President Hu Jintao of China has said that the West is trying to dominate China by spreading its culture and ideology and that China must strengthen its cultural production to defend against the assault, according to an essay in a Communist Party policy magazine published this week.The blog itself states:
More, our strategy for dealing with communism in China is more or less the same as our strategy for dealing with it in the Soviet Union. It’s what Lincoln and the Republicans wanted to do to slavery in 1860: keep it from expanding, and wait while the forces of history destroy it from within.
Lincoln then and Americans today don’t think of this as an aggressive strategy. Changing the political structure of China is not on anybody’s to-do list in Washington today. The CIA isn’t hatching plots to overthrow the Chinese leadership. Lincoln swore up and down that he wouldn’t abolish slavery where it stood, and would have accepted a constitutional amendment making that position clear.
But Jefferson Davis and his fellow southerners weren’t fooled. They knew that Lincoln’s program to contain slavery was a plan to destroy slavery and, worse, they were sure it would work. Cotton exhausted the soil; sooner or later, if slavery couldn’t expand into new territory, plantations wouldn’t pay and when that happened the whole system would fail. Moreover, the North was growing faster than the South; increasingly the South would be outvoted and turned defensively in on itself.
Hu and some of his fellows seem to be thinking like Jefferson Davis. They believe that America’s project (it isn’t as definite as a plan) to undermine communism in China will work in due course. They fear the historical forces Francis Fukuyama identified in The End of History, and they fear that those forces march to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner.
Note that, though Hu claims this is a conscious effort by the West, this cultural assault that Hu fears is happening without any conscious effort by the West. It is one of the things Fukiyama was talking about when he wrote about the "end of history" (a bullshit concept to me, but the point about the inevitable dominance of Western Culture inherent in the spread of democratic capitalism has merit).
The blog also says:
Americans, contemplating our policies in Asia and our ideological approach to Chinese communism, see us as promoting a stable status quo that ought to appeal to the Chinese. President Hu and many Chinese leaders see things very differently: the status quo is a dagger aimed at China’s heart. Our very moderation is a sophisticated form of aggression.It's kind of saying that there's nothing China can do to turn this around. Mao was able to block all contact with the Western world, but try as he might, Hu can't do that, in fact, now needs that contact to market China's goods to the world.
We'll see what happens. As long as he can keep money pouring into China and standards of living rising, Hu and the Communist Party can ride the tiger. If the export economy stalls, he'll have hell to pay as the Chinese see what the developed world has (freedom-wise and wealth-wise) and demand a system of government that allows them to get it.
I find this whole notion that America is fighting communism. I think some important facts are missing from this analysis of U.S and Chinese relations. One thing; America's president, or in the words of his administration ruler, is himself a communist and has shown much admiration for the Chinese economic system and has stated his desire to replicate it here in America along with others on the left such as Thomas Friedman. And I disagree with your statement "... the point about the inevitable dominance of Western Culture inherent in the spread of democratic capitalism has merit)." The West has decayed and is no longer the standard bearer of freedom and free markets to the extent that it was in the past.( Look at our culture and where our political system is headed by looking at who the front runners are in the republican presidential race. Not much difference from Obama.) While straight up totalitarian governments that openly slaughter and directly oppress their citizens are temporarily going out of favor and temporarily fading away, the world is headed towards some socialist-welfare-big government economic and governmental system. So this is what will replace the Chinese communist government. Not free markets and freedom in general. I disagree with this freedom doctrine that the previous president ascribe to that states that it is inevitable that freedom will sweep the world.
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese economy is undergoing a slow transformation: it is becoming more of a consumer nation that will make its people more wealthy thus demanding a higher standard of living like the article points out and their economy is headed for some major problems in the future, like all centrally planned economies to include America. China also does have a demographic problem. There are also a lot of riots in China that are not being reported. So China does have some major issues that will pose some major challenges that will challenge its communist government's control of its nation.
There is a lot more to be stated on this topic.
I agree with both of you.
ReplyDeleteAmerica is decaying, like Jeff said, and so are the other traditional Western Nations. At the same time, capitalism and democracy is spreading and promoting western culture. Asia in the 20th century was drastically westernized by democracy and capitalism (India, Japan...etc). China is just resisting it a little more than the others.
I think that Bud-D is naive to think that things will be fine and America will keep the freedom and liberty because it is America. Our constitution has been manipulated by things like the commerce clause and has lost its power of government restraint. We are reaching the steep part of a downward spiral.
On the other hand, I do not think that all hope is lost. I do not think the catastrophic end, which Jeff always alludes to, is inevitable. Never despair when there is still hope.
VOTE FOR RON PAUL!
From what I know about the economic and political situation in China, I think that their communist government will be collapsing or loosing control over the country in the future. But I do not think that the communist government will be replaced by a republic that is based on free markets, which don't exist today. I think China and the rest of the world is collapsing into some socialist-welfare-centrally planned governmental/economic system. This does not mean the end of the world nor does it necessarily mean that the world be be like the LA in the movie "Escape from LA", but life won't be like it is here in America.
ReplyDeleteFreedom and economic prosperity is not the natural state of affairs for mankind, check out history. I read somewhere that only 5% of all of mankind has lived under anything close to what we would consider freedom and prosperity. Thinking that freedom will inevitabily sweep the world is just as much of an uptopian vision as a world communist revolution in the sense that freedom and economic prosperity is not compataible with human nature as it is. Communisism realizes that it has to change human nature to have their uptopia while libertarians don't acknowledge this fact and righfully don't try to change human nature.
I like Paul the more I hear about him, but I have a hard time understanding where he is coming from on foreign policy.
I diagree with Toejamm's statement "At the same time, capitalism and democracy is spreading and promoting western culture." What is spreading is socialism and the welfare state and depedency, which the IMF and World Bank have big role in this, not capitalism and freedom.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is as much disagreement as it looks: I didn't necessarily mean Western Civilization in its classical virtues, though I would say freedom and aspirations of the individual is certainly one that is part of it: I meant the more materialistic aspects of western civilization. China is not Communist. It's only the ruling class of the Communist Party that is "riding the tiger" that is Communist in name. I would say it's more socialist trending classical Asian capitalist (ie vigorous Capitalism with low government supports).
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that America will stay free. We certainly have been trending towards the European mix of Socialism and Capitalism, and our Dear Leader is trying to take us headlong into it. But, this mix is what I am talking about happening in China, where individual, let's say, Betterment rather than Freedom is driving people to not be mindless commie drones for the government. I think that's what the author of the blog post and also Hu himself is getting at. They won't be able to control that, what with the introduction of Capitalism and the need to interface with Western Democracies. I'm not saying things are hunky dory for us.
I think the Communist Party destroyed traditional Chinese culture that would help them resist the allure of the West, so they are susceptible.
I think that the extremes on both ends of the spectrum are converging on the middle. This is why I agreed with both of you.
ReplyDeleteChina is still a communist society. Their economy is heavily ran by the government. And the Chinese government still has forced sterilizations, prevents unauthorized religious services from being held, and a bunch of other stuff.
ReplyDeleteThis middle road that we are taking can only lead to the extreme left. The welfare state always paves the way for totalitarianism.