In my first
post I announced that this is not just going to be a travel/expat diary, but
that I also want to talk a bit about today’s China and what to expect from it.
So instead of letting you know about my recent midterm exams and this one weekend
trip to Nanjing that I did, let’s get serious.
For most of
civilizational history, there were two dominant players on this globe: India
and China (this is a fact we shamefully neglect in our history classes, where
you get the impression that everything further east than Arabia was exotic
hinterlands). 75% of the time AD, Europe was mostly forest with clans, shires
and pre-states fighting each other, bad infrastructure and predatory public
institutions. North America had no significant population. Then, through a
number of intertwined developments, Europe got a headstart that is incredible
and unique in historical terms, allowing it to dominate the globe for hundreds
of years (this is – in my opinion – one of the most interesting chapters in
history and I would love to extend, but it’s beyond the scope of this little
blog). China reacted to this by isolating itself – not a great idea. India
didn’t get to choose, the British simply subjected it – also not great.
When China
was forced to open up by foreign powers in the second half of the 19th
century, it was merely a shadow of its former self and easily dominated by
countries a fraction of its size and population. This led to an overthrowing of
the last dynasty government in 1912 and the and the proclamation of the
Republic of China. Republic of China? Isn’t there a “People’s” missing? That
word is only included in the name after 1949, as the Communists eventually win
the endless civil war against the Nationalists and force the latter to flee to
Taiwan, which remains the number 1 geopolitical issue in East Asia and a
possible trigger for a US-Sino war in the future. What was meant to be a fresh
start for China some 100 years ago turned out to be nearly 40 years of
campaigning and internal fighting, making the country even weaker than it was
before under the anti-modernist Qing government. A short intermezzo was
provided by imperialist Japan in second world war, whose war-crimes were so
abhorrent that it brought Nationalists and Communists together against it. Once
the Japanese were defeated, they of course diligently turned back to
infighting. A few million dead bodies later the Communists defeated the
Nationalists and Mao Zedong as their Chairman became the first head of state of
the modern People’s Republic of China (PRC).
There’s
evidence that countries can actually benefit from communism if they’re at a
very low development stage. If you manage to overlook mass killings, resettlements
and incarcerations, many development indicators went up in during the first
years of Mao’s reign. People had enough food (mostly), many learnt to read and
write, some conservative social norms were overthrown and women gained more
power and independence. That was before Mao went nuts
however. Undisputed within the Communist Party to his death, his ideas could go
unchecked, causing a massive famine (est. death toll: 36 to 45 million people)
and scorched earth intellectually, economically and technologically.
Then came
the miracle under the name of Deng Xiaoping. Since he took over as the
effective head of state in 1976, there hasn’t been one year in which the
Chinese economy didn’t grow. He’s usually modestly labelled a “reformer”, but
matter of fact, the China that is now the worlds second largest economy and
close to becoming a great power would not exist without him. His premise was
simple: Economic liberalization that would make nobody’s life worse. That
actually worked. As it is the rule with more capitalist economic models, some
people have become super rich while others are still poor, but there’s nobody
who is as poor today as people were in 1976.
After
centuries of isolation, it took China 100 years to adapt and rearrange itself
to the modern world around it, but from there on development happened at an
insane pace. Skip forward one generation and a nation of subsistence farmers
whose survival depends on their harvest has become the world’s production
facility with a huge industry workforce, massive urbanization and an emerging
middle class. Skip forward another 15 years to the present and you see that
middle class being the majority in China’s more populous and developed eastern
provinces. You also see an economic superpower that turns from producing and
copying to innovating at a frightening pace.
For most of
its rise, China received admiration and accolades – at least economically –
from the West. At the same time, nobody outside of policy circles saw a serious
challenge in the development. After all, the country is far away and can they do
anything besides assembling and copying lol? This changed dramatically in
recent years (even months), as policymakers became aware that yes, they can and
it doesn’t really matter how far away a country is if its ambitions are global.
They also realized that China will never go down the path that was envisaged
for it, leading to a flourishing liberal democracy that integrates into the
US-led global order. Instead, there is now an increasingly nationalist and
illiberal autocracy that promotes socialism with Chinese characteristics which
translates to excessive capitalism with the state as the ultimate
decision-maker.
What’s to
come? Right now, nearly every analysis is based on the premise that China will
just keep growing and growing, maybe at 7%, maybe 5% annually. This leads pro-China
experts to proclaim a new world order and con-China experts to prophesy
doomsday. However, I’m invited to a delicious Xinjiang-Restaurant now (a
cuisine blending Chinese and Middle-Eastern flavours) and thus can’t continue.
Maybe this works as a cliffhanger so you’ll visit here again when I’m writing
about the future.
