I agree with this author that America's ruling elite bear the overwhelming share of responsibility for the Biden catastrophe.  It was they at all levels — finance, corporate, governmental, security agencies, media, and judiciary — that engineered and enabled the Biden coup.  And I also agree with the author that Biden has been an unprecedented domestic disaster.  We will probably never recover from it, certainly never, if Biden gets a second term, which seems highly likely.

But the current assertiveness of China is not for Biden's account.  It is the inevitable consequence of our elites' atrociously selfish, short-sighted, and disloyal decision — decades ago — to fast-forward China's accumulation of wealth and power by offshoring America's industrial base to the Middle Kingdom.  Power and international assertiveness inevitably follow wealth, especially wealth based on true productivity — which is why China became powerful over the last 20 years, while Spain's power declined during the 17th and 18th centuries as New World gold flowed into Spain.

I don't agree with the author's implication that China's behavior is somehow "aggressive" or sinister.  China today, like the West during the period 1600–1900, is the world's supreme economic, surely the supreme industrial, power.  Unsurprisingly, it is reaching out, utilizing all it has to offer in wealth and know-how, all over the world, to gain influence and advantage.  Arguably, it is doing so less brutally than the West did during our period of irresistible dominance.

When I view China, I see no threat of violent expansion or military aggressiveness, certainly none like what the West exhibited during its period of hegemony, when great colonial empires were assembled with aid of the sword.

The Taiwan question is unique, and there is no doubt that historically, that island off China's coast is part of China.  Before the American security/military state deliberately engendered Chinese fears of a real breakaway by Taiwan, there was every reason to believe that China was more than willing to live with the status quo: an island beyond its current governmental fiat, but gradually integrating with its cultural, racial, and linguistic homeland through growing and mutually advantageous economic ties.

To the extent there is any threat of military action by China to compel immediate integration of China with Taiwan, it has been purposely ginned up by America's high-level visits to Taiwan, military maneuvers, and other conduct designed to affront and antagonize the Chinese government.

YouTube screen grab.

Absent this behavior, it's highly unlikely there would have been any military threat to Taiwan.  And, indeed, if the U.S. would cease its provocations, there may yet be none.

And in any event, Taiwan is unique, historically part of China, and the Chinese government's attitude toward it, whatever that may be, is no indication of any general military aggressiveness.

The truth is that America's insatiably avaricious corporate and financial elites long ago ensured China's supreme economic dominance through their colossally short-sighted, stupid act of transferring America's productive might to China.  Our elites' wealth grew, in consequence, to astronomical levels through that astoundingly selfish collective decision.  But now they do not like the world of declining American importance that their actions have created.  The only way that world can be reversed, and some sort of return to American/Western dominance fashioned, is by convincing enough poorly informed Americans that China is a military "threat" and then employing that mirage to justify a war.

As John Mearsheimer has pointed out, history notes very few instances where declining hegemons have avoided military conflict with their rising competitors.  The rule has been war where once dominant powers have seen their power ebb away and flow to another.

To the elites of the West, particularly of America, I would say:

You squandered the West's economic supremacy for selfish reasons.  It worked well for you, and now you enjoy a level of wealth never before seen in human history possessed by any class.  Instead of engineering wars, with China and Russia (another story), in an effort to artificially recreate the dominance you gave away, try to rebuild that dominance naturally, without war.  You could start by trying to restore the institutions and ideas that created Western dominance in the first place: celebration of excellence, a healthy patriotism and real science, rejection of all forms of civilizational self-loathing, and support for the traditional family.

Failing that, prepare for either permanent second place or an angry loser's suicidal war.