China could yet become a superpower. But a surging economy can’t mask social strains that only political reform can address.
There’s an old Chinese fable that was the inspiration behind Andrew Nathan and Robert Ross’s 1990s book, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress.
Centuries ago, a king whose city was about to be attacked decided the only thing he could do to save it was to order the gates be flung open. He then told the attacking force that the city was empty and that they were welcome to enter. Suspicious that the king’s words were a trick to tempt them into an ambush, the enemy forces decided to move on and the king’s empty city was saved.
These days, many looking at China from the outside see its towering economic statistics and assume that this growing wealth isn’t just about money—that it’s about power as well. After all, a country with growth rates in excess of 10 percent per annum that’s now the world’s second-largest economy, the largest holder of foreign reserves, the largest exporter and largest consumer of energy—surely it’s also a geopolitical powerhouse?
But take a look inside the gates, beyond the headline economic figures, and two points emerge that cast doubt on this notion of overwhelming strength.
One is the amount of money that’s being spent on internal security. According to its official budget, China spent about $80 billion on defence in 2009 (although the United States and others would argue that even this massive figure underestimates the true scale). But more remarkably, it spent almost as much—$75 billion—on internal security.
Keeping the lid on Xinjiang and Tibet has clearly required massive amounts of central government cash, as has policing China’s restless provinces and dealing with public unrest. Indeed, those who venture outside the grand cities of Shanghai and Beijing see a country with surprising levels of fractiousness and casual violence. On a recent visit to the central city of Xian, for example, I was intrigued to see an enormous sign over a side street bearing the words (in English and Chinese) `Centre for Receiving Petitions.’ It seems there are enough disgruntled citizens in the city and the surrounding areas to warrant a whole street to deal with them.
The second indicator of trouble ahead is the way elite leaders themselves are speaking. Yes, it’s true that Politburo members and their local equivalents fill their public pronouncements with rosy statistics. Like their Maoist and Dengist forebears, they live in a world still infected with Utopianism—things will always get better, the harvests will get bigger, the heaven on earth promised under Marxism (albeit now called Socialism with Chinese characteristics) will be realised one day (even if that day has to be pushed further and further into the future).
Photo Credit: World Economic Forum
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FanDuCai
It might be months late, but it is nonetheless worth noting that what those Communists say and what they do behind the scenes are two entirely different matters. I’m Chinese too, and I can’t for the love of me understand why China and India, two great ancient and continuing civilizations, can’t get along as good neighbors. I’m wondering why Beijing is sending secret agents to Indian separatists in the south? Isn’t that exactly what China is railing about–the CIA involved in destabilizing other countries? China always resorts to historical maps when claiming contested territories, but that’s not entirely right. If historical occupation can be used as basis, then Mongolians can claim damn near half of the planet due to the conquests of Genghis and Kublai Khan. This macho posturing I can only attribute to one thing: Communists being blinded by their own success, and the resulting hubris from 2 decades of white-hot economic growth. The great game ain’t over, so let’s not get our heads too full of hot air, my dear brothers.
david kerr
The Chinese won’t fight because of the one child family. Losing him means a family losing their retirement plan. These spoiled brats are treated like kings. The PLA is a good place to invest to improve technology, like airliners spun off jets.
John Chan
@TheZeitgeist, yes, China has its up and down through its thousands years of history. When China was strong it roamed around, when it was weak, it got kicked badly. But China is resilient and tough; in human history, China is the only great nation that is still around and feared. All other great powers, Romans, British Empire, Mongols, Imperial Japan, etc. all faded away. In order to recover its confidence, China challenged the US with inferior weapons and courage in Korea, broke the US arrogance and forced the US into retreat. Unfortunately the courage and confidence of China shown in Korea War is not enough to maintain the integrity of its sovereignty. It seems another test is needed to show who is better as you challenged “If Chinese are not careful about who they piss off and why, Ass-beating of the millenium.” As expressed in the China Anthem, Chinese are prepared and willing to let our flesh and blood forge into our new Great Wall!, TheZeitgeist, are you prepared and do you have the same determination as the Chinese? Or you are just a paper tiger?
TheZeitgeist, you sound menacing and full of racial prejudice, are you a member of KKK or the Fans of Sarah Palin? Those clubs are no good to mental health; they are bad for the peace and prosperity of the world. Anyhow if you are an American (the US), the existence of the US is too short for a nation to be proven itself in the historical timeframe. A Russian Prognosticator said the US would break into 6 countries.
Sunay mahajan
Hello,hi,namaskar to all my brothers n sisters..
There’s a lot of misunderstanding in chinese about india.
We indians never hate anyone for any reasons.
We still hav fans who support portugal n england in FIFA, those countries who had ruled us once.
We dont hate chinese people, but the chinese govrnment.
Bcoz it is expansionist n we as a neighbour have to be alert..
And another thing we never hate chinese culture..
Take for instance chinese food,eaten by each of us..
So this enemity about china has come only in this 2 years because of its latest issues on army..
jai hind
John Chan
As a Chinese I am confused too, why are there so many rhetoric full of rancor towards China seems coming from Indians and Vietnamese? Are we, the Indian and Chinese, being fooled by the treacherous Westerners again? Would you accept the comments from jimabc99 on Oct 15, 2010 at 3:03 pm as sincere and genuine explanation of China? And change your prejudice against Chinese government simply because it is run by a majority party named CCP (there are non CCP parties in China occupying important government posts.)? Would you accept that Japan is the aggressor in the Diaoyu islet incident and stop labeling China as expansionist? Would you accept that the modernization of China’s military is to prevent China itself from being plunged again by the Japan and the West into the suffering it has endured in the last 150 years? Would you accept China’s military buildup is to counter overwhelming firepower possessed by the US and Japan, particular the US keeps on harassing China with its nuclear aircraft carrier battle groups? If you and your compatriots do accept, long live the friendship of India and China, if your answer to any one of these questions a No or a maybe. Then your words ring hollow, it will be a long rocky road ahead of us to build a peaceful and trustworthy relationship between India and China.
captainjohann
Hi John,
Your comments are something which made me feel sorry and anxious.You are a much bigger economy than India and India stand nowhere when it comes to infrastructure.But we donot feel jealous but feel as an Asian that another Asian country has achieved wonders.But now go back and you will see we Asians loved japan when it cloberred russia. But the rape of nanking by Japan and you may not know the name of Dr.Kotnis. Yes He is an Indian Doctor who spent time in Nanking and helped the Chinese against the wishes of British rulers.Again think of the days when USA was having the kaumintang clique as P5 member in the Security council and how India faught vociferously for Communist china to be made full member because I think you are young and you donot read history and you read American propaganda only and American think tank papers.It is India which led non aligned group to support full membership for China but today how you repay a nation of 1 billion and your neighbour because you cannot even think of India as another great asian nation rising.Again go back in history and do you remeber the names of Fa-Hien or Phuang Psuang? They are the Chinese scholars who came to India and studied at Nalanda.Now there are 3 lkh Indian students in China studying medicine while there are 15000 Chinese students in Indian technical institutions.But you have complex about western nations and your young prefer the western and American learning centres just like our young. But we have open media and we donot only follow American experts.We also read peoles daily along with NY times.I want you to show maturity of a bigger economy instead of thinking about our media which rightly points out your Army’s incursion in lADAKH AND aRUNACHAL pRADESH which you have occupied with your superior military might and which your ligitimacy comes from your annexation of tibet which your country called an “AUTONOMOUS REGION”. The recent politicking by your foreign office in kashmir by stapling visa which your nation started doing only in 2008 shows, your behaviour is changing proportionatelly to your economic might.This naturally worries India. I agree US is supporting Taiwan regime but not India but US cannot fight even ragtag Taliban in Afghanistan and running away and do you think it will fight for Taiwan. You are usning this ruse to strenthen your army beyond your border projection.
CORDELIA L
As a Chinese senior high student, I do hope that China will get quite strong one day. But yes, I am confused a lot too about how strong China is for the time being. We have really modern city while there are still many poverty stricken areas(e.g.mountainous areas, we get plenty of them).The poverty gap is getting worse, not only in China,but also around the world.We must find a solution to tackle this problem.
BernieMc
Mr. Chan; You said, “… change your prejudice against Chinese government simply because it is run by a majority party named CCP (there are non CCP parties in China occupying important government posts.)” Please Mr. Chan, you have dropped your facade – looking inwards for decades has taken its’ toll – we know, very well, that there is just one CCP or, perhaps, there are many sub-CCPs throughout the country, but they are of the one CCP nevertheless.
You must be aware that many non-Chinese writing here are actually living and working in the PRC.
Huang
Conventional wisdom or informations disseminated were 98 percent distorted. It is extremely difficult and most of time taken as the bad guy’s words against the good guys true statements. This is exactly the prevailing atmosphere in the world of medias and information. Even though the World has already entered a new phase of truth seeking revolution in which individuals,elements,groups,and nations no longer have the privilege to hide behind a curtain or skirts because they are pressumed to be a good guy when in fact they the crooks who needs to dealt with while the good,stable minded,kind,and just plain human are being portaited as dictators,mad,unstable,or not trust worthy. In times,those who take informations spreading around at face value will get a lesson on how not to be blinded by their own urge to be accepted as one among crooks. As for those who like to use a cheap monetery amount to relate to another human being, they just reveal a thing or two about themselves already(they will sell themselves for a price,just like crooks and liers). No offense crooks,you are what what you are and mankind will always look you down.
John Chan
Kerry Brown is a senior fellow with the Asia Programme at Chatham House in London. Chatham House, the informal name of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. Chatham House, a think tank, exercised a profound influence on British policy in the Middle East from the 1920s through the 1950s. In these decades, Britain brought an imperial order to much of the Middle East, only to abandon the region to the depredations of an intolerant nationalism. Kerry Brown’s publications follow the rules of Chatham House, but this time the target is China instead of Middle East.
The problems such as “environmental problems, corruption, embezzlement, repression, inequality, ethnic tensions and social imbalances” described by Kerry are daily occurrence in the US, EU, India, Japan, etc. In countries other than China, those problems are the expression of democracy; but in China, Kerry described those problems as potentially devastating minefield and symptoms of imminent collapse of CCP and China government. Wen Jiabao said in Japan that there is no small matters in China due to its population size, the result of a policy would be 10 times severe if the government is not careful. The author criticized the Chinese government’s cautious approach toward policies as incompetence because of they are CCP. It seems the author is unable to distinguish government administrative issues form ideological issues. The author traveled and gathered information freely in China, instead of shedding light on the improvement of freedom, living standards, and human rights in the last 40 years in China, the author uses the freedom to undermine China’s sovereignty in his publications. The author couldn’t hide his rancor toward China. Every subject in the article ended with the sentiment that China is going fail miserably. The whole article is written from armchair general mindset, perhaps the small size of UK limited the author’s ability to comprehend the complexity of running a nation, which is 20 times of the country, the author lives in. At the same time Chatham House’s rules make it harder for the author to make balanced and objective criticism about China’s economy and political progress past, present and the future. I hope China is strong enough to survive the onslaught from the neo-cons and imperialists, and achieve its goal to rise peacefully.
my2cents
@John Chan, you are my Hero.
FanDuCai
Well well well, look at the two brothers from the wu mao dang (50-cent army) backslapping each other. Hey JohnChan, it’s frank criticism of China’s great environmental and political problems. Yes they happen everywhere, but you don’t media supervision, arrests of dissidents without due process, torture of activists, melamine-tainted milk, lead-infused paint, and pork meat that is so full of bacteria it glows in the dark in the US, Japan and other countries, do you? These are symptoms of systemic failure, and yet because it’s foreigners saying it, you immediately scream “foreign oppression!”
hk
jim1980….india has a free media (both print and tv) with severe competition. Your theory of large corporations nexus, etc is your personal imagination. Opinions and Analysis are similar because, that is what the facts indicate. In other words, it shows that everyone has more or less unanimous opinion on that issue. What is the problem with this ?
John Chan
@hk, you said “Opinions and Analysis are similar because, that is what the facts indicate. In order words, it shows that everyone has more or less unanimous opinion on that issue.” Let me apply your logic to the famous story “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Suppose the media in India is the swindler, the opinions and analysis are the old minister and the adults on the street, and suppose the general public of India is the emperor. Both the swindler, the old minister and the adults are looking at the same fact, emperor’s new clothes (fabricated facts). The emperor won’t find out that he has nothing on (lied upon by the fabricated facts) until the small child yelled. How about that small child is China who is telling the truth, it wants to rise peacefully, not as the facts produced by the media and professional opinions and analysis in India?
Let’s use your logic to look at a real story. In 1962, CIA was the swindler, forward policy is emperor’s new clothes, N.B.Mullik was the old minister, both CIA and Mullik looked at the same facts that China was weak and would not respond to the forward policy forcefully, so they told the emperor, Nehru, the new clothes was wonderful, it fitted him marvelously. Unfortunately the emperor did not realize he had nothing on even the small child, Zhou Enlai, yelled for peaceful solution for the border issues. The matter of fact is that everybody could look at the same wrong fact and come out with the same wrong conclusion, unless somebody from outside tells them otherwise.
So your specious logic is no good to the peace and prosperity for India and China, because there are many more swindlers, such as Kerry Brown, pumping out toxic information in the names of academic, research publications, institutions, etc. (all of them are member of the Current International Framework) to fool the people of India and China for their own benefits.
Hk, only peace and trust can make both India and China catch up with the West. Live long and prosper.
jimabc99
I am very frustrated with many of those posters and Western media in general. I have lived in both China and States. I regularly read Indians, Koreans and Japanese newspapers in additional US and Chinese paper. So I do see most prospects.
Here is a couple of points.
1) CCP is not “communist party”. It is name sake only. Please take off your cold war glass. It runs country more like a corporation. Many of its leader have to work in several provinces before promoting to central government. They are evaluated on their job performance such as GDP growth, etc. If they don’t do good job, they will not got promoted. There is competitive and accountability for what they do. It is clearly not democracy system, but it is still somewhat merit based.
2) Chinese government acts many thing on the international stages because people in China demand. Western media tends to portrait Chinese government (and it acts on its own) acts tough on Japanese dispute territory and be tough against Taiwanese independent movement. In reality, Chinese people demand its government to be tough.
3) Chinese government acts on its interest on many international issues. Same thing is true for most governments in the world. US, for example, always support dictatorship over democracy if it serves best interest of US.
4) Chinese government needs to change within (and more evolutionary), not outside force because it is too big to have revolutionary. Posters demands overthrow CCP is clearly don’t understand China. CCP party is most capable in China to govern. Even if evolutionary leaders like Liu (which he is not) able to get power in China, it would be disaster for China since they don’t have expertise to govern China.
5) Most Chinese do criticize Chinese government. Just take a cab ride in any big cities in China. You will hear a lot of complaining about top leaders. There are thousands of protests everyday in China (such as landing grabbing, etc). There are a lot of TV programs do stories about injustice. What government don’t tolerate is open challenge to its rules due its fear of losing control.
6) Most CCP leaders are very popular in China. If there is real election, leader like Wen will likely win in a landslide. Don’t believe me. Check Hong Kong yearly rating Asians leaders. Wen is always rated near the top.
John Chan
@jimabc99 and jim1980, it is a tough battle to fight bigots with unmovable prejudice against China. I though if I presented historical facts with logical explanations, it will clear up a lot misconception about China’s rise, but I was wrong. The rancor towards China by the readers seems a lot from India, Vietnam and the US is beyond words.
China’s rise affects a lot of nations, for example, India is dropping further behind, as Indians, how to explain all the difference to themselves? For the national and Hindu’s pride, they hope by discrediting China and somehow China fails, so the slippage won’t be that hurt. As for the US, Japan and the West, they are so afraid to live in conditions they gave China since the Opium Wars, they are fighting tooth and nail to suppress China’s rise. Chatham House is just one of the members of the Current International Framework that is doing the work to suppress China and maintain the old world order.
Interestingly enough, the world has not changed much from year 1839. At the moment the world situation is very similar to that time, China runs a huge trade surplus against rest of the world, but that time British Empire found the key, the Opium Wars, to turn the situation around, the result is 150 years prosperity for the West, 150 years of disaster for China. Right now the West is looking of the key to turn the situation around to their favor again. I hope China is smart enough NOT to repeat the fate of that 150 years. All these commie, Daioyu islets, human rights, etc. are just the tools to find the key.
After reading all the anti-China comments from Indian readers, I was really sadden for the tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers died in the Burma jungle to stop the Imperial Japanese troops from ravaging India during the WWII. It seems they died for India for nothing.
But I believe that China is resilient and strong enough to achieve its goal of rising peacefully. China will be the new hope for the developing countries that they too can obtain a living standard that is being enjoyed by the developed world.
Daksha K. Nyshadham
In your previous email, you said Who Gave nuclear Bomb to Israel. France gave Nuclear Bomb to Israel and moreover Israel is a stable Democracy. It is not a collapsing Nation. Pakistan is disintegrating and collapsing Nation. Pakistan uses Nuclear Bogey and Blackmail to extract maximum from the world. Pakistan is using its nuclear arsenal to do maximize terrorism. Pakistan terrorism killed 75,000 people in India. For China it is a least cost method to give nuclear to Pakistan to control India. What is China responsibility towards the world regarding collapse of Pakistan and nuclear proliferation? India should learn Freedom of information and press, Rule of Law from China (Sic). Can you name any invention or innovation coming from China? Can you deny the fact that Chinese living standards are below Mexico or Russia? Debating in a cab is not an open society. Can any Chinese in China demonstrate in Tiananmen Square for Human Rights? Your contention is Chinese are not Brain Washed. Do you believe China won the war against the Vietnam in 1979? Only Chinese say they won the war. Your own all weather friend, Pakistan and its think tanks believe Chinese lost the China Vietnam War. China had more casualties and lost more equipment than Vietnam. At least Americans have stomach to accept that they lost the Vietnam War. There are lots of Americans question US-Pakistan relations. I did not come across any Chinese to question China Pakistan Relations. The difference between India and China is Democracy and Dictatorship. Indians are like fox which is a free animal and Chinese are like dogs working like a slave for the master. Even Chinese agree Indian political system is superior to chinese political system
okima
Kerry Brown hate China all the way, but kiss Japanese.
Thank you Kerry B.