Amazon owns American commerce not because it has the best products or production, but because it has the dominant platform. He can also coerce: At any point and at little cost, he can threaten to obstruct an adversary’s exchange. He can both collect international data and shape it. The actor that does so can take a cut of transactions. One actor or another is still going to set the rules, govern the platforms, and establish the networks. And they can be controlled: Globalization may shrink distance but it does not remove authority. They affect individuals as much as they affect governments. Networks, standards, and platforms extend across borders. That was a world in which the dominant mode of obtaining resources was conflict and the determinative resources could be counted. Such metrics made sense for a world of firm borders and physical goods. They count aircraft carriers and relative GDP. These frameworks measure relative power in mass: of capital, of advanced weaponry, of energy deposits. Western frameworks tend to focus on “security,” affairs as the chief forum for international competition. The kicker: this approach ends up operating at a profit, fueled by the very systems that it subverts. They proliferate subversively, parasitically, by co-opting rather than replacing existing systems-piggy-backing off of others’ infrastructures to project Chinese power across the world. They shape governments, companies, and even individuals. China’s networks grant information-fueled control over military, economic, and narrative domains. In the process, Beijing is establishing unprecedented global power. More than any other state, China is competing for those.
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