Context
Today is the first day of the war with China.
— Ray Dalio (@RayDalio) July 6, 2018
Latest update
I got a few responses from my “Today is the first day of the war with China” post, asking if I thought it was an alarming thing to post. I didn’t think so at the time, but perhaps that’s right. It was too short a statement without a good explanation so, in retrospect I see that it probably sounded alarmist. I apologize for that. I should have explained myself better. In brief I find the situation to be like that in the late 1930s and I have spent enough time in China to believe that this type of approach/war has a significant risk of leading to a bigger and broader type of war (as it did in the late 1930s). For that reason I think that the competition/war with China is one of the really big, challenging issues that will be with us for the next couple of decades, and I am alarmed at how it is going. I also think that we are too focused on that China trade issue and not adequately focused on how we are taking care of ourselves (e.g. our children’s education, our infrastructure, our financial condition, our striving for equal opportunity, our political decision making, etc.) to be strong. When I have time I will explain my thinking better so you can assess it.
