Perhaps the world should work with a little more sense of urgency on decoupling from China in its critical supply chains before the after shocks of serious problems in China shake us, too. And neighbors should check ammo and double the guards.
I've long wondered how long China could rise and what would happen when it stops rising:
I've had my doubts about the inevitability of China's growth that so many say will supplant us as the dominant power.
So what happens when there is a systemic crisis in China? How do we predict what happens to China, then? I say we may not have to predict which outcome takes place. In a continent-sized country, all of the above could be the result.
And don't worry about whether the Arab Spring will or should spread to China. China will progress on their own timetable. So far discontent is more focused on local rulers and the central government is seen as a source of redress for grievances. The mountains are high and the emperor is far. If the Chinese people start to wonder whether their rulers in Peking are part of the problem of lack of freedom and rampant corruption--and can't produce the economic growth in the quantity and quality expected--then perhaps spring will come to China.
And now with the Evergrande financial rumblings, which I mentioned in the last data dump, signs of ... dislocation ... are evident. But is it evidence of deeper problems? There is hope and danger for a China like this:
The regime which rules China now is outwardly strong but inwardly weak. Under Xi’s over-confident leadership, China is set on a collision course with an America awakened from complacency. He is blind to the reactions that China’s actions have provoked from the world’s strongest power and its allies. In domestic affairs, economic and social change without political reform have created economic, moral, social, and cultural problems that this totalitarian regime cannot solve, only intensify. Perforce, it relies not on trust but on control. This control has been greatly reinforced by the application of advanced technologies. Yet the regime is fearful: It fears truth, it fears freedom, and it fears the people it rules.
Is there really a majority within the upper reaches of the Chinese Communist Party that thinks a constitutional democracy as the only salvation for China? Will American pressure push China to overthrow Xi Jinping to get that democracy? That seems too good to be true.
But if it is true, do the minority
who follow Xi control and point the barrels of the guns? Does the pro-Xi faction in the CCP fire them at domestic opponents or at foreign countries to try to use nationalism to rally the country around CCP rule?
And if the guns don't follow party orders or if Xi doesn't force the barons of Chinese industry and finance to bend to his will and resolve problems to avoiding screwing the middle class, what else might happen?
The decadence of today’s China poses multiple threats for Xi. Corruption, inequality and financial meltdowns can trigger social unrest and erode the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), given its promise of equality and justice. These problems — particularly elite corruption, which enriches rival factions — all undermine Xi’s personal hold on power.
A dissatisfied state has been building its power and expanding its geopolitical horizons. But then the country peaks, perhaps because its economy slows, perhaps because its own assertiveness provokes a coalition of determined rivals, or perhaps because both of these things happen at once. The future starts to look quite forbidding; a sense of imminent danger starts to replace a feeling of limitless possibility. In these circumstances, a revisionist power may act boldly, even aggressively, to grab what it can before it is too late.
I'm sure that the Chinese are aware that Russia is no friend of China and is simply appeasing China out of weakness to keep China from taking Russian territory that Russia took from China in the 19th century.
So maybe a conventionally weak and internationally isolated Russia would be a prime target for China in a short and glorious war that signals China's rise to great power status. A victory that would cement China's claims to the Russian Far East in a peace settlement even if China did not demand much of it at all to end hostilities.
With a state both cruel and failing economically, governing a continent-sized population with a history of fragmentation, I don't know why we need to guess which course the government of China will follow. The continent of China is big enough that it could follow all the possible paths.
Let's be careful out there. Adjust pucker factors accordingly.
Whether the same thing will happen again during Xi’s likely third term is worthy of note. Whoever controls the military will gain political domination. The CCP, after all, still strongly believes in Mao Zedong’s famous saying: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
Well, political power grows out of who aims the gun, really.
UPDATE: And the nationalism:
Chinese leader Xi Jinping paid respects at a solemn commemoration Thursday for those who died in the struggle to establish Communist Party rule, as he leads a national drive to reinforce patriotism and single-party authority.
It isn't love of China that Xi is reinforcing:
While building up a cult of personality, Xi has pushed a hardline on foreign policy and a crackdown on free speech and political opposition in the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong.
Xi is reinforcing pride in sticking it to the foreigners and those who resist CCP rule--or even those who just look different. All in service to CCP rule. It is xenophobic nationalism. Which is way different than patriotism.
UPDATE: China has peaked despite the eagerness of Chinese rulers to stake out dominance:
But if Beijing looks to be in a hurry, that’s because its rise is almost over. China’s multidecade ascent was aided by strong tailwinds that have now become headwinds. China’s government is concealing a serious economic slowdown and sliding back into brittle totalitarianism. The country is suffering severe resource scarcity and faces the worst peacetime demographic collapse in history. Not least, China is losing access to the welcoming world that enabled its advance.
Welcome to the age of “peak China.” Beijing is a strong revisionist power that wants to remake the world, but its time to do so is already running out. This realization should not inspire complacency in Washington—just the opposite. Once-rising powers frequently become aggressive when their fortunes fade and their enemies multiply. China is tracing an arc that often ends in tragedy: a dizzying rise followed by the specter of a hard fall.
As I advised, check ammo and double the guards.
