What is the purpose of this article?
One day China will be sorely tempted to incorporate thinly populated, mineral rich Siberia. Inevitably a de facto alliance between Russia, Japan, the nations of Southeast Asia, Australia, and of course the United States will evolve to “contain” China. The global stage is always evolving.
It has endured while empires rose and fell and countless countries were built, conquered, destroyed, rebuilt, invaded, and faded from history and memory.
China isn't going away.
And despite the strength of western civilization, western civilization now has one fatal flaw.
Political correctness.
China was smart thousands of years ago. THEY built a wall to preserve THEIR culture.
The Chinese wanted change, and some of the reforms they wanted weren't just employment for the poor in the provinces.
The opium problem had become unbearable. When the Japanese called China “the sick man of Asia” they were referring to the ubiquitous addicts which were every where. Think San Francisco but even dirtier. And opium use was on the rise again after the war.
Chiang Kai-shek had long been colluding with the Opium trade, and his corruption was well known.
The United States refused to drop him and support a different strong man. Given a choice between the unknown of Mao and his Communism or the known corrupt system of government bribery and open drugs of Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese gambled with Mao and lost.
The thing is, they were both losing propositions.
America could have intervened, but we had no clue how bad Mao would turn out to be.
Nonetheless, if you want to pass out blame...Trueman was the guy who could have done something before it was too late. And Chiang Kai-shek was too corrupt for the argument that we owed him any loyalty to carry water.
Ricardo and Locke are correct and the lessons apply to all nations. China is proof that free-er trade can enrich a nation. Which is why the US should be careful in who engages in free trade with. Ricardo’s and Locke’s principals were not diminished by the refusal of the US and allies to open up to the USSR during the Cold War.
Trump has cleverly disguised a type of Cold War with China as a trade war. It remains to be seen if a trade war conducted this way does not result in a hot war. It didn’t work as very well with Imperial Japan. It worked out well with the USSR.
I agree with much of what Buchanan says historically. We can differ on conclusions but many fail to grasp the historical significance of past and potential future events.
Buchanan bull shit........ Pat may have been but now is not.
Sigh. Such crap.
China is aging almost as fast as Japan. This is a MAJOR problem for them. Their energy supplies are in the south, but the ChiCom gubment is in the north. Major problem. But even then, their energy isn’t remotely close to supporting growth. So they must import from the ME.
When the balloon goes up in the ME (only a matter of time between SA/Iran, or Iran/someone else there) we won’t be involved, but the ChiComs will be cut off of their oil
All their vaunted naval growth faces a grim reality: they are totally boxed in by a string of island nations ALL hostile to them with land based missiles, land based air, and their own navies. Japan’s is already better and bigger than China’s. And all of this is backed up in a second ring of the US Pacific fleet.
Third, the capitalist growth requires some degree of democracy, as the Soviet Union learned. It is simply incompatible with top-down planning.
Fourth, you think the US debt is bad? China’s debt is off the charts, and it’s estimated that fully 90% of it is completely toxic. It cannot be unloaded or refinanced.
Fifth, Trump’s trade war is breaking them, day by day. Samsung pulled out today. When China starts to face joblessness combined with a declining work force that (in market situations would drive prices way up), there will be a massive crackdown.
Lastly, EVERYONE who looks at China agrees that the growth rates were way overblown, that they have collapsed to under or near ours.
I suggest Patsy read Peter Zeihan or George Friedman, especialy Zeihan who is a specialist in oil and energy, which THEY DON’T HAVE.
Whenever I read a l piece like this about how the Chinese are going to dominate the world, I just look around me and see how they drive cars. That’s when I realize these people couldn’t dominate an outhouse.
Yes it is; but it is the country of the future in China.