Posted on 06/28/2023 4:10:42 AM PDT by FarCenter
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The misunderstanding has historical, cultural and political roots but fundamentally it can be attributed to the universalist, Manichean (good vs evil) worldview of what Brown refers to as the Enlightenment West – and the projection of that attitude onto a civilization that doesn’t share the same history.
“The distinctiveness of the intellectual and cultural history of inhabitants of the space now occupied by the People’s Republic of China is undeniable,” Brown writes. “In terms of language, modes of governance, economic behavior, and fundamental view about how the world operates and how society should be shaped, the Chinese tradition is a long, complex and sometimes (but not always) contrasting one to that which has created the Europe and North America of today.”
He continues, “The Western European proclivity has been to maintain the conviction, at least until recent decades, that there is a final, truthful, unifying vision of the world.”
On the other hand,
In the Chinese world where a notion of harmony in the abstract was privileged, the focus was on accepting different kinds of views and convictions for different spaces and occasions….
A syncretic worldview is the result – one that in the twenty-first century continues to puzzle and fascinate because of the ability of modern Chinese to place capitalism next to socialism while seeming under Xi Jinping to be proud of Confucianism as well as having as many as 200 million Buddhists in various sects and about half that number of Christians.
That description runs head on into democratically elected politicians’ abhorrence of one-party dictatorship and American alarm over perceived or potential subversion by Confucius Institutes, Huawei or any other Chinese organization under the sway of the Communist Party.
Brown does not dwell on the nature of the Communist Party, but points out that Confucius Institutes have often been their own worst enemies and that Huawei, due to its leading position in the telecommunications industry and the legal environment in which it operates, will never be free of suspicion.
After all, China’s National Intelligence Law stipulates that “all organizations and citizens shall support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with the law, and shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of.”
Combined with the rapid growth of its military power, including the ever-longer reach of its navy, the globe-spanning infrastructure investments of the Belt and Road Initiative, allegations of hacking and the hot-button issues of the South China Sea, Taiwan and Xinjiang, this makes China for “a large number of American and European politicians … not just a problem, but the problem.”
The problem with this problem is its ambiguity. The Chinese military has never used more than a fraction of its power. No clear evidence of surveillance via Chinese telecom equipment has been publicly provided. The motives and capabilities are there, but there is no smoking gun.
As for the Belt and Road, which critics regard as a combination of debt-trap diplomacy and strategic threat, Brown asks, “How much longer do we have to wait till we see Beijing’s hand fully exposed? What if, in the end, it really was all mainly commercial?”
For centuries, the West has been working to remake the world in its own image. Its Enlightenment mind finds it logical to conclude that the Chinese are trying to do the same, regardless of China’s doctrine of non-interference in the affairs of other countries (rejected as duplicitous on the one hand and as unprincipled support for dictators on the other) and its cultural exclusiveness.
Western military and national security officials default to the worst-case scenario, while many politicians favor a simple narrative of evil communists oppressing the good Chinese people. But, as Brown writes, “one thing stands out – the complexity of the issues China poses, just being itself, and doing the kinds of things it does as an actor of its size and reach.
“Complexity alone is a vast problem, and one the Enlightenment West in particular, with its love of orderly frameworks and all-embracing tidy theories, clearly abhors. China upsets the epistemology of the West – it violates notions of universalism being universal.”
Who could possibly not consider Red China a serious threat?…it’s been several years but I’ll never forget this:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-christmas-decor-featuring-mao-zedong-comes-under-fire
If the Chinese military is every used, their rules of engagement will make the Russians look like girl scouts selling cookies in Ukraine by comparison.
We fought the Chinese military in the Korean War.
How do their rules of engagement differ from the Japanese or Germans?
If you have some knowledge of Computer Networking and related systems, the overwhelming dominate vendor in the world is Cisco Systems, everything from home routers to major carrier class switches/routers and a majority provider of VOIP services for major fortune 1000 companies.
When China via Huawei decided to get into that business, they opened offices in the USA, bought multiple of everything Cisco made, shipped it back to China, reverse engineered it, including the documentation and then sold it under the Huawei label, with “added” features.
I firmly believe China will be the #1 nation in the not to distant future, if not already there, they have bought off politicians, entertainment industry and financial institutions to the point they are not being aggressively countered.
They are brilliant at winning a war without firing a conventional shot using our money to defeat us.
China that was, now isn’t. Chairman Xi is ending the business and industrial world that China was and replacing it with a China Socialist society that resembles good old fashioned Maoism with a modern twist.
Foreign business is being driven out. Private Chinese business is leaving as well. Only business that is associated and managed by the CCP is to remain in a functioning condition.
The trouble is that the real estate, automobile and banking business and industry are all failed, by design. That which was....... isn’t.
All that is China that was must be forgotten and some new and totally communist scenario must be envisioned. Journalists and even governments rely on what was in attempt to see what will be. Their view misses the historical tranformation being attempted.
Xi is first interested in dominating China before he can even begin to consider dominating the world
I laugh when people make these comparisons.
Do the Japanese have the same ROE as they did in WWII? The Germans?
Comparing a nation today to the same nation 75 years ago is foolish.
Today, China is #2 military power and #2 economic power in the world. China owns much of the media. China controls many organizations around the world.
Why do you think China could weld people's homes shut during the Wuhan Virus and not a single human rights organization is outraged? No media outrage. No rival nation outrage.
China can get away with whatever it wants today....and given their military might, they know they are untouchable on the world stage.
Agreed. 100%
The China you describe was.
The new China being constructed as a purer Maoist socialist state has to regain the status you proclaim. There is no real assurance that Chairman Xi can actually pull it off.
I hear that the Chinese are extremely racist, you heard that too?
China will end up like all such dictatorships. A disaster.
All I could make out of that is
Mao Good, White Man and Orange Man Bad.
“ (or a Chinese stooge)”
And so the Deep State pivots to War on China…
“modern Chinese to place capitalism next to socialism while seeming under Xi Jinping to be proud of Confucianism as well as having as many as 200 million Buddhists in various sects and about half that number of Christians.”
Doesn’t that describe us to a “T”??
in case you haven’t noticed, China has quietly been waging war on us for years
how much more will it take before you realize the threat?
Historically nations and empires oscillate between autocratic and oligarchic forms of government (e.g. emperor vs. senate, king vs baron, dictator vs warlords, etc.)
Democracy is an unusual and unstable form that arises temporarily, especially in resource rich, low population environments (e.g. in the US during the colonies and westward expansion).
Xi is more like Mao than a King Edward.
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