Peter Zeihan on China: "they are going away"

There's no version of this where China comes through looking good.  And the challenge for the rest of us is to figure out figure out "how do we, in as smooth and quick as a process as possible, figure out how we can get along without them?"  Because they are going away.  And they're going away this decade, for certain.

~ Peter Zeihan, interview with Joe Rogan, The Joe Rogan Experience, January 7, 2023

My comment: 

The big reveal with Peter Zeihan is that he has an agenda: decouple with China.  If you press him on this, I'm pretty sure he welcomes US government policy to expedite the process.  There are several problems with this line of reasoning: 

1) If Zeihan is correct, the decoupling will happen naturally. 

2) Trade is mutually beneficial, i.e. cutting off the second largest economy in the world will inflict massive pain on the US economy, not just China's. 

3) Interfering in trade leads to conflict. 

I'm not suggesting China doesn't have its flaws (as do we), but if Zeihan actually cared about the Chinese people, he would encourage diplomacy and trade, not vilification and ostracism.