There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us… First, China doesn't export Revolution; second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches, what more is there to be said? ~Xi JinpingA disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist. So long as a Chinaman has strength to use his hands he needs no support from anybody; white men often complain of want of work, but a Chinaman offers no such complaint; he always manages to find something to do. ~Mark Twain
China, officially thePeople's Republic of China (PRC;Chinese:中华人民共和国;pinyin:Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó), is acountry located in eastern Eurasia. Also a cultural region and ancient civilization, it is one of the world's oldest civilizations, with successive states and cultures dating back more than six thousand years. Due to the stalemate of theChinese Civil War following the end ofWorld War II, China split off into two separate countries: thePeople's Republic of China (PRC) andRepublic of China (ROC), more commonly known as "Taiwan". The PRC administers and governsmainland China,Hong Kong, andMacau, whereas the ROC only manages to controlTaiwan and its surrounding islands. Each government claims that it is the only legitimate government of China and refuses to recognize the other. However, the PRC is recognized as the only official government of China by theUnited Nations and the overwhelming majority of the world's countries and is what most of the world's peoples refer to as "China".
China, despite many imperfections in its economic and political system, has been the most rapidly growing nation of the past three decades.Chinese poverty untilMao Zedong’s death had nothing to do withChinese culture; it was due to the disastrous way Mao organized the economy and conducted politics. In the 1950s, he promoted theGreat Leap Forward, a drasticindustrialization policy that led to mass starvation and famine. In the 1960s, he propagated theCultural Revolution, which led to the mass persecution ofintellectuals and educated people—anyone whose party loyalty might be doubted. This again led to terror and a huge waste of the society’s talent and resources. In the same way, current Chinese growth has nothing to do with Chinese values or changes in Chinese culture; it results from a process ofeconomic transformation unleashed by the reforms implemented byDeng Xiaoping and his allies, who, after Mao Zedong’s death, gradually abandonedsocialist economic policies and institutions, first inagriculture and then in industry.
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson,Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012)
A neighbor with one billion people equipped withnuclear bombs and has expanded its military outlays by double digits for 17 years in a row, and it is unclear as to what this is being used for. It is beginning to be a considerable threat.
China’s everything. Nothing else matters. We don’t get China right, we don’t get anything right. This whole thing is very simple. China is whereNazi Germany was in 1929 to 1930. TheChinese, like theGermans, are the most rational people in the world, until they’re not. And they’re gonna flip like Germany in the '30s. You’re going to have a hypernationalist state, and once that happens, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
The threat of China is not military. The threat of China is they can't be intimidated... You look at history and understand why — they've been around for 4,000 years, they have contempt for the barbarians... And that's the threat, you can't intimidate them — it's driving people in Washington berserk. But... of all the major powers, they've been the least aggressive militarily. ~Noam ChomskyThe Chinese said of themselves several thousand years ago, China is a sea that salts all the waters that flow into it. ~Winston ChurchillThe Chinese experiment which has steadily brought a large section of the population into a material abundance which they have never known before. Perhaps 20 million people can now experience the material well-being of the more affluent parts of Europe and America. This is altogether new and has alleviated elsewhere in China a tremendous amount of poverty. It is true that there are sections of China which are still poor, but as a whole China has come out of the agonizing poverty which it knew before... ~Benjamin CremeThe Chinese in themselves have first rate recommendations. They are industrious, docile, cleanly, frugal. They are dexterous of hand, patient in toil, marvelously gifted in the power of imitation, and have but few wants. ~Frederick DouglassI doubt if the Chinese are more untruthful than other people. At this point I have one certain test. Mankind are not held together by lies. Trust is the foundation of society. Where there is no truth, there can be no trust, and where there is no trust, there can be no society. Where there is society, there is trust, and where there is trust, there is something upon which it is supported. Now a people who have confided in each other for five thousand years; who have extended their empire in all directions until it embraces one-fifth of the population of the globe; who hold important commercial relations with all nations; who are now entering into treaty stipulations with ourselves, and with all the great European powers, cannot be a nation of cheats and liars. ~Frederick DouglassThe Chinese are less a nation than a fusion of peoples united by a common culture, and the history of China is the record of an expanding culture. ~Charles Patrick FitzgeraldThe key point is – is the rise of China legitimate? Is taking 20 per cent of humanity – 1.4 billion people – from abject poverty something the world should welcome?...If we give China the recognition I believe it is due in terms of its legitimacy … then I think a lot of these issues, the so-called 14 points, sort of fall off the table... ~Paul KeatingYou’ve got to remember that China is broadly aConfucian society that believes in harmony, in authority, and it is with this background that it accepts, I think broadly, the role of theChinese Communist party. I mean, the idea that we have that if you don’t vote at the local ballot box, that is, if you are not a Jeffersonian liberal, then you are a savage, belies the fact that China has a 4,000-year history which has these characteristics about it ~Paul KeatingThe Chinese are industrious, courageous, honest, and intelligent. They created the splendid ancient Chinese civilization, and today, they're firmly committed to the path of peaceful development and are making continuous progress. ~Jintao HuChina should represent the development trends ofadvanced productive forces, the orientations of an advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people. ~Zemin JiangThe invader will lose funds or patience before the loins of China will lose virility. ~Will Durant andAriel Durant Asia now stands at the dawn a new history of civilization to create its own future, finally emerging from the long tunnel of 150 years of westernization and overcoming the ideological conflicts of the twentieth century. Having achieved advancedindustrialization based on market economics in the latter half of the twentieth century, the region is now home to some 900 million people in the middle class and about 1.1 billion 'netizens' connected by the Internet. ~Stephan HaggardOne day somebody should remind us that, even though there may be political and ideological differences between us, theVietnamese are our brothers, theRussians are our brothers, theChinese are our brothers; and one day we've got to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.I should esteem the man who advised a war with China to be the greatest living enemy of my country. You would be beaten in the end. ~NapoleonChina as a society, a government, an economy and a culture is quite difficult for us to comprehend today. The changes are so rapid in cities like Beijing and Shanghai and the culture remarkably fluid... China is increasingly influential in the world and more and more people have hopes that China will be a leader... China has ended up playing a critical role in geopolitics more quickly than anybody had anticipated.~Emanuel PastreichChina is getting ahead simply because of its courage, hard work, the genius of its people, and all this, under the wise leadership... and its central planning... doing the greatest service to humanity... ~Andre VltchekChina is building, inventing, struggling and marching forward, confidently, surrounded by friends, but independently. ~Andre Vltchek
The most strikingcultural shifts in China over the last two decades or so has been the revival, both orchestrated and spontaneous, of tradition. The main trope forculture in the twentieth century, especially since 1949, has been anti-traditionalism. As far back as theMay 4th movement in 1919, and before, whether it was the financialelite, theliberals, theMarxists, oranarchists they all agreed that China was poor and that one of the causes of that state of affairs was the backward traditionalculture...We have witnessed a dramatic reevaluation of tradition in China, and also in otherEast Asian countries with aConfucian heritage such asKorea. This part of the world has witnessed rapid growth over the last three decades that has sharply reduced poverty and the region has remained at peace. So when people look around and ask what do all these countries have in common, one answer is their Confucian heritage. So whereas the previous narrative was that Confucianism undermined modernization andeconomic growth, now many argue that it actually helps... Chinese thinkers gave much thought to how to select able and virtuouspoliticalleaders, which abilities matter and which virtues matter? Chinese pondered about, and experimented with, mechanisms for selecting leaders. And that tradition continues on today.
Over the last thirty years in China, the political leadership has been selected first and foremost through examinations, followed by evaluations of performance at lower levels of government. No one rises to the top without extensive experience at all levels. And that approach is quite similar in form to what we have seen throughout much of Chinese imperial history. I do think that the centralpolitical ideas articulated in Chinese culture ought to serve as the standard for evaluating political progress or regress in China. And I do think those values are different from the liberal ideas embraced... China has been thrust into this globalrole very quickly, perhaps far more quickly than anybody imagined, including the Chinese. The relative political and economic weight of China has increased so dramatically as to be disorienting to Chinese. When people talk about the achievements of China over the past thirty years the most commonly cited one is poverty reduction. About half a billion people were lifted out ofpoverty, in part due to energizing the people throughmarket reforms. But that process was only possible because there were public officials overseeing the work and they were promoted based on their performance. Political meritocracy itself is a key to reducing poverty... But the other achievement of China is that it has not fought a war since 1979.
The February meeting ofNATO... defense ministers... revealed an antiquated, 75-year-old alliance that, despite its military failures inAfghanistan andLibya, is now turning its military madness toward two more formidable, nuclear-armed enemies:Russia and China... NATO seems oblivious to the changing dynamics of today's world, as if it were living on a different planet. Its one-sided Reflection Group report cites Russia's violation ofinternational law inCrimea as a principal cause of deteriorating relations with the West, and insists that Russia must "return to full compliance with international law." But it ignores the U.S. and NATO's far more numerous violations of international law and leading role in the tensions fuelingthe renewed Cold War: Illegalinvasions of Kosovo,Afghanistan andIraq... broken agreement over NATO expansion intoEastern Europe... U.S. withdrawals from important arms control treaties... More than 300,000 bombs and missiles dropped on other countries by the U.S. and its allies since 2001... U.S.proxy wars inLibya andSyria, which plunged both countries into chaos, revivedAl Qaeda and spawned theIslamic State.. U.S. management of the2014 coup inUkraine, which led to economic collapse, Russian annexation of Crimea and civil war in Eastern Ukraine... The stark reality of the U.S. record as a serial aggressor whoseoffensive war machine dwarfs Russia's defense spending by 11 to 1 and China's by 2.8 to 1, even without counting other NATO countries' military spending.
NATO's failure to seriously examine its own role in what it euphemistically calls "uncertain times" should be more alarming to Americans and Europeans than its one-sided criticisms of Russia and China, whose contributions to the uncertainty of our times pale by comparison.
If I were anEnglishman,I should esteem the man who advised a war with China to be the greatest living enemy of my country. You would be beaten in the end, and perhaps arevolution inIndia would follow.
Napoleon Bonaparte, reported as being from an 1817 conversation inThe Mind of Napoleon, ed. and trans. J. Christopher Herold (1955), p. 249. Reported as unverified inRespectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989)
A 'superpower' is a country that wields enough military, political and economic might to convince nations in all parts of the world to do things they otherwise wouldn't.Pundits have rushed to label China the next superpower, and so have many ordinary Americans... Little of China's dramatic economic growth is finding its way into the pockets of Chinese consumers; the byproduct ofaneconomy driven by massivestate-owned enterprises rather than private industry.
Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed atwar. (The United States is) the most warlike nation in the history of the world... How many miles ofhigh-speed railroad do we have in this country?... We havewasted, I think, $3 trillion (military spending) ... China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that's why they're ahead of us. ~Jimmy Carter
There is a tendency in parts of Chinese thinking which says:"We need not only to be an important power in the region, we need to dominate the region!".
I normalizeddiplomatic relations withChina in 1979. Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed atwar. (The United States is) the most warlike nation in the history of the world... How many miles ofhigh-speed railroad do we have in this country?... We have wasted, I think, $3 trillion (military spending) ... China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way... And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure, you'd probably have $2 trillion left over. We'd have high-speed railroad. We'd havebridges that aren't collapsing. We'd haveroads that are maintained properly. Oureducation system would be as good as that of, say,South Korea orHong Kong.
...I don't feel that they deserve a blanket condemnation at all. There are many things to object to in any society.But take China, modern China; one also finds many things that are really quite admirable. [...] There are even better examples than China. But I do think thatChina is an important example of a new society in which very interesting positive things happened at the local level, in which a good deal of the collectivization and communization was really based on mass participation and took place after a level of understanding had been reached in the peasantry that led to this next step.
The threat of China is not military. The threat of China is they can't be intimidated...Europe you can intimidate. When the US tries to get people to stop investing inIran, European companies pull out, China disregards it. You look at history and understand why — they've been around for 4,000 years, they have contempt for thebarbarians, they just don't give a damn. OK, you scream, we'll go ahead and take over a big piece ofSaudi or Iranian oil. And that's the threat, you can't intimidate them — it's driving people in Washington berserk. But, you know, of all the major powers, they've been the least aggressive militarily.
China is the center of the Asian energy security grid, which includes theCentral Asian states and Russia. India is also hovering around the edge, South Korea is involved, and Iran is an associate member of some kind. If the Middle East oil resources around the Gulf, which are the main ones in the world, if they link up to the Asian grid, the United States is really a second-rate power. A lot is at stake in not withdrawing from Iraq.
As the most powerful state, the U.S. makes its own laws, using force and conductingeconomic warfare at will. It also threatens sanctions against countries that do not abide by its conveniently flexible notions of "free trade." In one important case,Washington has employed such threats with great effectiveness (andGATT approval) to force open Asian markets for U.S.tobacco exports and advertising, aimed primarily at the growing markets of women and children. TheU.S. Agriculture Department has provided grants totobacco firms to promote smoking overseas. Asian countries have attempted to conduct educational anti-smoking campaigns, but they are overwhelmed by the miracles of the market, reinforced by U.S. state power through the sanctions threat.Philip Morris, with an advertising and promotion budget of close to $9 billion in 1992, became China's largest advertiser. The effect ofReaganitesanction threats was to increase advertising and promotion of cigarette smoking (particularly U.S. brands) quite sharply in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, along with the use of these lethal substances. In South Korea, for example, the rate of growth in smoking more than tripled when markets for U.S. lethal drugs were opened in 1988. TheBush Administration extended the threats toThailand, at exactly the same time that the "war on drugs" was declared; the media were kind enough to overlook the coincidence, even suppressing the outraged denunciations by the very conservative Surgeon-General.Oxford University epidemiologistRichard Peto estimates that among Chinese children under 20 today, 50 million will die of cigarette-related diseases, an achievement that ranks high even by 20th century standards.
There is a hush over allEurope, nay, over all the world, broken only by the dull thud ofJapanese bombs falling on Chinese cities, on Chinese Universities or near British and American ships. But then, China is a long way off, so why worry? The Chinese are fighting for what thefounders of the American Constitution in their stately language called: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And they seem to be fighting very well. Many good judges think they are going to win. Anyhow, let’s wish them luck! Let’s give them a wave of encouragement – asyour President did last week, when he gave notice about ending the commercial treaty. After all, the suffering Chinese are fighting our battle, the battle ofdemocracy. They are defending the soil, the good earth, that has been theirs since the dawn of time against cruel and unprovokedaggression. Give them a cheer across the ocean – no one knows whose turn it may be next. If this habit ofmilitary dictatorships’ breaking into other people’s lands withbomb andshell andbullet, stealing theproperty and killing the proprietors, spreads too widely, we may none of us be able to think of summer holidays for quite a while.
The Chinese said of themselves several thousand years ago: "China is a sea that salts all the waters that flow into it." There's anotherChinese saying about their country which is much more modern—it dates only from the fourth century. This is the saying: "The tail of China is large and will not be wagged." I like that one. TheBritish democracy approves the principles of movable party heads and unwaggable national tails. It is due to the working of these important forces that I have the honor to be addressing you at this moment.
Winston Churchill, address to a joint session ofCongress,Washington, D.C. (17 January 1952); reported inWinston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963, ed. Robert Rhodes James (1974), vol. 8, p. 8,326
The People's Republic of China is still aMarxist,Leninist,Maoist nation. So, you know, communism is still involved there. They haven't figured their way out of that particularly ideological box yet and that's their misfortune.
China andIran have drafted a “sweeping economic and security partnership,” according toThe New York Times... This “strategic partnership” is the result ofDonald Trump’s punishingsanctions against Iran... If China and Iran conclude their partnership agreement, Trump would presumably be less likely to use military force against Iran. If he did, he would have to be willing to take on China as well. That would be most unwise.
People experienced in the 10 to 12 years before9/11 an extraordinary transformation of the world. For the people involved, some of these were tremendous... the Chinese experiment which has steadily brought a large section of the population into a material abundance which they have never known before. None of the people in China had experienced the quality of life or the material affluence that the eastern seaboard of China now does. Perhaps 20 million people can now experience the material well-being of the more affluent parts of Europe and America. This is altogether new and has alleviated elsewhere in China a tremendous amount of poverty. It is true that there are sections of China which are still poor, but as a whole China has come out of the agonizing poverty which it knew before... People... have found a growing interdependence, a recognition of the oneness of humanity and the necessity of seeing the world as one, and that real changes are possible only on a global scale
Biden has pretty much picked upTrump’sforeign policy... The worst case is the increasingprovocative actions towardsChina... there is constant talk about what is calledthe China threat. You can read it in sober, reasonable, usually reasonable journals, about the terrible China threat, and that we have to move expeditiously to contain and limit the China threat.... What exactly is the China threat? Actually that question is rarely raised here.... the distinguished statesman, former [Australian] Prime MinisterPaul Keating, did have an essay in the Australian press about the China threat. He finally concluded realistically thatthe China threat is China’s existence. The U.S. will not tolerate the existence of a state that cannot be intimidated the way Europe can be, that does not follow U.S. orders the way Europe does but pursues its own course. That is the threat. When we talk about the threat of China, we’re talking about the alleged threats at China’s borders. China does plenty of wrong things, terrible things. You can make many criticisms. But are they a threat?...they are not a threat.
Right at the same time as Keating’s article, Australia’s leading military correspondent Brian Toohey, highly knowledgeable, did an assessment of the relative military power of China, in their own region of China and the United States and its alliesJapan andAustralia. It’s laughable. OneU.S. Trident submarine, now being replaced by even more lethal ones — one U.S. submarine can destroy almost 200 cities anywhere in the world with itsnuclear weapons. China in theSouth China Sea has four old noisy submarines which can’t even get out because they’re contained by superior U.S. and Allied Force... In the face of this, the United States is sending a fleet of nuclear submarines to Australia. That’s theAUKUS deal—the Australia, U.K., United States—which have no strategic purpose whatsoever. They will not even be in operation for 15 years, but they do incite China almost certainly tobuild up its lagging military forces, increasing thelevel ofconfrontation. There are problems in the South China Sea that can be met withdiplomacy andnegotiations, the regional powers taking the lead, could go into the details. But the right measure is not increasing provocation, increasing the threat of an accidental development which could lead to devastating, even Earthly-terminalnuclear war. But that is the direction the Biden administration is following, expansion of the Trump programs. That is the core of theirforeign policy programs.
The emperor hold upon the Chinamen may be strong, but the Chinaman's hold upon himself is stronger... The Chinaman will not long be willing to wear the cast off shoes of the negro, and, if he refuses, there will be trouble again. The negroworked and took his pay in religion and the lash.The Chinaman is a different article and will want the cash. He may, like thenegro, acceptChristianity, but, unlike the negro, he will not care to pay for it in labor. He had theGolden Rule in substance five hundred years before the coming of Christ, and has notions ofjustice that are not to be confused by any... Chinese children are in American schools inSan Francisco. None of our children are in Chinese schools, and probably never will be, though in some things they might well teach us valuable lessons. Contact with these yellow children of the Celestial Empire would convince us that the points of human difference, great as they, upon first sight, seem, are as nothing compared with the points of human agreement. Such contact would removemountains of prejudice... The Chinese in themselves have first rate recommendations. They are industrious, docile, cleanly, frugal. They are dexterous of hand, patient in toil, marvelously gifted in the power of imitation, and have but few wants.
It is objected to the Chinaman that he is secretive and treacherous, and will not tell the truth when he thinks it for his interest to tell a lie. There may be truth in all this; it sounds very much like the account of man’s heart given in the creeds. If he will not tell the truth, except when it is for his interest to do so, let us make it for his interest to tell the truth. We can do it by applying to him the same principle of justice that we apply to ourselves. But I doubt if the Chinese are more untruthful than other people. At this point I have one certain test.Mankind are not held together by lies. Trust is the foundation of society. Where there is no truth, there can be no trust, and where there is no trust, there can be no society. Where there is society, there is trust, and where there is trust, there is something upon which it is supported. Now a people who have confided in each other for five thousand years; who have extended their empire in all directions until it embraces one-fifth of the population of the globe; who hold important commercial relations with all nations; who are now entering into treaty stipulations with ourselves, and with all the great European powers, cannot be a nation of cheats and liars, but must have some respect forveracity. The very existence of China for so long a period, and her progress in civilization, are proofs of her truthfulness
No victory of arms, or tyranny of alien finance, can long suppress a nation so rich in resources and vitality.The invader will lose funds or patience before the loins of China will lose virility; within a century China will have absorbed and civilized herconquerors, and will have learned all the technique of what transiently bears the name of modern industry; roads and communications will give her unity, economy and thrift will give her funds, and a strong government will give her order and peace.
Most people withmental disorders in China never receive treatment. There is often a stigma attached to such ailments. Some think that people withpsychiatric conditions are possessed by evil spirits. Many seemental disorders as a sign ofweakness, and regard them as socially contagious: a relative of someone with a serious disorder may find it hard to marry.Families sometimes have their kin treated far away to hide the “shame” of their condition, or keep them hidden at home. Even many medical students worry that those working with psychiatric patients risk catching their disease, says Xu Ni of “It Gets Brighter”, a mental-healthNGO inBeijing.
[Chinese development has its roots in the1949 Chinese Revolution, carried out by theChinese Communist Party headed byMao Zedong, whereby it liberated itself from theimperialist system. This allowed it to develop for decades under aplanned economy largely free of constraints from outside forces, establishing a strongagricultural andindustrial economic base. This was followed by a shift in thepost-Maoist reform period to ahybrid system of more limited state planning along with a much greater reliance on market relations (and a vast expansion ofdebt andspeculation) under conditions—theglobalization of the world market—that were particularly fortuitous to its “catching up.” Throughtrade wars and other pressures aimed at destabilizing China’s position in the world market, theUnited States is alreadyseeking to challenge the bases of China’s growth inworld trade. China, therefore, stands not so much for the successes oflate capitalism but rather for its inherent limitations. Thecurrent Chinese model, moreover, carries within it many of the destructive tendencies of the system of capital accumulation. Ultimately, China’s future too depends on a return to the process ofrevolutionary transition, spurred by its ownpopulation.
The problem for China is political. China is held together bymoney, notideology. When there is an economic downturn and the money stops rolling in, not only will thebanking system spasm, but the entire fabric of Chinese society will shudder.Loyalty in China is either bought or coerced. Without available money, only coercion remains.Business slowdowns can generally lead to instability because they lead tobusiness failure andunemployment. In a country wherepoverty is endemic and unemployment widespread, the added pressure of an economic downturn will result in political instability.
China’s capacity to meet new demands for agricultural products has been assessed by analysts inside and outside China since the 1980s.Economists have anticipated that market forces would induce China to importgrains and other land-intensive crops, but Chinese officials (motivated by food security and other concerns) have long resisted these forces and sought to maintainself-sufficiency. However, officials are now adjusting their strategies to accommodate their country’s growing reliance on agricultural imports.
The Chinese are emphatically not a religious people, though they are verysuperstitious. Belief in a God has come down from the remotest ages, but the old simple creed has been so overlaid byBuddhism as not to be discernible at the present day. Buddhism is now the dominant religion of China. It is closely bound up with the lives of the people, and is a never-failing refuge in sickness or worldly trouble. It is no longer the subtle doctrine which was originally presented to the people of India, but something much more clearly defined and appreciable by the plainest intellect.Buddha is the saviour of the people through righteousness alone, and Buddhist saints are popularly supposed to possess intercessory powers. Yet reverence is always wanting; and crowds will laugh and talk, and buy and sell sweetmeats, in a Buddhist temple, before the very eyes of the most sacred images. So long as divine intervention is not required, an ordinary Chinaman is content to neglect his divinities; but no sooner does sickness or financial trouble come upon the family, than he will hurry off to propitiate the gods. He accomplishes this through the aid of the priests, who receive his offerings of money, and light candles or incense at the shrine of the deity to be invoked. Buddhist priests are not popular with the Chinese, who make fun of their shaven heads, and doubt the sincerity of their convictions as well as the purity of their lives. "No meat nor wine may enter here" is a legend inscribed at the gate of most Buddhist temples, the ordinary diet as served in the refectory being strictly vegetarian. A tipsy priest, however, is not an altogether unheard-of combination, and has provided more than one eminent artist with a subject of an interesting picture.
Let us now pause to take stock of some of the results which have accrued from the operation and influence of Confucianism during such a long period, and over such swarming myriads of the human race. It is a commonplace in the present day to assert that the Chinese are hardworking, thrifty, and sober—the last-mentioned, by the way, in a land wheredrunkenness is not regarded as a crime. Shallow observers of the globe-trotter type, who have had their pockets picked by professionalthieves in Hong-Kong, and even resident observers who have not much cultivated their powers of observation and comparison, will assert that honesty is a virtue denied to the Chinese; but those who have lived long in China and have more seriously devoted themselves to discover the truth, may one and all be said to be arrayed upon the other side. The amount of solid honesty to be met with in every class, except the professionally criminal class, is simply astonishing. That the word of the Chinesemerchant is as good as his bond has long since become a household word, and so it is in other walks of life.
Herbert Allen Giles, inThe Civilization of China (1911), Chapter III : Religion and Superstition
All this saber-rattling is despicable. NeitherRussia norIran threaten the U.S. and there is no reason why the U.S. should be eager to defendTaiwan orUkraine (and alsoIsrael).China’s military budget is miniscule compared to the U.S. and the only real threat it represents is as a competitor on world markets, where it is already dominant in a number of key sectors. The U.S. has to get off this global dominance militarism wagon but how do we do it when both major parties embrace it?
[N]early every political evil can be found on display in China:slavery,discrimination,religious persecution,xenophobia,tyranny, mass-politicalindoctrination,colonialism,cultural genocide, and so on. And yet, the outcry against these things inAmerica and the West is a tiny fraction of what it was with regard toSouth Africa in the1980s orIsrael today. Why? Some of the political answers are pretty obvious — and have much merit. A few that come to mind: China is non-Western, and many of these sins are supposed to be unique towhiteEuropeans; China is a victim (or “victim”) ofcolonialism, and so we shouldn’t judge it harshly; China is very powerful, andrealpolitik dictates that we be diplomatic; and so on. But there’s another reason. As you may have noticed, I’ve become much more interested inevolutionary psychology of late, particularly the topic of coalitional instincts. The coalition instinct is the programming that helped us form strategic groups that advance our self-interest. We are a social species and cooperation is what helped us skyrocket to the top of thefood chain.
So far, theworld economy, particularlyAustralia and theUnited States, have benefited greatly from Chineseeconomic growth. This is likely to continue to be the case for some time... There is no real alternative to the United States as the global leader.China doesn't want the role. It would only divert its focus from its own development challenges. And to be frank, China would not be trusted by many countries, particularly in theAsia-Pacific, to be the global leader...Authoritarianstate capitalism, seen today in China andRussia. While both countries have introduced elements of a market economy, private companies there operate side-by-side and at a significant disadvantage to state owned entities favored by government regulators. This mixed economy is not paralleled on the political side. What is emerging is an increasinglyauthoritarianpolitical system with decreasing space forcivil society, free media, anddissent. This model is attractive to authoritarian leaders around the world who see it as way to maintain power while still growing their economies.
We are also seeing a diffusion of power and competition at thenation state level. This competition comes not just fromRussia and China, but also from emerging countries likeBrazil,India,Indonesia, and the otherASEAN states. These states are also beginning to organize themselves into structures outside of and somewhat in competition... We must find a way to convince theSCO andBRICS institutions to see themselves not as competitors but as collaborators and partners with the rest of us. The role of China will be key in this effort. Neither China nor the United States can solve global challenges by themselves. And both China and the United States need progress in meeting these challenges if they are to achieve their own objectives for the development and economic well being of their people. A way must be found for the United States and China to work together with the rest of the international community to meet the global challenges we face.
Asia now stands at the dawn a new history of civilization to create its own future, finally emerging from the long tunnel of 150 years of westernization and overcoming the ideological conflicts of thetwentieth century. Having achieved advancedindustrialization based onmarket economics in the latter half of the twentieth century, the region is now home to some 900 million people in the middle class and about 1.1 billion 'netizens' connected by theInternet. Within certain East Asian countries, civil society anddemocracy are flourishing. Now, China and theASEAN nations are progressing on their own courses. East Asia is on the verge of birthing a new era marked bycivil society anddemocracy.
As a foreignliterature it is studied also by theCoreans, theJapanese, and theAnnamites; and it may therefore be quite appropriately called the Classic Literature of the Far East. The civilization of all these nations has been affected by its study, perhaps even in a higher degree than that of the nations of Europe has been by the literatures ofGreece andRome. Millions received from it, in the course of centuries, their mental training. The Chinese who created it have through it perpetuated their national character and imparted some of their idiosyncrasies of thought to their formerly illiterate neighbors.
The Chinese are industrious, courageous, honest, and intelligent. They created the splendidancient Chinese civilization, and today, they're firmly committed to the path of peaceful development and are making continuous progress in the modernization drive by carrying out the reform and opening up program.
When China sends its students to the United States, especially when it sendscentral bankers andplanners to the United States to study (and be recruited), they are told by the U.S. “Do as we say, not as we have done.” The United States is not telling China... how to get rich in the way that it did, by protective tariffs, by creating its own money and by making other countries dependent on it. The United States does not want you to be independent and self-reliant. The United States wants China to let itself become dependent on U.S. finance in order to invest in its own industry... The neoliberal plan is not to make you independent, and not to help you grow except to the extent that your growth will be paid to US investors or used to finance U.S. military spending around the world to encircle you and trying to destabilize you inSichuan to try to pry China apart. Look at what the United States has done in Russia, and at what theInternational Monetary Fund in Europe has done toGreece,Latvia and theBaltic states. It is a dress rehearsal for whatU.S. diplomacy would like to do to you, if it can convince you to follow the neoliberal US economic policy of financialization andprivatization. De-dollarization is the alternative to privatization and financialization.
So the question is, how do China, Russia, Iran and other countries break free of this U.S. dollarization strategy? As now constituted, dollarization creates a circular flow that finances American military spending by forcing the costs onto foreign central banks holdingdollars. The solution obviously is to avoid using dollars in order to break free of American control of your economy. To do this, you have to have a non-Dollar currency. This currency alternative has to be large enough to have a critical mass, so that it can be used internationally. That’s why China, Russia, Iran and their allies are trying to create their own currency area, incorporating largely theShanghai Cooperation Organization.
The U.S.-China confrontation is not simply a national rivalry, but a conflict of economic and social systems.... From today’s U.S. vantage point... China and Russia are existential threats to the global expansion of financialized rentier wealth. Today’sCold War 2.0 aims to deter China and potentially other counties from socializing their financial systems, land and natural resources, and keeping infrastructure utilities public to prevent their being monopolized in private hands to siphon off economic rents at the expense of productive investment in economic growth. The United States hoped that China might be as gullible as the Soviet Union and adopt neoliberal policy permitting its wealth to be privatized and turned into rent-extracting privileges, to be sold off to Americans.
China, like Russia, has been reducing its dollar holdings as much as possible, just keeping enough to prevent the currency from being destabilized by the dollar inflows. China, Russia are buying gold instead of U.S. dollars as much as possible. China is trying to escape from buying Treasury securities. Why would any government want to buy Treasury securities yielding 0.1% when the dollars coming into China are trying to make loans or buying countries, making 15% profit or interest a year? Nobody would want that situation to continue. China doesn’t want it to continue. As long as it [China] is part of an international economy that is dollarized, it [China] is forced to take a loss, a sacrifice, year after year, subsidizing the U.S. economy. The only way that it can avoid that is to isolate itself from the U.S. dollar. No country until this time since 1945 has ever had the critical mass to be able to do it. That is the objective, the stated objective of Russia, China and their allies. Of course, they don’t want to buy treasury bills. That doesn’t mean that, yes, they found a wonderful investment making 0.1% a year and subsidizing the United States. That is not what China or any other country wants.
With regard tonuclear weapons, the situation is far more dangerous than the lastDoomsday Clock report. New weapons systems under development are much more effectively dangerous. TheBiden administration, expanding uponTrump’s confrontational approach, hasChomsky at a loss for words to describe the danger at hand. Only recently,Biden met withNATO leaders and instructed them to plan on two wars,China andRussia. According to Chomsky: “This is beyondinsanity.” Not only that, the group is carrying out provocative acts whendiplomacy is really needed. This is an extraordinarily dangerous situation.
China seems to have been very much similar to the West, both in the production ofnew religious movements and in attracting to them figures from the political left who were officially promoting the struggle against “superstition.” Reconstructions of “Chinese traditional culture” as “non-religious,” and of the rich Chinese religious pluralism as mere “folk religion” should be viewed as propaganda rather than history.
China’s battle againstpoverty has benefited the largest number of people in human history. To sustain poverty reduction gains, China will focus more on achieving endogenous development in areas that have been lifted out of poverty and introduce vigorous measures to support rural revitalization. Our goal is to achieve common prosperity and high-quality development including through the rural revitalization strategy with a focus in five key areas:industry development,human capital,culture,ecological environment andlocal governance.”
The greatest contribution towards the whole of human race, made by China, to prevent its 1.3 billion people fromhunger... There are some foreigners who have eaten their fill and have nothing better to do than point their fingers at our affairs.First, China doesn't export Revolution; second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches, what more is there to be said?
Also quoted asThere are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us. First, China doesn't export revolution. Second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty. Third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches. What more is there to be said?
We are ready to expand the friendly people-to-people exchanges and enhance exchanges andcooperation inscience,technology,culture,education, and other areas... We should... respect each other asequals and promote closer exchanges and cooperation. This will enable us to make steadyprogress in advancing constructive and cooperativeChina-U.S. relations, and bring more benefits to our two peoples and people of the world. ~Hu Jintao
We are ready to expand the friendly people-to-people exchanges and enhance exchanges and cooperation inscience,technology,culture,education, and other areas... Enhanced interactions andcooperation between China and the United States serve the interests of our two peoples and are conducive toworld peace anddevelopment. We should stay firmly rooted in the present while looking ahead to the future, and view and approachChina-U.S. relations from a strategic and long-term perspective. We should, on the basis of the principles set forth in the three Sino-U.S. joint communiqués, respect each other as equals and promote closer exchanges and cooperation. This will enable us to make steady progress in advancing constructive and cooperative China-U.S. relations, and bring more benefits to our two peoples and people of the world. We are ready to continue to work with the U.S. side and other parties concerned to peacefully resolve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, and the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomatic negotiation to uphold the international non-proliferation regime and safeguard global peace and stability.
China is simply too big and too central to be ostracised. My point is that China is now so big and it is going to grow so large, it will have no precedents in modern social economic history.... we haven’t come to a point of accommodation where it acknowledges China’s pre-eminence in east Asia and the Asian mainland, in which case we can start to move towards a sensible relationship again with China. The key point is – is the rise of China legitimate? Is taking 20 per cent of humanity – 1.4 billion people – from abject poverty something the world should welcome? And in our terms, it has completely remodelled theAustralian economy. If we give China the recognition I believe it is due in terms of its legitimacy … then I think a lot of these issues, the so-called 14 points, sort of fall off the table.... We have no relationship with Beijing, so why would the Prime Minister ofMalaysia orSingapore orThailand talk to us about east Asia when we are non-speakers with the biggest power, the Chinese?
The Chinese have always struck me as pretty cautious, even crafty, in managing their rise. It's true that they’re a lot more aggressive since 2009, but I don't see them suddenly becoming reckless. I always found that factoid thatthe PRC spends more on internal than external security to be indicative that CCP is, in fact, very insecure at the top. It's got to have an ideology with foreign enemies, otherwise the Chinese people might see the real enemy, the CCP's corruption, rejection of democracy and unwillingness to admit the horrors ofMaoism.
The collapse of U.S. influence over Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom’s new alliances with China and Iran are painful emblems of the abject failure of the Neocon strategy of maintaining U.S. global hegemony with aggressive projections of military power. China has displaced the American Empire by deftly projecting, instead, economic power. Over the past decade, our country has spent trillions bombing roads, ports, bridges, and airports. China spent the equivalent building the same across the developing world.
Contemporaneous with the age of Greek culture, whileRome was yet an infant city and the rest of Europe in a condition of barbarism, the Chinese were a civilised race. Many years before theChristian era they had evolved under the name of Taoism, a set of principles and a mystic teaching based on the writings ofLaotzu, which formed a not altogether despicable substitute for areligion, while in Confucianism they enjoyed a soundphilosophy. Under these influences the arts of peace gradually achieved the first place among the national ideas. The application of principles of reason to the relationships of daily life, the adjustment of differences by discussion, and the cultivation of respect for age and learning, became cardinal principles.
China presents Vietnam with a very big problem. China is taking overVietnam, fromCholon, where there are rich Chinese, toHaiphong. They are everywhere now with their product. My wife is from theNorth, people thereresent China more than theSouth feared theViet Cong. The Chinese are invaders, like any other foreigners, to fight. We must stop the Chinese. You know the dikes built on theRed River? If they break, what happens? A flood!
I hear from higher up that China seems to be succeeding on many fronts –engineering,commerce, hotels,agriculture - everything.In many ways, don’t we need to take them as a model example forus?
Back in about1753 it took a letter three days to go fromNew York City toWashington, and today you can go from here to China in less time than that... Man's scientific genius has been amazing.
If I lived in China or evenRussia, or anytotalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basicFirst Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there.
Former presidentJimmy Carter recently made a profound and damning statement —the United States is the “most warlike nation in the history of the world.” Carter contrasted the United States withChina, saying that China is buildinghigh-speed trains for its people while the United States is putting all of its resources into mass destruction. Where are high-speed trains in the United States, Carter appropriately wondered... As if to prove Carter’s assertion, Vice PresidentMike Pence told the most recent graduating class at West Point that it “is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life... You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen.” Clearly referring toVenezuela, Pence continued, “Some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere.” In other words, Pence declared,war is inevitable, a certainty for this country.
Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest. We have no alliance withTaipei. There is no piece of paper sitting in Canberra which has an alliance with Taipei. We do not recognise it as asovereign state –we’ve always seen it as a part of China... My view is Australia should not be drawn into a military engagement over Taiwan, US-sponsored or otherwise...
(On rebuilding relationships with Beijing) At least give it respect. What the Chinese want, I think, isrespect for what they’ve created. Our central proposition should be that the rise of China is entirely valid. What the Chinese want is acknowledgement of the validity of what they have done and what they have created: the legitimacy of the rise of China from its colonial past and from poverty.
(On Xi as president for life: ‘A belief in harmony’) Well, it’s a good way to stay in power, I guess. It’s not my way. I actually believe in a community’s right to dismiss the government. But you’ve got to remember that China is broadly aConfucian society that believes in harmony, in authority, and it is with this background that it accepts, I think broadly, the role of theChinese Communist party. I mean, the idea that we have that if you don’t vote at the local ballot box, that is, if you are not aJeffersonianliberal, then you are a savage, belies the fact that China has a 4,000-year history which has these characteristics about it.
(On Britain’s tilt to the Indo-Pacific: ‘Old theme park’) You know, here’s our old friend – what’s his name –the British prime minister waxing lyrical down there inCornwall. I mean,Britain is like an old theme park sliding into the Atlantic compared to modern China. China is just going to be huge.
In October 2020, the IMF in its annual report nominated China as the world’s largest economy.It saysChina’s economy is now 20% larger than theUnited States, 24tn versus 20tn – a report which was endorsed by the CIA. So you have the IMF and the CIA out there saying China is 20% bigger than the United States now. These are the key numbers. American GDP per capita is $60,000. China’s GDP per capita is $10,000. But as China is moving out of its old model of cheap manufactured goods, their income is going to rise. But at 10,000 US dollars per capita, China is 20% bigger than the US. How many years is it going to take China to get to 20,000? Not 60 … but with the highly urbanised economy of theirs, it will take a decade, perhaps. If it gets to $20,000 US per capita,it will be 2.5 times bigger than the United States. To which the United States says: “That is all very interesting but, look, if you behave yourselves, you Chinese, you can be a stakeholder in our system.” And you would not have to be Xi Jinping to take the view, if you are aChinese nationalist,“let me get this right, we are already 1.25 times bigger than you, we will soon be twice as big as you and we may be 2.5 times as big as you, but we can be a stakeholder in your system, is that it?” It would make a cat laugh.
(China debate ‘informed by the spooks’) Australian public debate isinformed by the spooks. Ourforeign policy debate now inCanberra is informed by the security agencies, so you are not getting a macro view of Chinaas it really is. China wants its front doorstep and its front porch, that is Taiwan, its sea, it doesn’t want American naval forces influencing that. It wants access out of its coast into the deeper waters of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. That’s what it’s about fundamentally.
To understand the changes which now appear upon the Chinese mainland, one must understand the changes in Chinese character and culture over the past 50 years. China, up to 50 years ago, was completely non-homogenous, being compartmented into groups divided against each other. The war-making tendency was almost non-existent, as they still followed the tenets of the Confucian ideal ofpacifist culture. At the turn of the century, under the regime ofChang Tso Lin, efforts toward greater homogeneity produced the start of anationalist urge. This was further and more successfully developed under the leadership ofChiang Kai-Shek, but has been brought to its greatest fruition under the present regime to the point that it has now taken on the character of a united nationalism of increasingly dominant, aggressive tendencies. Through these past 50 years the Chinese people have thus become militarized in their concepts and in their ideals. They now constitute excellent soldiers, with competent staffs and commanders. This has produced a new and dominant power inAsia, which, for its own purposes, is allied withSoviet Russia but which in its own concepts and methods has become aggressively imperialistic, with a lust for expansion and increased power normal to this type ofimperialism. There is little of the ideological concept either one way or another in the Chinese make-up. The standard of living is so low and the capital accumulation has been so thoroughly dissipated by war that the masses are desperate and eager to follow any leadership which seems to promise the alleviation of local stringencies. I have from the beginning believed that the Chinese Communists' support of theNorth Koreans was the dominant one. Their interests are, at present, parallel with those of theSoviet. But I believe that the aggressiveness recently displayed not only in Korea but also in Indo-China andTibet and pointing potentially toward the South reflects predominantly the same lust for the expansion of power which has animated every would-be conqueror since the beginning of time.
For years, Chineseintellectuals distinguished between words and actions. Western political ideas could be discussed in China as long as nobody tried to enact them... Sealing China off from western ideas poses some practical problems... Chinese leaders sinceDeng Xiaoping have adhered to a principle known as 'Hide your strength, bide your time'... No diplomatic relationship matters more to China's future than itsdealings with the United States... For years, American military leaders worried that there was a growing risk of an accidental clash between China and the U.S., in part because Beijing protested U.S. policies by declining meetings between senior commanders... A decade ago, the Chinese Internet was alive with debate, confession, humor, and discovery. Month by month, it is becoming more sterilized and self-contained. To the degree that China's connection to the outside world matters, the digital links are deteriorating. Voice-over-Internet calls,viral videos,podcasts, the minor accessories of contemporary digital life, are less reachable abroad than they were a year ago. It's an astonishing thing to observe in a rising superpower. How many countries in 2015 have anInternet connection to the world that is worse than it was a year ago?
China remains the world's largestmanufacturer, with four trillion dollars in foreign-exchange reserves, a sum equivalent to the world’s fourth-largest economy... Last spring, China abolished registered-capital and other requirements for new companies, and in November it allowed foreign investors to trade shares directly on theShanghai stock market for the first time... The risks toChina's economy have rarely been more visible. The workforce is aging more quickly than in other countries, because of theone-child policy, and businesses are borrowing money more rapidly than they are earning it... The growth of demand for energy and raw materials has slowed, more houses and malls are empty, and nervous Chinese savers are sending money overseas, to protect it in the event of a crisis... To maintain economic growth, China is straining to promote innovation... After China had spent years investing in science and technology, the share of its economy devoted to research and development surpassed Europe's... The era ofXi Jinping has defied the assumption that China's fitful opening to the world is too critical and productive to stall.
China as a society, a government, an economy and a culture is quite difficult for us to comprehend today. The changes are so rapid in cities likeBeijing andShanghai and the culture remarkably fluid... China is increasingly influential in the world and more and more people have hopes that China will be a leader... China has ended up playing a critical role ingeopolitics more quickly than anybody had anticipated.
The Chinese are rejecting western values and multiparty democracy... It seems very incongruous to be, on the one hand, so committed to fostering more competition and market-driven flexibility in the economy and, on the other hand, to be seeking more control in the political sphere, the media, and the Internet.
The leadership from the top over the last three American presidencies has steadily pushed US public opinion from being friendly towards China in the direction ofhostility. Intellectual property theft is a widely used reason for giving China a hard time. Yet in a recent survey made by theUS-China Business Council,intellectual property protection ranked sixth on a list of pressing concerns among American companies which trade with China. In 2014 China created its first specialized court to handle intellectual property cases. In 2015 plaintiffs brought before the court 63 cases. The court ruled for the foreign firms in all 63. China itself is clearly against the theft of business secrets.
How many people outside China are aware of the responsible way China acts internationally? Take theUN for example. According to the respected journalistFareed Zakaria, writing in this month’sForeign Affairs, “Beijing is now the second-largest funder of the UN andUN peacekeepers. It has deployed 2,500 peacekeepers, more than all the other permanent members of theSecurity Council combined. Between 2000 and 2008 it supported 182 of 190 Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on nations deemed to have violated international rules or norms”. This is a very different China than the one projected by many Western politicians and journalists. Usually, China is reported as being an impediment at theSecurity Council, using its veto fast and furiously. China has not gone towar since 1979. It has not used lethal military force abroad since 1988. Nor has it funded proxies or armed insurgents anywhere in the world since the early 1980s... this record of non-intervention China is unique among the world’s great powers. China has had no permanent military presence outside China until recently when it finished building its first overseas base... on theHorn of Africa to protect the shipping of its oil through the unstable political waters of thePersian Gulf and theIndian Ocean... China is angry when... US spy planes flying through Chinese airspace... China does not fly through US airspace. Its flights are on the other side of the world.
The United States,Arreaza told me, “has gone to the extent of carrying out modern acts ofpiracy, stopping ships in the middle of the ocean and stealing cargo that was paid for by theVenezuelan people.” Not only has theUnited States tried to blockade Venezuela, but it continues to interfere in Venezuela’s political affairs; this includes trying to undermine the legislative elections that will be held on December 6....China has largely disregarded theU.S. sanctions against Venezuela, which is the largest recipient of Chinese loans. “When China states that it will continue to trade with Venezuela,” Arreaza told me, “it is standing against theillegality of the U.S. coercive measures that are placed on Venezuela.” Venezuela’s difficulty in servicing the debt to China is seen in Beijing as the fault of the illegal sanctions regime, which has made normal economic activity impossible; China’s “patient capital” strategy and its understanding of the geopolitical pressure on Venezuela are key to understanding its relationship.
In September 2018, Venezuelan presidentNicolás Maduro visitedChina, where he met with China’s PresidentXi Jinping and signed a series of important agreements on trade and culture. Toward the end of his stay, Maduro said that the two countries had built “a relationship of mutual benefit, of shared gain.” Among these agreements was one that highlights the depth of thecollaboration: this was for China to participate with theGreat Venezuela Housing Mission (GMVV) to build more than 13,000 homes in the El Valle parish inCaracas. The focus of the international media has been on the oil trade between China and Venezuela, and in the aid from China to Venezuela; but the connections go deeper, into the social life of the people who are struggling to emerge from deprivation... China,Arreaza (foreign minister of Venezuela) says, trades with countries without interference in their internal affairs. This is quite different from the Western model, notably that overseen by theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF), which pushes for structural adjustment alongside loans. Because China respects thesovereign choices of a country, Arreaza told me, “China has proven to be a reliable partner for the region and it can continue to play a key role in our development for many years to come.”
The big picture in the Middle East isn'tIran orIraq. The big picture in theMiddle East is China. People don't understand that. They don't know what’s going on right now. It's about leveraging control over Middle-Eastern and central-Asian oil, in order to dictate the pace of China's economic growth over the next 30 years. Because China's the biggest threat in the eyes of theneoconservatives. It's this massiveChinese economy that's been expanding by leaps and bounds that’s going to threaten American global economic hegemony. Now I'm not saying this is what I believe, I'm just saying it's what's in the minds of these neoconservatives. You deal with China indirectly at this point in time because you don't want direct confrontation.
All of this self-serving is driving America and its vassals to war withRussia, which might also mean with China. The war would benuclear and be the end of the West, an act of self-genocide. The US national security establishment is so crazed thatTrump’s efforts to get off the war track and onto a peace track are characterized as treason and a threat to US national security... The Russians are aware that the accusations and demonization that they experience are fabrications. They no longer see the problem as one of misunderstandings that diplomacy can overcome. What they see now is the West preparing its populations for war. It is this perception for which the West is solely responsible that makes the situation today far more dangerous than it ever was during the longCold War.
We cannot, if we would, play the part ofChina, and be content to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our borders, taking no interest in what goes on beyond them, sunk in a scrambling commercialism; heedless of the higher life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk, busying ourselves only with the wants of our bodies for the day, until suddenly we should find, beyond a shadow of question, what China has already found, that in this world the nation that has trained itself to a career of un-warlike and isolated ease is bound, in the end, to go down before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities. If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world.
[W]hat isnationalism? And what nationalism is actually Western invention. Imperial China had no nationalism. Where do they get their ideas of nationalism? Well, they got their ideas ofnationalism from theJapanese, which emerged as a national state inthe 19. Well, where did the Japanese get their ideas about nationalism, which were then translated into Chinese? They got it from the Germans. So what they imported was a 19th-century version ofsocial Darwinism in whichrace is of the fundamental basis of nationality and there are very – when you hear Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders talking about cultural pollution, when you talk about the natural affinity of all Chinese people wherever they are, you begin to worry that there is this submerged, and sometimes not even so, some racialist component.
If you want to know what people are worried about look at what they spend their money on. If you’re afraid ofburglars you buy a burglar alarm. What are the Chinese spending their money on? We’re told from Chinese figures they’re spending on thePeople’s Armed Police, the internal security force is about as big as they’re spending on theregular military. This whole great firewall of Chinese, this whole massive effort to control theinternet, this effort to use moderninformation technology not to disseminateinformation, empowering individuals, but to make people think what you want them to think and to monitor their behavior so that you can isolate and suppress them. That’s because this is a regime which is fundamentally afraid of its own people. And it’s fundamentally hostile to them.
The Chinese are a great nation, incapable of permanent suppression by foreigners. They will not consent to adopt our vices in order to acquire military strength; but they are willing to adopt our virtues in order to advance in wisdom. I think they are the only people in the world who quite genuinely believe that wisdom is more precious than rubies. ~Bertrand Russell
The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment; the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.
Bertrand Russell,The Problem of China (1922), Ch. XII: The Chinese Character.
The Chinese are a great nation, incapable of permanent suppression by foreigners. They will not consent to adopt our vices in order to acquire military strength; but they are willing to adopt our virtues in order to advance in wisdom. I think they are the only people in the world who quite genuinely believe that wisdom is more precious than rubies. That is why the West regards them as uncivilized. ~Bertrand Russell
The Chinese are a great nation, incapable of permanent suppression by foreigners. They will not consent to adopt our vices in order to acquire military strength; but they are willing to adopt our virtues in order to advance in wisdom. I think they are the only people in the world who quite genuinely believe that wisdom is more precious than rubies. That is why the West regards them as uncivilized.
Bertrand Russell,The Problem of China (1922), Ch. XIII: Higher education in China.
The US is a force for division, not forcooperation... It's a force for trying to create anew cold war withChina. If this takes hold - if that kind of approach is used, then we won't go back to normal, indeed we will spiral into greater controversy and greaterdanger in fact. The US lost its step on5G, which is a critical part of the new digital economy. AndHuawei was taking a greater and greater share of global markets... The US concocted in my opinion, the view that Huawei is a global threat. And has leaned very hard on US allies... to try to break the relations with Huawei.
TheUS is a force for division, not forcooperation... Do I believe thatChina could do more to ease fears that are very real? I do.... The big choice frankly is in China's hands. If China iscooperative, if it engages indiplomacy, regional cooperation andmultilateralism…. then I think thatAsia has an incredibly bright future.
Regarding China...you have both the Democrats and Republicans taking an increasingly hostile posture... if you look at the recent comments ofXi Jinping, particularly after his virtual summit withJoe Biden, he has been really hitting the talking point that what is happening is that the United States is taking this neo-Cold War posture. I think he is entirely right. But I sort of see it in the same vein as you. China, the United States and Russia in particular are engaged in a classic capitalist battle for control of natural resources all throughout the world... I think China in particular is very concerned about the aggressive U.S. stance because I think China would be very happy to find a way to just sort of divvy up the world for domination in various regions. The United States is not going to accept that. The U.S. posture is pushing China and Russia into an even closer alliance akin to the relationship during the Cold War.
Some observers have already proclaimed thatChina will rule the world, This prospective is profoundly overstated and incorrect in my view... China has a long way to go before it becomes, if it ever becomes a trueglobal power, and it will never rule the world.
China is, in essence, a very narrow-minded, self-interested, realist state, seeking only to maximize its own national interests and power. It cares little for global governance and enforcing global standards of behavior, except its much-vaunted doctrine of noninterference in the internal affairs of countries. Its economic policies are mercantilist and its diplomacy is passive. China is also a lonely strategic power, with no allies and experiencing distrust and strained relationships with much of the world.
China is a very contradictory country... China punches way below its weight, it is not, itis free-riding... It is not contributing... China is a lonely power... Who wants to seek political asylum in China? Nobody.
The subsequent evolution of the Chinese state is one wherebureaucratic recruitment and rule became ever more routinized, and this occurred at the expense of hereditary lineages. In western Europe, after thefall of Rome rulers pursued a policy of giving grants of land in exchange for military service. These grants tended to be one-way transactions. Over time this led to the creation of a category of members of society with substantial autonomy. The presence of this group would play a prominent role in the early development of medieval assemblies. In China things pushed in the opposite direction. With the perfection of animperial examination system during theTang andSong dynasties, Chinese rulers had at their disposal a means of bureaucratic recruitment that did not depend on societal networks outside of their control. Being a member of the elite now meant being part of the state itself.
David Stasavage,The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today (2020), pp. 14-15
The Chinese people have only family and clan solidarity; they do not have national spirit...they are just a heap of loose sand...Other men are the carving knife and serving dish; we are the fish and the meat.
This is a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology, and the United States hasn’t had that before, it’s also striking that this is the first time thatwe will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian.
US military spending totaled $732 billion in 2019, nearly three times the $261 billion China spent. The US.. has around 800 overseas military bases, while China has just one... The US has many military bases close to China, which has none anywhere near the US. The US has 5,800 nuclear warheads; China has roughly 320. The US has 11 aircraft carriers; China has one. The US has launched many overseas wars in the past 40 years; China has launched none. ~Jeffrey Saches
America’s Unholy Crusade Against China,Jeffrey Sachs, (5 August 2020)
Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an anti-China speech that was extremist, simplistic, and dangerous. If biblical literalists like Pompeo remain in power past November, they could well bring the world to the brink of a war that they expect and perhaps even seek. According to Pompeo, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) harbor a “decades-long desire for global hegemony.” This is ironic... Pompeo’s zealous excesses have deep roots inAmerican history... Pompeo himself is abiblical literalist who believes that the end time, the apocalyptic battle betweengood and evil, is imminent. Pompeo described his beliefs...:America is aJudeo-Christian nation, the greatest in history, whose task is to fight God’s battles until the Rapture, when Christ’s born-again followers, like Pompeo, will be swept to heaven at theLast Judgment... Pompeo’s inflammatory anti-China rhetoric could become even more apocalyptic in the coming weeks, if only to fire up the Republican base ahead of the election.
According toPompeo [U.S. Secretary of State], Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) harbor a “decades-long desire for globalhegemony.” This is ironic. Only one country – the US – has a defense strategy calling for it to be the “preeminent military power in the world,” with “favorable regional balances of power in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and the Western Hemisphere.” China’s defense white paper, by contrast, states that “China will never follow the beaten track of big powers in seeking hegemony,” and that, “As economicglobalization, the information society, and cultural diversification develop in an increasingly multi-polar world, peace, development, and win-win cooperation remain the irreversible trends of the times.”
US military spending totaled $732 billion in 2019, nearly three times the $261 billion China spent. The US.. has around 800 overseas military bases, while China has just one (a small naval base inDjibouti). The US has many military bases close to China, which has none anywhere near the US. The US has 5,800 nuclear warheads; China has roughly 320. The US has 11 aircraft carriers; China has one. The US has launched many overseas wars in the past 40 years; China has launched none (though it has been criticized for border skirmishes, most recently with India, that stop short of war).
The world took relatively little notice of Pompeo’s speech, which offered no evidence to back up his claims of China’s hegemonic ambition. China’s rejection of US hegemony does not mean that China itself seeks hegemony. Indeed, outside of the US, there is little belief that China aims for global dominance. China’s explicitly stated national goals are to be a “moderately prosperous society” by 2021 (the centenary of the CPC), and a “fullydeveloped country” by 2049 (the centennial of the People’s Republic).
Moreover, at an estimated $10,098 in 2019, China’sGDP per capita was less than one-sixth that of the US ($65,112) – hardly the basis for global supremacy. China still has a lot of catching up to do to achieve even its basic economic development goals. Assuming that Trump loses in November’s presidential election, Pompeo’s speech will likely receive no further notice. The Democrats will surely criticize China, but without Pompeo’s brazen exaggerations. Yet, if Trump wins, Pompeo’s speech could be a harbinger of chaos. Pompeo’sevangelism is real, and white evangelicals are the political base of today’s Republican Party. Pompeo’s zealous excesses have deep roots in American history.
If Trump is defeated, as seems likely, the risk of a US confrontation with China will recede. But if he remains in power, whether by a true electoral victory, vote fraud, or even a coup (anything is possible), Pompeo’s crusade would probably proceed, and could well bring the world to the brink of a war that he expects and perhaps even seeks.
One of the greatest untold secrets of history is that the 'modern world' in which we live is a unique synthesis of Chinese and Western ingredients. Possibly more than half of the basic inventions and discoveries upon which the 'modern world' rests come from China. And yet few people know this. Why? The Chinese themselves are as ignorant of this fact as Westerners. From the seventeenth century onwards, the Chinese became increasingly dazzled by European technological expertise, having experienced a period ofamnesia regarding their own achievements. When the Chinese were shown a mechanical clock by Jesuit missionaries, they were awestruck.They had forgotten that it was they who had invented mechanical clocks in the first place!
Robert K. G. Temple -The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention (1986).
Arise! All those who don't want to beslaves! Let our flesh and blood forge our newGreat Wall! As the Chinese nation has arrived at its most perilous time, every person is forced to expel their very last roar.
[A]t a time when thecrisis of theCoronavirus pandemic is developing rapidly. [...] TheChinese government currently appears “successful” in its response, but in the first weeks thatthe new coronavirus appeared,the government offered the denialism typical of restorationistcapitalist bureaucracy, ignoring the warnings that could have reduced the number of deaths (including that ofLi Wenliang, a doctor who warned about the epidemic and was consequently accused by the authorities of “spreading rumors” before he died fromCOVID-19).China is the most extreme example ofauthoritarianism around the world, with its tightbureaucratic controlthat prevents vital news from leavingWuhan and other affected areas.
We have a 500 billion dollar deficit, trade deficit with China. We're going to turn it around and we have the cards, don't forget, we're like the piggy bank that's being robbed. We have the cards, we have a lot of power with China. When China doesn't want to fix the problem inNorth Korea we say "Sorry folks, you've got to fix the problem."Because we can't continue to allow China torapeour country, and that's what they're doing. It's the greatest theft in the history of the world.
NoCalifornia gentleman or lady ever abuses or oppresses a Chinaman, under any circumstances, an explanation that seems to be much needed in the east. Only the scum of the population do it; they and their children. They, and, naturally and consistently, the policemen and politicians, likewise, for these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as well as elsewhere in America.
A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist. So long as a Chinaman has strength to use his hands he needs no support from anybody; white men often complain of want of work, but a Chinaman offers no such complaint; he always manages to find something to do.
I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature... I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done to him.
Mark Twain, as quoted inMark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters (1973), by Maxwell Geismar, Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill, p. 98.
When our thousands of Chinese students abroad return home, you will see how China will transform itself. ~Deng XiaopingPeople who try to commitsuicide — don't attempt to save them! . . . China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people. (~1960) ~Mao ZedongIt's better to have reform than revolution, but in Chinese history this cycle repeats itself. ~Lifan Zhang
They [the Chinese] are immensely self-serving, as they would. But a the same time they have a quality that we need inSouthern Europe. Actually, I think everyone needs to have foreign direct investment by patientinvestors. They are patient investors. They don't come in to grab an asset for speculative purposes. They come in order to create a base on which to build and build and build. And their horizon is 20-30 years. What Europe has not done with Greece is to do what the Chinese were prepared to do to come there with their workers, with their engineers, and actully do some serious work.
They [the Chinese] are far more humanistic than theUnited States ever was. [...] Of course they're trying... they are peddling for influence, but they are non-interventionists. Absolutely non-interventionists in a way that Europeans, the West, has never managed to fathom. The Chinese never askedApple to go toShenzhen and produce all theiPhones, it wasSteve Jobs that decided that. It was not China that went toWashington DC and demanded that they buy a third of yournational debt. If they hadn't bought it, you would be in serious trouble. [...] When it comes to the influence of China outside its borders, it's quite remarkable that they don't seem to have any military ambitions. Instead of going into Africa with troops, colonially destroying the country, killing people like the West has done for the last hundred years, what they did was they went toAddis Ababa and they said to the government: "We can see you have problems with your infrastructure, we would like to build some new airports and upgrade yourrailway system, create atelephone system, and rebuild yourroads. And we will do this all for free." No strings attached. "We don't want anything from you". And they did. Why did they do it? Because this is soft power.
The deepening cold war between the US and China will be a bigger worry for the world than coronavirus, according to influential economistJeffrey Sachs. The world is headed for a period of "massive disruption without any leadership" in the aftermath of the pandemic, he told theBBC. The divide between the two superpowers will exacerbate this, he warned. TheColumbia University professor blamed the US administration for the hostilities between the two countries.
The United States and otherdemocratic nations do so much business with China that there is a tendency to turn a blind eye towards the Communist Party's abysmal human rights record. The Chinese Communist Party's strategy of liberalizing its national economy while harshly rejecting democracy has become the model for moderndictatorships.Hu Jintao and his party control all media in China, between 250,000 and 300,000 Chinese citizens, includingpolitical dissidents, are incarcerated in "reeducation-through-labor" camps and the conviction rate in normal criminal trials in 99.7 percent. Less than 5 percent of trials include witnesses.Amnesty International has reported that children have been bussed to public executions as field trips.
David Wallechinsky,Tyrants: The World's 20 Worst Living Dictators (2006), p. 2
There is a strange symmetry to China’stwentieth century, and much of it is linked to the ideological Cold War. At the beginning of the century, China’s republican revolution was overtaken by Communism and conflict. And at the end of the century, Communism was overtaken by money and markets. In between lay a terrible time ofdestruction and reconstruction, ofenthusiasm andcynicism, and of almost never-ending rivers of blood. What marks these Chinese revolutions most of all is their bloodthirst: according to a recent estimate, seventy-seven million Chinese died unnatural deaths as a result of warfare or political mass-murder between the 1920s and the 1980s, and the vast majority of them were killed by other Chinese.
Odd Arne Westad,The Cold War: A Global History (2017)
Chinese is the easiest language when it is learned at ease, dwelling on its spirit rather than on the individual expression. But for inquisitive questioners, this language provides vain pitfalls.
Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – theInternational Poverty Line as defined by theWorld Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million. With this, China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty.
One of the things we're trying to do is view the China threatas not just a whole-of-government threat, but a whole-of-society threat on their end, and I think it's going to take a whole-of-society response by us.
People who try to commitsuicide — don't attempt to save them! . . .China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people.
Attributed toMao Zedong byWang Li, “历史将宣告我无罪” (History Will Pronounce Me Innocent), manuscript, Beijing, 1993, p. 7. This source is a privately printed collection of letters and documents concerning Wang Li's expulsion from the CCP. Cited inMao's Last Revolution (2006) byRoderick MacFarquhar andMichael Schoenhals.
This experience and the historical experiences gained by the Party since its founding can be summarized as follows: Our Party must always represent the requirements for developing China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. These are the inexorable requirements for maintaining and developing socialism, and the logical conclusion our Party has reached through hard exploration and great praxis.
Jiang Zemin, work report at the Communist Party of China Congress (8 November 2002), as quoted inSelected Works of Jiang Zemin, Eng. ed., FLP, Beijing, 2013, Vol. III, p. 519.
A review of our party's seventy-plus-year history elicits an important conclusion. Our party earned the people's support during the historical periods of revolution, construction and reform because it always represented the requirements for developingChina'sadvanced productive forces, the orientation ofChina's advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of theChinese people. The party also earned popular support because it fought tirelessly to realize the fundamental interests of the country and the people by formulating a correct line, principles and policies. Today, humanity once again stands at the beginning of a new century and a new millennium. How our party can better effectuate theThree Represents under the new historical conditions is a major issue all Party comrades, especially high-ranking party cadres, must consider deeply... The Communist Party of China should represent the development trends of advanced productive forces, the orientations of an advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people of China.
We want to learn from the west aboutscience andtechnology and how to manage theeconomy, but this must be combined with specific conditions here. That's how we have made great progress in the last twenty years.
In front of a lot of princeling friends, I've said that, if the Communist Party can't take sufficient political reform in five or ten years, it could miss the chance entirely. As scholars, we always say it's better to havereform thanrevolution, but in Chinese history this cycle repeats itself. Mao said we have to get rid of the cycle, but right now we’re still in it. This is very worrying.
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