Marcel Patulacci

“In polite company in Washington and Silicon Valley, it was easier simply to repeat words like multilateralism, globalization, and innovation, concepts that were too vacuous to offend anyone in a position of power. The chip industry itself—deeply fearful of angering China or TSMC—put its considerable lobbying resources behind repeating false platitudes about how “global” the industry had become. These concepts fit naturally with the liberal internationalist ethos that guided officials of both political parties amid America’s unipolar moment. Meetings with foreign companies and governments were more pleasant when everyone pretended that cooperation was win-win. So Washington kept telling itself that the U.S. was running faster, blindly ignoring the deterioration in the U.S. position, the rise in China’s capabilities, and the staggering reliance on Taiwan and South Korea, which grew more conspicuous every year.”
― Chris Miller, Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

“You know as well as we do that right is a question that only has meaning in relations between equals in power. In the real world, the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”
― Graham Allison, Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?—A Critical Examination of Historical Patterns Leading to War Between Great Powers

“After careful analysis, Xi concluded that Gorbachev made three fatal errors. He relaxed political control of society before he had reformed his country’s economy. He and his predecessors allowed the Communist Party to become corrupt, and ultimately hollow. And he “nationalized” the Soviet military, requiring commanders to swear allegiance to the nation, not the Party and its leader. As a result, this “left the Party disarmed.” When opponents rose up to overthrow the system, in Xi’s words, there was nobody left who “was man enough to stand up and resist.”36”
― Graham Allison, Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?—A Critical Examination of Historical Patterns Leading to War Between Great Powers

“Chinese seek victory not in a decisive battle but through incremental moves designed to gradually improve their position. To quote Kissinger again: “Rarely did Chinese statesmen risk the outcome of a conflict on a single all-or-nothing clash: elaborate multi-year maneuvers were closer to their style. Where the Western tradition prized the decisive clash of forces emphasizing feats of heroism, the Chinese ideal stressed subtlety, indirection, and the patient accumulation of relative advantage.”48 In an instructive analogy, David Lai illustrates this by comparing the game of chess with its Chinese equivalent, weiqi—often referred to as go. In chess, players seek to dominate the center and conquer the opponent. In weiqi, players seek to surround the opponent. If the chess master sees five or six moves ahead, the weiqi master sees twenty or thirty. Attending to every dimension in the broader relationship with the adversary, the Chinese strategist resists rushing prematurely toward victory, instead aiming to build incremental advantage. “In the Western tradition, there is a heavy emphasis on the use of force; the art of war is largely limited to the battlefields; and the way to fight is force on force,” Lai explains. By contrast, “The philosophy behind go is to compete for relative gain rather than seeking complete annihilation of the opponent forces.” In a wise reminder, Lai warns that “It is dangerous to play go with the chess mindset. One can become overly aggressive so that he will stretch his force thin and expose his vulnerable parts in the battlefields.”
― Graham Allison, Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?—A Critical Examination of Historical Patterns Leading to War Between Great Powers