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Re47: Meanwhile, in China
Retraice^1
China Part 1: Sketching China while trying to avoid the conclusion that World War III is coming.
Air date: Friday, 11th Nov. 2022, 11:00 PM Eastern/US.
The U.S. and China
While the U.S. is mired in infighting, and arguably in decline, China is in take-off mode, and naturally eyeing the top spot.
A China model
First, how should we think about China?
The most people with the most history, mostly doing well, except lately, and now making a comeback.
o 1.4 billion people striving;^2 o intense competition in business and life;^3 o government by a single party;^4 o risen in a U.S. world;^5 o speaking a different language.^6
The most relevant hypothesis is:
H4. China: `The U.S. is no longer the only superpower; war is likely.'^7
What is happing in China
A roughly chronological sketch:
* a bunch of stuff happened before....
* the Opium Wars and `the century of humiliation' (1839-1949);
* Mao: civil war ('27-'49), great leap forward ('58-'62, 10s of millions starved), cultural revolution ('66-'76, up to a million killed);
* Nixon visit (1972);
* Deng Xiaoping ('70s and '80s), economic reform, `hide and bide';
* the one-child policy;
* Jiang Zemin ('90s), economic reform, globalization;
* Hu Jintao (2000s), economic reform, the Internet;
* Economic miracle, Western companies trying to get in and profit, extraction resisted by China;
* ideas about the top spot: `Unrestricted Warfare', `The China Dream', `The 100-Year Marathon';
* Falun Gong persecution;
* Uyghurs in Xinjiang persecution;
* organ harvesting;
* surveillance state;
* Xi Jinping (2012, 2017, 2022...);
* corruption purge;
* constant outward pushing in the South China Sea, including building artificial islands;
* Belt-and-Road initiative;
* Hong Kong protests, `scholarism', more protests, millions in the streets, crackdown, National Security Law;
* Covid origins questions (wet market? lab leak?);
* zero-Covid policy and draconian lockdowns;
* tacit support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine;
* Evergrande debt crisis;
* Pelosi visit, military exercises over Taiwan;
* Is China now the #1 economy? Close enough.
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References
Retraice (2022/03/07). Re17: Hypotheses to Eleven. retraice.com.
https://www.retraice.com/segments/re17 Retrieved 17th Mar. 2022.
Footnotes
^1 https://www.retraice.com/retraice
^2 Some see a population crisis coming, as the one-child policy has caused a huge deficit in fertility, not to mention an imbalance of more men than women, and was itself a sort of genocide by forced sterilizations and abortions and infanticide.
^3 Coming up, as China has been, means huge opportunities for wealth and power. Also, a shortage of women means competition there, too.
^4 The Chinese Communist Party does not allow opposition. It's hard to imagine modern China, for better and for worse, without the CCP. They may be comparable to the Nazi Party, now or eventually. China is mostly not the CCP, but the CCP is in control.
^5 The post-World-War-II world has been dominated by the U.S., with some competition for a while from the USSR/Russia. This has been the environment of China's rise. Included in this environment are the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, and the U.S. Navy in the Pacific.
^6 The differences between Chinese and English (and any Indo-European languages) should not be underestimated. "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world," (Ludwig Wittgenstein). And remember, most of what is said and written in China is never translated.
^7 Retraice (2022/03/07).
