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Elon Musk Opinion About War on China. · Elon Musk Thinking

• 0:03
  You've spoken honestly about the possibility of war between US and China in the long
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  term if no diplomatic solution is found, for example, on the question of
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  Taiwan and one China policy. How do we avoid the trajectory where these two
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  superpowers clash. Well, it's worth reading that book on the difficult to pronounce
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  the Acidides trap. I believe it's called I love war history and say out
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  and backwards, there's hardly a battle I haven't read read about, and trying
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  to figure out what really was the cause of victory in any particular case,
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  as opposed to one side or another claim for the reason both the victory and
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  what sparked the war. And yeah, yeah, the whole thing. Yeah,
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  so that Athens and Sparta is classic case. The thing about the Greek
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  is that really wrote down a lot of stuff. They loved writing. You
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  know, there are lots of interesting things that happened in many parts of the
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  world, but they just people didn't write down, so we don't know what
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  happen, and or they didn't really write with in detail. They just would
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  say like we went, we had a battle, and we won, and
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  like what can you add a bit more? The Greeks, they really wrote
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  a lot. They're very articulate on they just love writing, so and we
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  have a bunch of that writing that's preserved. So we know what led up
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  to the Peloponnesian War between the Spartan and Athenian alliance, and we know that
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  they for quite they saw it coming. I mean, the Spartans didn't write.
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  They also weren't very for both by their nature, but they did right,
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  but they weren't very for they were ters. But the Athenians and the
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  other Greeks wrote a line and they were like and Spartan was really kind of
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  like the leader of Greece. But but Athens grew stronger and stronger with each
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  passing year, and everyone's like, well that's inevitable that there's going to be
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  a clash between Athens and Sparta. Well how do we avoid that? And
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  they couldn't. They couldn't. They actually they saw it coming and they still
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  could not avoid it. So you know, at some point, if there's
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  if one group, one civilization or country or whatever exceeds another sort of like
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  if you know, the United States has been the biggest ki kill in the
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  block since I think Ground eighteen ninety From an economic standpoint, so the United
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  States has been the economic most powerful economic engine in the world longer than anyone's
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  been alive. And the foundation of war is economics. So now we have
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  a situation in case of China where the the economy is likely to be two,
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  perhaps three times larger than that of the US. So imagine your the
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  biggest kid in the block for as long as anyone can remember, and suddenly
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  a kid comes along, here's twice your size. So we see it coming.
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  How is it possible to stop? Is there some let me throw something
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  out there, just intermixing of cultures, understanding there does seem to be a
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  giant cultural gap and understanding of each other. And you're an interesting case study
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  because you are an American. Obviously you've done a lot incredible manufacture here in
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  the United States, but you also work with China. I've spent a lot
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  of time in China. I met with the leadership many times. Maybig A
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  good question to ask is what are some things about China that people don't understand?
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  Positive just in the culture. What's some interesting things that you've learned about
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  the Chinese? Well, your number of really smart, hard working people in
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  China is incredible there are I belief if you say, like how many smart,
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  hard working people are there in China, there's far more of them there
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  than they are here. I think, in my opinion, the UH and
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  they've got a lot of energy. So I mean, the architecture in China
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  that's in recent years is far more impressive than the US. I mean that
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  the train stations, the buildings, the high speed rail, everything, it's
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  really far more impressive than what we have in the US. I mean,
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  I recommend somebody just go to Shanghai and Beijing, look at the buildings and
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  go to you know, take the train from Beijing to Chian where you have
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  the Terracotta warriors. China's got incredible history, very long history, and you
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  know, I think arguably the in terms of the use of language from from
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  a written standpoint, sort of one of one of the oldest, perhaps perhaps
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  the oldest written language. And then China people did write things down. So
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  now, China historically has always been, with rare exception, been internally focused.
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  They have not been acquisitive. They've they've fought each other. There have
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  been many, many civil wars in the Three Kingdoms. War I believe they
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  lost about seventy percent of their population. So and then so they've had brutal
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  internal wars like civil wars that make the US of a war look small by
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  comparison. So I think it's important to appreciate that China is not monolithic.
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  We sort of think of like China's the sort of one entity of one and
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  this is definitely not the case from what I've seen. And I think most
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  people who understand China would agree that people in China think about China ten times
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  more than they think about anything outside of China. So it's like ninety percent
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  of their consideration is you know, are is in tonal? Well, isn't
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  that a really positive thing? When you're talking about the collaboration and a future
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  piece between superpowers, when you're inward facing, which is like focusing on improving
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  yourself versus focusing on yeah, quote unquote, improving others through military might.
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  The good news the history of China suggests that China is not inquisitive, meaning
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  they're not going to go out and invade a whole bunch of countries. Now,
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  they do feel very strongly, you know, So that's that's good.
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  I mean, because a lot of a lot of very powerful countries have been
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  inquisitive. The US is one of the also one of the rare cases that
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  has not been inquisitive. After World War Two, the US could have basically
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  taken over the world in any country, like we got nukes, nobody else
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  got nukes. We don't even have to lose soldiers. Which country do you
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  want? And the United States could have taken over everything? Oh wait,
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  ad will and it didn't. And the United States actually helped revolt countries.
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  So it helped rebuilt Europe, you know, helped rebuilt Japan. This is
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  very unusual behavior, almost unprecedented. You know. The US did conspicuous acts
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  of kindness like the Berlin Airlift, you know, and I think, you
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  know, it's always like, well, America has done bad things. Well,
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  of course America has done bad things. But one needs to look at
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  the whole track record and just generally, you know, one one sort of
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  test would be how do you treat your prisoners of war? Or let's say,
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  you know, no offense to the Russians, but let's say you're in
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  Germany, it's nineteen forty five, you got the Russian army coming one side,
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  and you got the French, British and American armies coming the other side.
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  Who would you like to be surrendered to? Like, no country is
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  like morally perfect, but I recommend being a POW with the Americans. That
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  would be my choice, very strongly in the very much so. And in
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  fact, one of them, Brown took, you know, a small guy,
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  was like, we've got to be captured by the Americans. And in
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  fact the ss was under orders to execute bon Brown and all of the German
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  rockin issues and they narrowly escaped their SSI. They said they were going out
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  for a walk in the woods. They left in the middle of winter with
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  no coats, and it ran like no food, no coast, no water,
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  and just ran like hell and ran west and by share like they I
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  think his brother found like a bicycle or something and and then just cycled,
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  where as fasts he couldn't found found a U. S patrol. So anyway,
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  that's that's one that's one way you can tell moralities. Who where do
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  you want to be a p W. It's not fun anywhere, but some
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  places are much worse than others. So anyway, so like America has been,
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  while far from perfect, generally a benevolent force, and we should always
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  be self critical and we try to be better. But anyone with half of
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  r knows that. So so I think there are in this way, China
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  and the United States are similar. Neither country has been acquisitive in a significant
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  way. So that's like a you know, a shared principle. I guess
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  now. Now China does feel very strongly about Taiwan. They've been very clear
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  about that for a long time. You know, from this downpoint, it's
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  it's it would be like one of the states is you know, not there,
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  like like Hawaii or something like that, but but more significant than Hawaii,
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  you know, and Hawaii is pretty significant for US, so that they
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  viewed as as as really the that there's a fundamental part of China, the
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  island of Formosa now Taiwan that is not part of China but should be.
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  And the only reason it hasn't been is because the US specific fleet and is
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  there economic power grows and is their military power grows. The thing that they
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  are clearly saying is their interests will you know, clearly be materialized. Yes,
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  China has been very clear that they will incorporate Taiwan peacefully or militarily,
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  but that they will incorporate it from this standpoint is likely. You know,
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  something you said about conspicuous acts of kindness as a geopolitical policy. It almost
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  seems naive, but I'd venture to say that this is probably the path forward
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  how you avoid most wars. Just as you say, it sounds naive,
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  but it's kind of brilliant if you believe in the goodness of underlying most of
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  human nature. It just seems like conspicuous acts of kindness can reverberate through the
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  populace of the country is involved. Yeah, well, and de escalate absolutely.
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  So after World War One, the they made a big mistake. You
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  know, they basically try to all the blame on Germany and and and you
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  know, settled Germany with uh impossible reparations, and you know, really there
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  was a lot of blame. There's a fair quite a bit of blame to
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  go around for World War One, but they try to put it all in
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  Germany, and uh, that was that that laid the seeds for World War
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  Two. So that's a lot of people were not just Hitler. A lot
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  of people felt wrong and they wanted vengeance and they got it. People don't
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  forget Yeah, you can you kill somebody's father, mother, son, daughter,
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  They're not gonna forget it. They will want vengeance. So after World
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  War two they're like, well, the treat of us I was a huge
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  mistake in World War One, and so this time instead of uh, you
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  know, crushing the losers, we're actually gonna help them with the Marshall Plan,
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  and we're gonna help revolt Germany. We're gonna help rebold or you know,
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  Austria and the other you know, Italy and whatnot. So and that
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  was the right move. There's a does feel like there's a profound truth to
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  uh conspicuous acts of kind as being an antidote to this. Something missed up
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  the cycle of versus go violence. Something must stop it or it will,
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  you know you it'll, it'll, it'll never stop. Just eye for an
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  eye, tooth for a tooth, limb for a limb, life for a
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  life, forever and ever,