This is interesting:
The Rise of China is over.
Note, by the way, that in saying the rise of China is over, I am not saying that China is on the verge of a collapse—I am not even certain what a collapse would look like. There are many people outside of China, portentously predicting a collapse, who evidently have in mind something like the disintegration of the Soviet Union—which, given the multiethnic, empire-like nature of the PRC, one could never rule out completely. But after poring over interviews, books, “internal circulation only” (neibu) policy analyses, and open source journals concerning what Chinese elites think the future holds, I found no suggestion that anyone of influence in the PRC expects a collapse—they do however, express anxiety over an impending “leveling off”.
I never predicted collapse, although I did say that fragmentation is possible.
But I never believed that China's admittedly impressive rise (although have been suspicious of official statistics about the pace of the rise) was incapable of slowing down before passing America by. There are only so many peasants you can put into factories. And if you still have a lot of peasants when you reach that limit, you've got a problem.
And if--not when--China did pass America by mid-century, I thought there was a good chance America would re-gain the lead by the end of this century.
Still, it is a bit surprising that China's leaders don't really think China could face some level of disintegration given that it is hardly unheard of in China's long history. The year 1989 isn't ancient history and rather recently the Chinese seemed to be very worried indeed.
How much does the author consider that in a top-down party dictatorship that Chinese elites may find it even more important than Westerners in free societies to predict the future in ways that fit their leaders' desires.
In China it may be career or literal suicide to be right when the communist party leaders are wrong and safer to be wrong in the same way as the leaders are wrong.
That's a risk in relying on Chinese sources, eh?
Also, this is disturbing:
While the majority—the overwhelming majority—of Chinese economists and demographers have been deeply concerned about the PRC’s future prospects since at least 2005, most Chinese international relations experts, especially those in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), are super-optimistic, with a surprisingly large proportion evidently entirely unaware of the economists’ urgent warnings and the reasons they issue those warnings.
Long ago (in blog years) I asked whether China's rulers or military could send China to war. So even if we could define what is or is not rational for "China," who in China decides that issue? The split between those with the guns and those with the calculators is worrisome.
The book is on my wish list, now, if for no other reason than the author describing China as having "the most polluted environments in all of human history[.]" Please alert that revolting autocrat-loving Tom Friedman.
