America’s fantasy that China will soon collapse like the Soviet Union did is based on arrogance and ideology, not facts and reason

[Tomasz + 1,608]

New article by Tom Fowdy

Quote

 

Washington’s dream that Beijing is doomed to failure seems as strong as ever, despite events of the last year showing that American triumphalism is misplaced, misguided and potentially moribund.

2020 was a year to forget, but it was also immensely geopolitically significant. The outbreak of Covid-19 was a world-changing event which will profoundly alter the globe. Not least because the political shockwaves it created have brought relations between the United States and China to their lowest ebb in modern times. 

In what many describe as a “new cold war,” the Trump administration has used its remaining time in office to escalate confrontation with Beijing and forcefully set a legacy for Joe Biden to follow. In setting out this scenario, some in the United States have framed the situation and its risks in very “short termist” thinking. It assumes China only has a short space of time to achieve its goals before, apparently, it becomes economically and socially depleted. An article published in Foreign Policy, titled “China Is Both Weak and Dangerous” and covering the book The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State, by American Enterprise Institute’s Dan Blumenthal, argues that China’s political system is weak and lacking in legitimacy. It then proceeds to argue that it is therefore, apparently, ideologically incapable of generating sustained growth or the innovation required to truly become a superpower and “displace” the US. As a result, the piece argues, Beijing only has a short period of time to “accomplish its goals,” thus making it dangerous.

Not surprisingly, I don’t buy into this argument. If anything, I would describe this kind of attitude, which I term “collapsism” as an ideological expression of overconfidence from some within the United States. It is a view which has become endemic since the end of the Cold War in 1991, which simply assumes China must be destined to fail at some point, while America marches on. 

This of course is to be expected from the American Enterprise Institute, which, it goes without saying, is a ridiculously neoconservative and pro-war institution, but it nevertheless represents a broader and more misleading set of assumptions in American politics. The idea, perhaps more famously put by Gordon Chang’s “The coming collapse of China” ( 2001), is simply that the Chinese system is doomed to implode because it doesn’t tick the right ideological boxes. If anything, this view risks America being overconfident.

“Collapsism” better known as the “end of history thesis” is a strand of Cold War thinking which assumes that liberal capitalism is the only way to create a successful and stable country. It holds that all other ideologies are fundamentally flawed and cannot truly replicate the success of the West, even if they represent a geopolitical threat. It is an expression of American triumphalism following the collapse of the Soviet Union, based on the premise that in the end the West became more prosperous than the USSR and had outmatched it on innovation. 

Liberalism, having evolved out of Christian thought, has embedded the idea that one’s own “divine destiny” is inevitable and, in the same way, believes western political thought is “the way, the truth, the life.” On top of this, it also holds that only liberalism allows creativity and critical thinking, and, thus, technological success.

You don’t have to read heavy books on international relations to find this view; attitudes towards China are riddled with it. Mike Pompeo once boasted, “The Communist Party knows it can’t match our innovation,” spreading the misleading trope that the only way China can obtain technology is by “stealing” it, and claiming all Chinese students in the US are “sent” to do that. Overall, this is an expression of overconfidence that clouds US foreign-policy making. The idea that if China can be contained quickly and harshly, it can be beaten as its political system is leaning on borrowed time. 

Not surprisingly, this view is also endemic in the mainstream media and commentary. When Covid-19 broke out in February, newspapers rushed to frame the outbreak in ideological terms and assumed naively such a catastrophe could never happen in a transparent and progressive society like in the West. This had to be a failure of China’s system. This is obviously a trait of this ideologically driven discourse outlined in ‘The China Nightmare’ and the events of 2020 proved it wrong before it was even published, which shows how short-sighted the analysis is. 

First of all, it talks about China’s growth slowing down and facing the “Middle Income Trap”– this is the idea that, like some countries in Latin America, nations reach a certain point then fail to grow further. However, where is the evidence for this happening? China is already passing the middle-income mark and is set to be designated a high income country by 2023. 

It is also projected to become the world’s largest economy by 2028. The reason why many countries failed to surpass the middle-income mark was because of US led capitalism, not in spite of it. Mexico for example, cannot innovate because its economy is completely hegemonized by the US, who dominates its key industries and extracts Mexican talent for itself.

China does not face these problems or pitfalls. It has an increasingly educated workforce, universities which are increasingly competitive globally, a number of “unicorn” startups to rival the US and record levels of foreign direct investment in 2020. Does this really seem like a society “on the brink” with no potential to innovate? The author might want to consider that China has published more scientific papers since 2018 than any other country in the world, and files more intellectual property patents than anyone else too. Not bad for a nation that apparently “steals” everything, right?

Given this, the idea that China is weak and does not have time on its side is one based exclusively on ideology, not facts. Whilst the book highlights upcoming challenges, such as demographic decline, these are treated in a fatalist manner as if China has no way to absolve them, such as encouraging inbound immigration in the way Western nations have done. If anything, last year should have been a stark warning that China’s political system is not easily overcome or contained and, contrary to US hysteria, is not rampaging on a zero-sum path to world domination or to displace the US. This is a neoconservative fantasy which simultaneously believes Beijing is coming for Washington, yet cannot understand why China has not collapsed already.

As a result, the real danger in US-China ties is the belief that a path of confrontation on Washington’s behalf, as we have seen with Trump, can upend Beijing quickly and affirm US supremacy. Realism is needed, rather than ideological and triumphalist thinking. China’s strategy has involved hedging against American pressure by consolidating more economic agreements and options with others, rather than barging headfirst into a bloodthirsty conflict, that suggests it is a country that is biding its time. 

It would be very happy to stabilize its ties with Washington. If anything, American complacency and the belief China can be stabilized, encapsulated by Pompeo’s legacy, is inherently dangerous. Beijing has been written off too quickly many times before, and history does not always repeat itself and run in straight lines, as the US has assumed since 1991. 

 

 

[Strangelovesurfing + 737]

During the cold war the US (and the rest of NATO) was sure the Soviet Union would never fall as the Soviets looked iron clad from the outside, obviously they were wrong. Now that the CCP is winding the clock back to a more Marxist governance the US is making the opposite mistake in believing China is sure to fall into some abyss, this also will be proven wrong.

The flip-side of this coin is the supposed unstoppable China. The CCP is sure they can just out scheme everybody else forever without others getting wise, this is at an end.

The juggernaut GDP days have past, growth is going to be much harder as time progresses. Dumping money into semi-conductor foundries etc. is the usual GDP enhancing investment that's going nowhere. Existing chip manufacturers can't stay in business without government support, how's another $150-200 billion in new money going to fix what all the subsidies already given couldn't?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-chip-maker-tsinghua-unigroup-093000939.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEdH_Ts_0niuy1sErz6unV6pQeM6UMKCQJ5q3nx4Nw8iqC05dzAbKoA7A_xkY4q3NBJW3dZN5OULMw03_B3RgrEdYT7qjDjB23HhY_ysCesWMj5VZzXy27jZEvAzxUyhcBCHI6u472_OlU8PRBBBTql85Exgd2kObjT1qYaFC4w9

The internal business environment in China is getting worse as time progresses, if you want an example find Jack Ma, apparently no one has seen him for months. He seems to have made the mistake of believing he was a CEO who lived in a Western country.

https://time.com/5926062/jack-ma/

Governments of both countries are sure the other side is going to magically fall apart, both are going to have to learn to live with each other, nobody's going anywhere and neither are going to bury the other economically or militarily.

[Meredith Poor + 894]

"America’s fantasy that China will soon collapse... is based on arrogance and ideology..."

The phrasing of this header is a perfect marker of propaganda. 'Fantasy' and 'Arrogance' are the kind of words used by someone trying to rattle cages. The photograph associated with the poster is probably fake (or 'borrowed'). The actual poster is either a robot or a minion inside some Chinese troll shop.

Westerners that travel inside China like to tour some of the more bizarre architectural projects, such as 'clones' of Paris, or Austrian villages, or the Pentagon, or any number of other Western tourist traps. Standing in the middle of the street everything looks 'perfect'. Looking through the windows, however, one finds 'unfinished business': locked doors, no furnishings, unfinished floors and walls, wires dangling out of the walls and ceiling, and of course, no employees serving customers. The façade is beautiful, however the 'meat' is missing.

China is good at 'looking like' a high-powered industrial state. There is some truth to that, as far as it goes. However, China still seems to have a hard time making a lot of things work. Spending time and money hammering on commentators that expose all this stuff rather than 'delivering the goods' is a perfect sign of dysfunction. China's behavior in the world community is abominable. That doesn't mean anyone else is much better. We're all deluded. Some of that delusion is dangerous. Most of it is laughable.

 

[Boat + 1,323]

On 1/4/2021 at 7:03 PM, Tomasz said:

New article by Tom Fowdy

 

I don’t believe most Americans care less about China except wonder why our government allows hacking, trade imbalance and threats to our allies without much stronger retaliation. We like the cheap tv’s though. So I guess it’s a wash. Carry on. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

On 1/5/2021 at 10:45 AM, Strangelovesurfing said:

During the cold war the US (and the rest of NATO) was sure the Soviet Union would never fall as the Soviets looked iron clad from the outside, obviously they were wrong. Now that the CCP is winding the clock back to a more Marxist governance the US is making the opposite mistake in believing China is sure to fall into some abyss, this also will be proven wrong.

The flip-side of this coin is the supposed unstoppable China. The CCP is sure they can just out scheme everybody else forever without others getting wise, this is at an end.

The juggernaut GDP days have past, growth is going to be much harder as time progresses. Dumping money into semi-conductor foundries etc. is the usual GDP enhancing investment that's going nowhere. Existing chip manufacturers can't stay in business without government support, how's another $150-200 billion in new money going to fix what all the subsidies already given couldn't?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-chip-maker-tsinghua-unigroup-093000939.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEdH_Ts_0niuy1sErz6unV6pQeM6UMKCQJ5q3nx4Nw8iqC05dzAbKoA7A_xkY4q3NBJW3dZN5OULMw03_B3RgrEdYT7qjDjB23HhY_ysCesWMj5VZzXy27jZEvAzxUyhcBCHI6u472_OlU8PRBBBTql85Exgd2kObjT1qYaFC4w9

The internal business environment in China is getting worse as time progresses, if you want an example find Jack Ma, apparently no one has seen him for months. He seems to have made the mistake of believing he was a CEO who lived in a Western country.

https://time.com/5926062/jack-ma/

Governments of both countries are sure the other side is going to magically fall apart, both are going to have to learn to live with each other, nobody's going anywhere and neither are going to bury the other economically or militarily.

IMHO, Ronald Reagan was the person most focussed on the communist Soviet threat, or communism/socialism in general for that matter, and made it his life's work to defeat it.  In the end, the tools that broke the camel's back were financial.  I believe if we pay attention to @0R0's comments and analysis of the Chinese economic situation and forecast you will find that similar outcomes are indeed possible.

Reagan and the U.S. did not focus on Russian citizens during that fight and we do not focus on the Chinese people in this fight.  Just get rid of the communist, or "socialism with Chinese characteristics", leaders and I suppose the Chinese people may actually form another successful democracy to rival some of the best in the world.  But of course time will tell on that personal prediction.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

5 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

 In the end, the tools that broke the camel's back were financial.  I believe if we pay attention to @0R0's comments and analysis of the Chinese economic situation and forecast you will find that similar outcomes are indeed possible.

Think that is delusional.  China has a slave mentality culture.  USSR did not.  USA was not propping up the USSR with manufacturing everything in their country, sending the USSR $600B annually, nor was the USA in debt.  Unless China is cut out of US system tomorrow, there is no way it will fall as no country falls apart when the ENTIRE populace is INCREASING IN WEALTH.  USSR only finally fell apart after 5 decades if not more of DECREASING wealth.  China has been increasing in wealth for 5 decades now.  So, soonest I see CCP China fall apart is in 5 decades. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

On 1/4/2021 at 8:03 PM, Tomasz said:

It is also projected to become the world’s largest economy by 2028. The reason why many countries failed to surpass the middle-income mark was because of US led capitalism, not in spite of it. Mexico for example, cannot innovate because its economy is completely hegemonized by the US, who dominates its key industries and extracts Mexican talent for itself.

The projection is baseless. TFP has been negative for most of a decade. You can't actually grow your economy that way. Only the Chinese would believe there is value in producing more and more stuff there is no market for.

China is not succeeding in feeding itself following flooding of key agricultural regions this summer.

https://gnews.org/725115/

But a research report by China Pacific Securities, a Communist Party brokerage, at the end of April said the real unemployment rate was 20.5% and 70 million people were unemployed

data is a bit old

 

 

 

[Strangelovesurfing + 737]

On 1/6/2021 at 1:01 AM, Dan Warnick said:

IMHO, Ronald Reagan was the person most focussed on the communist Soviet threat, or communism/socialism in general for that matter, and made it his life's work to defeat it.  In the end, the tools that broke the camel's back were financial.  I believe if we pay attention to @0R0's comments and analysis of the Chinese economic situation and forecast you will find that similar outcomes are indeed possible.

Reagan and the U.S. did not focus on Russian citizens during that fight and we do not focus on the Chinese people in this fight.  Just get rid of the communist, or "socialism with Chinese characteristics", leaders and I suppose the Chinese people may actually form another successful democracy to rival some of the best in the world.  But of course time will tell on that personal prediction.

While the Soviet Union had giant financial issues, Russian’s decided to dismantle Soviet Russia. It didn’t have to fall apart, that coup against Gorbachev easily could have succeeded.

If the coup plotters succeeded and clamped down like N.Korea, Soviet Russia (and probably a few republics still under Kremlin control) while in terrible condition, could still exist and be armed to the teeth with nukes.

Edited January 8, 2021 by Strangelovesurfing

[SUZNV + 1,197]

It is true that Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama were responsible for the rise of China with the fantasy that CCP would be open or collapsed. But the only US president that started doing something about China is also blamed for the economical war with China by  US allies as well with the reasoning … it is too late now (and therefore should he do nothing about it?).

Didn't Western Europe have the same fantasy as well? The Cold war was just simply US vs Soviet union? I fail to see how EU, especially big countries like Germany, France, UK, Spain, Italy etc. held no responsibility or have had no benefits from the emerging of China? Last time I checked China had to negotiate with every WTO member in order to join, did US advocate EU so that China could join WTO? If US did, why would EU listen?

Since when any politician in EU worry about China cheating or human right violations and told the US to "stop China now" but all the previous US presidents hadn't listened? EU didn't like US much with previous presidents either Obama, Bush 43, Clinton, Bush41 and maybe even before that. Did US force EU to seal the investment deal right at the end of 2020 with China?  https://apnews.com/article/europe-emmanuel-macron-xi-jinping-angela-merkel-china-b70f62192e9e53c16ece032bd54a9e72

So if US does something and its allies follow, they gonna blame afterward that it is because of US hegemony, If they don't want to heed the US call, they gonna say multilateralism and do a hand shake with China even when "American First" President is not likely to have another term and "American last" president draw near.

Face it, Trump is simply an excuse for the EU politicians to support China. To be fair without China joined WTO and be a cheap factory of the world, we wouldn't have cheap smartphone (and therefor less popular) and Industry 4.0 would not be evolving as fast as now and EU economy would be much worse (maybe US middle class would have more with Main street rather than Wall street).  EU are the victims of their own politicians who they voted for and are responsible to the rise of China as much as US's. They should put their hope on their politicians rather than put their hope on US politicians unless they are hopeless with their votes and hope somehow US politicians would rescue them from the sufferable marriage with China.

With Biden, we are as hopeless as you. Tough time ahead and don't expect much for US middle class to consume more something classy or expensive in the coming time, comrades. 

Edited January 8, 2021 by SUZNV

[SUZNV + 1,197]

24 minutes ago, Strangelovesurfing said:

One thing I think people forget, while the Soviet Union had giant financial issues, Russian’s decided to dismantle Soviet Russia. It didn’t have to fall apart, that coup against Gorbachev easily could have succeeded.

If the coup plotters succeeded and clamped down like N.Korea, Soviet Russia (and probably a few republics still under Kremlin control) while in terrible condition, could still exist and be armed to the teeth with nukes.

I would say Gorbachev is truly a patriotist and national hero of Russia. Not many politician/dictator can do something like that.

Edited January 8, 2021 by SUZNV

[NickW + 2,714]

On 1/5/2021 at 3:45 AM, Strangelovesurfing said:

During the cold war the US (and the rest of NATO) was sure the Soviet Union would never fall as the Soviets looked iron clad from the outside, obviously they were wrong. Now that the CCP is winding the clock back to a more Marxist governance the US is making the opposite mistake in believing China is sure to fall into some abyss, this also will be proven wrong.

The flip-side of this coin is the supposed unstoppable China. The CCP is sure they can just out scheme everybody else forever without others getting wise, this is at an end.

The juggernaut GDP days have past, growth is going to be much harder as time progresses. Dumping money into semi-conductor foundries etc. is the usual GDP enhancing investment that's going nowhere. Existing chip manufacturers can't stay in business without government support, how's another $150-200 billion in new money going to fix what all the subsidies already given couldn't?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-chip-maker-tsinghua-unigroup-093000939.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEdH_Ts_0niuy1sErz6unV6pQeM6UMKCQJ5q3nx4Nw8iqC05dzAbKoA7A_xkY4q3NBJW3dZN5OULMw03_B3RgrEdYT7qjDjB23HhY_ysCesWMj5VZzXy27jZEvAzxUyhcBCHI6u472_OlU8PRBBBTql85Exgd2kObjT1qYaFC4w9

The internal business environment in China is getting worse as time progresses, if you want an example find Jack Ma, apparently no one has seen him for months. He seems to have made the mistake of believing he was a CEO who lived in a Western country.

https://time.com/5926062/jack-ma/

Governments of both countries are sure the other side is going to magically fall apart, both are going to have to learn to live with each other, nobody's going anywhere and neither are going to bury the other economically or militarily.

Difference is the Soviet Union was neve the manufacturing base of the World. Their hard currency was oil and gas