Intro

Adam Tooze returns to PTO to discuss the extent to which war with China is increasingly being treated as a serious prospect in Washington and the Pentagon. We also talked about how successful, or otherwise, the Biden administration has been in constructing regional alliances against China during the last four years. And we went on to talk about why the Chinese Communist Party leadership's decisions over climate policy dwarf the US presidential election in significance. Finally, we discussed the economic slowdown in the country and Adam explained why he disagrees with analysts who see China's economic problems as primarily a consequence of increasing authoritarianism.