PROMETHEAN ANTAGONIST

Like many, I just assume that "the 21st century will belong to China" -- that America's brief time as "top dog" will be overridden by the usual forces of history that compel change. Maybe I'm wrong...

City Journal recently posted an excellent article that affords some rare insight into the reality of China as a looming super power.

Some excerpts:

"...But China’s success is, at least in part, a mirage. True, 200 million of her subjects, fortunate to be working for an expanding global market, increasingly enjoy a middle-class standard of living. The remaining 1 billion, however, remain among the poorest and most exploited people in the world, lacking even minimal rights and public services. Popular discontent simmers, especially in the countryside, where it often flares into violent confrontation with Communist Party authorities. China’s economic “miracle” is rotting from within..."

"...Before the totalitarian reign of Mao Zedong and his immediate successors, never in human history had an entire nation been under such intense surveillance. The Chinese not only had to speak alike; they had to think alike. The Communist Party regulated every aspect of private life. In the sixties, it even sought to anesthetize all feeling, commanding hundreds of millions of Chinese to repeat mindlessly the slogan of the day; one of Mao’s sayings would have to preface any “personal conversation.” A few second-rate books were the only permissible reading material, and eight revolutionary operas provided the sole entertainment. Placed everywhere—city squares, railway stations, factories, and offices—Party loudspeakers blared martial music from dawn to dusk, making it physically impossible for people to speak or think. The state imprisoned and killed untold numbers of its subjects..."

"...Many goods that China produces are worthless, Mao Yushi reminds me—especially those made by public companies. About 100,000 such Chinese enterprises continue to run in the old Maoist style, churning out substandard products because they’ve got to hit the targets that the Party sets and provide employment to those the Party cannot dismiss, not because they’re responding to any market demand. Most public-sector firms don’t even have real accounting procedures, so there’s no way of ascertaining profitability. “China is not a market economy,” Mao [Yushi] says bluntly.

The Party gives the banks lists of people to whom loans should go, and the rationale is frequently political or personal, not economic. Indeed, in many cases, banks are not to ask for repayment. That investment decisions obey political considerations and not the law of the market is the Chinese economy’s central flaw, responsible at least in part, Mao Yushi believes, for the large number of empty office buildings and infrequently used new airports and an unemployment rate likely closer to 20 percent than to the officially acknowledged 3.5 percent..."

"...Still, hasn’t growth created an independent middle class that will push for, and eventually obtain, greater political freedom? Many in the West think so, looking to the South Korean example, but Mao Yushi isn’t convinced. What exists in China, he argues, is a class of “parvenus,” newcomers whose purchasing power depends on their proximity to the Party rather than their education or entrepreneurial achievements. Except for a handful of genuine businessmen, the parvenus work in the military, public administration, or state enterprises, or for firms ostensibly private but, in fact, owned by the Party. The Party picks up the tab for almost all their imported luxury cars, two-thirds of their mobile phones, and three-quarters of their restaurant bills, as well as their call girls, their “study” trips abroad, and their lavish spending at Las Vegas casinos. And it can withdraw these advantages at any time..."

Of course, the author may be wrong. China may still not surprise us all and become the 21st century's economic and cultural giant. That would of course make a lot of people happy. After all, look at all the horrible things America has done (in the hyperbolic minds of partisans). And China's "revolution" only killed somewhere around 60 million people -- cut 'em some slack.

It would be nice if the citizens of China toppled their antiquated authoritarian state. If they became the new century's guardian of individual freedom and a new catalyst to the pursuit of happiness I couldn't care less if they became the world's leading power. Unfortunately, for now at least, they're still just another communist gulag in spite of the neon and international fast food chains.

Real capitalism and real self-government is still more closely approximated by the much maligned U.S.A. So, like it or not, that may be where the big power continues to lie for some time.

Many intellectuals and academics will surely be disappointed.

# posted by Promethean Antagonist @ 3:36 PM