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Western greed fuels China’s domination Our oligarchs prostrate themselves for profit

Put the drinks on Hunter's tab (Jay L. Clendenin-Pool/Getty Images)


December 17, 2021   5 mins

There is a hypocrisy at the heart of the West’s attitude to China: although we’re constantly warned about the threat from Beijing, our political and corporate elites seem intent on making this century a Chinese one. Unlike in the Thirties, this appeasement isn’t driven by fear and ignorance; it is motivated largely by greed.

And that greed could prove fatal. China’s “civilisation state”, deeply rooted in thousands of years of history, represents the most profound philosophical challenge to liberal values since the end of the Cold War. But our oligarchs choose to ignore this, preferring instead to genuflect to Beijing for financial gain.

The cost of such avarice is slowly coming into focus: China’s economy may surpass the US by as early as 2028, and by some measurements already has. Of course, China deserves credit for its remarkable performance, which is mostly thanks to the efforts of its citizens, in particular its rural migrants, the key fodder for the country’s dominant manufacturing base.

But the Middle Kingdom’s ascendency would not seem as inexorable if not for the efforts of the West’s ‘kowtow crowd’, a group of self-interested cheerleaders and enablers of China’s autocratic state. At the height of the Cold War, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev threatened that the USSR would “bury” the West. China’s President Xi can count on the West burying itself.

Some of this can be traced to naivety and an underestimation of Chinese capabilities. Rather than recognising a potential threat, our political and financial elites saw a potential economic partner and huge market. China was still a poor, developing country; when welcomed into the World Trade Organisation 20 years ago, it dutifully supplied cheap products to a welcoming market. In the meantime, it was hoped that exposure to the West would create an increasingly liberal China.

Yet for at least a decade, particularly since Xi Jinping assumed control of the Communist Party, these assumptions have been proven fatally wrong. Xi and the Party have clearly made clear that their ambition is not any old seat at the table, but the one at its head.  

Given what seems a clear and present danger to the West and its East Asian allies, one would expect our ruling class to seek ways to fight back. Donald Trump may have been a blustering fool but at least he saw, and identified, the threat. President Biden, to his credit, has also proposed some steps to reinforce US competitiveness, and there is rare bipartisan consensus, including on the Left, to resist China’s hegemony.

Yet prospects for standing up to China from the White House are limited. As recently as 2019 Biden, a stalwart cog in the Washington consensus, minimised the Chinese threat to our economy, recently claiming, incredibly, that: “you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.” More worrisome still has been the Biden family’s close business ties with Beijing. The somewhat dissolute Hunter, in particular, has profited hugely and gained expensive gifts working for the Chinese. Most recently, he helped a Chinese firm to corner the cobalt market, a key component in the administration’s  green energy strategy.

But kowtowing is hardly a partisan phenomenon. Prominent figures from both parties, including former GOP Speaker John Boehner, and many connected Washington think tanks receive funding from Beijing. Even members of the Bush family have cosied up to CCP apparatchiks, including one with strong ties to that country’s rising military.

Europe’s leaders, if anything, are even less committed to confronting the Chinese challenge. Some, including Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, seek to play the US against the Chinese civilisational challenge by treating them as moral equivalents of their long-time American allies. Meanwhile, Beijing is busily extending its presence on the continent with infrastructure investment to weak European countries such Greece, Hungary, and Romania.

Nowhere is the ineptitude of the Western policy towards China more evident than in climate change. Like its human rights record, China’s environmental footprint should be a source of embarrassment and condemnation. While the West hamstrings itself with its eco-commitments, China, not mandated to reduce its carbon emissions till 2030, continues to build coal plants to maintain its industrial engine. By 2030, when China will be able to shift to nuclear and other alternatives, the West will be effectively de-industrialised, and hopelessly dependent.

But such dependency is nothing new. For decades American companies have been handing Beijing the basis for economic hegemony: since 1990 US deficit in trade goods with China has ballooned from under $10 billion annually to $419 billion last year. China’s ratio of imports to exports was four to one in 2018. This has enriched many of our leading manufacturing companies — notably Apple — while costing an estimated 3.4 million job losses in the US since 2001.

Meanwhile, these corporate kowtowers actively promote China’s model. Apple, for instance, props up and profits from China’s ever-expanding surveillance state. Acting as if it were its own country, Apple has essentially negotiated its own $275 billion deal with China, promising to keep production there while assisting with the country’s unhidden goal is to supplant the West as a tech leader.

For its part, Wall Street, even amid the threat of government interference, plays its part the kowtow crowd. Ray Dalio, founder of giant Bridgewater Associates hedge fund and self-promoting author, has dismissed China’s repression of its Uighur population as the result of a “sacrosanct” desire for sovereignty. Even powerful figures such as Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan have decided to publicly apologise after upsetting the CCP. It’s in their interest, after all. Xi knows fully well that Western investment bankers and tech companies will do his bidding, as long as they get what Mafia dons may call “a taste”. China may be miffed if US diplomats boycott the 2022 winter games, but they can be sure that the corporations and investment bankers will likely be there, heads bowed on the floor.

All of this is made even more humiliating by the fact that China’s rise may not be as unstoppable as its Western admirers believe. China’s economic growth rate is slowing, its bloated real estate markets are showing signs of implosion, and industrial production has slowed to the lowest level since 2004. Meanwhile, its tech and innovation sector is being pummelled by continued government crackdowns.

More serious still are demographic forces. By 2050, China is projected to have 60 million fewer people under age fifteen, a loss approximately the size of Italy’s total population. The ratio of retirees to working people is expected to have more than tripled by then, one of the most rapid demographic shifts in history. By 2050 it will be roughly 20% higher than that of the US; 15 years after that, according to the South China Morning Post, China’s population will be very old and about half its current size.

None of this suggests resisting China will be easy, particularly given the disposition of our rulers. But it does mean it’s possible.

That is the real tragedy of the kowtow crowd. Just as in the Thirties, their prostration only makes their adversary stronger and more confident. Inevitably, it will be the rest of us, and future generations, who pay the price.


Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute, the University of Texas at Austin.

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J Bryant
J Bryant
2 years ago

Excellent article that summarizes our current relationship with China. As the author notes, however, it’s not necessarily game over for the West: China has its weaknesses. The question is what are workable proposals for resisting China? The author is silent on that issue.
Publications such as Unherd do an outstanding job of explaining challenges to Western society such as the threat posed by China or the rise of woke politics or, to borrow a phrase from the author of this article, neo-feudalism. But they inexplicably stop short of proposing solutions.
I just read Mr. Kotkin’s book “The Coming of Neo-Feudalism”. An accessible book that summarizes the broad social and political structure of the West and the rise of the oligarchs and the cultural “clerisy”. Readable but nothing really new there. I was interested to read his final chapter which purported to discuss how we could resist this neo-feudalism. It was a few pages long and offered little more than generalities and platitudes.
I’m beginning to suspect the changes in Western society that became painfully clear during the covid emergency of 2020 (wokeism, cancel culture, ideological monotheism in universities, etc) cannot be easily resisted. This will be a generational project and even astute authors such as Mr. Kotkin have few practical suggestions at this time.
I would encourage him and thinkers such as Victor Davis Hansen to apply their intellects to the question of how to resist progressivism, or China, or even whether Western society is past the point where it can resist these challenges. And I would encourage Unherd to commission authors to write on these topics. Otherwise what’s the point of spilling so much ink telling us about the latest outrages of the Chinese/woke/cancellers, or the rise of a neo-feudalist order, if you don’t address the question of what to do about these problems?

Last edited 2 years ago by J Bryant
Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

This is a brilliant comment which sums up the weakness of UnHerd. We believe in free speech which can be translated as typing something we believe, probably with a fake name. But nothing positive comes out.

One day we hurl abuse at wokeness, how ‘snowflakes’ have taken over our world – why doesn’t somebody do something? We are particularly worried about the extreme wokeness in the United States because that has always led the fashions – they get fat, we all get fat.

The next day we have fun with the clowns in the EU (I particularly enjoy a bit of French-bashing). Aren’t we lucky that Brexit came along when it did?

The next day is anti-China. Horrors when they are industrialising while we do the opposite. Horrors that our beloved capitalists are trying to get money by working with China. We go from being pro-capitalist to anti-capitalist in one day.

We, the UK are weak. We have nothing to offer. Our children see that we have destroyed the world and they want to make amends by some self-destruction as a way of saying, “Sorry, we destroyed the world.”

The USA is weak and divided but they have the best weapons. The politicians there will continue down and down, promoting deeper degrees of wokeness but there will be a reaction, either an internal battle or a nuclear battle with someone easy like North Korea. Personally, having observed politicians, I see an attack on North Korea or a reaction with Taiwan.

Russia is strong if we buy gas and weak if we don’t so going away from fossil fuels is at least good politically.

China is like us 150 years ago and we don’t like it. Despite the fact that we had a parliament, the people in the UK were poor and downtrodden. They did as they were told. They did horrible jobs living in extreme poverty while the rich parliamentarians controlled them with a police force They had no choices in life and they didn’t have free speech. So they fought for free speech and arrived at where we are now. We have reason to be jealous and fearful of China.

Sam Brown
Sam Brown
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

“We, the UK are weak. We have nothing to offer.” Tripe…we have what we have always had to offer, which is why half the world is trying to come to live here still – Britishness. This unique quality is responsible for so much good in the world but the liberal elite are determined to destroy it. If we tell ourselves we are spent force then that is what we become. Christ it makes me angry when those that enjoy the myriad benefits of living here bemoan the country and what it stands for.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
Reply to  Sam Brown

You can be passionate but you can’t hide the fact that we have been in steady decline since WW1 – on a global basis. Britain was the strongest country for 200 years, exporting Britishness everywhere on the globe. The USA took over after WW2 and led the world until now. China is about to take on that role.
If you think we are not weak you should investigate what is being taught in schools and how easy it is to get a meaningless degree; you should investigate what is taught in universities; you should see how we are trying to be the first to drop natural gas and oil when Turkey and Greece are fighting for new deposits in the Med; you should read more claptrap about men, women and neuter; you see see people painted green gluing themselves to the road. This is not wonderful free speech; this is playing whilst the new world takes over.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Hmm. US became the world’s largest economy in the 1880s I believe so the process (not event) started many decades sooner than the end of WW2. By the 1950s even the blind could see that the British Empire was dead and buried. In between many people preferred not to see the trend.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

And in turn you are also silent on the logic of why we should maintain superiority over the likes of China.
It’s a new form of governance for very large populations which brooks little dissent. Maybe it’s the next evolution of governance, and why is it not better than our current model? Everyone here complains bitterly about western governance – but maybe it’s time is naturally over. Once you get large populations personal liberty and individualism drag the masses back from progressing more efficiently. All those people objecting to new railways, new nuclear power stations, a justifiable new coal mine, new oil fields (onshore and offshore), new runways; a handful of people being able to protest and block the daily lives of millions without consequence; our military being taught the importance of pronouns.
Should we accept our hegemony is over?

J Bryant
J Bryant
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

That’s a very interesting comment. I wasn’t thinking in terms of maintaining superiority over China or others. I was thinking in terms of survival and preventing others, notably China, dominating the West to the West’s detriment. But I agree there’s an element of wanting to maintain technological and financial superiority over other countries in my comment because, in the West, we’ve become so used to having that advantage. My sense is we’re past the ‘superiority’ stage. China is already too far ahead for that.
I certainly agree, though, we should ask ourselves if the capitalist-democratic-individualistic system in the West has reached its endpoint. Maybe all we can do now is retire with dignity. I wouldn’t mind reading an Unherd article exploring that idea.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

Agreed. Thankfully I’m of an age where it won’t matter much to me personally – and wonder, like some here, if the decadence of younger generations deserves its ‘reward’.

Warren T
Warren T
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

I agree with you! We should all fall back into serfdom so that the masses will learn what it really means to get rid of our current form of government. Then the tide will soon ebb and we can return to fighting to be free people again. Democracy is a messy business, but it sure beats the alternative.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

“Why is it not better than our current model?”

Because it doesn’t believe in truths that we have long held to be self evident: that all men are created equal [in the eyes of God and the Law], endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

Warren T
Warren T
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

Most of these sites and authors are only interested in your eyeballs, nothing else.

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

The answer is pretty clear: nobody knows what to do about these problems. If they did, we’d be hearing the solutions and seeing people implement them.

I am not saying that no solutions exist, just that whatever they may be, they are not obvious. I do say that they must exist though. In the case of the neo-feudal culture that is emerging, one reasonably obvious point is that it is incompatible with democracy and there will be a reckoning because of that. China, conversely, can’t be dealt with democratically, but probably can be dealt with as a consequence of its anti-democratic values in the sense that all China’s neighbours don’t want China getting more powerful. The democratic West therefore has a ready made basket of allies in the 21st century cold war that is coming.

Last edited 2 years ago by John Riordan
Bill W
Bill W
2 years ago

I started my work in the City in the 80s covering Far Eastern markets and even then couldn’t understand the geo strategic risk the West was incurring by indulging Communist China economically simply to reduce manufacturing costs. Since then it has only got worse.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
2 years ago

Trump is a “blustering fool” even though he was absolutely correct about China and did something about it, but Hunter Biden is “somewhat dissolute” and not a drugged out depraved degenerate? The Chinese threat is real, but this author’s credibility is compromised.

David Slade
David Slade
2 years ago

Yes, the throw away dismissals of Trump which seems to be a necessary caveat to any article not focused on condemning him is getting fairly transparent and tiresome.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago

Trump by and large was a blustering fool, the way he constantly shouted his mouth off on Twitter got tiresome very quickly. However just because he presented himself as a pillock that doesn’t mean he wrong, especially in regards to the threat posed by the CCP.
The less said about Hunter Biden the better quite frankly, the man is an embarrassment and borderline criminal

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Just because Trump says something it doesn’t necessarily mean he is wrong.

Charles Mimoun
Charles Mimoun
2 years ago

India is a democracy, China is a successful reply of the USSR. If you prefer to be the slave of China rather than independent although decadent, you are sole in this case.
Moreover, our decadence is not a foregone conclusion.

Last edited 2 years ago by Charles Mimoun
David Slade
David Slade
2 years ago
Reply to  Charles Mimoun

That was nonsensical

Julie Blinde
Julie Blinde
2 years ago
Reply to  David Slade

Its only nonsensical if you allow yourself to imagine that your amazing democracy might not be so amazing.
Having struggled for their vote, South Africans want competence at any price. Maybe their democracy has led to corruption. Why do you think that might be ?

Warren T
Warren T
2 years ago
Reply to  Julie Blinde

If you prefer to be a mere subject in the CCP, then please move there, sir.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
2 years ago
Reply to  Julie Blinde

Was their democracy a virtuous democracy as envisioned by Locke, Paine et al; or was it the democracy of “two wolves and a sheep discussing what to have for dinner” (Ben Franklin)?

Julie Blinde
Julie Blinde
2 years ago
Reply to  nigel roberts

More like one wolf (ANC) pigging out without sharing anything

Last edited 2 years ago by Julie Blinde
Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago
Reply to  Charles Mimoun

It’s the other way around. You have freedom of thought and so CAN read a site like this – amongst others – and make up your own mind (without going to jail). That is the difference. There are good and bad articles here, and good and bad comments. Whatever your views, it’s best to not start ranting. It’s not Twitter.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Sam Brown
Sam Brown
2 years ago

There is an excellent article on the BBC website (of all places) on just this subject that is well worth a read. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59610019

Charles Mimoun
Charles Mimoun
2 years ago

I think this criticism is true in Europe but much less in the US.
With regard to the supposed difference between the present situation and this of the Thirties, it’s at my sense utterly debatable: people were not ignorant of the Nazism dangers but they were blind by choice and by their total faith in progressivist principles as dialogue and as if there was a universal wish of peace (See The Twenty Years Crisis by Edward H. Carr). It was such a bleak nightmare for those who remembered WW1 (another world war with all its consequences) that they preferred to accommodate to this situation rather than facing it. In our times a financial crash is, at the scale of the catastrophes, where a total war was yesterday. Especially when the risk of a real war that will take the place of the financial one is so high. In short, honour Churchill as a hero without blaming Chamberlin, because collectively we are all “chamberliners”. 
Now the question is how politicians will shape the spirit of our countries to resistance and the strategies they will undertake. Forging a new state philosophy, rekindling the sleeping feelings of patriotism and establishing a clear difference between them and us will be a tall order but it’s the only way to temper the capitalistic reflex of greed. Change the philosophy all will follow.

The first thing to do is to change our processor and to accept to lose the many advantages of peace times. It’s a collective shift and not only the duty of the oligarchs, they are only the most visible symptom. 
I’m afraid for the progressivists that the new Churchill (if there will be such a man in our woke time) will be as the last one: a romantic reactionary.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago

I prefer western society and governance, and it’s associated value of personal liberty and individualism.
China may appear to have a more effective model of governance and culture which could achieve global supremacy – but it’s suppression of individuals probably means it won’t last in its current form.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Technology that Stalin could only dream of will ensure that it lasts longer than you’d like to believe.

Alison Tyler
Alison Tyler
2 years ago
Reply to  nigel roberts

Sadly I think you are right

Peter Branagan
Peter Branagan
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Ah poor Ian – you’re one of a dying breed, valuing personal liberty and individualism and I presume RESPONSIBILITY.
But Covid has shown, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the overwhelming majority of people in the West aren’t remotely interested in in such values. All we care about is personal ‘security’ while stuffing our faces with calories, being entertained and buying stuff.

I’m afraid we’re all hooked on the concept of an all powerful state promising an immortality of consumption.

Ed Cameron
Ed Cameron
2 years ago

OK everybody. To save time, just cut and paste your comments to this article from yesterday:
Does the CCP control Extinction Rebellion? – UnHerd

Jonathan Ellman
Jonathan Ellman
2 years ago

The West’s greed is so much its foundation the claims of moral equivalence are becoming credible.

Matt B
Matt B
2 years ago

Bring on Truss.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago

The most important video to watch lately. Jo Rogan (Youtube’s most popular talk host, alternative, Right leaning). Naturally This talk is removed from Youtube, but here is an alternate platform, it may take you going back once to get past it asking you to enroll – which is not needed – takes five minutes to begin, then it is 2 1/2 hours of Very interesting talk with one of the World’s top Scientists/Doctors, and top in all the world research, wile being a top Cardiologist. Dr McCullough

He is the Vax expert, and his story will shock you – all linked and referenced to studies, he has been at the forefront all the covid.

He explains how the Vax scam has killed hundreds of thousands – it is fascinating.

Basically his point is that ‘Treatments’ in outpatient were forbidden, although a great many medicines existed which would work well – but instead ONLY letting the sick get so bad they had to be hospitals was allowed. Then they were too far gone to be safe.

The Reason for banning medicines early on??? To create the fear of covid TO STOP VAX HESITANCY. The Vax was the official answer – and if medicines existed people would not vax as they would take their chances…. and ALL MUST VAX. Anyway – this concerns China a few ways – but mostly to show the Govs are all conspiring against the people.

Watch it – very good, interesting

https://brandnewtube.com/watch/the-full-interview-between-joe-rogan-and-dr-peter-mccullough_gMcVkA2Gb86n8iz.html