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Is this 'the Chinese Dream'? (NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images)
For a country that prides itself on 5,000 years of unbroken history, it is remarkable how often China has reinvented itself. Since Mao established the People’s Republic in 1949, there has been war, famine, isolation, brutality, communism and state capitalism. Within living memory, the country has gone from peasantry to urbanity, and moved from bicycles to luxury cars in little more than a generation.
These social, political and economic shocks might have traumatised a lesser nation, but China has managed to maintain relative stability. Indeed, the Communist Party has ruled over the country for three-quarters of a century — a product not merely of its authoritarianism but also, as Kerry Brown has argued, its ability to provide ordinary Chinese with a unifying national narrative around “which the Communist Party relates to their daily lives”.
When Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 2012, this unifying story became known as “The Chinese Dream”, a slogan that was plastered over billboards and hoardings across the country. Through the Chinese Dream rhetoric, Xi confirmed that the country would become “moderately prosperous”, employment opportunities would improve, and individuals would thrive. Xi was laying the foundations, as he put it, for the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”.
The Chinese Dream was symbolised by social engagement, as opposed to the American Dream, which reflected Western individualism. To demonstrate the seriousness with which he took this notion of communal solidarity, Xi directed the authorities to clamp down on corruption and personal aggrandisement within the ranks of the CCP. For him and the country, social improvement was to be a collective effort, and all would reap the benefits. These included the promise that GDP per person would double within Xi’s original term of office, that citizens would have access to massively improved welfare provisions, and that China would start to develop a military “capable of fighting and winning wars”.
It was all going so well — until Covid-19 hit. Even when China was initially building a consensus for lockdown, the restrictions were sold as a selfless, patriotic duty. While the Covid-related fatality statistics remained low — perhaps implausibly low — people bought the narrative of a paternalistic party protecting its people. But over the last few years, China’s lockdowns have done untold damage to people’s families, their businesses, and their health. As time dragged on and Chinese citizens gradually realised that the government had no Plan B, they slowly began to withdraw their loyalty.
Until recently, demonstrations of frustration with the state and its armed goons have been curiously middle-class affairs, like the tang ping (lying flat) movement of students who refused to get out of bed. That was a form of passive resistance, and therefore fundamentally unthreatening. The real attack on Chinese authority came when striking workers broke out of the Foxconn plant, and then unemployed youth united with ordinary people and began tearing down Covid barriers and demanding freedom.
During the course of the demonstrations in November, many shouted slogans insisting that Xi Jinping step down, called for an end to CCP rule, and demanded greater civil rights — a direct challenge to the Communist Party. China has responded by becoming the only country to have overturned Covid policy in response to popular anger, which is ironic given the caricature of Chinese people as passive subjects of their rulers.
The problem now facing the CCP is how to rebuild its popular legitimacy — and rewrite its national narrative — as nearly three years of Covid policy end in disastrous failure. What kind of narrative will Xi turn to in order to explain all this away?
For a hint, we can look at the “For a Life of Contentment” report, published last week by the state media’s think tank, New China Research. It sets out a strategy to recapture “harmonious” public order by outlining China’s place in the world. The document has been a long time in production, but its release has clearly been rushed out after the shock of the anti-Party disturbances. It tells a new narrative — one that is more strident, authoritative, and decisive than the Chinese Dream. And, in a bold move for China, it puts human rights centre stage.
China has long held pretensions of challenging America’s hegemonic role in world affairs. The party’s concept of Chinese rejuvenation — dubbed the “New Era” — was always premised on developing sufficiently to rival America. In 2017, for example, China was insisting that it was prepared to “take centre stage in the world”. Five years later, Beijing is sounding a more defensive, pessimistic note. It says: “the Cold War mentality as well as the hegemonic practices of putting one’s own country’s interests above the interests of others and even the international community at large, and pointing fingers at other countries are not welcome.”
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SubscribeI enjoyed this article. It provided insight into Chinese society that is hard to find elsewhere, at least in my experience.
I wonder how threatened Xi really feels by the social unrest? Clearly the CCP’s attitude to zero covid has changed, but I wonder if that was, to some extent, in the works once Xi was elected leader for life at the recent party congress?
Is there really a threat to Xi’s reign by disaffected Chinese? Will their desperate demonstrations regarding endless lockdowns translate into long-term political unrest, or will they be like so many people in the West who just want to put covid behind them and get on with what’s left of their lives?
The only insight I got was reading between the lines, and then that was not about China but about who knows what.
”China has responded by becoming the only country to have overturned Covid policy in response to popular anger, which is ironic given the caricature of Chinese people as passive subjects of their rulers.”
Tiananmen Square would have been the outcome if this protest was not part of something Xi is up to and wished. Wheels within Wheels – it is impossible the Chinese lockdowns in China were about covid – they were about something, but Not Health. The ending is not about Xi yielding to peaceful protestors but about something we do not understand yet.
Things are Very weird in China now about everything, the economy is teetering, this whole covid thing is not what it seems… Not in the West at all, not in the way the World Bank forced the third and developing world to lockdown, not the weirdness the BIS is up to with Euro Dollars and Swift and the BRICS and debt and Not the way the World Responded by self immolating the global economy for a flu. The entire world went mad over a flu? – none of this was about the virus.
I agree that the world is now very strange, but I don’t blame that on any kind of conspiracy. I view coronavirus as the universal catalyst. It accelerated problems and changes that were likely to occur eventually.
In China, we see the final unmasking of the CCP as a malevolent organization intent on power and control. The Chinese people, in particular, now understand that their government does not have their best interests at heart. It’s also painfully obvious the Chinese economy is dangerously over-leveraged due to the flood of cheap money.
In the West, we see the results of globalized finance that always favors the free flow of goods and money over the welfare and culture of nations. In the US, in practice, in terms of rights, there is little to distinguish an illegal alien from a citizen.
Germany is an almost unrecognizable nation. Only a few years ago it was the strong man of Europe, and now it seems intent on destroying the economy that created its success. The government is so in thrall to progressive ideology it will inflict winter heating shortages on citizens rather than face reality.
All of these things might look like a grand conspiracy in action, but I think it’s just a lot of unrealistic ideologies finally having to face reality. You might be interested in Peter Zeihan’s latest book “The End of the World is Just the Beginning” (wordy but insightful, especially regarding demographics). Conspiracy theory or not, we’re in for years of painful change until a new geopolitical and economic order emerges.
To be fair the Chinese haven’t tried a boom-bust economy until now and are desperately trying to avoid the bust- bit like trying to defy gravity. You only have to go back to the long march or red turban movement to see how frequently the masses just kick off and the govt has always had to change to survive – note the old dynasties used to get roughly 3-400 years between upheavals. Before boom and bust when it was “scrape by and bust” in equal measures. Sure there are weird conspirators – many eco-loons, Gates and ppl clearly have Benthamite or Eugenic tendencies BUT overall what power do they have outside their narrow silos? Yes they’d love to take our cars, guns, food etc etc and no doubt in certain countries they may succeed. Round here they keep trying to take the locals class 1 drugs, small arms, knives AND tax income from the many retail and trades business shy of tax and that isn’t going too well. So yes they can conspire but can they Excecute, Administer and Control? Doubt it.
good summary thanks !
To be fair the Chinese haven’t tried a boom-bust economy until now and are desperately trying to avoid the bust- bit like trying to defy gravity. You only have to go back to the long march or red turban movement to see how frequently the masses just kick off and the govt has always had to change to survive – note the old dynasties used to get roughly 3-400 years between upheavals. Before boom and bust when it was “scrape by and bust” in equal measures. Sure there are weird conspirators – many eco-loons, Gates and ppl clearly have Benthamite or Eugenic tendencies BUT overall what power do they have outside their narrow silos? Yes they’d love to take our cars, guns, food etc etc and no doubt in certain countries they may succeed. Round here they keep trying to take the locals class 1 drugs, small arms, knives AND tax income from the many retail and trades business shy of tax and that isn’t going too well. So yes they can conspire but can they Excecute, Administer and Control? Doubt it.
good summary thanks !
You’ve got some interesting points there. I’m not sure I could agree the protests were the result of wheels in wheels, but you are certainly not wrong about the bis, swift and BRICS, and weird things happening. I’ll link the articles I came across for anyone else interested, would say I’m not attempting to link this stuff together I don’t know enough about it, armchair expert from the fringe here, so make of it what you will, just thought it interesting, seeing it mentioned on here too, this was this week:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/12/tfzy-d12.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1706328/Financial-crisis-FX-swap-market-central-bankers-80-trillion-crash-meltdown-BIS/amp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1704864/Bank-of-England-BoE-interest-rates-virtual-money-printing-quantitative-easing-QE-QT/amp
https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/chinas-central-bank-bis-set-up-renminbi-liquidity-arrangement-2022-06-25/
Read this one a while ago:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxbusiness.com/economy/russia-china-may-be-preparing-new-gold-backed-currency-expert-assures-us-dollar-safest-currency-today.amp
Also really sorry, didn’t immediately realise the first link was a hardcore socialist website, not trying to push that, just the analysis was the only one better than the express (which is rubbish) where I saw it originally that I could find, I would discount the last paragraph or two, most of it is based on FT and Bloomberg analysis, obviously beware of some serious bias in there. Should have put that on, cant edit.
Also really sorry, didn’t immediately realise the first link was a hardcore socialist website, not trying to push that, just the analysis was the only one better than the express (which is rubbish) where I saw it originally that I could find, I would discount the last paragraph or two, most of it is based on FT and Bloomberg analysis, obviously beware of some serious bias in there. Should have put that on, cant edit.
I agree that the world is now very strange, but I don’t blame that on any kind of conspiracy. I view coronavirus as the universal catalyst. It accelerated problems and changes that were likely to occur eventually.
In China, we see the final unmasking of the CCP as a malevolent organization intent on power and control. The Chinese people, in particular, now understand that their government does not have their best interests at heart. It’s also painfully obvious the Chinese economy is dangerously over-leveraged due to the flood of cheap money.
In the West, we see the results of globalized finance that always favors the free flow of goods and money over the welfare and culture of nations. In the US, in practice, in terms of rights, there is little to distinguish an illegal alien from a citizen.
Germany is an almost unrecognizable nation. Only a few years ago it was the strong man of Europe, and now it seems intent on destroying the economy that created its success. The government is so in thrall to progressive ideology it will inflict winter heating shortages on citizens rather than face reality.
All of these things might look like a grand conspiracy in action, but I think it’s just a lot of unrealistic ideologies finally having to face reality. You might be interested in Peter Zeihan’s latest book “The End of the World is Just the Beginning” (wordy but insightful, especially regarding demographics). Conspiracy theory or not, we’re in for years of painful change until a new geopolitical and economic order emerges.
You’ve got some interesting points there. I’m not sure I could agree the protests were the result of wheels in wheels, but you are certainly not wrong about the bis, swift and BRICS, and weird things happening. I’ll link the articles I came across for anyone else interested, would say I’m not attempting to link this stuff together I don’t know enough about it, armchair expert from the fringe here, so make of it what you will, just thought it interesting, seeing it mentioned on here too, this was this week:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/12/tfzy-d12.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1706328/Financial-crisis-FX-swap-market-central-bankers-80-trillion-crash-meltdown-BIS/amp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1704864/Bank-of-England-BoE-interest-rates-virtual-money-printing-quantitative-easing-QE-QT/amp
https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/chinas-central-bank-bis-set-up-renminbi-liquidity-arrangement-2022-06-25/
Read this one a while ago:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxbusiness.com/economy/russia-china-may-be-preparing-new-gold-backed-currency-expert-assures-us-dollar-safest-currency-today.amp
I think its all a ploy. They changed too quickly.
The only insight I got was reading between the lines, and then that was not about China but about who knows what.
”China has responded by becoming the only country to have overturned Covid policy in response to popular anger, which is ironic given the caricature of Chinese people as passive subjects of their rulers.”
Tiananmen Square would have been the outcome if this protest was not part of something Xi is up to and wished. Wheels within Wheels – it is impossible the Chinese lockdowns in China were about covid – they were about something, but Not Health. The ending is not about Xi yielding to peaceful protestors but about something we do not understand yet.
Things are Very weird in China now about everything, the economy is teetering, this whole covid thing is not what it seems… Not in the West at all, not in the way the World Bank forced the third and developing world to lockdown, not the weirdness the BIS is up to with Euro Dollars and Swift and the BRICS and debt and Not the way the World Responded by self immolating the global economy for a flu. The entire world went mad over a flu? – none of this was about the virus.
I think its all a ploy. They changed too quickly.
I enjoyed this article. It provided insight into Chinese society that is hard to find elsewhere, at least in my experience.
I wonder how threatened Xi really feels by the social unrest? Clearly the CCP’s attitude to zero covid has changed, but I wonder if that was, to some extent, in the works once Xi was elected leader for life at the recent party congress?
Is there really a threat to Xi’s reign by disaffected Chinese? Will their desperate demonstrations regarding endless lockdowns translate into long-term political unrest, or will they be like so many people in the West who just want to put covid behind them and get on with what’s left of their lives?
What a terrifying article that it is some weird China apology with lies and some very odd agenda; obviously an arm of World Economic Forum in the very writing style – This guy is ”Future Cities Project” and here is a blurb of theirs – most of it is really scary stuff if you can understand this kind of writing – look them up and read what they are about (I promise you will not finish and know anything at all real of them, but that they are scary wile trying to sound benevolent)
”The project of The Future Cities Project is, to a certain extent, to return to first principles and critique the rise of determinism, instrumentalism, dogmatism and didacticism in urban and city discourse. In so doing, we want to challenge the malign influence of sustainability, the precautionary principle and risk-aversion within the broader…”
What Yuval Noah Harari, wants to do with humans, this guy seemingly wants to do with their living spaces. Remember WEF is very much in with CCP – they meet twice a year, once in Davos, once in China – Pure Globalism, and remember – you will own nothing and be happy? Well you will be living in one of the Hives Future Cities Project wants.
My God, this article is truly Orwellian.
The phoenix rises again. Welcome back
SINO DELENDA EST!
I can never tell if you’re being sarcastic, serious, or just pointing out the historical similarities between the China/USA dynamic and Rome/Carthage.
Stop trying Steve.
He is being pompous, he is good at it!
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
The latter.
It certainly is an apt comparison, and it’s likely, in my judgement, to end the same way. I’m cynical enough to wonder whether certain powers that be in the Pentagon aren’t already pushing for a war that would rejuvenate American manufacturing capacity and use wartime patriotism direct populist anger towards a foreign target, thereby killing three birds with one stone. What they’re doing to China with regards to microchips is awfully similar to what the USA did to Japan using oil in 1941. It isn’t guaranteed to start a war as it did then, but it’s guaranteed to start something, which is obviously the point.
Agreed.
“War is the Father of All Things” as Heraclitus so appositely put it, more than two thousand years ago!
Sound like very wise words again Mr Stanhope.
Unanswerable question – are we Rome about to destroy carthage though or is china now Rome? And we’re carthage.
America is Rome in the analogy. Sino delenda est is a variation on carthago delenda est, which is latin for “Carthage must be destroyed”. According to legend, the Roman Senator Cato would add “carthago delenda est” to the end of every speech. This was prior to the third Punic War, in which Carthage was indeed destroyed.
Thank you, was more asking which side was going to end up like carthage 🙂 difficult to answer atm to early on?
I suspect both sides will play their respective roles in the analogy, whether or not there’s an actual war. Without getting too much into specifics, China faces serious limitations that the US can easily exploit. The US looks troubled on the surface from a political standpoint, but in terms of the factors that dictate geopolitical power, they are in a fundamentally better strategic position.
Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate what you’re saying I think that’s pretty fair, it’s a big subject to get into like you say, so I’ll leave it at that for this thread. It’s certainly going to be interesting.
Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate what you’re saying I think that’s pretty fair, it’s a big subject to get into like you say, so I’ll leave it at that for this thread. It’s certainly going to be interesting.
I suspect both sides will play their respective roles in the analogy, whether or not there’s an actual war. Without getting too much into specifics, China faces serious limitations that the US can easily exploit. The US looks troubled on the surface from a political standpoint, but in terms of the factors that dictate geopolitical power, they are in a fundamentally better strategic position.
Thank you, was more asking which side was going to end up like carthage 🙂 difficult to answer atm to early on?
America is Rome in the analogy. Sino delenda est is a variation on carthago delenda est, which is latin for “Carthage must be destroyed”. According to legend, the Roman Senator Cato would add “carthago delenda est” to the end of every speech. This was prior to the third Punic War, in which Carthage was indeed destroyed.
Sound like very wise words again Mr Stanhope.
Unanswerable question – are we Rome about to destroy carthage though or is china now Rome? And we’re carthage.
Agreed.
“War is the Father of All Things” as Heraclitus so appositely put it, more than two thousand years ago!
It certainly is an apt comparison, and it’s likely, in my judgement, to end the same way. I’m cynical enough to wonder whether certain powers that be in the Pentagon aren’t already pushing for a war that would rejuvenate American manufacturing capacity and use wartime patriotism direct populist anger towards a foreign target, thereby killing three birds with one stone. What they’re doing to China with regards to microchips is awfully similar to what the USA did to Japan using oil in 1941. It isn’t guaranteed to start a war as it did then, but it’s guaranteed to start something, which is obviously the point.
Stop trying Steve.
He is being pompous, he is good at it!
The latter.
I can never tell if you’re being sarcastic, serious, or just pointing out the historical similarities between the China/USA dynamic and Rome/Carthage.
Sadly conspiratorialists like this will always impose their own agenda on an issue. Just to be clear, here’s no link to the WEF, I am critical of the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party and my website has existed for 20 years on a shoestring. The text you quote still stands even though it was written way back when. If you have just found me and oppose the need to be critical of established political positions, then you might be nearer the very thing you criticise than you think.
The phoenix rises again. Welcome back
SINO DELENDA EST!
Sadly conspiratorialists like this will always impose their own agenda on an issue. Just to be clear, here’s no link to the WEF, I am critical of the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party and my website has existed for 20 years on a shoestring. The text you quote still stands even though it was written way back when. If you have just found me and oppose the need to be critical of established political positions, then you might be nearer the very thing you criticise than you think.
What a terrifying article that it is some weird China apology with lies and some very odd agenda; obviously an arm of World Economic Forum in the very writing style – This guy is ”Future Cities Project” and here is a blurb of theirs – most of it is really scary stuff if you can understand this kind of writing – look them up and read what they are about (I promise you will not finish and know anything at all real of them, but that they are scary wile trying to sound benevolent)
”The project of The Future Cities Project is, to a certain extent, to return to first principles and critique the rise of determinism, instrumentalism, dogmatism and didacticism in urban and city discourse. In so doing, we want to challenge the malign influence of sustainability, the precautionary principle and risk-aversion within the broader…”
What Yuval Noah Harari, wants to do with humans, this guy seemingly wants to do with their living spaces. Remember WEF is very much in with CCP – they meet twice a year, once in Davos, once in China – Pure Globalism, and remember – you will own nothing and be happy? Well you will be living in one of the Hives Future Cities Project wants.
My God, this article is truly Orwellian.
No matter how hard I try, here is a part I just don’t get: “If the party can reinvigorate the Chinese economy and hold onto the reins of power, it will be a lifeline for ailing Western economies.”
So China’s CCP will save Western economies by continuing to steal their technology and destroying the Western working man by flooding his country with cheaply made trash?
Because we simply can’t switch off global cost down supply chains without starvation. If you had to buy say a pair of shoes in rural Congo or Tobago you’d be paying about 5 layers of middleman and 5x import duties – thats why shoes cost a weeks wages there and only an hour in UK/US. Now apply that logic to food or raw material… we’ve got the tigers by the tail here – there are big ones like China and India and many small ones like Taiwan and Singapore.
Because we simply can’t switch off global cost down supply chains without starvation. If you had to buy say a pair of shoes in rural Congo or Tobago you’d be paying about 5 layers of middleman and 5x import duties – thats why shoes cost a weeks wages there and only an hour in UK/US. Now apply that logic to food or raw material… we’ve got the tigers by the tail here – there are big ones like China and India and many small ones like Taiwan and Singapore.
No matter how hard I try, here is a part I just don’t get: “If the party can reinvigorate the Chinese economy and hold onto the reins of power, it will be a lifeline for ailing Western economies.”
So China’s CCP will save Western economies by continuing to steal their technology and destroying the Western working man by flooding his country with cheaply made trash?
Covid was a useful cover for more fundamental problems. Zero Covid imposes short term problems but the CCP faces worse long-term problems. They probably always planned to lift the policy in the face of protest to show a sense of responsiveness to their people’s wants and win public support for their increasingly costly confrontation with the US. Their comment about cold war mentalities is telling as to where their real concerns are. The CCP is realizing they revealed their hand too early. They were not truly prepared for the reality of an economic war with the USA. Now they have one whether they want it or not because they have antagonized both parties and supporting China in the US is political seppuku. Companies are factoring in political risk and shifting supply chains. The tariffs are not going away. Countries are realizing they will ultimately have to choose a side and many are. Japan and The Netherlands have recently agreed to join the American microchip embargo that is decimating China’s tech sector. The CCP would dearly love to get the toothpaste back in the tube and go back to 2015 when they could exploit the global economy without significant consequences but American political reality makes this highly unlikely. It’s more likely that both sides will blame each other for every economic problem to deflect public anger. There is no escaping the vicious cycle of provocation and retaliation now. Cold War 2 has arrived.
Covid was a useful cover for more fundamental problems. Zero Covid imposes short term problems but the CCP faces worse long-term problems. They probably always planned to lift the policy in the face of protest to show a sense of responsiveness to their people’s wants and win public support for their increasingly costly confrontation with the US. Their comment about cold war mentalities is telling as to where their real concerns are. The CCP is realizing they revealed their hand too early. They were not truly prepared for the reality of an economic war with the USA. Now they have one whether they want it or not because they have antagonized both parties and supporting China in the US is political seppuku. Companies are factoring in political risk and shifting supply chains. The tariffs are not going away. Countries are realizing they will ultimately have to choose a side and many are. Japan and The Netherlands have recently agreed to join the American microchip embargo that is decimating China’s tech sector. The CCP would dearly love to get the toothpaste back in the tube and go back to 2015 when they could exploit the global economy without significant consequences but American political reality makes this highly unlikely. It’s more likely that both sides will blame each other for every economic problem to deflect public anger. There is no escaping the vicious cycle of provocation and retaliation now. Cold War 2 has arrived.
China’s statist view of human rights is taken very seriously: the overwhelming majority are free not to be killed, injured or robbed by criminals, free not to have other cultures imposed on theirs through migration – and free to impose theirs in East Turkestan, Tibet etc. They are also free to pursue merit based careers and their Governments’ tax take of GDP is roughly 30% lower than UK, US Anzac and other similar economies. So they are free to take home more of their own income. However in China all are equally NOT free to damage the state, civic society or its property and few are free of social norms especailly family hierachy and their ancestors. It all comes down to what flavour you want. They seem to want a more collective aggregated set of freedoms and boundaries, where the Anglo nations tend to want devil take the hindmost libertarianism, at least till it goes wrong then they’ll just repeat the same mistake in the other direction – wokist pseudo-socialism-in-one-nation being an example. Our approach clearly can’t work long term as unshared wealth is stolen or destroyed on a cyclicle basis. Form the Zhouh to Song and the revolts of 1850s to Mai everyone is somebodiues ancestor. As someone who has worked hard at education and at work and benefitted from it i suppose i’d be better off in China – yet i am uneasy about it – many of the slackers, crims and general non – contributors in UK society are made like that by the society itself, sure in China they’d be persecuted, but how many would make those negative life choices if they received basic education and were shown proof that hard work improves outcomes?
History has shown that what you call devil take the hindmost libertarianism actually increases productivity, reduces poverty, drives innovation, and produces overall prosperity. All the problems you mention are conspicuously a result of the intrusion of traditional statism like large standing armies and social programs into the libertarian model.
An intelligent post, thanks
History has shown that what you call devil take the hindmost libertarianism actually increases productivity, reduces poverty, drives innovation, and produces overall prosperity. All the problems you mention are conspicuously a result of the intrusion of traditional statism like large standing armies and social programs into the libertarian model.
An intelligent post, thanks
China’s statist view of human rights is taken very seriously: the overwhelming majority are free not to be killed, injured or robbed by criminals, free not to have other cultures imposed on theirs through migration – and free to impose theirs in East Turkestan, Tibet etc. They are also free to pursue merit based careers and their Governments’ tax take of GDP is roughly 30% lower than UK, US Anzac and other similar economies. So they are free to take home more of their own income. However in China all are equally NOT free to damage the state, civic society or its property and few are free of social norms especailly family hierachy and their ancestors. It all comes down to what flavour you want. They seem to want a more collective aggregated set of freedoms and boundaries, where the Anglo nations tend to want devil take the hindmost libertarianism, at least till it goes wrong then they’ll just repeat the same mistake in the other direction – wokist pseudo-socialism-in-one-nation being an example. Our approach clearly can’t work long term as unshared wealth is stolen or destroyed on a cyclicle basis. Form the Zhouh to Song and the revolts of 1850s to Mai everyone is somebodiues ancestor. As someone who has worked hard at education and at work and benefitted from it i suppose i’d be better off in China – yet i am uneasy about it – many of the slackers, crims and general non – contributors in UK society are made like that by the society itself, sure in China they’d be persecuted, but how many would make those negative life choices if they received basic education and were shown proof that hard work improves outcomes?
Will be interesting to see how they deal with the inevitable wave of Covid with a strained hospital system and rising deaths.
Will be interesting to see how they deal with the inevitable wave of Covid with a strained hospital system and rising deaths.
I predict the CCP will simply work from home. They’ll have an answer phone message to the effect of ‘due to current circumstances…. Blah blah blah and simply sit at home drawing their wages and playing on tik tok.
Of course, the ‘We will tolerate no abuse’ diktat is not needed to discourage anyone pointing out any absurdities, when the CRA can pay a visit in China.
Why not? <]It's working just fine for my local council (Brighton), who are still not face to face with the hoi palloi, over a year after we all went back to work.
I predict the CCP will simply work from home. They’ll have an answer phone message to the effect of ‘due to current circumstances…. Blah blah blah and simply sit at home drawing their wages and playing on tik tok.
Of course, the ‘We will tolerate no abuse’ diktat is not needed to discourage anyone pointing out any absurdities, when the CRA can pay a visit in China.
Why not? <]It's working just fine for my local council (Brighton), who are still not face to face with the hoi palloi, over a year after we all went back to work.
I recall that before Covid, in 2019, everyone and their sibling (top woke, eh?) believed Putin was a strategic genius and Xi’s China would soon, through its sheer scale and in alliance with Putin, redirect world politics to their own views.
But then China thought it could master a virus (that it probably engineered and accidentally released), and it’s probably going to screw them badly over the next year, setting them back years. China has lost its great opportunity for global hegemony through scale – India is coming and then Africa.
And Putin invaded Ukraine, which is already bleeding his military dry and will, in due course, shrivel the Russian economy for decades, and make them a useless ally.
Meanwhile the USA argued endlessly about election malfeasance meaning the end of democracy is nigh and we seem to think the U.K. is going to hell in a handbasket because our economy is a little up and down, and the woke tide laps at our heels.
But our issues in the USA and U.K. are hugely trivial stuff compared to the geopolitical cul de sacs that China and Russia have just sprinted into. I could never have imagined back in 2019 that we’d be handed such an advantage.
That is a little simplistic Ian, USA deliberately threatened NATO expansion into Ukraine, pure provocation. The arrogance and greed of the USA is to blame for a lot of world ills. I see nothing good coming out off the ‘developed’ world, sadly.
But you see good coming out of Russia under Putin? Strange values you have.
But you see good coming out of Russia under Putin? Strange values you have.
That is a little simplistic Ian, USA deliberately threatened NATO expansion into Ukraine, pure provocation. The arrogance and greed of the USA is to blame for a lot of world ills. I see nothing good coming out off the ‘developed’ world, sadly.
I recall that before Covid, in 2019, everyone and their sibling (top woke, eh?) believed Putin was a strategic genius and Xi’s China would soon, through its sheer scale and in alliance with Putin, redirect world politics to their own views.
But then China thought it could master a virus (that it probably engineered and accidentally released), and it’s probably going to screw them badly over the next year, setting them back years. China has lost its great opportunity for global hegemony through scale – India is coming and then Africa.
And Putin invaded Ukraine, which is already bleeding his military dry and will, in due course, shrivel the Russian economy for decades, and make them a useless ally.
Meanwhile the USA argued endlessly about election malfeasance meaning the end of democracy is nigh and we seem to think the U.K. is going to hell in a handbasket because our economy is a little up and down, and the woke tide laps at our heels.
But our issues in the USA and U.K. are hugely trivial stuff compared to the geopolitical cul de sacs that China and Russia have just sprinted into. I could never have imagined back in 2019 that we’d be handed such an advantage.