6 ms·

The best predictor for future behavior is past behavior: China is testing the waters, in some cases in a quite literal sense (South China Sea), and you're corre

by hnarn 6y ago

The best predictor for future behavior is past behavior: China is testing the waters, in some cases in a quite literal sense (South China Sea), and you're correct that how the world reacts to Hong Kong and the Xinjiang "re-education camps" will be seen as a vital piece of information in the future when deciding on how to proceed with other "problematic" regions: for example Taiwan, which in the case where strong-arming the island into obedience, most probably would require military intervention. Before you claim that this is unlikely or extreme, remember that thanks to the PRC, almost no countries in the world even recognize Taiwan as a country -- so how are you supposed to question the "invasion"? These actions can all be traced back to China's increased tendency towards authoritarianism, for example the elimination of the term limit for Xi Jinping in 2018,[1] which stands in contrast to China's economic liberalization in the early 1990s.[2] It's important to understand that this liberalization is more or less the sole reason China is the "young superpower" we see today (just look up the GDP numbers from 1990 onwards), so the question is how a reversal of this attitude will serve future Chinese interests. Although unconfirmed, there are claims that Xi's grip on power may be decreasing somewhat, and that there is "widespread opposition" from within the party, but for obvious reasons few are willing to speak out.[3] [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/world/asia/china-xi-jinping.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform [3]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/18/china-xi-jinping-facing-widespread-opposition-in-his-own-party-claims-insider https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/18/china-xi-jinpi...

spectramax 6y ago
You forgot that Chinese invasion on Indian borders left some 50+ people killed just 3 months ago. You can't give a pass by saying "They're just testing waters". Everything in war is testing waters.
- hnarn 6y ago
  I'm not "giving them a pass" for anything, that's your interpretation of what I wrote.
  - spectramax 6y ago
    I read it as "They're just testing waters, they have no intentions for further expansion". I am sorry if I misread it. If I didn't, then I strongly believe that China wants to expand its terrorial powers to SCS, Taiwan, disputed areas on the Indian, Bhutanese, Nepalese and Vietnamese borders.
baybal2 6y ago
I want to say that defence treaties, are a bit special in the context of USA. Why USA has historically entered into so many treaties? They reason is is because USA's constitutional arrangement makes it really hard for the US government to declare a war... on the paper. So, by giving a treaty, USA was giving the strongest assurance that by turning a treaty into its own law, it prevents the chance of anybody in the constitutional order of precedence stopping, or reneging on the obligated retaliation.
- roughly 6y ago
  That’s an important point. From a political standpoint, one of the purposes of the defense treaties has been to discourage allies from building up their own militaries. This was an explicit policy in the wake of WW2 to promote both US hegemony, but also to promote stability - the theory being a world with one dominant military power is less likely to see large wars like WW1 and WW2.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Pax Americana, like Pax Britannica before it. Wonder how much longer that can hold?
    - srtjstjsj 6y ago
      Until Pax China.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        *Pax Sinica if we want to be consistent with our Latin analogizing.
      - stickfigure 6y ago
        They're going to need a lot more reeducation camps for that.
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
legulere 6y ago
Capitalism is not incompatible with dictatorships. Pinochet is a common example, but also Nazi Germany had a working state capitalism, like China.
- toyg 6y ago
  Not structurally incompatible but typically suffering from stunted growth. Nazi Germany didn't go on enough to show its limits, but Franco's Spain or Pinochet's Chile struggled to grow until their strongman went away.
rz2k 6y ago
I have sympathy for the statement that lifting 500 million people out of abject, generational poverty ranks among the greatest humanitarian successes in history. At the same time local corruption, and the number of protests against those officials was an enormous problem and seemed to get remarkably little coverage. A mature legal system is the only reliable way to combat problems like corruption. A legal system is much more reliable than a single powerful executive. China could have gone beyond mere convergence in its economic success. Different egos are running things now than during the start of the economic reforms, but in a better timeline I think some successful institutions from Hong Kong would have been adopted in more areas of China. However, the west isn't in a position right now to say that in spite of it being harder work to run a system where political influence doesn't affect the legal system that strong institutions are the source of our prosperity. We're simultaneously in a period of dismantling established institutions, and less capable when it comes to managing crises than we used to be.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  Local corruption is the defacto mechanism CCP exploited to pull 500m out of poverty. Deng's entire model is harnessing corruption with bureaucratic incentives to forward development goals. This is posited by Yukon Huang, former World Bank director for China. He notes China is the only country where increased corruption is correlated to increased growth, everywhere else corruption leads to inefficient allocation. Also discussed in depth recently in China's Gilded Age by Yuen Yuen Ang, which breaks down corruption into four categories: https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Yuen-Yuen-drugs-analogy.jpg https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Yuen-... Chinese corruption focuses on access money (steroids) to coordinate massive development projects and a cadres ability to graft is directly correlated to their projects success. The flip side is pervasive corruption is socially destabilizing as recognize in the 2000s, which is why Xi inaugurated his office with the anticorruption campaign. Yes, there was some power consolidation involved, but most of the effort was genuine - CCDI has investigated close to 2,000,000 officials, even Xi doesn't have that many enemies. Despite some terrible human rights campaigns that affect <1% of the population, this is very much the "better" timeline. The legal system is being improved, it's _not_ (<-edit) going to be modelled after the west, the most optimistic outcome is Singapore, whose political institutions has trained 50k+ Chinese officials until a few years ago. Incidentally, Singapore style single party dictatorship was about the best HK could have ever hoped for - people keep insisting HK's role as financial centre is predicated on it's western values yet in the same breath suggest HK's loss will be Singapore's gain. Authoritarianism + capitalism are absolutely compatible. Your last paragraph hits the nail on the head, western institutions are failing. They don't have to be, but as long as they are, China will be more reassured in it's model.
mellow2020 6y ago
For the totalitarian claim to rewrite history all territories are ultimately problematic. > We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would require the control of the whole planet. - Hannah Arendt I would add that several totalitarian singularities, that each are closed off from one another or perceive each other through a completely controlled ideological filter, might also constitute such total control.

by hnarn 6y ago

spectramax 6y ago

You forgot that Chinese invasion on Indian borders left some 50+ people killed just 3 months ago. You can't give a pass by saying "They're just testing waters". Everything in war is testing waters.

hnarn 6y ago
I'm not "giving them a pass" for anything, that's your interpretation of what I wrote.
- spectramax 6y ago
  I read it as "They're just testing waters, they have no intentions for further expansion". I am sorry if I misread it. If I didn't, then I strongly believe that China wants to expand its terrorial powers to SCS, Taiwan, disputed areas on the Indian, Bhutanese, Nepalese and Vietnamese borders.

baybal2 6y ago

I want to say that defence treaties, are a bit special in the context of USA. Why USA has historically entered into so many treaties? They reason is is because USA's constitutional arrangement makes it really hard for the US government to declare a war... on the paper. So, by giving a treaty, USA was giving the strongest assurance that by turning a treaty into its own law, it prevents the chance of anybody in the constitutional order of precedence stopping, or reneging on the obligated retaliation.

roughly 6y ago
That’s an important point. From a political standpoint, one of the purposes of the defense treaties has been to discourage allies from building up their own militaries. This was an explicit policy in the wake of WW2 to promote both US hegemony, but also to promote stability - the theory being a world with one dominant military power is less likely to see large wars like WW1 and WW2.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Pax Americana, like Pax Britannica before it. Wonder how much longer that can hold?
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    Until Pax China.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      *Pax Sinica if we want to be consistent with our Latin analogizing.
    - stickfigure 6y ago
      They're going to need a lot more reeducation camps for that.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago

legulere 6y ago

Capitalism is not incompatible with dictatorships. Pinochet is a common example, but also Nazi Germany had a working state capitalism, like China.

toyg 6y ago
Not structurally incompatible but typically suffering from stunted growth. Nazi Germany didn't go on enough to show its limits, but Franco's Spain or Pinochet's Chile struggled to grow until their strongman went away.

rz2k 6y ago

I have sympathy for the statement that lifting 500 million people out of abject, generational poverty ranks among the greatest humanitarian successes in history. At the same time local corruption, and the number of protests against those officials was an enormous problem and seemed to get remarkably little coverage. A mature legal system is the only reliable way to combat problems like corruption. A legal system is much more reliable than a single powerful executive. China could have gone beyond mere convergence in its economic success. Different egos are running things now than during the start of the economic reforms, but in a better timeline I think some successful institutions from Hong Kong would have been adopted in more areas of China. However, the west isn't in a position right now to say that in spite of it being harder work to run a system where political influence doesn't affect the legal system that strong institutions are the source of our prosperity. We're simultaneously in a period of dismantling established institutions, and less capable when it comes to managing crises than we used to be.

dirtyid 6y ago
Local corruption is the defacto mechanism CCP exploited to pull 500m out of poverty. Deng's entire model is harnessing corruption with bureaucratic incentives to forward development goals. This is posited by Yukon Huang, former World Bank director for China. He notes China is the only country where increased corruption is correlated to increased growth, everywhere else corruption leads to inefficient allocation. Also discussed in depth recently in China's Gilded Age by Yuen Yuen Ang, which breaks down corruption into four categories: https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Yuen-Yuen-drugs-analogy.jpg https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Yuen-... Chinese corruption focuses on access money (steroids) to coordinate massive development projects and a cadres ability to graft is directly correlated to their projects success. The flip side is pervasive corruption is socially destabilizing as recognize in the 2000s, which is why Xi inaugurated his office with the anticorruption campaign. Yes, there was some power consolidation involved, but most of the effort was genuine - CCDI has investigated close to 2,000,000 officials, even Xi doesn't have that many enemies. Despite some terrible human rights campaigns that affect <1% of the population, this is very much the "better" timeline. The legal system is being improved, it's _not_ (<-edit) going to be modelled after the west, the most optimistic outcome is Singapore, whose political institutions has trained 50k+ Chinese officials until a few years ago. Incidentally, Singapore style single party dictatorship was about the best HK could have ever hoped for - people keep insisting HK's role as financial centre is predicated on it's western values yet in the same breath suggest HK's loss will be Singapore's gain. Authoritarianism + capitalism are absolutely compatible. Your last paragraph hits the nail on the head, western institutions are failing. They don't have to be, but as long as they are, China will be more reassured in it's model.

mellow2020 6y ago

For the totalitarian claim to rewrite history all territories are ultimately problematic. > We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would require the control of the whole planet. - Hannah Arendt I would add that several totalitarian singularities, that each are closed off from one another or perceive each other through a completely controlled ideological filter, might also constitute such total control.