And a glimpse into the crystal glass

So where is all this leading us? God knows, I don’t, mostly because the development hinges on a few factors that are extremely hard to predict. So instead of assuming too much, I rather choose the humbler path of pointing at a few facts and possibilities that I feel are often overlooked.

1. Like size for example. This is the simplest one and actually quite obvious, but there’s no harm in repeating it over and over again: China hast 1.4 billion inhabitants – the US has 325 million, the EU 512 million. So comparing China to the US is a bit like comparing Germany to Austria. Given the sheer size of its population, China would naturally be the most powerful, dominant country on earth (the same goes for India). The fact that it’s not, that even now its per capita income is still less than a 5^th of the German one, shows how far China on the whole still is from the standard of life that we enjoy – despite its superb infrastructure and glistening megacities.

2. People base their predictions for the future on their experiences of the past. That’s a fair heuristic principle most of the time, but as you know from your own life, when things are too good to be true, some shit happens and brings you back down to earth. The period of growth for China won’t last forever. Its end is not bound to arise as an explosive financial crisis (though that’s possible too), it might as well come in the form of ever decreasing growth rates at a time where there’s still a big gap between China and fully developed countries. The same kind of awe that people are showcasing now was a common reaction to Japan’s meteoritic rise in the 1980s and early 90s, before it imploded and left a country with a nearly stagnant economy and huge demographic problems. This is not to say that the same is going to happen in China, but merely to show that predictions on the basis of previous developments are only right until coincidence proves them wrong.

3. This is actually a more specific example of my second point “things that don’t have to and hopefully won’t happen but with a chance of them happening so big that they should be taken into consideration”. I’m sure we all agree that war is an evil and starting a war is morally wrong, except maybe in a few very specific, very rare cases. Yet wars happen, despite their negative consequences and despite everybody knowing about these consequences from history. How come? A widely accepted theory of international relations purports that in the absence of a supreme authority countries behave like humans in the stone age, uncivilized, tribalistic and constantly fighting for survival. As a global power, the US is currently kind of a supreme authority that decides on the rules and how and when to apply them.

Now if you were in this position, would you happily give up or share your power with some other country that has very different opinions and views? Probably not, so you’re preparing for the worst. Since there’s no higher power that could intervene or mediate, suspicion between incumbent and challenger reigns. Nobody wants a hot war, but then again, in order to reach strategic goals, under certain conditions state leaders would be willing to risk it. And of course there’s the slippery slope. While a sudden raid on a country like it was common 100 years ago is highly unlikely these days, a tit-for-tat situation that boils over and develops into an actual armed conflict is a real possibility. In fact, it doesn’t even require a lot of fantasy, so here’s a little horror scenario:

Basic premises: China remains assertive and nationalist, the US retains its bipartisan support for containment and a hawkish foreign policy and Taiwan keeps voting green (its independence party) and increasingly identifies as a non-Chinese entity – the latter is also an already ongoing process, with young Taiwanese people overwhelmingly identifying as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.

Driven by its own promises and pressure from a big nationalist share of its population, China becomes more and more aggressive in the South Chinese Sea and the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwanese realize that they can’t have both forever – economic advantages from ties with the Mainland and autonomy as a quasi-country. Polls show strong support for independence among the population (in case you don’t know: Taiwan is a full democracy) and activists demand a popular vote on the issue once for all. The US – well aware that a retreat here would be interpreted as a surrender to China in the Asia-Pacific region – guarantees its support for the democratic decision of the Taiwanese people. The vote for independence would then result in immediate military action by China. Even though it is said to be very pragmatic, there are a few core principles that would always cause China to take radical action, the most important being unity. Basically, the Chinese understand their history as a dialectic process between unity and chaos. When China is whole and united, it is strong and successful, when it is divided, it is weak and vulnerable. This is a core principle carved into the culture. It is not necessarily accurate, since “China’s” territory changed a lot during the dynasties and there is no such thing as a Han culture pervading millennia. But argue whatever you want, from a Chinese perspective giving up a single square meter of its alleged territory is the road to chaos and humiliation, which is why a Taiwanese attempt to independence would naturally lead to a Chinese attack, resulting in a war with the US.

This scenario also has the “advantage” that none of the countries acted as an aggressor, as viewed by their own people respectively. Taiwan merely established its independence formally, China merely prevented separatism and the US merely reacted to an attack on a free, sovereign nation.

A very interesting book/study once let experts on their field make predictions and measured these against those of the interested general public, coincidence and reality. The result was that experts were not really better than anyone else in predicting the future, especially on fields with an extremely wide range of influence factors like politics. There are so many “ifs” and “given thats” surrounding the future development of something as big as a country that really nobody can make a sound guess that goes further than a few years – and even that only if one extrapolates and no unexpected incidents occur.  A crumb of comfort for Europeans: Out of many worrying developments in this world, this is one of the few where we can and should step back and just observe – neither do we have a chance of changing the course of events, nor will the events have a major impact on us.