China.

China holds my interest. Those closest to me say I'm obsessed.

The New York Times prominently reports today And they don't mean that as a compliment on a new Brookings Institute study, "Addressing U.S.-China Strategic Distrust."  The study gets prominent reporting because a co-author is Wang Jisi, an adviser to the Center, and thus reveals what PRC officials really think.  Although I have downloaded the study this post is based on the Times article summarized below because I am impatient as well as...interested.

1. China is more assertive in the world. 

2. That's because the Center is more confident of China's capabilities based on post-Deng economic growth.

3. The Center is not impressed with the U.S. as a model for China.

     A. The U.S. is in decline economically and in world influence.

     B. Internal U.S. politics is increasingly polarized.

4. Americans are nosey people with a bone in their brain and should not be raising human and political rights issues with China.

5. The Center has no intent to liberalize human and political rights. 

6. Sino-American economic and world influence competition is zero-sum.

7. China will win the sum and the U.S. will win the zero.

8. Sino-American competition is likely to develop into hostility, maybe into military conflict but not necessarily.

The entire outlook is of course plausible, Mr. Wang and co-author Kenneth Lieberthal are rational, informed analysts. Numbers 1 and 5 are factually true and obvious. 

Number 3 is also true as far as it goes. That is, China does not see the U.S. as a model. 3A and 3B are undoubtedly the reasons China does not see the U.S. as a model.  3A is not true in my opinion and 3B, while true, is not relevant if one believes that America is not in decline. 3B is relevant to those who are paranoid and see a one-party state as the best way forward.

I don’t find the analysis in number 3 particularly cogent. This strikes me as boilerplate. It was said America was in decline in the 1960’s and ‘70’s during and after Vietnam. Henry Kissinger believed America-as-Athens might succumb to Russia-as-Sparta. In the, what was it, the ‘80’s, there was a book by some guy—Paul Kennedy?-- that was all the rage.  The cover imagery was the thesis: it showed a platform with three steps, like in the Olympics. John Bull was stepping off the platform entirely; Uncle Sam was stepping off the “gold medal” top step, and a figure carrying a Japanese flag was ascending to the top step.  And I bought a lot of stock in a mutual fund called the “Japan Fund” and lost a lot of money.  But “past success is no guarantee of future success.”  Nothing lasts forever and China is a plausible candidate to be next up on the winner’s step. But I don’t think so.  And that’s because of number 2.

Number 2 surprises me: “confident,” the Center is confident.  I don’t see “confidence” in China’s soul.  China was dysfunctional for 3,000 years; they have been functional for 30 and Chinese are a very history-conscious people. As the People’s Republic, China was as dysfunctional, incompetent, and murderous as any regime in human history from 1949-1976.  Now they’ve had economic success for 30 years and they’re confident?  No.  Or at least not the people; the Center may be confident but not the people. Historically they have never competed. Chinese have a slavish mentality. They obey. When the Center tells the people to go do something they do it. This works particularly well in the catch-up phase of economic development, which is the phase China is in.  "See that stuff over there?  Go make stuff like that."  They will do it. Look at the Beijing Olympics. They figured out what Hollywood did and out-did Hollywood.  They're great at working off blueprints; blueprints are orders and they obey orders. Here's what pains me:  it's imitation and imitation is fake. This is why I say China today is not real.  China is not real.   Imitation is not creation.  To move to the next phase of economic development, Chinese have to create. A modern post-industrial economy must continually create: new products, new ideas to stimulate demand for new products.  Chinese have the ability to do this by virtue of being human just like Americans.  Historically they haven't done it and the slavish mentality is one key reason.  But history need not be destiny.

I see pain, so much pain, in China’s soul, so much sorrow. I look in those eyes and I see it; I hear it in their voices. The Chinese population is still half rural. All of those huge cities and half the people still live in the countryside*  The West, and I certainly, know virtually nothing about rural Chinese. For three millennia the peasants of China have survived, little more. In my oft-stated view Chinese are survivors, not achievers, not competitors. For these reasons I do not believe Number 7.  I don’t believe number 8 on this ground either and because China historically has not been nearly as imperial as many other nations, nor as aggressive. Nor even interested.  China did not explore. If the authors are correct that China and America are locked in competition and that competition may turn “antagonistic,” I am confident as China’s American competitor and antagonist. I am more confident that my antagonist is confident. 

Number 6 puzzles me. Economic competition is hardly ever zero-sum. That was at the root of Harry Truman’s desire for a “one-handed” economic advisor.  There’s almost always an “on the other hand.”  Even with the enormous trade deficit the U.S. runs currently with China, there’s some benefit to the U.S., more supply, cheaper goods (but see below). Maybe it’s because the Center fundamentally doesn’t understand economics. Wouldn’t be the first time. There is something though about this view that I’ve read somewhere, maybe in Kissinger’s book.  If survival is at your soul, do you not see more than one winner possible?

Number 4 causes schizoid thinking in Americans, from bloggers to policy makers, even in Henry Kissinger, the champion of realpolitik in Sino-American relations.  Last year (I think it was) when Hu Jintao visited Washington I wrote here that the Administration should not talk human rights with Hu, that America had made the decision to play with China and should accept the repression as something we can and should do nothing about.  Except decide not to play with them. The latter no one seriously advocates.  I wonder.

Human rights are important values to Americans.  That’s why they’re part of our foreign policy sometimes.  We really believe in them and we really don’t like to see people slaughtered or repressed, even in far-away China.  And when we “play” with another country, we feel guilty if that other country slaughters or represses its people because then we have “enabled” that slaughter and repression to some degree.  All for money (trade, “play”).

What if we think of it this way:  how much money has America made from playing with China, and is that enough to offset our guilty feelings (everything has a price; guilty feelings are a thing).  At the macro-economic level, we’ve lost money. Our trade deficit with China last year was $295 billion. So we’ve paid the Center $295 billion (last year) for them to repress their people.  I think it is factual that if the U.S. decided, “You know what, you disgust us, we’re not going to trade with you anymore,” China would be hurt economically more than the U.S. would.  Actually, it’s factual, it is undeniable.  That would throw off Lieberthal’s and Wang’s predictions. I have thought about this.  I have thought about this as seriously as an idiot blogger can. After I read Kissinger’s On China, I re-read parts of Margaret Macmillan’s Nixon and Mao. Macmillan asks the question whether Nixon, Kissinger, and America gave up too much in 1972 and thereafter.  My recollection is she didn't answer the question.  She was troubled by it.

I’m troubled by it. I have found myself turn away in disgust at times. China’s assertiveness in the last few years has annoyed me. I have found myself sometimes wistful for those pre-1972 days when China was closed. Maybe it is always thus with obsessions.

*Changed April 7, 2012 from "The Chinese population is--60%? 70%?, some astonishing figure—rural. All those huge cities and China is still largely a rural nation," based on the CIA estimate of 53% in 2010  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html, and Wikipedia's estimate of 48.7% at the end of 2011.