To pick up some repeating arguments.
Re Taiwan: I don’t think this serves as a counterargument. The remnants of the non-communist Kuomintang forces retreated to Taiwan as a last base. For mainland China to consider this a “left over territory to conquer which we didn’t complete in 1949” is historically and culturally more justifiable than what international foreign intervention usually means.
Re China’s internal despotism: China being not militaristically expansionist does not equal China being a humanistic society or desirable system of state or societal organization. However, being a controlling, despotic system with inward facing repression, also doesn’t falsify the introductory claim. Contrary to many other despotic states, China undoubtedly has the military capability to expand forcefully (and ironically probably enough indifference to human life to not care about the loss of armed personnel).
Re roads and belts initiative: I agree it is not just an infrastructure project. Quite the opposite: it is an effective mixture of soft- and hard-power (we develop your country without meddling in your internal affairs but we lock you into economic dependence on the way). It is however distinguishable from the way development aid by western countries has often played out for other countries’ elected governments.
All in all: China’s track record internally is much worse than western countries, judged against standard definitions of human rights. China’s track record externally is way better than western countries, judged against international law and human rights. We have to accept the ambiguity.
As to what happens if China aligns AGI first: can’t know obviously, but some aspects to consider.
Chinese communism had for the longest time a system of balanced, competing internal organizations. After the death of Mao I believe it was part of their success story, much as the two-term presidential limit in the US has been. It guaranteed change in leadership and thereby adaptation to new situations. This condition has changed with Xi Jinping. There is a probability that this also changes long-term certainties and stabilizing factors that contributed to China not being expansionist in a traditional way.
“Traditional way” is the trigger. Usage of AGI for dominance is anything but traditional. Might lead to a more flexible usage. My best bet would be: still not a war scenario, but rapidly increasing other nations’ dependence by exploiting vulnerabilities (and of course taking over Taiwan and claiming great portions of ocean if it hasn’t happened by then). It seems to fit best to the historic behaviour and the need for safety.
I believe there is no case to argue China’s AGI would be morally more or less desirable than a US version. If they align in any way to their country’s historic record, we are discussing trading a “golden prison with obvious brutal control” against “war machine with efficient but surgical internal control.”
Re the addendum: by 1895 the US track record for wars against established and independent neighbouring nations was already down the toilet.
I like the observation of additive coding behaviour.
I think you are not taking into account the different ways vibe coding is used in business practice:
It is used by established professionals who increase their efficiency—and they will be able to maintain the code also in the future, disregarding AI limitations.
It is used by small businesses and executives and potential entrepreneurs to quickly deploy on single issue items. One small piece of software for one particular task. It is just as likely a year from now it will get rewritten by newer coding agents rather than updated continuously.
Given the speed of development, any prediction about coding agent capabilities in 1-2 years is very hard to achieve with reasonable certainty. Two years ago, many developers did not believe in the increased quality and pervasiveness vibecoding has shown in 2026.
In my company (~30-40 employees), rather than subscribing to more SaaS we hired our first 1.5 coders (full- and part-time) in order to build software via vibecoding. Something we would not have invested in two years ago, because output and certainty about acceptable results were too risky and seem acceptable now.
Finally the current SaaS replacement theory. My reading is, it is commonly accepted there is a big gap in openness to implement vibe-coded software depending on
niche (customized engineering software vs. general CRM)
business size (enterprise much more slowly and hesitant to switch)
legal / compliance risks (liability being able to be deferred to established 3rd party companies)
So yes, I agree with your thesis when it comes to complex software, even more so if it is enterprise-employed and covers liability. Vibecoding will probably not replace SAP in the coming years.
I also agree with being sceptical about vibe coding companies—not because of technological limitations though, but rather because vibecoding will fracture current software-company-style coding. Coding will be more prone to inhousing. SaaS has to be more than an efficiency upgrade. It either has to be pervasive (extremely high cost to switch due to integration in all systems) or—better—provide liability protection.