JJM vs. YAN Xuetong at Tsinghua
mearsheimer.substack.com
On my recent trip to China, I went to Tsinghua University, which is usually ranked the #1 research university in China, where I participated in a debate with Professor YAN Xuetong, who is arguably the most important IR scholar in China. He and I actually debated each other in China in 2013 and 2019, so this was our third debate. It took place on 10 October 2024.
Below is a Chinese link for the debate, which is the only one I could find. I had no difficulty opening it on my MacBook Air, but that is not to say it might not work well for others.
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1YHCXYDEoi/
In my humble opinion, if we in the US weren’t such idiots we would have very good relations with our current allies AND everyone else including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea (all of the BRICS).
We would have taken John Mearsheimer’s advice and avoided the nasty war in Ukraine.
We would have taken John and Stephen Walt’s advice and avoided the debacle that’s currently happening in the Middle East.
And we would be actively and cooperatively working on trying to solve all of the problems we share as a species.
This is not to say that realism isn’t the basic reality of the situation and the reality of international relations, it’s just that we could have largely overridden those forces if we had played our cards right.
In my humble opinion it’s not too late to make the changes that would be required to try to straighten things out but that would take very good leadership qualities and abilities on the part of the leaders in the US and that does t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon.
I have a lot of ideas along these lines but it seems like everything I have to say falls on deaf ears.
And this fact points to the accelerating trend that we will most likely be confronted with an overall situation that is equivalent to that which is outlined in John’s book “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics” on a multitude of fronts.
The escalation of kinetic warfare will most likely occur along with a host of other rapidly emerging problems which together make for dark clouds on the horizon.
If we were smart we’d head these problems off at the pass and try to avoid them. Unfortunately we don’t seem to collectively be smart enough to figure it out.
It never ceases to amaze me that we don’t have any trouble making the trains run on time but when it comes to seemingly more basic and more simple problems we can’t solve them.
We could turn things around but instead it seems like we’re engaging in a case of the tragedy of the commons which is leading to a race to the bottom.
I am deaf. Cannot get subtitles in English.