China Blue
My college friend, Fareed Zakaria, has an excellent and thoughtful piece in Newsweek, in which he describes the current, disquieted mood in China.
On the one hand, they're feeling strong, even a little arrogant. On the other, a little lost. There's inflation, massive internal migration, labor trouble, breakout areas in the Muslim western provinces. On the cusp of becoming a great power, China needs to do some serious reflection about its goals and responsibilities in the wider world.
Yet Fareed doesn't seem concerned by the growing popularity of the Han Revivalist movement. Others aren't so sanguine. A China that integrates itself into the world's power structure is probably the best we can hope for. But a China that sees its ascent as a natural evolution, an historical and racial inevitability -- worse, a chance to settle old scores with its western rivals -- seems equally likely.
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Jun '10
Re: China Blue
Rob, happy birthday. Just signed on and paid up. Good product here. I think the problem with Zakaria's logic is that it is completely reasonable and rational, which as I have learned after 11 years at NEXT Media having a few run-ins with the Chinese, is not how to judge what actions will come from the middle kingdom.
I wouldn't hazard a guess of what will happen, but I would lean your way rather than to a more rosy outcome.
Re: China Blue
Thanks, Mark. Glad you like the place. And we seem to be talking about China a great deal these days -- maybe it's just because of my Sinophile obsessions. But you and I have the same slightly pessimistic -- well, okay, cautious -- view of China's next 20 years.
How bad, if you care to predict, do you think the Han national movement is going to be for us?
Jun '10
Re: China Blue
Fareed already gave the answer - ambivalent. China will always reflexively focus on its internal affairs over anything else. I would imagine outside of economics, the only national security threat or danger to China is its population unrest.
Foreign affairs is a game to China, one they enjoy playing and frankly one that they are easily winning.
My take is, outside of economic stability and access to resources, the Chinese couldn't care less about the modern political struggles of the international community. Except perhaps to keep these debates raging, keep rivals busy, and to shift attention continually away from itself.
Feb '10
Re: China Blue
According to Generational Dynamics theory, the nationalism in China can only rise until it causes a major crisis war. The theory asserts that the current generation will grow increasingly strident and less willing to compromise, because they are younger and have not been through the hardships of the last great war and don't know the horrific consequences of war.
I'm also a Sinophile and have spent time there and studied the language for several years. The trend of nationalism is already worrying, but it would really take a major uptick if China's economy tanks for any reason. (An event which is also predicted by Generational Dynamics theory and which is, in fact, inevitable-- nothing can continue to grow so fast without hitting a wall at some point.) Someone will find a way to blame it on outside forces, especially the United States, and demand that the government respond. The government will have no choice but to follow the will of the people.
Re: China Blue
Here's my theory, for what it's worth: the worry about an agressive Chinese military -- ie, a war with its neighbors or trading competitors -- is mitigated, I hope, by the results of the One Child policy. Lots of one-child families. And in China, children aren't just the future, they're a family's chief financial asset -- children are expected to take care of their parents in their old age.
So how will Chinese parents feel if a lot of their children are suddenly killed or wounded in a foreign or almost-foreign war?
China has experienced about 60 years of stability -- if you ignore the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen movement. And stability isn't really a Chinese tradition. In the last few decades, Chinese society has undergone major changes -- urban migration on a scale never before seen in human history; declining poverty; the gutting of a communist system; new ties with the west -- it's hard to imagine all of that change is just going to be digested with some kind of trouble.
So, I predict a certain amount of nastiness. But internally.
Re: China Blue
Lots of one-child families...and lots of surplus boys. Guys who will never get married. Swelling the ranks of the Army. I know, I know, pessimism.
Re: China Blue
Yikes. Good point, James. There are going to be a lot of young, unmarried Chinese men. Where are they going to find women?
Vietnam.
Which isn't a perfect solution.
May '10
Re: China Blue
I waited to comment because I wanted the first-hand dope from the Front. Yes, there will be internal instability in China due to the gender imbalance and also due to pending economic issues- the current cheap labor-export-focused model is already beginning to experience some issues.
I disagree with all the fevered worries over Chinese foreign adventurism. If you look at what they actually do, it is all seeking market availability of resources to feed their economy. They invest and buy stuff, they don't rattle the sabers. Evbery story IU read about China in Africa, Canada, or Greece, I stop and imagine how it would read if you replaced "China" with "US" or "France" and then ask if I would find it threatening. The answer: Big country, watching out for its own interests. Expansionist? I don't see much of that.
The well-publicized nationalism is indeed real- but long pre-dates Mao. For those who obsess about Taiwan, there are some Georgetown people here, go read a couple of papers on China-Taiwan by one of the world's foremost experts right there- Nancy Bernkopf Tucker. (continued below)
May '10
Re: China Blue
Now, some commentary from China:
"First, there is a strong sense of nationalism in China. This is absolutely not new, but people often treat it like it is (because the people's freedoms are suppressed, they respond with nationalism, etc.). For example, no, the Chinese people have not let go of the idea that Taiwan should be part of China. But if you had asked them that in 1910 (when Japan controlled Taiwan), they would have said the same thing. After the Belgrade Embassy bombing in 1999, when Japan issued its latest non-apology in 2005, or international news attacks on Chinese actions in Tibet in 2008, there were mass movements that were nationalist in character led by the Han majority. Nothing new, but certainly a feature and a factor in dealing with China.
"The other thread is the Han culture revivalist thread, which strikes me as pretty innocuous, to be honest. Most of the images associated with China - women in those tight, high-collar dresses called "qipaos" or shaved heads with queues - were Manchu in origin - not the nationality of the majority."
May '10
Re: China Blue
"This spring the Confucian temple in town here had an exhibit on traditional "han" dress, which was about the style of clothes in the Han dynasty. It argued that China is one of the only traditional societies that has let its dominant culture and traditions be supplanted by that of the minority. On the other hand, people trying to incorporate inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang into the country don't always see this as bad thing - they'd say look, we've always had minorities, and always adopted elements from their cultures. The only real danger I see from this movement is a potential clash between the Han and the minorities (most likely one of the three I just mentioned) if Chinese nationalism became Han nationalism, though given the fact that over 90% of the 1.3 billion Chinese people are ethnically Han, you've gotta like their odds. That would not mean anything good for the minorities, of course, but such a clash could mean losing a place like Tibet, so you've got to think there's going to be some restraint there."
May '10
Re: China Blue
"Now, the whole Han thing could be a myth already, according to the Chinese government: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-02/08/content_9445881.htm "
"If there is another, different, movement afoot, I don't know what it is."
I'll be in both China and Vietnam between next week and the end of the month- if I see the carrier battle groups preparing for the invasion of first Taiwan, then Los Angeles, I'll call back. But I seriously believe that most of the Center-Right (not Rob, he's actually been there) has a bad hangover on "Red China", based on little exposure and lots of "Human Events" type commentary.
Go stand in Tiananmen Square- you fight off the merchants, not the Red Guard. Until a local coffee firm got the contract, there was a Starbucks inside Forbidden City.
These are not expansionist warriors, people. As I mentioned once before, go eat at the "Cultural Revolution Theme Restaurant." If you did an "Obama Chicago Machine Theme Restaurant" in Washington, you would experience more government repression than you do in Nanjing.
Are they pussycats? Of course not. But they are not Stalin or Mao either. They are more like Syngman Rhee in 1970.