by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author)
It took only two sentences for Xinhua to make the historical announcement; the Central Committee of the CCCP “proposed to remove the expression that ‘the president and vice-president of the People’s Republic of China shall serve no more than two consecutive terms’ from the country’s constitution.”
That will be all but confirmed at the end of the annual National People’s Congress session starting next week in Beijing.
A Made in the West geopolitical storm duly ensued; forceful condemnations of the “regime” and its “authoritarian revival,” across-the-spectrum demonization of the “dictator for life” and “the new Mao.” It’s as if the New Emperor was about to concoct the imminent launch of a Great Famine, Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen combo.
Now compare the hysteria with renowned Renmin University professor of International Relations Shi Yinhong, who attempted to introduce a measure of realpolitik: “For a long time into the future, China will continue to move forward according to Xi’s thoughts, his route, his guiding principles and his absolute leadership.”
The global economy’s captains of industry, old and new, have better shark fin to consume than to be constrained by the lowly Western Politician game of demonizing China. Turbo-capitalism – with or without “Chinese characteristics” – has absolutely nothing to do with Western liberal democracy. The Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping introduced a real “third way”: economic proficiency coupled with political control. Deng, by the way, learned the ropes from Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew – a darling of the West.
Xi may embody the guarantee China needs to carry out, as smoothly as possible, a much-needed anti-corruption purge sidelining the many rotten branches of the CCP while steering a much needed economic reorientation that should benefit, most of all, the rural proletariat.
Besides, Xi is already leading internationally in climate change, nuclear proliferation, not to mention realigning global trade as globalization 2.0.
And that brings us to childish Western attempts to deride the New Silk Roads, known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as “overblown,” coupled with claims that BRI is facing a “global backlash.” That barely qualifies as wishful thinking.
What’s happening in the real world is that the Trump administration is trying to engineer an anti-BRI via the Quad (US, Japan, India, Australia) – but without BRI’s transnational and transcontinental appeal, not to mention funding.
Japan is making noises about a $200 billion Afro-Asian counterpunch. India centers its offensive on a deal with Iran to have Chabahar port compete with Gwadar. The Turnbull administration in Australia, in its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, bets on engaging the US against China. And Admiral Kurt Titt, the head of Southcom, carps, among other military officers, that BRI is a threat to US influence.
Xi, as well as Russian leader Vladimir Putin, has identified very clearly which way the wind is blowing, with Washington treating both China and Russia as “revisionist powers” and a certified strategic threat.
The Tang dynasty meets Plato
Xi may now turn into a post-modern version of an enlightened Tang emperor. But he also performs as the embodiment of Plato – a philosopher-king ruling with help of the best and the brightest (think Liu He, director of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs and Xi’s top man on economic policy).
The CCP as Plato’s Republic has concluded that yes, it’s all about management. China’s titanic tweaking of its economic model simply cannot be accomplished at least before 2030. Challenges include managing the transition of state-owned enterprises (SOEs); the move towards added value GDP growth; how to organize China as a major consumer society; and how to contain the spread of financial risks.
For all these, consistency and continuity is key.
Xi has all but announced his major moves. The Chinese Dream – or China as a stable, middle-income nation. BRI as a connectivity vector integrating not only Eurasia but also Africa and Latin America. The increasing influence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Securing the South China Sea as well as increasing a presence not only across the Indian Ocean but all the way to the Third Island – a matter of protecting China’s connectivity/supply lines.
And last but not least, China configured as the top power in either Asia-Pacific or “Indo-Pacific.”
History will judge Xi by his deeds. The rest is mere Sinophobia.
“A Made in the West geopolitical storm duly ensued; forceful condemnations of the ‘regime’ and its ‘authoritarian revival’ across-the-spectrum demonization of the ‘dictator for life’ and ‘the new Mao’. It’s as if the New Emperor was about to concoct the imminent launch of a Great Famine, Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen combo.”
As usual, these buggered Western imbeciles just cannot be troubled to check their “facts” first: It was the old Mao who welcomed Western imperialism (as personified by Kissinger) to China, overtly supported Pinochet’s Chile and ditto the Talebans’ anti-Soviet Jihad in the 1980s.
As regards Tiananmen — no need for it. It was decisively dealt with in stark contrast to the Maidan shitstorm.
The old Mao did not support “Talebans’ anti-Soviet Jihad in the 1980s” because he died in 1976.
For the same reason it was not him who supported Sorbonna’s PolPot against pro-soviet Vietnam
But he probably supported Pakistan against pro-soviet India at least :-D
I totally agree with Plato’s and Aristotle’s position on governance. Simply put, the majority of the people don’t have the political acumen to grasp the complex matrix of geopolitical and financial realities. Foreign policy, especially, should never be left to the discretion of public sentiment.
Furthermore, I came to realize that these “democratic elections” have no effect on government policy; influence in law making has been demonstarted to be correlated to private wealth. In other words, only the top 3% of the population has any meaningful influence on law and policy.
Conversely, these regular elections and limited amount of service severely hobble the president’s ability for long term planning. Not only he is destined to fight a lost battle with the entrenched deep state, but his accomplishments might (and usually are) reversed by the next president.
In fact, the only benefit of regular elections is that we don’t have a fear of a powerful president centralizing all authorities in himself to such a degree that succession is impossible. As it happened with Basil II in Byzantium. Indeed, our regular elections ensure that we have a streaming litany or weak and mediocre presidents.
> Foreign policy, especially, should never be left to the discretion of public sentiment.
alas so
> don’t have the political acumen to grasp the complex matrix
no, that is not the reason, this can be sovled by educating, at least in theory
More critical thing is “fog of waR” and “minimax game theory”
Imaging two persons playing chess, or go/weichi, or poker, or mahjongg, etc
They try to outsmart one another, to foresee one another, to deceive one another, etc
Now, force one of the player to discuss all his plans and fears and cards at his disposal with the public watching the game. Force him to answer every spectator’s every question. Make him spend his energy and time arguing with different spectators factions about choosing plans at every move.
But not another.
Now, make your bets who will win? Whom would you bet your money at?
There recently emerged a saying in Russia: “we are not electing a president here and now, we are electing a Commander in Chief”
«…this can be solved by educating, at least in theory…»
Yes… in theory. In theory, we could also terraform the earth back in to the Garden of Eden; reforest the deserts, restore the dodos population, and reform the people in their pre-fall condition.
However, in real life, the vast majority of the people simply do not care much beyond their immediate environment—their families and work. You do not have to trust my word; in fact, I encourage you to do your own field research.
Furthermore, foreign policy is extremely complicated and dynamic; we, the average citizen, simply do not have the time,education,intelligence, and information access to follow it.
Let me put it like this. Apparently, the majority of the commenters here are quite astute and informed. How many realize that the Anglo-US foreign policy seems to rest upon Spykman’s dictum: «Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia, who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world»? In fact, the Sino-Russian «Silk Road» seems to be the Heartland’s response to the Anglo-US chocking maneuvers.
Obviously, this is just my assumption; however, it does demonstrate the vast complexities foreign policies entail. This is why I firmly believe that it is best left on teams of chosen specialists.
Unfortunately, every form of government that is not under the firm control of the people always turns against the people.
Of course, another big flaw in this line of reasoning is that there are few if any ‘democracies’ in the world today. A democracy is simply defined as the sovereign power of a country being under the firm control of the people. If you look around the world today, its hard to think of many places where this can be truly said.
It would be a shame to enter yet another era of repression and slavery under arbitrary rulers who will undoubtably follow human nature and are greedy for power and wealth and fame just because we can not recognize that there are no democracies in the world today.
The search for the ideal polity has preoccupied the human thought at least since the rise of Greek philosophy.
In fact, Greece has experienced every kind of polity under the sun: from radical democracy (Athens), aristocracy (Sparta), tyranny (various city-states), monarchy (Byzantium), constitutional monarchy (last one ended in 1969), dictatorship (last one ended in 1974), representative democracy (still in effect, theoretically).
Experience has shown that no polity is perfect.
To my understanding, representative democracy is the weakest polity of all.
• First of all, it has been demonstrated that the 97% of the population has no effect on governance (doi:10.1017/S1537592714001595).
• The short service span of the elected head of state ensures that he does not have the time for long term planning.
• For the same reason, the elected head of state does not have the time needed to consolidate his power and impose his agenda over the entrenched deep state.
• Finally, just because a head of state is democratically elected, does not mean that he is bound to keep his promises. Case in point, the prime minister of Greece, Mr. Tsipras. Not only did he not keep his promises to annul the IMF’s memorandums, but he also furthered drowned Greece in to IMF slavery—the same day the people voted against it! Thank to Mr. Tsipras, and in exchange for economic “aid”, Greece has given up its sovereignty! (Thus, the Stoltenberg’s humiliating statement that Greece does not have the right to shoot down invading Turkish aircraft because it no longer is a sovereign state)
On the other hand, a monarchy or even dictatorship does not automatically imply a dystopian state of tyranny. A monarch, or a dictator, might elect to produce a stable society, with justly enforced laws. For example, Byzantium for the most part was a very stable society. Russia under the Romanovs was also a very progressing and stable state. I will be probably flamed for this; however, comparisons must be made not with today’s standards, but with contemporary states. For example, Russia abolished serfdom in 1861 and quite peacefully—while the US abolished slavery in 1865.
Do you know why Byzantium and Russia under the Romanovs were so stable and progressive?
Simple really, they enforced three laws, and very strictly.
1 – No Jews in Finance
2 – No Jews in Government
3 – No Jews in Education ( although todays world that would include all media in general too)
With these three laws, Byzantium was, and still is the longest lasting empire in history.
Jews have no place in China, as they would stick out like a sore thumb. This is great for China and her future. Now if only Putin would purge the rest of the parasitical Jews from positions of power and influence, especially finance. All would be a gravy train after that.
China’s attempt in this area has some underlying logic. We hear about Somalia pirates on a well-defined basis, but that issue is actually worse through the Straits of Malacca adjacent to the South China Sea (1). China needs large quantities of raw materials such as oil that are currently shipped through the chokepoint.
Both Russia and the U.S. Have tried to operate in this part of the world and have subsequently withdrawn. Perhaps China will do better. China will have three major obstacles to its efforts:
1 — Cutting regional groups, most notably the Taliban, in on the money flow sounds like a good idea at first. However, where does a legitimate cut stop and bribery begin?
There are many small factions that want money, the factions change over time, and the amount each faction wants increases over time. What starts as a financially reasonable proposition gradually creeps into a situation that is unaffordable.
The situation will be even more precarious if a high value, yet extremely vulnerable, assets such as pipelines are involved.
2 — A huge portion of China’s industry are State Owned Enterprises [SOE] under the authority of the People’s Liberation Army [PLA]. The PLA has a near 100% win rate when their SOE goes up against a competitor.
Iran has a similar structure where the nation’s industry is dominated by SOE under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC]. The IRGC also has a near 100% win rate.
What will happen when the PLA and IRGC wind up in opposition over business opportunities?
3 — Iran insists on exporting Islam as part of its county-to-country relationships, essential to successful business dealings. The money is put into Madrassas and Mosques in the business partner country. China actively suppresses Islam in the Xinjiang province (2), and will not accept any relationship that exacerbates internal tensions.
Short term, both sides may be able to finesse the issue with their domestic constituencies. However, this will become a potentially explosive point of contention in the mid to long term.
__________
(1) http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Piracy_in_the_Strait_of_Malacca
(2) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-burqa-abnormal-beards-ban-muslim-province-xinjiang-veils-province-extremism-crackdown-freedom-a7657826.html
You forgot to mention that China and Iran are abnormal like pyschopaths because all they ever do is lie. Not like Israel and the United States of Sweetness and Sunshine.
“2 — A huge portion of China’s industry are State Owned Enterprises [SOE] under the authority of the People’s Liberation Army [PLA]. The PLA has a near 100% win rate when their SOE goes up against a competitor.”
Don’t you know that when Hu Jintao was to step up to Commander In Chief of the PLA, as it was for every President at the end of their presidency, but he handed it over to his successor and long time student, Xi Jinping! That was the beginning of the end times for the PLA’s business activities.
Xi came into the Presidency with the PLA under his total control. I was there and it was an enormous change in daily and business life. Jiang Zemin, aka The President of Corruption, was eventually put under house arrest on Hainan Island where he has excelled in violin!
I lived and worked there, China, from the end of Jiang Zemin right thru to the early years of she (Xi), continuously. I was imprisoned in a High School there during SARS, and locked in a room for a month so I had a taste of the real Communist China!
Pepe seems to have quite a romantic idea about China. I know he visited there but he should really live there. His romanticism would be cooled somewhat and see the real China. He’d love it and be a national celebrity, as I was.
I met many very high government and business leaders and they called me a Zhongguo Tong; a person who knows more about Chinese culture than the average Chinese. The Police even gave me a Chinese name and ID! I was totally stunned as were my Chinese friends. The Police, Jingcha, in case you don’t know are a part of the PLA. They come under the Public Security Bureau, Gong An Ju.
The leader held in the highest regard by the greatest % of the population since 1949, possibly since the Qin Empress, is Hu Jintao. He set it up for Xi to waltz on in. He set the ground work for the anti-corruption by forcing every member of the government, that’s all of them, all workers, not just the management, to study Mao and be examined on their study. This was the start of the corruption cleaning. Corruption, in the Chinese sense, is very different to what non Chinese think it is. To say anything about Chinese corruption you have to have a deep understanding of Chinese cultural history intertwined with the years since 1949.
But he also did what no other leader, no emperor ever did. He gave the farmers the land they had tilled for 1,000s of years. He abolished the rent they paid and the draconian food production taxes. Hence the farmers are the only legal land owners since 1949. If Xi has a farmer village background he would be eligible to own land too, but if not he can only lease an apartment for 70 years. He is very rich, reputed to be worth $20Billion, so he likely owns a lot of apartments. But there are still areas, tho’ becoming fewer, where the farmers are still treated like serfs.
A lot of people outside of Zhongguo (China) and Zhongguo wenhua (Chinese culture) don’t know about that. But every Zongguo ren (Chinese person) any where in the world knows it and caused many millions to return.
What she (Xi) did for expat Chinese was issue them with highly prized “Reunion” Visas allowing them to come and go as they please. Only with Jiang Zemin’s incarceration has that been possible.
Xi also abolished The One Child Policy. Which meant that the PLA lost a vast amount of side income. Perhaps you don’t know that the strict control of child birth applied only to government employees. The rest of the non government population could pay to have more than one child, and they did. But the annual collection, by the Police (PLA), of the extra child/ren just prior to the Chinese Spring Festival, often caused mass civil disobedience as the charge was, almost every year, even during Hu Jintao’s term, was raised quite high.
I recall a mass demonstration of some 40,000 prostitutes who marched on and surrounded the central government building in Shenzhen demanding the return of some of their money, collected by the Police/PLA, so that they could go home for the Spring Festival. There was a huge military response; helicopters, troops, armoured personnel carriers etc. They didn’t get any refund so they, unusually, worked through the Spring Festival Holiday! That meant that their families would have endured great hardship during the Spring Festival as they budgeted for their daughters return to give them money for the next year and to celebrate Spring Festival which involves the exchange of billions of red envelopes of cash.
Prostitution is a very prominent aspect of Chinese culture and has been for many centuries from which all Chinese local governments have relied on. That income for the PLA has largely gone now and the industry is being liberalised. When I first went to China I heard estimates of more than 60 Million sex workers. Now it’s down by 2/3 as most women can get good paying jobs.
Most of the Chinese Triads, the bad Triads, have been moved to Hong Kong and Macau. There are good Triads in China. Triads do the work we would expect should be done Police. It is quite common now in most Chinese cities that Police actually do Police work. This is probably a first in Chinese history!
I also know, for a fact, that “thesaker.is” is very highly regarded and referenced there because many Chinese I have met talk about The Saker, “The Vineyard of the Saker” is what they said to me. Even teachers and students remarked about “The Saker” to me. One does not need a VPN in China to open thesaker.is!
@diqiuren Thank you for your very informative and balanced comment on China. I actually learned new things and got confirmation of things I myself had observed while living there and reading their media in their own language. I think your comment was far more informative and far more valuable than this article by Pepe Escobar.
I too got the impression that hu Jintao was greatly liked and that President Xi has done a great service to China by caging Jiang Zemin (a detestable figure who has done great damage within China). Right up to the last minute jiang’s “gang” were undermining president Xi’s governance and even organs of the PLA were going rogue of being subverted. However withXi’s “consolidation” of power, Jiang’s corrupt coterie finished.
BTW your “child/ren” term was very clever.
I really wish you were an official contributor to Saker site because the insight you offer is the kind of thing that has made the Saker blog so valuable and different from other sources of info on the internet (first hand info from people in the field, on the ground or native to the theater of operations). I truly felt your comment was excellent.
It is RUBBISH to assert that Iran ‘..insists on exporting Islam..’etc. You may be thinking of Saudi Arabia, and theirs is not Islam, but the Wahhabist genocide-cult. And China DOES NOT ‘actively suppress Islam in the Xinjiang Province..’. That is US black propaganda, worthy only of Radio Free Asia and the like. What China suppresses is foreign financed jihadist terror.
Thank you, well said.
An Arab Sunni friend.
Your quoting the Independent and Wiki? Really?! Great truthful sources !!
Your wrong, and so are they I’m afraid. China has seen the light. It has learned from Russia how to deal with its Muslim peoples.
Remember Chechnya, when the west and their Saudi lackeys weaponized the Chechens to Russias detriment?
Two wars ensued. Russia squashed all that and poured money, built up infrastructure and raised the living standard for it Muslims. Done, problem solved.
China learned from all this, that’s why it is doing the same thing in its north-west Muslim region. It is quietly raising living standards, promoting traditional Islam, and soon apartments and jobs for all. No more CIA, Mi6, Mossad meddling. Not too long ago, these three stooges I just mentioned tried to subvert China with the Falun Gong movement, which the Chinese quickly squashed.
China , like Russia, are not stupid. They know that there is great benefit by being friendly with Muslims, whom are 1.6 billion strong. It makes economic, political and social sense.
Unlike the west, which has the opposite strategy of trying to slander, fight , and subvert Islam and Muslims mostly at Israel and international Jewish behest. They are doomed to fail.
Iran offers Muslims a better model than what the Saudi’s. And that’s coming from an Arab Sunni. And what they do around the world is offer Muslims a better civilizational model than the one from the corrupt Saudi’s.
Iran will be the link between the Muslim world and China/ Russia. Its happening already. As the Muslim world is waking up to the nefarious plots of the Saudi’s, Israel , U.S. , U.K, et al.
Right now there is a fight on who wins the Islamic world, and he who does wins the 21st century and beyond.
China may be opting for pollution controls in the interest of not killing (too many of) its citizens, but as for climate change, with all their coal buring, they’re leading in promoting it!
RUBBISH. China is reducing coal use, and leading the world in renewable energy manufacture and installation. Your comment is at least five years out of date.
The Chinese elites want Xi to finish the economic reforms that Deng Xiaoping started.
In turn, the Empire wants to use Merkel to finish what it started post 1945:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-04/crisis-averted-merkel-set-4th-term-after-spd-approves-grand-coalition
Coincidence?
“History will judge Xi by his deeds.”
This is the equivalent of saying, “Trust me, I have no logical arguments to make”.
If a given set of policies cannot be continued unless certain personalities are at the helm then it means that the policies do not have the wide ranging support. Better to have policies that are so widely accepted that they will be continued regardless of who is in power.
This does not bode well.
Are you a fan of U.S. foreign policy, which stays pretty much the same regardless of who is at the helm, and which often enjoys relatively wide support?
You wrote, “If a given set of policies cannot be continued unless certain personalities are at the helm then it means that the policies do not have the wide ranging support. Better to have policies that are so widely accepted that they will be continued regardless of who is in power.” It is entirely possible that the Chinese elite thinks that it’s better to have Xi at the helm to continue the present policies. How do you know they think that China’s policies cannot be continued without him?
How might China or any country have “policies that are so widely accepted that they will be continued regardless of who is in power”? What should it do and how long does it take to reach this state?
No, I am not a fan of US foreign policy but it is a good example. However, it is at the other extreme where it worked too well and and led to a corruption of policy which we are seeing now.
The trick is to have genuine alternatives which can challenge the prevailing policy so that adjustments can be made and if needed major changes in direction.
This step is a sign of weakness and not a sign of strength. It is ringing alarm bells because it could be an indication of the route Mao took to move ahead with his line of thought- Cultural Revolution etc.
The clause in the Chinese constitution which limits the number of consecutive terms that the President of China may serve to two was added during Deng Xiaoping’s time. He was, however, never the President of China, so the clause didn’t stop him from being the de facto leader of the country for about 15 years, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Can anything stop Xi from becoming another Deng if he wants to?
@Jiri: “If a given set of policies cannot be continued unless certain personalities are at the helm then it means …” just what Emerson said, “History is the Lengthened Shadow of a Man”. Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, Christ, Mohamed …. to mention only some of the greatest shapers of History. Of course the good seed can flourish only in fruitful soil; but perceptive thinkers about Democracy, such as Plato on 5th Century BC Athens and de Tocqueville on 19th Century AD USA, have pointed to this characteristic Worship of Consensus (in Thought as in Government) as a defect of the Democratic system. The great philosopher of the French Revolution, Immanuel Kant, recommended an Enlightened Monarchy as the best form of government. Where do we find such people? And how can we recognize such unless we ourselves are Enlightened?
A clear and concise article, Mr Pepe, thanks.
I recently bought (mail-order) a pair of slippers from China which arrived 12 days later in London instead of the usual 6 weeks. Perfection.
> economic proficiency coupled with political control. Deng, by the way, learned the ropes from Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew – a darling of the West
….and from Joseph Stalin, a boogeyman of the West
ain’t it funny how two so different persons with so different Western attitudes towards them, when they “needed things done” used similar approaches
“ain’t it funny how two so different persons with so different Western attitudes towards them, when they “needed things done” used similar approaches”
Yeah, and you forgot Hitler too!
Oh dear. Poor zionazis, blocked from access to control Chinese government, they whine and sow aspersions from the sidelines. As usual. :-D
An article written in response to some recent disinfo from the zionazi disinfo site the real news about China.
Is China Neoliberal?
https://www.asia-pacificresearch.com/is-china-neoliberal/5627736
“What are the Chinese trajectories? One example should suffice to refute the notion of China as a neoliberal state: China is on target to eliminate poverty. What capitalist country prioritizes such a goal?
A Global Times op-ed argued,
As a socialist country, it would be an agony — if not a disgrace — for the country’s elites to sit idle and not extend a helping hand to the needy. [1]
Xinhua reported,
“China lifted 12.89 million rural people out of poverty in 2017 as it progresses towards its target of eradicating poverty…” [2]
This poverty elimination is verified by the World Bank which cites 753 million people lifted out of poverty between 1978 and 2010. China is presented as an example for the rest of the world in how to eliminate the scourge of poverty:
The country’s poverty reduction offers lessons for other countries…. Its approach combines combines government leadership and support from all social sectors with farmers playing a major role, and integrates general and special favorable policies, poverty alleviation programs and social safety nets. [3]
1. People tend to overlook the fact that it was Mao who lay the foundation for Chinese access to the world that allowed Deng economic integration with the world economy in 1978:
in 1949, China was broken and bankrupt at the time Mao took over;
Due to the Cold War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam war, China was under western economic, financial, technological and banking sanctions; as well as USSR technological sanctions;
despite these adversaries, Mao managed to defeat the US led military coalition in the Korea War; helped the Vietnamese defend itself from US invasion. That made China a world force that the US could not ignore;
Mao managed to make use of the complex relationship between the USSR and US, and woo the US via ping-pong diplomacy, and eventually resulted in Nixon’s visit to China, laying the foundation for China to access the world;
Mao’s vision of classifying the world into First World (Western nation), 2nd world (USSR), and the Chinese alliance with the 3rd world (Africa, Latin America, Asia etc) eventually paid off after making use of the new relationship with Nixon, and winning the majority vote in the UN to get the PRC onto the UN security council.
Without all these foundations for China to access the world, there would have been no reforms under Deng.
At the time Deng took over the leadership in China, Mao had already eliminated illiteracy, doubled the life expectancy of the population, armed China with nuclear, rocket and satellite technology, and a lot of basic industries for consumer products. Without all these, there would be no foundation for any further progress to access the world.
So to credit China prosperity solely on Western capitalism is not objective.
2. The author [Cohn] also failed to mention the fact of the Chinese modelling more towards the Singaporean economic model than the west. Despite Singapore being recognised as one of the freest economies in the world, 60% of Singapore’s GDP is generated by the Singaporean government investments; so in China, despite being opened up to international and private funds and investment, the state still controls much of the economy;
3. 30 years after Deng’s reforms, China encountered problems like any western society: income gaps, housing affordability and the growth in GDP v social stress; but it is China who acts on to ratify the issues;
4. [Current Chinese chairman] Xi Jinping only wants the part of market logic to award and motivate people who work hard and be innovative, but dislikes an uncontrolled market economy that allows the wealthy to eventually dictate supply and prices of everything;
5. Unlike the west that privatised everything, Xi not only wants SOEs to become bigger and stronger, he also introduced a policy for the government to pay for and own a 1% share of every registered business in China; the law states that with the 1%, government officials will attend all executive meetings and have the power to stop any decision that is harmful to the country.”
China has been collaborating with the NeoCon West for decades. As I wrote in other commentary, China was, and maybe still is, an integral part of the whole NeoCon New World Order one government initiative via globalization. China was supposed to take over all production so all nations could made dependent, disillusioned, de-educated, de-gendered and weak, ripe for the autocratic NWO takeover.
Which nation would send all its production elsewhere to become weak and dependent? A nation who wants to go extinct so the New World Order can arise to save the day thats who. Isn’t debt the Jewish tool that Jews use to gain influence and control? Well the Chinese seem to be using that same Jewish debt tool very well on the Americans, even giving America more credit when its evident that America can’t even repay its existing debt.
But ultimately, how can a nation which collaborated with the NeoCon West for decades now suddenly be the beacon of freedom and hope on this planet? Its just another con game, the world was not prepared to accept a New World Order ushered in by the Americans, so a new tactic was needed, the plan is now to try and get the world to accept a New World Order ushered in by the Chinese.
Conclusion
China fires and prosecutes corrupt officials while supporting innovators. Its economy grows through investments, joint ventures and a great capacity to learn from experience and powerful data collection. The US squanders its domestic resources in pursuing multiple wars, financial speculation and rampant Wall Street corruption.
China investigates and punishes its corrupt business and public officials while corruption seems to be the primary criteria for election or appointment to high office in the US. The US media worships its tax-dodging billionaires and thinks it can mesmerize the public with a dazzling display of bluster, incompetence and arrogance.
China directs its planned economy to address domestic priorities. It uses its financial resources to pursue historic global infrastructure programs, which will enhance global partnerships in mutually beneficial projects.
It is no wonder that China is seen as moving toward the future with great advances while the US is seen as a chaotic frightening threat to world peace and its publicists as willing accomplices.
China is not without shortcomings in the spheres of political expression and civil rights. Failure to rectify social inequalities and failure to stop the outflow of billions of dollars of illicit wealth, and the unresolved problems with regime corruption will continue to generate class conflicts.
But the important point to note is the direction China has chosen to take and its capacity and commitment to identify and correct the major problems it faces.
The US has abdicated its responsibilities. It is unwilling or unable to harness its banks to invest in domestic production to expand the domestic market. It is completely unwilling to identify and purge the manifestly incompetent and to incarcerate the grossly corrupt officials and politicians of both parties and the elites.
Today overwhelming majorities of US citizens despise, distrust and reject the political elite. Over 70% think that the inane factional political divisions are at their greatest level in over 50 years and have paralyzed the government.
80% recognize that the Congress is dysfunctional and 86% believe that Washington is dishonest.
Never has an empire of such limitless power crumbled and declined with so few accomplishments.
China is a rising economic empire, but it advances through its active engagement in the market of ideas and not through futile wars against successful competitors and adversaries.
As the US declines, its publicists degenerate.
The media’s ceaseless denigration of China’s challenges and its accomplishments is a poor substitute for analysis. The flawed political and policy making structures in the US and its incompetent free-market political leaders lacking any strategic vision crumble in contrast to China’s advances.
Major screw up. Both intro and essay link got deleted somehow before I posted the comment. Link:
https://www.asia-pacificresearch.com/chinas-strategic-economic-planning-versus-americas-failed-capitalism/5616773
Yes indeed. The 21st century belongs to China, as the 20th did belong to the U.S. , while the 19th the British.
Since the 1980’s, China has lifted some 700 million+ people out of poverty.
India, the Asian basket case, just hosted a big conference in New Delhi titled ‘ China the Disruptor’ . Among the luminaries present were the usual sinister suspects. With Modi (India’s leader) introducing to the podium none other than nauseating Mr. Netanyahu as his ‘friend’. Many neocons were present among the audience of sore losers.
Mr. Netanyahu carried on in his speech not necessarily about China, but how ‘we must all pull together to combat radical Islam’. What he was saying really was how to combat Islam in general. I suppose he believes Modi and India will, or are in a position to take on India’s est. 350 million Muslims, while surrounded by Muslim Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Also present at this illustrious gathering were Australian military heads, U.S. Generals, Israeli ones and their delegations.
Its very tragic that India, with some 900 million living in acute abject povery, and an infrastructure that is either in taters or non-existent, can assume to claim the role as the gatekeeper to keep China and ‘radical’ Islam in check.
While China is and has built mega-metropolises that put shame even on the ‘developed’ western world, and infrastructure projects that are unrivaled in the world, with a Belt-Road initiative that will connect the world in free ‘win-win’ trade, India remains a mess of poverty, its talented leaving in droves to the U.S. and U.K., (brain-drain), all India is left with is help desk call centers, phone scamming enterprises, and lets not forget Bollywood.
India is like the guy who shows up at a party at 2:00 AM , when everybody is either passed out drunk, and/or already leaving the party. Bollywood is in love with Hollywood it seems. And Indians have this thing about imitating all things western. Even their women, who are more favored by the lightness of their skin color.
So instead of trying to build up India socially and economically, raise the standard of living for its hapless, hopeless and helpless citizens, it would rather be belligerent with its neighbors, beef up militarily through huge expenditures , even going so far as giving Israel launch pads for ballistic missiles aimed at taking out Pakistans ‘Islamic bomb’. Instead of reaping in the economic benefits of the truly massive and extraordinary Silk Roads coming from China connecting the ever growing ‘free’ world, it wants to play ‘chicken’ with the mighty China.
China and Pakistan have a 50 billion dollar ‘Economic Corridor’ that India is afraid of and wants to sabotage. India wants to confront China in the Himalayas. If a conflict ever did break out between India and China, India would be taught a severe lesson. You see, China has built re-enforced highways right up to India, when upon hostilities, can bring up many armored divisions and troops , heavy artillery and tanks..quickly moving in where upon in India, its dirt roads at best. When will the nationalistic , short-sighted Indian Hindus ever learn.
All this while India wants, and talks about a space program and Mars missions. Really?! Sad.
What China must do now, is change the names of all its universities and colleges to ‘International’ institutions much like the ones in the west. Braek the western monopoly on higher learning and attract students from all over the world. Even paying for scholarships outright for people from all over the world. The monopoly of English as the international language of choice needs to be broken up asap.
While the U.S. , Austrailia, India , U.K., FRance, Israel want to build up militarily, and keep the status quo, arresting the natural evolvement of mankind, which mankind is so desperately needing and wanting, the Chinese come to the world with free trade benefits, infrastructure projects, loans and grants and an overall ‘win-win’ to the prospective world.
While the U.S. and company cruise the seas in carrier battle groups etc, enforcing dictates on countries around the world, China has mega fleets of gigantic shipping container ships cruising the globe, bringing with them potential prosperity.
The west comes to the table with guns in hand, the Chinese come with briefcases and a genuine handshake, offering so many benefits to potential trade nations. See Angola for example. Or Venezuela. Libya was steering towards China, that’s why it was destroyed. We will see many examples of strong arm use of force, coups and subversion of countries that are, or want to drift away from the racket of the west and gravitate towards the new Chinese model offered to mankind.
And along with Russia, together, the Sino-Rus have written the writing on the wall for the decaying west, saving the world from the dark curtain that has descended on the world for far too long.
How do you say cheers in Mandarin? I’m starting my Chinese right now.
Gee that’s really interesting Vladimir Putin continues to sign deal after deal with the Indians, continues to share strategic military technology with the Indians that he will not share with China. Yet we’re supposed to believe that you know better than hard-nosed hypercompetent emotionally stable Putin.
The point I’m making is that if there was even an iota of objective truth in your anti Indian screed then you can be certain that Russia would have long pulled the plug on their relationship with India. However, the exact opposite has happened, Russia and India have increased their economic and military ties. So I think it would be an understatement to conclude Putin is probably far more qualified in making judgements about India than someone who bases his theories on emotion and insecurity.
You also make definitive cocksure statements about China from an idealistic point of view yet you admit you don’t speak a word of Mandarin. How can you conclusions have such a ring of certainty when you’ve never been there and can’t even access first hand info from their native language sources? Admittedly you’re not the only one guilty of this: Pepe Escobar for one demonstrates this in this article and doesn’t surprise me that this article got very little traction (only 6500 views and only 32 comments as of this writing) because more and people are seeing thru the wishful thinking and romanticized narrative about China. To the crefit of patriotic Chinese nationals, even they don’t make these claims because they know they’re not true.
People that have actually worked and lived in China and speak Mandarin like diquiren above and myself have a far more realistic and credible understanding of China than outsiders looking in at China from without projecting their own aspirations and wishes onto China that have very little basis in reality.
China has accomplished the greatest economic leap in history. Its economy is now larger than the USA on the PPP calculation, and produces things, being not dominated by the Fire, Insurance, Real Estate and bankster parasitic operations that dominate the USA. It has raised more people from poverty than any other country, by very far. It is producing more science, technology and engineering graduates and post-graduates than any other country, and has, or is very near to doing so, surpassed the USA in technology and scientific patents.
Its children are among the best educated on Earth, its infrastructure is unmatched, it is solving its environmental problems, and it is leading the world in renewable energy production, development and installation. It has ONE foreign military base, in contrast to the USA’s 800 plus, there (in the US case) to terrorise and intimidate humanity. It has no ‘Special Forces’ death-squads murdering sleeping villagers, no drone assassination program slaughtering 90% innocent civilians. I could go on, but basically, particularly with China’s program to create an ‘Ecological Civilization’ that can endure indefinitely, China is humanity’s last hope of survival. I know a lot of racist Western supremacists are made mad by this truth, still seeing Chinese as racially and culturally inferior, but they are just the detritus of the failed 500 year exercise of Western racism in its global reign of terror.
Mulga Mumblebrain – your post is a great example of casting your opinion and romantic idealism onto China without having even stepped in that country or taken the time and or shown the real respect to learn their language (believe me learning to read, write and speak chinese entails a lot of respect and hardwork). It is only after immersing oneself in their culture (ii.e. living there) and learning about them from their perspective that you can begin to get an appreciation of who they are, what conditions they live under, and what their values and drivers are. Your overly idealist and exaggerated projection of what you want China to be over what it currently is, is ironically a form of inadvertant stereotyping that renders the Chinese people and China into a caricature of what they are and what China is.
No, China is not humanity’s last hope for survival, that’s a cop-out and lazy: we have no right to impose that burden on the Chinese. We all have the responsibility to clean up our own messes and do the hardwork of contributing to progress. It is lazy and patronizing and colonial to want to dump the job of cleaning up the West’s mess onto the Chinese and I doubt that they appreciate such sentiments, on the contrary its probably offensive.
Secondly, China is not, yet, a high tech power, that’s an absurdity, they openly admit that (because they’re realists, practical and not blowhards, a trait that is despised in their culture). Currently the United States, Japan, Germany, France and Russia are technologically the most advanced countries. That lead is not going to erode for at least another decade. China can’t even successful build a reliable turbojet engine and is working closely with Germany to acquire the knowhow. Meanwhile we have Russia unveiling hypersonic propulsion and weapons that are 2 decades ahead of their closest competitor, the United States (that puts Russia at least 30 years ahead of China in real high technology). On top of that Russia has a nuclear powerplant the size of a desk that can output more power than a massive Uranium based nuclear reactor that drives their huge SSBNs: likely a Thorium based nuclear power-unit base on molten salts of Fluorine-Thorium core that is a generation (ie 20 years or more) ahead of anything anyone has, including China. And we have Europe and Japan churning out high-tech precision engineered products that are at least one decade away from China’s current level.
Without a doubt, China has done an excellent job in the field of digital wireless communications technology (their progammable radios and base-stations are amongst the best in the world (in terms of capability and thru-put, but fragile and easily damaged) ). In this areas they’re in the best in class, however that is only a specific area, they have a huge amount of work to do to catch up in all other areas of high-tech.
And contrary to what you believe: 50% Chinese GDP growth is directly attributable to their real-estate sector.
Facts matter. I recommend you read diquiren’s posts above in this comments section, it’s extremely informative from someone who has also lived many years in China and was exposed to it’s upper echelons.
Can you Imagine how the zion-anglo-American capitalists are gasping in horror at this?….. and what their crazies might do?
It frustrates me that geopolitical economic thinking follows the zero-sum, national/group interest so much. Where and when were money and economies made? The industrial revolutions, the electric revolution, the computer revolution, the internet revolution, at every point in history since industrialization began, anywhere where funds were spend building infrastructure, providing for public welfare, and R&D. At every point when capital bursts out, wealth follows, and even for the model of steroid capitalism development, most all people who are subject to such development see much improvement (if not as fairly as other models can provide). This is just ‘rentier capitalism’, but where society as a whole reaps the rents that capital investment provides!
Yet instead of considering that there are approximately 1 billion high income (on average) individuals within the planetary economy, and 6 billion that could do with a substantial improvement to the underlying conditions for their business activities, the West chooses to consistently defecate over the 1 billion’s capital with wars and a ‘this is mine’ mentality, but ignores the 6 billion individuals from whom, in the most selfish way possible, they could claim vast riches, yet still offer those 6 billion the benefit of development and health and education.
We have a model that works – industrialization, and a planet that is 15-30% industrialized. Our goal should be only one from an economic point of view, and that’s to recreate the planetary model of the Dragonball series, where any city that is flown to is a developed city. It’s not even that expensive, as an up front cost, when you weight up OBOR vs say the Iraq war.
The philosopher king/enlightened Emperor is necessary the more a society is under-educated and less homogeneous. China will need one for a while still, and Xi looks and acts the part. When it becomes a high income country, along the lines of Switzerland, semi-direct democracy (with either an elected or selected central authority) may be worth a shout. But representative democracy alone leaves us with Cleon of Athens – ruled by a family of leather merchants, drumming for war.
Please don’t act like global warming is anything but a scam. It really erases your credibility in my eyes as a scientist.