alphacat

It's fashionable nowadays to portray China as the next superpower. However, serious students of foreign policy and futurism have a few doubts.

1- China has no history of democracy or respect for the rights of the individual at all. Now, the reality is that to date, no modern society has ever been able to enter the ranks of first class modern nations without these characteristics. In fact, the deep seated authoritarianism of Chinese society is a prophylactic against democracy and individuality. Instead, China remains a police state.

2- No modern culture during the last 500 years has been able to establish and maintain superpower status without first being an intellectual superpower. China, like all mongoloid cultures in modern times, has a great deficit in true creativity. Worse, this deficit is based on the heavily ingrown traditions of authoritarianism, paternalism and group think as opposed to individual think. To date, modern China is an abject failure in this regard. A simple walk in any Chinese city will reveal stolen western intellectual product, but virtually nothing original which is home grown.

3- China has a military history of defensiveness and failure. The reality of Chinese military history is that against non- Chinese, they have almost always been the losers. Indeed, the famous Sun Tzu texts were written during one of hate many many periods of Chinese civil war.

4- Internal strife has been the bane of China for millenia. China traditionally splits into many parts which, for protracted periods war with each other. This could easily happen again.

5- Corruption has been and continues to be the bane of China. Chinese friends tell me that already, it is almost impossible to tell who really owns anything in China. Apparently, the Chinese government is worried in that estimates are already that 1.5% per year of China's GDP growth is corruption related.

6- Fear and hatred of Chinese cultural imperialism and economic domination are deep seated and wide spread in Asia. This will act as a natural hedge to excessive Chinese influence.

7- Last but by no means least, it should never be forgotten that China is outrageously overpopulated. This has already caused incredible pollution and via culture based infanticide to produce males, a ration of 1.2 males to females in the sub 15 age group in China.

mikeangelo

excellent analysis.

This was my opinion on China until 18 months ago.

Let me address each point in turn

1)True to be a global leader you need to export an ideology that encompases all other people. The only two ideologies that are manifested in the world today are the ideologies of capitalism and that of Islam. Capitalism exists in state form and dominates the world whereas Islam presently exists as a non state form. Just because China lacks ideology doesn't mean that it can't be a major global player. It also doesn't mean that it cannot compete with America in certain aspects of foreign control. In fact what we are observing in S Asia and C Asia should be of some concern to all observers. One thing further to add is that China does not need to be democratic to progress. It requires an ideology. There is a difference. Communist Russia was a threat as was the Ottoman Empire of Islam.

2) This point is true, but there are trends that show that this is changing. up until recently, it was American companies establishing factories using Chinese labour and financed by Chinese banks. However recently we are seeing the chinese companies themselves growing. we are seeing increased partnerships between global financial institutions and Chinese home grown banks. There are reforms happening. The country is repositioning itself. I would recommend all people to keep their eye on banking reform in China. Also we have seen the recent Unocal bid by the chinese which is interestingly financed by a chinese bank in partnership with HSBC. This is an opening volley.

3) There is military reform occurring in China itself. China is also working on establishing bases throughout the bordering countries such as Pakistan and Krygystan. It is also developing its own capabilities in joint ventures with both Pakistan and India. These reforms are being done to prepare China for its future involvements. we will have to wait and see if these reforms are correct for China but we should not discount any future conflict with China, but at the same time not see it as an immediate threat.

4) China has many 'internal' problems, such as Tibet, Taiwan and many regional concerns such as Japan, North Korea. There is also the risk of restive provinces. It is very easy to destabilise. However that would be in noone's interest. Totally agree on that point. The other factor that we need to examine is the difference between the cities and the rural areas. The rural areas have not seen any economic benefits. Remember what happened to the BJP in india. They were removed from office and the Congress Party came into power on the back of the villagers.

5) Again totally agree with you on this one. They have been pushing for changes for WTO membership. However it is part of the culture there. We will have to observe this trend for china. It will need to overcome this problem if it wishes any level of progression.

6) This is true to a certain extent. However the situation is changing. Indonesia has been warming to the chinese. Despite the public bickering, China and Japan are still excellent trading partners. The other problem is that the other South Asian nations are generally weak nations. I would not count on them as resistance. China's central Asian expansion is of greater interest. This is something I like to keep my eye on. Let us see how this progresses. Keep your eyes on an organisation called the SCO.

7) this is an interesting angle. hmm I need to research this a little more. I will get back to you on this one. If you have any good articles then please forward them.

Simon W. Moon

Correlation does not equate to causation.

Btw, how are you defining your terms?
What characteristics make a country a 'superpower'? WUsing the definition you're using, was the former Soviet Union a superpower?
What characteristics make a country a first-class, modern nation? I Sweden a first-class, modern nation? What about Japan, France, and Brazil? Are any of them first-class, modern nations?

And what's the time period o your considerations here? Ten years? One century? Ten centuries?

I've got to get a definition and a citation for this claim. What constitutes "true creativity?" And where'd you get the idea that China has a "deficit"?

What a particularly peculiar statistic. Where'd you come across such a thing?

__________________
"That is the problem... [we] fell in love with the idea that politicians-- even the slickest and brightest presidential candidates-- were real heroes and truly exciting people. That is wrong on its face. They are mainly dull people with corrupt instincts and criminal children. -H.S.T"

alphacat

I am not asserting that China will not be a global power, of course it will be and so I agree with many points you make. However, I still feel my points regrading societal organization and the potential of the individual are paramount. As it appears to me that the Chinese have made no progress in these areas and that indeed, for them to make progress would be extremely difficult, I stand by my original thesis.

Remember, we had the same paradigm sssert itself about 15 years ago when the rest of Asia began to boom. Asians began talkign about "The Asian Way" their disdain for America and it's values and how they would surpass us...
the rest, as they say, is history.

alphacat

I think the theme of the thread was superpower, which was in the sense of the U.S. In terms of the current definition, the former Soviet Union was not a superpower, although you could say it was an ersatz superpower. I disagree with your remark about correlation and causation. Of course, something new could happen. My observation though, stated that there was no history of any other course being true. What there is a history of, is China expanded and then collapsing in on itself. There is also a history of modern asian nations having rapid initial economic expansion followed by collapse as the rest of their culture and society fails in it's ability to support this rapid growth.

nkgupta80

The transformation will happen slowly. With china incorporating a modern free market system into their economy, competition will call for greater creativity. As an intellectual power, China's human resource drain is slowly reversing, and thus the tech sector's growing. Coming from a land that invented gunpowder, paper, the compass, paper currency, i have no doubt that the Chinese will regain that creative power as their world status an economic power rises.

But that doesn't mean that they're "home-grown" Chinese culture is gone. It is very much intact. And whats wrong with incorporating Western Pop culture or western style city designs.

Simon W. Moon

Care to share the definition of ideology that makes this statement true?

What do you mean by the phrase "state form"?

alphacat

Well you are correct, in the past China has shown some creativity, but not for a very long time. Some would argue confucian principles are anti-creative because they are anti-individualistic.

Of course home grown culture is not gone, I'm just pointing out that to really take the first rank you must create, not just copy. For instance, even Japan, which is to a great extent democratic, it is well known and well noted that the Japanese have failed utterly in basic science and technology, despite all their efforts to the contrary. Does this mean Japan is not a fine place with a well developed economy and culture... of course not.

Simon W. Moon

Could you please be a little more precise in your definition of superpower? I still don't get it.

Disagree as much as you like. It's not up to debate. It's not an opinion. It's just how the world is. ' Post hoc ergo propter hoc' is a mental error.



What characteristics make a country a first-class, modern nation?
Is Sweden a first-class, modern nation?
What about Japan, France, and Brazil? Are any of them first-class, modern nations?

What's the time period of your considerations where China's deep seated characteristics prevented it from having some version of democratic governance? Ten years? One century? Ten centuries?

You said, "China, like all mongoloid cultures in modern times, has a great deficit in true creativity."
What constitutes "true creativity?"

you also said, "...estimates are already that 1.5% per year of China's GDP growth is corruption related."
I was unaware that corruption (in its traditional sense) contributed to the GDP. Where did you find this estmate?

mikeangelo

1)ideology is a fundamental belief system from which systems emanate.

2) The capitalist ideology has a people that have accepted it as the basis of thought for their society and it has govenments that apply the Capitalist system over the society. Namely America, the Western European countries, Australia etc.

The Islamic ideology only exists amongst the people. The people still hold to Islam and recognise the systems that emanate from it. However the systems are not applied by a government over a society and hence an Islamic state does not exist.