Thinking About China

Two recent articles on China have caught my eye. The first one is from the Belmont Club , it sums up nicely the history of growth and what is the trend for China:

Belmont Club:

Mark Helprin at the Claremont Institute points out two obvious things. The first is the rise of China, not only as an economic power but also as a technological and industrial power. The second is the apparent lack of any US strategy to come to terms with that fact. The combination of the two can lead to disastrous effects. Most people remember Yamamoto’s famous warning to the Japanese High Command about America’s industrial power. Today Yamamoto could repeat his warning, but with a different set of names.

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The second article is from Fast Company. It describes in detail the policy and strategic initiatives that China is now following in the continent of Africa.

From Fast Company:

An unfathomably vast terrain comprising 49 nations, the sub-Sahara represents nearly one-fifth of the earth's landmass. Yet its total economy is tinier than Florida's. Here, 300 million people get by on less than $1 a day. Until they don't: It is the planet's biggest tomb, where compared to the 1960s, twice as many children under the age of 5 are now dying each day from disease; a bottomless badland where $500 billion of Western aid since World War II (more than four Marshall Plans) has barely made a dent in the poverty; a region whose market share of world trade is shrinking by the hour as it gets left behind, perhaps permanently, in the dust of globalization; a place so desperate for everything -- cash, trade, investment, infrastructure -- and so powerless to negotiate strategically, that it's pretty much up for sale to the highest bidder.

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My Comment: When I was in China on an official business trip in 1988, I was struck by how determined the Chinese leadership were to adopt the best of free wheeling capitalism. The priority was to not only break away from the grinding poverty of socialism, but to be as rich as the United States. This perception hit me when I quickly realized that the most popular show in China in 1988 were reruns of Dallas .... the streets were always empty when the show was on ... everyone was glued to a TV . I then realized that the Chinese believed that Dallas represented what America was .... and that they wanted to be like them.

Today .... the Chinese Government, its officials, its policies, its foreign policy .... they are run by the Chinese equivalent of J. R. Ewings. Richard Behar's article in Fast Track summarizes nicely how the J. R. Ewings would approach Africa. Everyone plays for keeps, and the priority is my family .... or for the Chinese .... the nation of China.