The Dark Side of China's Rise

Foreign Policy ^ | March/April 2006 | Minxin Pei

[calpilot]

China’s economic boom has dazzled investors and captivated the world. But beyond the new high-rises and churning factories lie rampant corruption, vast waste, and an elite with little interest in making things better. Forget political reform. China’s future will be decay, not democracy.

[calpilot]

Will China rise or fall...?

[investigateworld]

Comments?

[Phyto Chems]

bttt

[hildy123]

Fall

[The_Media_never_lie]

rampant corruption, vast waste, and an elite with little interest in making things better

Deju vu all over again?

[calpilot]

No kidding...sounds a lot like the former KMT on far larger scale. Very sad outlook. Maybe I'll hold off on the Mandarin courses and take up Japanese again...

[kinoxi]

china should have fallen by now. we (the US + west in general)keep it afloat with our $...

[Captainpaintball]

Who would want to invest in a country that steals, and copies technology, and ultimately undercuts, those who invest in it?

The same shortsighted fools that invest in a country that plans on using some of that same technology to cut their throats, I guess.

We wirr hang the rast captitarist with the lope he serrs us!

[Malesherbes]

About three years ago Georgie Ann Geyer wrote an article that stuck in my mind. China is running out of water. Despite the floods in certain areas, many rivers are drying up. Its vast industrial expansion has absorbed water like a sponge.

[poetknowit]

China will implode. Every city and administrative area has layers of pill pushers, bureaucrats and multiple commissioners. There are also the favored 'princelings', i.e., favorite sons of favorite bean-counters.
China losses several hundreds if not thousands of coal miners yearly. They need power. They have no crude oil and other sources to feed the manurfacturing centers. Power is rationed.
China needs iron and steel. Two years ago the British news told of the theft of manhole covers in England that wound up in scrap yards destined for China. Remember the 9th Ave.'El' scrapped to go to Japan? Japan had limited resources and took a drastic approach to get them. Eventually, they exploded.
Natural resources, as metals, as petroleum will not feed the export ambitions of the Commissars. The brain washed slavish workers in paradise will wake up and smell the stink of the plastic roses nobody wants anymore.
It will not be nice. Upheaval in China never was.

[Joe Boucher]

New three gourges dam will help that situation.

[Joe Boucher]

Read up on the boxer rebellion. Hold your breath, boxer rebellion II is just around the corner.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Every paragraph is a jewel.

"Free traders" usually avoid posts critical of their business partners but it's still early in this thread.

Just as well. The majority usually offer the tiresome, "the author is an idiot," "the author should take a course in econ 101," or some insult of Pat Buchanan.

The Chi-coms are clever. Their version of Lenin's New Economic Plan (NEP) put themselves in the role of "free market capitalists." They got the wealth from the Western useful idiots (Lenin's description).

The dumb Soviets (in the 1920s) let ordinary Russians have a free market -- until it starting taking over. Then the party ideologues put an end to NEP and the nepmen. They kept the useful idiots' technology and stuff however.

Neo-Leninism, no wonder Bill Clinton and his lovely wife Mrs. Bill Clinton and New Democrat Third Way "progressives" just love "free trade."

Though Deng's plan to modernize China began long ago the spark that caused the real Chinese economic boom occurred in the early afternoon of 20 Jan., 1993, in a big house on Pennsylvania Ave., in Washington, D.C.

Useful idiots, the Clintons and the Chi-coms thank you.

The social elite . . . is co-opted and coddled. The party showers the urban intelligentsia, professionals, and private entrepreneurs with economic perks, professional honors, and political access

Hey! the Chi-coms are just like our Rat Party!

The Beijing branch proudly claimed that, in 2002, it participated in a multi-agency exercise to see whether the government could rid the Internet of "harmful content"

"They did it in 19 hours.. hmmm. Better make my bill say it has to be done in 10 hours or less," mused Mrs. Bill Clinton.

[Jeff Head]

The Red Chinese are pushing for a fascist style economic system more akin to what the Nazis accomplished in the late 1930s IMHO. They hope to instill enough nationalism and pride in their population, and to slowly and carefully ensure enough economic prosperity to avoid an implosion. They are walking a razor's edge as they maintain a hold on power and build their military.

Unless we take actions similar to the way Ronald Reagan squared off against the Soviets, there is a chance that the Red Chinese will succeed. There is also the chance that they will implode in any case. Either way, if they become stronger, or if they leaders see severe internal problems, I believe they will seek to either bolster their strength or stave off the problems with military adventurism.

They are building the military machine for it and I believe they will use it. Probably, if it goes to their liking, sometime after the 2008 Olympics and then after seeing what our elections produce...so the 2009-2010 time frame. If things go badly for them...and they get desperate...perhaps even before then.

Either way, even though economically it will be painful for us at this point, I believe we need to treat them the way Reagan treatred the "evil empire" of his day. That would be less painful at this point than awaitiing the chance that they force the issue on their own terms.

Just my opinion.

[Sic Luceat Lux]

I believe we need to treat them the way Reagan treatred the "evil empire" of his day.

I agree and I think it's important that all readers and lurkers more fully understand Bill Clinton's Chinagate and how Chinagate put China on par with the U.S. Along with your fine work on China, it is imperative that those who've not read Senator Inhofe's June 23, 1999 Senate speech do so and also fully review Alamo-girl.com.

U S Congressional Record/Senate
106th Congress
June 23, 1999
pgs. S7483-S7486
The Clinton National Security Scandal and Coverup
Senator James Inhofe
(right column/top)

[Steel Wolf]

The combination of authoritarian rule and the state’s economic dominance has bred a virulent form of crony capitalism, as the ruling elites convert their political power into economic wealth and privilege at the expense of equity and efficiency.

The Chinese government can't keep power alone. They buy patronage from the economic powerhouses, in a culture of corruption where EVERYONE gets their cut. Every year, more and more levels of the government and private sector get their hands on a cut, and those cuts keep getting bigger.

The unwritten rule in China is that people in power agree to be happy if they can be rich, and will hold off on demanding liberal reforms. This has created an addiction to prosperity that is eviscerating their economy from the inside, but makes it impossible to reform. The day the merry-go-round stops, China will fall apart. Greed is the glue holding that government together.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Columbia University Professor Bhagwati (a "free trader's" "free trader") in a recent WSJ article put it this way.

"China's greater economic success has led to increased social protests in the rural areas; we hear constantly of 'land grabs' leading to disruptive demonstrations . . . [the] explanation is a witless repetition of the mistaken focus on inequality as the prime mover [for the unrest, reported to be some 60,000+ incidents per annum] . . . it is evident that if a commissar's cronies grab your land, a phenomenon that may reflect also the fact that increased prosperity makes land more valuable to grab, there is no redress because there are hardly any NGOs, no opposition parties, no free press and no independent judiciary. So you turn to the streets. The Chinese rulers cannot face up to the fact that their antidemocratic structures are at the heart of the problem of increasing rural unrest; they cling to the self-serving view that economic inequality is the cause." [End of excerpts with my comments]

Throughout the Cold War up until near the end the "free traders" (the usual, internationalist Rockefeller Republicans and "progressive" liberals ) demanded that we help the Soviet economic development lest we "play into the hands of the hard liners." It'd be our fault if there was a war, they said.

We didn't, there wasn't, and the Commies gave up.

The internationalist Republicans and "progressives" had their way dealing with Red China.

[Travis McGee]

At some point in the next couple of years, there will be a worldwide recession/depression. When that happens, China will be hit especially hard, when its exports collapse. Then we'll see a Chines Hitler arise, who will fan the flames of nationalism and then all bets are off. That's my guess.

[Sic Luceat Lux]

Then we'll see a Chines Hitler arise, who will fan the flames of nationalism and then all bets are off.

Have to agree with you on that.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping and the mention of the DSL!