Some Advice from Machiavelli about China
Third, China is less a nation in the Western sense but an empire. Mandarin and Cantonese are as divergent as French and German, although they are written with the same characters. It is possible to have a polyglot democracy — Switzerland, for example, or Belgium — but it has never been done where linguistic minorities comprise a population larger than that of the United States, in the midst of the biggest migration in history.
Fourth, the United States could not ruin China if it tried, because China’s economy is dynamic, unlike the sclerotic Russian Communist economy. Chinese physics graduates at MIT can get higher starting salaries in China than in the United States.
Remember Machiavelli: if you propose to injure an enemy, you had better injure him severely. It’s not clear that China is an enemy, or should be an enemy. It will never quite be a friend, and it may be a competitor, but we can’t ruin China. We can ensure, however, that America has an unquestionable technological edge for the conceivable future, and that America remains the dominant player in every strategic theater of importance. China will respect strength, but nothing else. If America asserts its own economic and strategic power, China not only will listen to us, but will emulate the things that make us successful — as it did by accepting a limited amount of market freedom. If the U.S. maintains its strategic dominance, China will learn that it must emulate our political institutions as well.
It makes us feel good about ourselves to fuss over Mr. Chen, a sympathetic figure by any standards. That is my main objection to the emphasis placed on his case. We need to feel bad about ourselves if we are to prevail. A little Puritan Calvinism wouldn’t hurt us just now. Americans have spent the past twenty years being paid for being Americans. That gig came to an end in 2008.
We need to work harder, and smarter. Francesco Sisci, the dean of the Beijing foreign press corps, points out that the Chinese think nothing of calling you at home at midnight, or at 6:30 a.m., on a routine business matter. The whole country is working impossibly long hours with preternatural energy. Never in economic history has a country had such a collective adrenaline rush. China has more classical music students than we have students. Its educational system may be miserable on average, but the better parts of it threaten to turn out more first-quality graduates than Europe and the U.S. combined.
A world dominated by China would be a brutal and unpleasant place. There is no inherent kindness or generosity, no sympathy for the weak in Chinese culture. China never revered a God who has a special love for the widow and the fatherless. Perhaps that will change. A tenth of Chinese now profess Christianity and more may in the future. I want America to prevail. To do that we must make the Chinese leadership respect and fear us, rather than merely annoy them.
“No child left behind” makes us feel good about ourselves, I would say. Let us scrap it and elevate the better parts.
“China will respect strength, but nothing else.” —Mrs. P
Napoleon said of the Middle Kingdom, “Let (China) sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.”
So the question arises: Who Fed the Tiger? Answer: the free trade uber alles Republicans.
This all started when Nixon & the Metternich of our time (Kissinger) went to China (in 1972). Kissinger thought he would pit China with the U.S. against the Soviet Union. How’d that work out? Today, China & Russia are allies, and they are using the Islamofascists as foot soldiers against the West.
Go back a little further, pal. FDR gave Manchuria (and North Korea) to Stalin at Yalta. The Truman admin (Alger Hiss & Co.) pretty much handed China to the madman Mao by embargoing small arms ammo to the Nationalists.
Mao, installed by Dems, starved 40 to 50 million in the Great Leap and murdered another 40 to 50 mil in the Cultural Rev.
It’s not China’s prosperity that’s the problem, it’s the Party.
Napoleon read a lot in St Helena island, in particular the Lord Mccartney’s book “Travel inside China and Tartaria” edited in France in 1804, though he didn’t say that we ought to let China sleep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Macartney,_1st_Earl_Macartney
The Chinese admire Napoleon too, a exhibition was organised a few years ago in the capital
-http://chine.aujourdhuilemonde.com/napoleon-fait-son-entree-dans-la-cite-interdite
The Chinese appreciate that we know their culture and civilisation, Chirac (the american nightmire) has a great knowledge in their Arts and civilisation, and was always welcome as a friend of China
-http://french.china.org.cn/foreign/txt/2011-03/16/content_22152669.htm
A3 http://adlai3.com/ says to bet on China. He is still bitter about that LaRouche stuff back in 1986.
BTW….back then I circulated your December 2008 essay “China’s six-to-one advantage over the US”….everybody liked it….good one. I am surprised to realize that it was written that long ago….seems like yesterday.
Mr. Spengler:
A few points:
1. I would say, as far as treatment of dissidents is concerned, China has already changed for the better quite significantly enough for American interests. Mr. Chen might be in some trouble, but so far he has not been executed, nor shipped to the Chinese Gulag, nor has his family. If the bad old days of disapperances without trial and incarceration in torture chambers are gone that is quite enough for now.
2. The larger point of China being an empire with its own interests and values is quite correct. The USA cannot wage the same kind of cold war with China as we did with the former USSR, and it may not be necessary. Rebuilding our military, to the point where China will know and understand she cannot win a war, is the best way to ensure China will not try. I do not mean to say I expect China to attack the USA (except perhaps by supporting North Korea); but a China that fears and respects American power is a China less likely to miscalculate by for example attacking Taiwan.
3. Now we get to the real issue: rebuilding American power requires us to put our economic house in order. We can be world superpower and the ultimate Levianthan to ensure peace among the great powers, or we can be a welfare state, (for a while). We cannot be both. Americas welfare programs are a one way track to national bankruptcy and economic suicide, and soon. Perhaps the greater issue here is not what to do about China, but what to do about a political elite which more and more reminds me of the Bourbon kings of France, they learn nothing and they forget nothing.
The evidence is now strong that Russia has quietly started a very modest recovery from the demographic disaster that started in the 1970s-80s (or from a certain point of view, during Operation Barbarossa which killed 27 million).
S nom pobedy David, from Israel (where Victory Day is celebrated by the few Jewish Red Army veterans left alive).
We can start by ditching Obama.
The first and necessary step to regaining Chinese fear and respect.
Dear Spengler:
You say the US could not ruin China if it wanted to. If, however, the US is forced to devise such a strategy, what would you suggest?
Given that we have a half trillion dollar trade deficit with China, the only conceivable way we could ruin China is to nuke them.
That’s similar to what Saddam Hussein did with Kuwait. The real reason Saddam invaded Kuwait was to destroy his creditor. Kuwait had lent Saddam a lot of money to finance his army during the Iran-Iraq War. But when oil prices dropped, Saddam found himself without the oil revenue to repay his debts to Kuwait. So he decided to destroy Kuwait and cancel its debts to them that way.
Like the Maine farmer said to the tourist: “You can’t get there from here.” Unless, of course, we wanted to commit economic suicide and take the Chinese down with us.
There is a difference between doing a small injury to someone, and maintaining high expectations of someone (according to one’s own standards). When the British banned suttee in India, they were doing violence to local tradition, but if they had failed to do so, it would have undermined the confidence in their own principles which energized the middle-class to build up the infrastructure of the British Empire, creating something utterly different and far stronger than the rapacious fortune-seeking which drove the earlier phases of British presence in Asia. (This is not to claim that those principles were always correct or that they were not often disregarded when inconvenient.)
Showing strength includes the expectation or at least pretense that of course the other party will want to ascend to our level of humanitarian civilization, even if they don’t quite know it yet, and that we are doing them a profound kindness in guiding them along the way. That significant Christian minority in China is more likely to continue to expand if we put principle before protocol. It’s the Calvinist thing to do. (We’re not worthy, but we know it, and we know exactly in what ways we are unworthy; the Power-That-Is will graciously assist us in assisting others to be a little more worthy, as well as ourselves [or at least some of ourselves – election and all that].)
Mr. Bilodeau,
The British ruled India and were right to ban suttee. The Chinese rule their own country. I have no objection to preaching human rights to China, but it will be effective only if America has the credibility of a dominant superpower. The “American” faction in China, if that is the right characterization, has lost influence since the 2008 economic crisis. The Chinese state is in the odd position of using the power of the Communist Party to suppress neo-Maoism of the sort advanced by the disgraced Bo Xilai.
China’s weakness, which they are well aware of, is corruption on the part of the “elites”. It cripples their military, causes demonstrations, and despite bullets to the back of heads, doesn’t seem to be going away. People with the money and the connections are leaving China for Canada, Australia, and the US. The lack of respect for rule of law and property rights hampers both internal and external investments. “Tofu” construction on the Three Gorges Damn and other infrastructure projects promise disasters of epic proportions. The collapse of buildings during earthquakes that were suppose to be resistant still echoes. There one child per family policy has caused a demographic time bomb not all that different from Japan’s. In another ten years the elderly will outnumber those who can work. China’s economic stats are now notoriously suspect. The central government can’t trust the provinces numbers. One central party member has been quoted that the provinces suffer from the “Greek Disease”. If there is a big economic slow down in the US, Japan and Europe the market for Chinese goods will put there economy between a rock and a hard place if it happens in the next couple of years.
Toldold,
You would get a D-, maybe, in my class.
Why is it that with all the data freely available on the Web, people still throw out wildly wrong numbers?
http://esa.un.org/wpp/unpp/p2k0data.asp
Here is China’s projected dependency ratios, right off the UN site:
Column 1 is total dependency, Column 2 is child, column 3 is old age.
1950 63 56 7
1955 72 65 7
1960 77 70 7
1965 78 72 7
1970 77 70 7
1975 77 69 8
1980 69 60 9
1985 57 48 9
1990 51 42 9
1995 51 41 10
2000 48 38 10
2005 42 31 11
2010 38 27 11
2015 38 25 13
2020 40 24 17
2025 42 22 20
2030 45 21 24
2035 52 21 31
2040 59 22 37
2045 61 22 39
2050 64 22 42
China starts to have a serious problem around 2035. By then (at 7% growth) its economy will be five times as big (or, at 5% growth, three times as big). What does that mean? Hard to tell — nothing like this has ever happened before.
The UN, that bastion of honesty and integrity, is the ‘go to” place for credible statistics? Who knew?
I am enlightened.
In fact, the UN and other official agencies underreport Chinese births, probably by 200 million or so (a lot of children outside the 1-child rule simply aren’t registered). So the situation is better than the official numbers suggest. They still have a long-term problem, but the point is that it is a long-term problem and subject to possible solutions.
Well, I just found another underperforming schmuck who would “get a D- in your class, at best”:
Chinese Economy “Unexpectedly” Slows; Will the Bubble in China Babble Burst?
A shame, really- I’ve enjoyed your commentary on the Middle East but this whole “second coming of Spengler” schtick of yours is now casting doubts in my mind about your “Arab demographic decline” thesis (not speaking of the Persians, here, mind you), among others.
The collapse of a supposed Chinese bubble has been predicted for years. China’s manufacturing is growing at just 9% rather than 12% in the past. What does that have to do with the D- allegation that China will face demographic problems within 10 years? That poster couldn’t count; you can’t read. That’s an F.
The collapse of a supposed Chinese bubble has been predicted for years.
So says Spengler 2.0, only the vary latest gentleman to claim that China will take over the world, oh, quite soon.
I think I’ll start a blog called “Vogel”.
China’s manufacturing is growing at just 9% rather than 12% in the past.
Yes, yes- according to the United Nations, I suppose (or are they “underreporting” those numbers, as well?). By the way, I don’t suppose you’ve heard of any slowdown in orders from Europe? You know, “orders for manufacturing”?
What does that have to do with the D- allegation that China will face demographic problems within 10 years?
I just like that you’re arbitrarily assigning marks to us according to how willing we are to believe in statistics provided by either the UN or the CCP.
That poster couldn’t count; you can’t read. That’s an F.
And I thought those middle school piano lessons were supposed to count for something . . . *sigh*
I regard the Chinese as competitors, but not as enemies. The difference is that having competition is good because it motivate you to achieve and reduces laziness. In order to successfully compete with China, we have to utilize the advantages of our culture in the greatest possible manner. Our cultural competitive advantage is that we value free inquiry and pioneering as values in their own right.
The Chinese (unlike the Japanese) are very entrepreneurial and they have a chaotic style to them. However, having lived in and experiencing the East Asian cultures first hand, I can tell you that these people do not have a pioneering bone in their body. I can also tell you that they have a cultural tradition of suppressing free inquiry. There are no Chinese counterparts to Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand. Hence, the values promulgated by these two individuals represent a cultural competitive advantage that the Chinese would have difficulty emulating.
We need to promote scientific inquiry and technological innovation in every sphere of human endevour. We should also eliminate regulation that makes it difficult to innovation and commercialize innovation, particularly in bio-medicine and commercial space development. I believe developments in these two areas can ensure our successful competition with the Chinese.
Nowadays Chinese leaders seem too busy putting out fires to think about their regime’s long-term survival. Last month, they had to dispatch Politburo member Bo Xilai in a messy power struggle on the eve of a leadership transition. This past week, the daring escape of blind rights activist Chen Guangcheng from illegal house arrest to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing provoked another crisis. When rulers of one of the most powerful countries in the world have to worry about the defiant acts of a blind man, it’s high time for them to think the unthinkable: Is the Communist Party’s time up?
To appreciate the mortal dangers lying ahead for the party, look at three numbers: 6,000, 74 and seven. Statistical analysis of the relationship between economic development and survival of authoritarian regimes shows that few non-oil producing countries can sustain their rule once per capita GDP reaches $6,000 in purchasing power parity (PPP). Based on estimates by the International Monetary Fund, Chinese GDP per capita is $8,382 in PPP terms ($5,414 in nominal terms).
Minxin Pei
How Much Longer Will the East Be Red?
If history is any guide, the Chinese Communist Party has at most 10-15 years left.
Not sure if my comment was deleted. If we assume a la Mearsheimer and offensive
Realists, the proposition that some level of conflct with Cbina is inevitable what would you suggest as a strategy for dealing with that? In essence, what would Richelieu do….
Please note I am deeply against Mearaheimer’s anti-Israel screeds.
So ignoring human rights makes us look strong. That makes a lot of sense.
Everything Mr. Goldman says about China today was said about the Soviet Union in the good old days.
If you think too hard, you end up outsmarting yourself.
I’m saying China and the Soviet Union are radically different cases. The Soviet Union was going down the drain economically. China is ascending.
I’ll give you the economic argument. Hammering them on freedom is not a minor injury, and we can do it with little cost. Because they know they can’t win this one, it’ll eventually get their respect.
I can believe that China’s one child situation is not quite so dire as hyped in the West because that same media has said Russia is dying (not true anymore) despite Rosstat numbers for the past five years suggesting otherwise. Even Nicholas Eberstadt of AEI has had to reconsider his position (see this meeting of the minds recently in San Francisco):
http://darussophile.com/2012/04/19/a-meeting-with-a-demographer/
And if the Russians were cooking those books they would’ve cooked them more aggressively and or counted Tadjiks as Russians. The fact that 90% of illegals in Russia probably didn’t answer the door for the Census takers in 2010 (unlike here) should make it very clear.
A couple hundred years ago, the French people paid us a great honor. They gave us a huge statue of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. We’ve come to call her Lady Liberty and she is symbolic of what we Americans hold dearest: freedom and Liberty.
Liberals (and Mr Goldman as well, apparently) would like for this country to no longer be the world’s beacon of freedom and liberty. Some of the world’s tired, poor, and oppressed apparently have not gotten that message. Mr Chen did not get the memo, I guess.
Mr Chen wants freedom – for good reasons. SInce we – America – is (or at least should be) the highest manifestation of freedom and liberty, we have a duty to welcome Mr Chen with open arms. It doesn’t matter if CHina is displeased.
In this case, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.
Just prior to the attack on the huge liberty demonstration in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the demonstrators erected a rough Chinese replica of the Statue of Liberty, to be reproduced as a more complete & permanent monument after the revolution. That idea was stillborne, of course, but maybe it will be realised in the near future?
China hates us (as well as the rest of the west) for two reasons. First, Western colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries still enrage many Chinese people. It made them feel weak and, worse, it made them lose face in the world. True, a lot of China’s problems could be blamed on the Chinese themselves (what with all of the warlords, bandits, pirates, and various political factions that ruled over large areas of the country for many years). China has only recently been “united” since Mao took over in 1949. But the hatred still runs deep, and many Chinese today, especially in the military, still feel a terrible hatred towards the west over how China was treated in the past.
Second, there are many people in China that really believe that it is their eventual destiny to rule over all of Asia. These same people would like nothing better than to subjugate other Asian nations and turn them into China’s vassal states, ESPECIALLY Japan, which China has hated for centuries. China now feels that it has the money, the technology, the military muscle, and the people to make this happen and they are going to make it happen. China sees the United States as nothing more than an obstacle in its plans to take over Asia and as a meddler in matters that really are China’s concern.
Where does that leave us? In not a very good position. If we are determined to protect many Asian countries like Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Taiwan from Chinese agression, then we should be ready for a big fight, because China is playing for keeps. So unless we’re willing to go all the way in this fight, we’d better back off and just pull our fleet and our men back to Hawaii. Unless we are willing to dramatically increase the size of the US Navy and back up our commitments with troops and weapons to these nations, China WILL step in and take them over. Maybe not today, but definitely within the next ten years. And this war would make World War II in the Pacific look like a joke, especially with the weapons everybody has today.
America is a global power today. China sees itself as the global power of tomorrow, and that tomorrow is coming very soon. Are we ready to face it? At this stage of the game and with this president, certainly not. But it would be a terrible stain on this country if we just throw all of our Asian allies under the bus for the sake of “peace.” We need to stand by our allies and we also need to convince countries that border China, like Russia and India, that it is in their best interest, too, to convince China that taking over Asia would be a bad idea.
First, Western colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries still enrage many Chinese people. It made them feel weak and, worse, it made them lose face in the world.
Why do you supposed South Asian Indians may feel slightly less “enraged”?
The PRC government inculcates this hatred of Western colonialism, Libertyship. It’s self-serving propaganda for them.
They describe the 1840s to the 1940s as China’s “Century of Shame”, when it was nothing of the kind. The Ch’ing emperors wanted no trade – they’d accept only silver for tea. The western powers cracked China open for trade and raised every peasant’s standard of living (yes, they used opium, which was legal in London). Lots of Chinese were tired of Manchu rule and abetted the foreign incursions. (The Ch’ings were stupidly arrogant in the face of superior weapons and tech, too.) Pidgin English was hardly servile! “No tickee, no washee!” No laundry ticket, tough luck for you, Round Eyes!
Chiang Kai-Shek unified China, not Mao.
PRC kids are also taught that South Korea invaded North Korea, at the behest of America. Attempts should be made to counter the brainwash when Chinese study abroad, but the Left’s propaganda on the nature and effects of Colonialism is not restricted to China!
Hatred of Japan is also inculcated by the ChiComs – it doesn’t go back as far as you say.
“Russia was in fact ruined. We ruined the country and we did it with malice aforethought.”
That’s a heckuva statement, to say the least. Look, under Reagan and before, we did set out to BEAT Russia, absolutely. And while it was admittedly mean to want to beat or even ruin a society that murdered 25 million of it’s own and beyond just to glorify it’s ‘Great Leader’, while forthrightly informing us that its long term purpose was to destroy us and force us all into equal worship of that Leader’s memory and successors… yes that was quite a mean thing to do, of course.
But WE did not ruin Russia. The foul and satanic ideology of communism ruined Russia, we just nudged it over the abyss that communism brought it to the edge of. It’s more than a semantic. That statement implies that had we not “ruined” Russia, they would be clipping along just swimmingly, like, oh… Sweden or Malaysia, as opposed to Cuba and North Korea et al.
It’s more than just a semantic. Saying “we ruined Russia” pretty much lets the monstrously evil destructiveness of socialism/communism off the hook as being merely incidental or just an accomplice in Russia’s crash, and I am sure not about to do that.
China IS an enemy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.
Funny stuff this history, just today I was reading about Herennius Pontius and advice he gave to his son who outmaneuvered Romans at Caudine Forks to either let Romans go or kill them all, because middle ground solution leaves them both strong and willing to revenge themselves as Samnites later found out at their own displeasure.
That being said I don’t understand how anyone who adheres to Bible could be anything but supportive to Guangcheng or anyone else who fights this baby-killing monstrous regime that is China CP. Gehenna comes to mind.
Yes, maybe it isn’t politically wisest thing to do but there are or at least should be some principles among believers that have precedence over Niccolo-ethics-have-no-place-in-politics-Machiavelli philosophy that caused so much evil in this world. After all, for all our petty politics and calculating we are to obey Him first.
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
This pretty much covers it. Yes, China is our enemy, and ultimately the enemy of anyone who declines to kowtow to them. So yes, we ought to ruin them. How? A step at a time, however we can. The USSR and Chinese Communists are apples and oranges in some ways, but not in a single important way: as with the Soviets, it is crucial to keep one’s eyes on the prize, to realize that there can be a world without them, to never take a step that interferes with that long-term goal, and to take steps that advance it where one can. Serica delenda est.
Agree with what Andrew X wrote above. It is quite possible, aside from the Reagan-Saudi deal to flood the oil market with cheap crude and thereby hurt the Soviets, for the folks around Reagan to give themselves slightly too much credit for the Soviet collapse. Things were stirring as early as the 1960s with the publication (via samizdat, but people actually read books in the USSR illicit or otherwise). Hell, by the 1970s the Club of Rome/one worlders were predicting a gradual ‘convergence’ following detente whereby the West would become more socialist and the USSR more capitalist, culminating in some vague End of History where we all were like the French, or something.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=51368
In other news, Newt Gingrich is not sneering at the hated Ronulans nor telling Mitt Romney to ignore them as a sign of fundamental discontent with the (central bank funded) Almighty Status Quo. Someone call PJM’s other editors and let them know despite their efforts to portray Paul as a cross between Lindbergh and Huey P. Long and the state GOP saying it would ignore the outcome if he won, the Ronulans actually almost won a majority of Iowa delegates and large majorities in IA, ME, and NV.
“culminating in some vague End of History where we all were like the French, or something.”
We were always French from the right and left wings since our first Republic
BTW the Newt Gingrich’s analyse of the french candidates and votes is the most sensible I read on english speaking medias (I must say, even the french weren’t able to formulate them in such a precise way)
Things were stirring as early as the 1960s with the publication (via samizdat, but people actually read books in the USSR illicit or otherwise) [sic] of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
EOT for me.
China now and the USSR then are of course completely different situations. If however unforseen events begin to bring internal pressure on the oligarchs I think we should be ready to assist in small to medium ways with the effort to end of the current government. The people will have to free themselves at some point and we can’t be seen as doing too much to help or else the Chinese will resent it in the long run.
I understand the argument that the one child policy could prevent the next civil war that is due in China and that most Chinese probably enjoy the current prosperity. I wonder how that might change as other developing nations take market share from them or if there is a major slow down in the markets for their goods? In preperation it is likely best that we prop up our relations with the other nations around the South China Sea in ways that are not perceived as menacing. I still think China will wound itself before we have any good reason to attempt it.
The Chinese will respect us when we demonstrate the will and the muscle to prevail from the ongoing global financial collapse as the singular place shrewd investors will put their money, whether they are from China, Russia, or the EU, and we do this by biting down hard and putting our financial system back on solid footing. America must be the source toward which all capital flows in times of terrible uncertainty.
But we must earn that place in the sun, not just be the least rotten of the choices available.
When we can show the Chinese that it is the most talented, the most ambitious and hard working and innovative who direct traffic in this nation, not the flotsam and jetsam of our social welfare culture of morons and parasites demanding more and more free shit; only then we will attract their focused attention. As it is, they rightfully regard us as far too soft to make the decisions we must make if we are to remain on top.
To quote BattleofthePyramids, “rebuilding American power requires us to put our economic house in order. We can be world superpower and the ultimate Levianthan to ensure peace among the great powers, or we can be a welfare state, (for a while). We cannot be both. Americas welfare programs are a one way track to national bankruptcy and economic suicide, and soon. Perhaps the greater issue here is not what to do about China, but what to do about a political elite which more and more reminds me of the Bourbon kings of France, they learn nothing and they forget nothing.”
Spot on.
I cannot say if China is an enemy, but they are certainly a adversarial competitor, and I could never imagine life governed by the Chicoms, so they may as well be an enemy. But I am less concerned about what China will do and more concerned about what the US must do to remain worth emulating. We must outlast the existing regime in China.
Exactly. The USSR caused its own demise. Fixing our economic problems is the only rational choice. Federal Government Spending must be slashed while defense spending must be reduced by cutting waste.
http://fiscalwars.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/protectionist-globalist-contortionist/
Couldn’t agree more. There is more than one way to skin a cat. Prosperity can be organically grown from the ground up, which ensures dignity and freedom along the way, or it can be forced upon an abiding populace by any means necessary. When China wanted an industrial revolution, it simply told its farmers to drop their plows and head to the cities. The long-term greater good required that 50 million starve to death, but by golly they made it into the industrial age with food to spare. This seems primitive and old fashioned to the west, but this is real life in an emerging hemisphere, and it could very well be the future if we don’t learn how to compete without artificial cost-shifting, accounting gimmicks, and currency manipulation. Working harder and being more personally accountable would be a good start. Or we can work less and pass more of our responsibilities (and requisite liberties) along to the state. Regardless of which way is right and which one wrong, those are our two choices.
http://fiscalwars.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/protectionist-globalist-contortionist/
I love reading what people think of a country and people they have never lived in, visited, had any interaction with, or lightly researched. These posts range from hysteria to open hostility to willful ignorance.
The article is correct in its premise and structure.
China is no more an enemy of the USA than Canada although that will be a bitter pill for most reading this to accept. Its always easier to paint a broad brush and jump to conclusions than spend time understanding subject matter.
China is a vast and complicated cultural / Business environment. And unless your willing to live here, learn its language and customs, its history and theologies, especially how China thinks, don’t make statements regarding its intentions or plans for the future. You simply do not know and making guesses at best.
There are an additional 300 Million people projected to enter the middle class in China the next 10-12 years. This will result in middle class of approximately 600 million people, which will provide the single greatest marketplace the world has ever seen. It is why every European and American company is pleading access to it, although American companies are at a disadvantage how to do business here.
Most posts here seem to imagine China stuck in the 60′s -70′s, but Global manufacturing moves their plants and automated systems here, research and development parks, entertainment industry, development and architecture, engineering, big pharma, etc, see the writing on the wall.
There are many issues China is working through, and will require careful attention, but America needs to wake up to the fact China will regain global super-power status.
Please take the time to read China’s history, and not just since WW2 before jumping to conclusions.
So. . . Canada has been the one supplying arms to those who have killed our soldiers for decades???? Since you’ve obviously lived there, you are obviously comfortable doing business with slavers, how does that make them any less the enemy of a so called “freedom loving people”?
Most of the article and many of the responses are nothing more than rationalizations for dealing with the devil in the name of cheap trade goods.
The author omitted the most obvious and assuredly successful strategy possible for ruining China, i.e., insist that they adopt all the federal and state policies that are ruining America, starting with environmental. There now, simple, wasn’t it?
On the other hand, it’s not “necessary” to ruin China if instead America chooses to use all its strengths in its own favor rather than strangling itself. Nobody could catch us.
Would this be the same “Spengler” that promised China would eventually overtake the US because their piano playing prowess enabled them to keep superior musical time?
I made no promises, but it well might happen — not because piano playing helps you keep time but because it makes you smarter.
So what are these “smarter choices” the Chinese are making?
And what is the PRC doing differently with their real estate and provincial gov’t debt bubbles that makes you think they can avoid 1992 Japanese and 2008 American-style reckonings?
The Chinese government has made some attempt to reign in the real estate bubble that China has experienced until lately. They have also attempted to “quarantine” it off from the rest of the economy in the expectation that it will eventually pop, indicating that they clearly understand that bubbles are fake. This is in direct contrast with our politicians and bankers, who believed the bubbles (equity in late 90′s, housing in ought’s) represented real productivity.
The Chinese have a lot of problems, especially the culture of corruption (corruption IS their number one problem – all others are insignificant in comparison). But at least they recognize their problems and are making some attempt to resolve them. Too many people, especially those in Washington D.C., believe in rent-seeking parasitism.
The Chinese government has made some attempt to reign in the real estate bubble that China has experienced until lately. They have also attempted to “quarantine” it off from the rest of the economy in the expectation that it will eventually pop, indicating that they clearly understand that bubbles are fake.
That’s a whole lot of platitude bereft of specifics, but I’m sure there’s a CCP Blue Ribbon Panel if we look hard enough . . .
But at least they recognize their problems and are making some attempt to resolve them. Too many people, especially those in Washington D.C., believe in rent-seeking parasitism.
It seems you are suggesting that Washington DC is somehow more corporatist than Beijing. Does the Chinese Communist Party offer more “economic freedom”, as well?
I missed that discussion in the past, but I completely understand and agree with your summary of it here, David.
Have you source material I can send to my piano and violin playing Chinese grandson?
Does the author see the US becoming a sex colony for China, much like the FSU is for Western Europe?
I think I could write a pretty good futuristic, Blade Runner type move script about this.
May I suggest as couple a more things to consider?
One might speculate that of the large modern societies only Chinese leaders upon waking in the morning must ponder, existentialally, however briefly, if this is the day that another milk poisoning or something else that might seem at first quit insignificant won’t be the “horseshoe nail” that brings the kingdom down. Such does not proclaim strength and longevity to me.
Further, my reading of history indicates that as repression is lifted, reforms offered, that the “people” always want to move faster than the rulers feel comfortable with. Serious conflict ensues.
Is it not true that the armed forces have no force projection capabilities, but are indeed focused on keeping the “peace” at home? And please don’t bring up that tired old aircraft carrier they bought at some second hand store that doesn’t even have catapults. In order to have a real “carrier force” they would have to have at least six carriers, and attendants, so that at any time two might be in dry dock. Further, where are the first class carrier aircraft? I would say it would take a decade’s dedication, highest priority, for such a force to come into efficient operational service. There’s much more but check on the web the price of all this and ask yourself if it could be accomplished in the face of budgetary opposition from the army, the air force, the People’s Rocket Forces and societal economic interests for an entire decade and then kept in place.
David, you mention the best minds returning to China. Is this really a problem? Great minds returning to China for money, willing to give up the intellectual freedom they have enjoyed for years??
Lastly, and far from leastly (does that word exist?), the Chinese leadership is in the same position as the king of France just before the revolution. The burgeoning middle class was willing to trade political power for wealth and when wealth was no more…
David, in my class you would get an “incomplete.”
Yes, like de Toqueville said: “The most dangerous time for a bad government is when it tries to reform itself.” The Chinese Communists realised this when the Tiananmen movement started to get out of hand. They aren’t likely to make that mistake again.
The answer is simple, the action difficult.
If we mount a campaign on avoiding Chinese made products, we must understand that it will be a long, long term battle. An economic struggle. That is what the Chinese want to do with us. They announced this way back a long time ago (1990′s, which may not seem long, but cell phones, internet, etc. were not very big then, eh?). They undercut all the competition, promised a lot, and built the infrastructure that led the the great outsource move of the late 90′s/early 00′s. The semi industry, minor products, electronics, went gangbusters.
Here, they could minimize cost, maximize profit, and report juicy fat earnings to investors and shareholders. It was the Great Greed Migration.
As soon as the addiction began, the Chinese began to tighten the grip.
I know of some Chinese “middle-class” who would jump from job to job for a meager $0.10/hour raise, but that was a significant amount there. No loyalty to the company that hired you, no real backbone on technical understanding.
I say this because it is true. Here in the US, you have students in Engineering and Science whose instructors were greatness. I know. One of my profs was taught by Werner Von Braun at White Sands after WWII. Another worked for Enrico Fermi. He was from Japan and it was during WWII.
A grass roots movement to read the label will slowly, but quickly begin the shift from China. Sure, most of this will be for little items: tools, clothing, basic staples. But, these items are the large ones that fuel the economy within. These are the small businesses of China.
Rid those and you poison the drinking pool.
“If the U.S. maintains its strategic dominance, China will learn that it must emulate our political institutions as well.”
Goldman, that is one heck of a logical jump. Don’t you think they would have done that by now? The Chicoms won’t go down that easy. We control the shipping lanes in the south Pacific and that stands in the way of their empirical ambitions, they are patiently building their naval capabilities to take ours down ( much of the technology stolen from us btw…. thanks slick willie)
We have to take them down the old fashioned way; Subversion, sabotage, espionage. The way SUN TSU would have done it. There are a myriad of ways to skin a rat.
Perhaps, if we’re lucky, Spengler will write a follow-up piece concerning practical theology as it applies to an encounter between a religious people and a superstitious people.
One astute Jesuit once remarked that the problem with China is that the educated among them believe in nothing while the uneducated among them will believe in anything. I cannot help but feel that this is a piece of the puzzle.
Your allusion to Machiavelli is similar to his dictum that it is easier to kill a member of your adversary’s family than it is to take their property.
As for the kernel of the argument, Emerson said “If you strike at a king, you must kill him.”
The Soviets certainly realised this. One of their principles of war (I used to teach this; I haven’t kept up in recent times with the Russian versions, assuming that there is any difference) was the principle of Annihilation — you shouldn’t just defeat your enemy; you need to wipe him out, because if you don’t he will nurse a grudge & seek vengeance someday. It doesn’t just apply to physical destruction; cultural or political can apply as well, like the defeat of Nazi Germany & Japan after World War II.
As for Machiavelli, I just wrote a brief exposition on his recent birthday:
http://plbirnamwood.blogspot.com/2012/05/test-marker_03.html
Spengler: “There is no inherent kindness or generosity, no sympathy for the weak in Chinese culture. China never revered a God who has a special love for the widow and the fatherless.”
Incorrect. Both Confucianism and Taoism (the pillars of ancient Chinese culture) required the Chinese to be compassionate and charitable toward the less fortunate.
Question: What is the definition of Confucianism?
Answer: Do what you are told, or you will be shot.
sinz54,
On paper, perhaps. But where are the charitable institutions of civil society that we find in the Christian world? Where are the privately-endowed hospitals, schools, and so forth? For that matter, where are Confucianism and Taoism in modern China? Communism leveled the Confucian model in which the head of household is an emperor in the small, and the Emperor is a paterfamilias in the large. China is in the midst of a convulsive change. A tenth of Chinese now self-identify as Christians. Nothing is fixed or predictable. But I would prefer a world in which America is the dominant power.
If that is your position then you should be saying that “There is no inherent kindness or generosity, no sympathy for the weak in PRC society”. The statement that “there is no inherent kindness or generosity, no sympathy for the weak in Chinese culture” is ridiculous and offensive. The Tzu Chi Foundation is a very large and active Chinese relief organization with no Christian influence.
Perhaps I put the matter too strongly. But there are cruelties that routine occur in Chinese society that are not to be found in the West. A one-child policy, for example.
But there are cruelties that routine occur in Chinese society that are not to be found in the West. A one-child policy, for example.
Pffft- there are “cruelties that routinely occur in North Korean society that are not to be found in the West”, as well- what would that have to do with, say, South Korea (or Korean culture in general)?
And can we please make a distinction between “Chinese culture” and one-party rule by a communist party in the Peoples Republic (of China)? I’m hardly ashamed of my ethnic German ancestry- National Socialism, GDR Communists, or no (especially after reading the latest news from France or the history of Vidal Sassoon’s battle with British fascists post-WWII).
Tzu-Chi’s from Taiwan, Robin.
Mr. Spengler’s obviously talking about the culture of the PRC, not Chinese everywhere. Buddhism was suppressed on the Mainland just as Christianity was.
The US and China are going to end up in an alliance, as in ‘Serenity’, the movie;
The only question is who will be senior partner, and hence how authoritarian
will be the administration.
China has half a continent which needs a 21st century infrastructure, which
the US can supply, doing well while doing good by supplying Hi-Tech hardware,
creative engineering, and (relatively) honest administration.
Oh, no! Those actors on Serenity had horrible accents on their Chinese!
I call the cute engineer.
I recall a Hong Kong taxi driver telling me — no, bragging to me — that he only took off from his job one day a month.
China: support for North Korea and Iran; mercantilism; massive cyberhacking; claim of entire South China Sea; antisatellite weaponry; imperialism in Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, Xinjiang, Taiwan, Vietnam; massive gulag; enemy on the Security Council; superpower ambitions.
Not nice, not our friend, the real enemy. Appeasement exactly the wrong policy. They respected Nixon because he bombed Hanoi.
Here is a suggested response by the United States: (1) countervailing and antidumping tariffs; (2) passage of Schumer-Lieberman-Graham; (3) close all Bank of China branches for money laundering; (4) expel all Chinese spies; (5) end of “student” visa program; (6) selective slowdowns in West Coast ports and railheads; (7) turn off all Chinese satellites by mistake; (8) buy up all offshore RMB securities; (9) build large naval bases in Cam Ranh Bay, Taiwan, Incheon; (10) encourage the development of the Japanese and Korean navies; (11) close US airspace to Chinese airlines for safety reasons; (12) close all Chinese consulates; (13) ban further Chinese direct investment. Basically, do to China today what we did to Japan in 1940-41. See if they like it.
And how shall we pay for #8? There are already far too many unbacked paper dollars in circulation.
Nixon only bombed PART of Hanoi, the part they didn’t need to finally win the war. Of course I am a veteran of that futile war.
You skimmed over the Mandarin vs. Cantonese issue. I toured China in the summer of 2010, and discovered that the government had solved that problem by simply suppressing Cantonese. That language was banned from the airwaves and any other official communication. I heard no Cantonese until I got to Hong Kong. Based on what southern Chinese told me, it is likely that the younger generation will be speaking Mandarin, not Cantonese.
Just my point: You can’t do that in a democracy. China’s Great Migration of a polyglot people required a traffic cop with a hard hand.
Oderint dum metuant is a LOT older than Machiavelli.
Who wants to ruin China? If so, how do you propose to do it?
The immediate rhetorical dismissal sounds hasty and frail.This question isn’t new. Are you really suggesting it hasn’t been studied in depth?
We cannot ruin China easily, but we can surely destroy it utterly if we want to. The question is similar to the existential question facing Israel’s need to deal with Iran — If not now, when? In both cases, delay only makes things worse. The moral and operational issues facing Israel are surely easier, but those confronting us are manageable if the will is there. As a practical matter, can we maintain the level of secrecy achieved before D-Day? Yes, provided the political ‘groundwork’ is done right, but at a cost to civil liberties most would find unacceptable — unless the ‘provocation’ is great enough. Fortunately, we have many more options than Israel does, so the best answer (many would say) is different.
The greatest threat to China is China. The issues are well known — except to America-hating journalists and the usual suspects — and your broader analysis sounds about right. The starting point to ‘re-education’ may be to learn the dangers of straight-line projections, the more practical and painful the lesson the better.
Meanwhile, yes, thanks to Obama and Hillary, we look like an elephant trying to bugger a flea. But that isn’t reality, is it? Perceptions change fast.
“There is no inherent kindness or generosity, no sympathy for the weak in Chinese culture.”
Yes, and this attitude infects universities which have large numbers of Chinese faculty. I know of a case where a Chinese Ph.D. ruined at least one student’s career and when charged with moral turpitude he defended himself on the grounds that he was following the ethics of his culture. The university administration accepted this rather than discipline the prof. (As a footnote, this prof’s department lost its accreditation two years later.) So the danger isn’t just China asserting itself in its neighborhood but spreading its corrupted values system to the U.S.
How’d he ruin their careers, and how’d he justify it culturally? It ain’t much of an example without those details.
You may be shocked, shocked to learn that this sort of thing goes on among Christians and Jews as well.
Please, beating China would be so very easy…the question is do we want to win slow or fast. The steps are more or less the same, but the speed of the music varies…
1) Bind ourselves to India and make sure they match China’s growth step for step. Make their military have to match U.S. + India. Throw in India, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia.
2) Do whatever we can to destabilze North Korea. Their client, their burden.
3)Fix our own budget deficit. Stop borrowing Chinese money.
4) Wait 15 to 20 years for the baby bust to hit China, and the whole thing implodes. As their social costs grow and their population shrinks, that will soon be the end of that.
So if this were a game of Civilization, and Machiavelli were leading us through the centuries, he’d have booted Chen from our embassy because irritating China doesn’t further our position on the board.
Thought-provoking, but too divorced from reality.
When the GOP runs things, we want to advance American interests. Your description of the Cold War’s conclusion makes us sound like a terrible foe.
When the Dems are in charge, they seek only to advance Dem interests. When Carter was prez, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, and Nicaragua fell to those Soviets you pity, and it was women from those countries selling themselves. We’re more often a terrible friend than a terrible foe.
Chen fights forced abortion. Helping him was the right thing to do, even if it did feel good. And the Chinese won’t give us the kind of respect you seek until we get the Dems out of power and keep them out for a good, long time.
Sorry to find fault – I really like your work.
China may be a real blessing for America in the end. When it does grow in strength as it obviously will continue to do for some time (after all a billion people with a work ethic are going to make progress) when it looms not only as an economic and military threat, but also as a hegemonic threat, then these media darlings might just start to whip Americans back into shape. It has been oft-commented on this site that the underlying motivation of those professing justice is is fact a society where they have more power. Right now, they have power, they have voices and they are shouting loudly and they all seem to be listening to each other and validating, empowering each other in a country that still looms above all others. But when America begins to sink in hegemonic terms, that is when these talking heads and fingers are not setting as much international policy as now, and their commentaries are not being debated in circles of power, nor their issues becoming globally influential issues, when their cool president gets dissed brazenly and often, unable to project their pet policies and America is seen as a has been nation, defanged and effete, then they will find themselves mightily displeased, no? Only at that point will they learn that the only way for them to scream thir lungs out and attain their much lusted for power is to sit atop a diligent and co-ordinated nation. Its a miracle there is a country left, lets face it, you Americans are much less a sleeping giant at the moment than a drug-fu..ed monster and there is plenty of stupor and pyschosis ahead. Yep, you have a long way to sink yet. But your country (and our culture) is based within the only traditional of pioneering enquiry and freedom of thought as was noted above. That will become realised for its uniqueness (Oh, some cultures just dont want to think?) and will be combined with a rediscovery of diligence-work morality-(Oh we individuals do have to do something in order to survive) and your country will again becomes unified rather than diversified. Suddenly common values will appear automatically, because it is common sense, it is the only way to build a powerful nation and that is all they really want, POWER!
I dunno, Sandwich. Don’t you think Britain’s socialist creeps would have about-faced by this time if your dynamic were in play?
Enough already! I’m really getting tired of this “they’re producing all these classical music students” that appears in EVERY Spengler article about China. If this is to continue some evidence that more classical music training causes (not just correlated to) a more humane and economically productive and dynamic society must be presented. Otherwise, please give it a rest. It’s beginning to sound like a Thomas Friedmanism.