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September 2, 2020 - September 6, 2021
Both Are driven by a common ambition: to make their nation great again. Identify the nation ruled by the other as the principal obstacle to their dream. Take pride in their own unique leadership
China, as a percentage of the United States 1980 2015 GDP 7% 61% Imports 8% 73% Exports 8% 151% Reserves 16% 3,140% Figures as measured in US dollars. Source: World Bank. In a single generation, a nation that did not appear
According to the Rule of 72—divide 72 by the annual growth rate to determine when an economy or investment will double—the Chinese economy has doubled every seven years.
At the end of each day of labor, a Chinese worker had produced barely enough to feed himself and his family—leaving relatively little surplus for the state to pay soldiers or invest in armaments like a navy (which over four millennia Chinese emperors never did, bar one brief half-century exception) to project power far beyond its borders.
President Obama has featured this “rebalance” as one of the major foreign policy achievements
purchasing power parity,
Emmm. how about japanese yen vs cbineze yuan .
PPP truly is the best benchmark—and not just for assessing relative economic strength. “In comparing the size of national economies,” he told me, “especially for the purposes of assessing comparative military potential, as the first approximation, the best yardstick is PPP.
Between 2011 and 2013, China both produced and used more cement than the US did in the entire twentieth century.30 In 2011, a Chinese firm built a 30-story skyscraper in just 15 days. Three years later, another construction firm built a 57-story skyscraper in 19 days.31 Indeed, China built the equivalent of Europe’s entire housing stock in just 15 years.32 When
In particular, ruling powers’ fears often fuel misperceptions and exaggerate dangers, as rising powers’ self-confidence stimulates unrealistic expectations about what is possible and encourages risk-taking.
While each was playing chess against the other, at the same time, each was also contending with domestic political constituents who increasingly believed that failing to stand up to the other would be both dishonorable and disastrous. Ultimately, the leaders of Athens and Sparta were overwhelmed by their own domestic politics.
rising power may discount a ruling state’s fear and insecurity because it “knows” itself to be well-meaning. Meanwhile, its opponent misunderstands even positive initiatives as overly demanding, or even threatening. Sparta’s flat rejection of Athens’s attempt to provide assistance to Spartan victims of the great earthquake in 464 BCE reflects this inclination.
In the end, Crowe concluded that Germany’s intentions were irrelevant; its capabilities were what mattered. A vague policy of growth could at any time shift into a grand design for political and naval dominance.
He fought hand to hand against Indians and desperadoes, was shot, bled, and almost died on multiple occasions—but survived by causing others to bleed and die. In his view, this made him a man more than any other experience in his life. It also convinced him that those unable or unwilling to fight for themselves would perforce be ruled by others who were.
the conviction that “America’s incorporation of all adjacent lands was the virtually inevitable fulfillment of a moral mission delegated to the nation by Providence itself.”
The Monroe Doctrine, Roosevelt wrote, “is not a question of law at all. It is a question of policy . . . To argue that it cannot be recognized as a principle of international law is a mere waste of breath.”45
On November 3, the rebels issued their declaration of independence. A contingent of marines landed and shut the main railway to prevent the Colombian military from reaching Panama City, while the US ships blocked the Colombians from landing naval reinforcements. TR also warned the Colombian government that if it tried to oppose Panamanian independence, it should expect to see American forces on its territory. Less than seventy-two hours after the Panamanian rebels declared independence, the US was the first to recognize the new nation and establish diplomatic relations.59
Overall, comparing the amount the US paid annually to Panama under the final treaty and the amount it (or France) would have paid under six earlier (and less coercive) contracts, TR’s hard bargain likely deprived Panama of yearly revenue anywhere from 1.2 to 3.7 times its annual GDP.63
“but in the event of specious and captious objections on the part of the English, I am going to send a brigade of American regulars up to Skagway and take possession of the disputed territory and hold it by the power and the force of the United States.”72
“chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”
In sum, China “expanded by cultural osmosis, not missionary zeal.”14
a nation’s leader must “paint his vision of their future to his people, translate that vision into policies which he must convince the people are worth supporting, and finally galvanize them to help him in their implementation.”28
Xi is aggressively mobilizing supporters to execute a hugely ambitious agenda of action advancing on four related fronts:
Zuo dao le.
keeps a list of more than two dozen problems, among them: demographics (will China become old before it can become rich?); the challenges of fostering innovation; maintaining social stability while downsizing inefficient state-owned enterprises; and meeting energy demands without making the environment unlivable. He has analyzed each with deeper insight and more nuance than any Western observer I have read. Aware of the risks,
a cardinal rule of political survival: never state an unambiguous objective and a date in the same sentence.
Haahaha
not only in economic terms, but also in defense, science, technology, and culture.
“Why did the Soviet Union collapse?” As he never tires of reminding them, “It is a profound lesson for us.” After careful analysis, Xi concluded that Gorbachev made three fatal errors. He relaxed political control of society before he had reformed his country’s economy. He and his predecessors allowed the Communist Party to become corrupt, and ultimately hollow. And he “nationalized” the Soviet military, requiring commanders to swear allegiance to the nation, not the Party and its leader. As a result, this “left the Party disarmed.” When opponents rose up to overthrow the system, in Xi’s
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As this wealth became visible in ostentatious displays of luxury, citizens rightly began to question the Party’s moral core and fidelity to its mission. As Xi warned Party officials, “The wavering
nobody is afraid of me, I am meaningless.”38
Xi has led a revival of classical Chinese thought, ordering officials nationwide to attend lectures on the “brilliant insights” of Confucius and other Chinese philosophers to encourage “national self-confidence,” while declaring that “the Chinese Communist Party is the successor to this fine traditional Chinese culture.”46 Much as the splendor of the Roman Empire became an inspiration during the Italian Renaissance, the glory of the Chinese nation’s “golden age” (shengshi 盛世), remembered as the era before the Qing Dynasty’s fall, is now a source of pride in modern China.
As Lee put it pointedly, “If you believe that there is going to be a revolution of some sort in China for democracy, you are wrong. Where are the students of Tiananmen now?” he asked provocatively. And he answered bluntly: “They are irrelevant. The Chinese people want a revived China.”48 So long as Xi can deliver on his promise to restore China’s
China’s per capita income is still less than one-third that of South Korea or Spain, and one-fifth that of Singapore or the US. As it
Nonetheless, the number of new entrants into the workforce will continue increasing until 2041. With an additional 300 million Chinese moving from poor rural areas to new cities and workers’ productive
OBOR high-speed railways will cut the time required to move freight from Rotterdam to Beijing from a month to two days. Mackinder’s vision may even come to
Beijing sought to discipline Taipei by a show of force in which Chinese “missile tests” bracketed the island, threatening the commercial shipping on which Taiwan’s economy depends. When President Clinton responded by sending two aircraft carriers to the area in the largest deployment of US military power in Asia since the Vietnam War, the Chinese government had no option but to retreat.
As one Chinese analyst warns: “Ignoring the oceans is a historical error we committed, and now even in the future we . . . pay a price for this error.”
His hosts made Macartney wait in Chengde for six days. Then on September 14, 1793, at three a.m., they awakened the British entourage, marched them three miles in the darkness to the emperor’s court, and then had them wait another four hours until the emperor appeared.7 (Not coincidentally, Henry Kissinger’s first meeting with Mao repeated this same script.)
First, as he notes, Confucian cultures reflect an ethos that reinforces “the values of authority, hierarchy, the subordination of individual rights and interests, the importance of consensus, the avoidance of confrontation, ‘saving face,’ and, in general, the supremacy of the state over society and of society over the individual.”
But while China projects its internal order outward, it has a nearly visceral mistrust of any external interference in its domestic affairs.
“We Americans will for a long time share the blame for that sign in a Shanghai park, ‘Dogs and Chinese not allowed.’”
United States was trying to ‘divide China territorially, subvert it politically, contain it strategically and frustrate it economically.’”20
they “tended to think of the evolution of their society in terms of centuries and millennia and to give priority to maximizing long-term gains.” Huntington contrasts this with “the
In some ways, Chinese exceptionalism is more sweeping than its American counterpart. “The empire saw itself as the center of the civilized universe,” explains scholar Harry Gelber.
In it, Paine explained, “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”30 Though animated by a deep distrust of authority, America’s Founding Fathers recognized nonetheless that society required a government. Otherwise, who would protect citizens from foreign threats, or violations of their rights by criminals at home?
political legitimacy of any government, Americans believe, can only be derived from the consent of the governed. Most Chinese would disagree. They believe that political legitimacy comes from performance.
In Kissinger’s apt summary, “The conviction that American principles are universal has introduced a challenging element into the international system because it implies that governments not practicing them are less than fully legitimate.”36
“a missionary nation,” one driven by the belief “that the non-Western peoples should commit themselves to the Western values of democracy, free markets, limited government, human rights, individualism, the rule of law, and should embody these values in their institutions.”
“China did not export its ideas but let others come to seek them. Neighboring peoples, the Chinese believed, benefitted from contact with China and civilization so long as they acknowledged the suzerainty of the Chinese government. Those who did not were barbarian.”38
“Their talk about human rights, freedom and democracy is designed only to safeguard the interests of the strong, rich countries, which take advantage of their strength to bully weak countries, and which pursue hegemony and practice power politics.”39
Can anyone imagine an American political leader suggesting that a major foreign policy problem be put on the proverbial shelf for a generation—as Deng Xiaoping did with Japan on the issue of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands by accepting an eventual, rather than immediate, solution to the dispute?
they see problems as discrete issues to be addressed and solved now—so that they can move on to the next ones.
Zuotijia
