad. When lumber prices jump by 25%, people get mad. When steel prices jump by 10%, people get mad. How do you think people would react if the next iPhone cost 5k or the BigMac cost 10$, they would vote out the current government and replace them with a new one.
I think you are being a bit too idealistic and have quite honestly drank the Kool-Aid and forgot about the original purpose of why America dislikes China. They are a rising power seeking to disrupt the current one. Good playing American jobs have been cut and Chinese jobs have sprang up in their place. People who had those jobs are now experiencing a reduced quality of life.
I do agree with much you write, I don't think many care as long as their status quo stays the same. I have not drank any Kool-Aid I just find it hard to watch the suffering in China. The changes needed would effect the people at the bottom the most as it would be too expensive to live if the cost of everything went up 25%. I don't know the final answer but I don't think we can turn a blind eye to China's human rights violations forever.
If everyone went back to wooden stoves climate change, deforestation, and air quality would all be much much worse. Remember, degrowth is wrong! Economic growth is the only way to pay for environmentalism.
