Nationalism is Strong in China, Especially the Younger Generation

[Khan7]

All of the evidence I have seen and all of the research I have done points in exactly this direction. The Chinese, by and large, trust, or at least abide, the state. They look at the great economic things it is doing, and they are content. They are filled with thirst for world power. They look at the US, and are filled with hatred, which is exacerbated by loads of state-sponsored propaganda portraying every small or large action the US takes as directly attempting to hamper or destroy Chinese power.

There are dissidents, and their numbers may be large enough that in other situations they might snowball and become a real factor, but the Chinese government is good enough at stamping them out that they can depend indefinitely on the loyalty and nationalism of the vast majority of Chinese.

The younger generation especially is very optimistic, forward-thinking, power-thirsty and nationalistic, to the point where even if they don't completely agree with every action or even every point of philosophy that their government takes, they will lend it very strong support.

This is my view, based on quite a bit of reading and following events. I am looking forward to others' comments or views.

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Khan7

[This message has been edited by Khan7 (edited 08-31-2001).]

[Khan7]

On Russia now: they VERY much want to be our good friend. They LOATHE to buddy up very much to China, that would only mean that eventually China will come and take 70% of their land and begin forcing Chinese culture on them (no joke). The US can offer a safe, non-imperial relationship, a counter to Chinese imperialism, wealth, technology, and immense security-- if Russia can get to the point of a strong alliance.

Of course these things take time, and the US has not always been conducive to all this, so who knows what will happen? If the US bows out, Russia will probably be ultimately forced to submit herself to the imperial power of China, something they REALLLLY want to avoid, but may be forced into.

And Chinese agression, if their leaders show their recently characteristic craftiness, will (a) probably not be common, and (b), if they work it right, not have the effect of ruining all they have worked to accomplish. Basically the Chinese are going to establish their legitimacy as a world leader and supplant the US FIRST, and spread around their philosophy and world view. If they can accomplish this, which is not at all improbable, then they would be able to use PRUDENT agression all they damn well pleased without upsetting their power. Note the "spread around their philosophy and world view" part. This is the key. Think about it.

China is a real threat, and we Americans are at best good-intentioned and mypopic, and often sometimes just plain selfish and myopic. As I said we need a Pearl Harbor.

Even if we don't personally wake up totally, but are able to get in with Russia, then Russia may gain power and influence and take care of the problem for us. But it's very risky to count on that, we really must wake up and take care ourselves.

Chinese dominance, with all of the stifling anti-individualism that comes with it, would be a disaster for the world, but it may be inevitable. Current Chinese ways of thinking and system of government is a necessary evil that China needed to become unified and stable. The Chinese seem to be barely aware of the great price they have payed for this system in their country, and the disaster that would result if similar ideals were spread around the world.

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Khan7

[Minamoto Yoritomo]

Good analysis! I thought that your view of Russia was right on the money. There is far too much enmity between Russia and China, whereas the United States never really did anything bad to the Soviet Union even during the height of the cold war.

The idea that China needs its current form of government to remain stable, however, seems a little off the mark. First of all, China's youth seem to have faith in the central government. Even if all the atrocities are overlooked, this faith is still misplaced. As millenia of imperial rule have shown, power in China can never be very centralized.

Recently the central government tried to institute reforms that would lighten the oppressive tax burden placed on Chinese farmers. They found that they had no way to enforce this tax cut, for the local government officials continued to collect the higher taxes in order to fill their own coffers.

Even the spy plane incident demonstrated the impotence of China's central government. Many times Chinese diplomats were conciliatory and made friendly promises to the Americans. The military, however, had control of the plane and were not willing to keep the promises that the civilian government was making.

I firmly believe that unless China moves to a Federal system, preferably democratic, it can't maintain control over its increasingly diverse population. Ultranationalism seems to be the temporary solution, but that is definitely not a stable solution (see Japan, Germany, Italy, etc.). I believe that even the United States is becoming more unstable due to the amount of power due to the amount of power that is constantly being usurped from the States by the central government. Without actually giving power to regional governments (rather than them just taking it because of the central governments ineptitude), and without some decades of democratic tradition for its citizens, China cannot hope to maintain it's current form for more than another century.

[clink]

Quote Originally posted by Khan7:

China is a real threat, and we Americans are at best good-intentioned and mypopic, and

Chinese dominance, with all of the stifling anti-individualism that comes with it, would be a disaster for the world, but it may be inevitable. Current Chinese ways of thinking and system of government is a necessary evil that China needed to become unified and stable. The Chinese seem to be barely aware of the great price they have payed for this system in their country, and the disaster that would result if similar ideals were spread around the world.

[/B][/QUOTE]

Hear! Hear!

[Devil_Hanzo]

You know, when people write stuff like this, I always think that they're underestimating the US' dominance in the world and overestimating China's potential and development. Another thing to remember is that the world is made up of more than superpowers. Even if the US can be said to have dominance in the world, there are lots of other "players", and even Europe, which is probably the most Americanized part of the world, is still (fortunately) radically different from the US in many ways. The point is that even if China should become dominant in the world, which I seriously doubt, what you call anti-individualism won't necessarily spread all over the world. Perhaps it would reduce individualism in some countries, but it's not like individualism would be completely gone all over the globe. Also, it's quite possible to have more than one highly influential state in the world. The Soviet Union had a great influence on large parts of the world, but that didn't stop the US from influencing other parts of the world...

To show my point;
From what I've read, it's expected (if the current development continues) that China's GDP will equal that of the US in 2050. Now, remember that the Chinese population is at least four times larger than that of the US, so the GDP per capita (which is what really matters) will still only be 1/4 of the US'. And this is 50 years into the future. Who knows what may have happened by then.

Now consider that the US' GDP per capita is 33,900USD, as opposed to 23,400USD in Japan, 22,700 in Germany or 3,800 in China... The US had a growth rate of 4,1% in 1999, Japan 0,3%, Germany 1,5% and China 7%. Are you starting to see the pattern here? The US is already a much stronger economy than most countries it's natural to compare it with, and China is barely above developing nation standards, even though it does have a good growth rate...

China is in reality still lightyears behind the real economic powers of the world. IMHO it's less internally stable than it seems, and at the moment it exercises very little cultural influence outside perhaps its immediate neighbours. The US on the other hand, has already established itself as the main provider of culture and identity for large parts of the world, and American brand names can be found all over the world. I can, from personal experience, tell you that even in the tiniest African villages, where there's neither water, electricity nor any other luxury, you can easily find a bottle of coca-cola. In most developing countries, America still represents freedom, wealth etc. etc. And as a matter of fact, American culture has replaced a lot of local culture in many industrialized countries. Not in the sense that these countries have completely lost their own identities, but there are these little things everywhere that remind you you are within the American sphere of influence. English is the dominant language in the world. Forget about all the people who have Mandarin as their first language; how many people outside China speak Mandarin?

American corporations still control more than one might think and even Japan, which seemed so "frightening" in past decades, is no longer considered a threat to American hegemony in the world (not that they ever really were). China is simply nowhere near having the kind of influence America has in finance, culture and science and I think that if it ever comes anywhere near that, it will be far into the future (remember that even 50 years can be a lot these days).

Now, I'm not saying that China won't be influential in the 21st century, I just think the "threat" or whatever you choose to call it is often exaggerated. And I don't even like the US much...

When it comes to Russia, I think that if they don't want to cooperate with China, it has to do with the fact that Russia is culturally and racially (let's not forget that the race question can influence politics) closer to Europe and the US than China. Russia is a European nation, so close ties with China has never been very realistic.

[Khan7]

Good arguments Hanzo! When I have some more time it will be a great honor to shoot a few of them down! :-P

Matt

[Otokomi Innue]

So, here I am cruising through the Japanese History section of this fine forum and I stumpled on this thread. Very interesting stuff through and through. I'm just wondering if it is better off in the Chinese Current Events section of maybe the Grand Speculation AND Michael Chrighton Novel section? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Devil_Hanzo]

You're right Otokomi, but I still have to post this link; http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/dateline/0,8782,173041,00.html

I think these two statements are particularly interesting;
"Many in our Party believe the Third Way isn't such a bad idea." (talking about the "Third Way" of some European social democrats)

"Communism is still our ultimate objective as a Party, but it may take several thousand years." (at least they realize that they're nowhere near true communism, which IMO shows there's hope)

[jskirwin@yahoo.com]

In my current position I have had run-ins with Chinese "script-kiddies", most recently early this Summer when several high profile sites (and about 500+ low profile ones) were attacked.

Would someone please teach them to not use the term "American Hegemonism"? It's "American Imperialism" as in "The Tiananmen Square protestors who died under tank treads could sure have used some American Imperialism to save their sorry asses from their own government."

12 Years ago I was helping support and shelter Chinese students at my university; now I'm securing web-sites and setting black-ice traps to protect data from them...

China a threat? Oh yeah...

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The Buddha is a gyoza. If you find the Buddha, eat him.

[Khan7]

lol jskirwin

entertaining but true..

[Brown Wolf]

Nationalism may be strong, but I heard that ppl are afraid that the current regime will collapse and China may be torn apart.

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The White Wolf clan will conqouer all of Japan!


White Wolf Clan (http://www.geocities.com/iron_wolf81/whitewolf.html).html[/url]

[Oda Matsu]

GDP ($B US)

US(4% GROWTH) PRC (7%GROWTH)
2001 $9.000 $4.000
2002 $9.360 $4.280
2003 $9.734 $4.580
2004 $10.124 $4.900
2005 $10.529 $5.243
2006 $10.950 $5.610
2007 $11.388 $6.003
2008 $11.843 $6.423
2009 $12.317 $6.873
2010 $12.810 $7.354
2011 $13.322 $7.869
2012 $13.855 $8.419
2013 $14.409 $9.009
2014 $14.986 $9.639
2015 $15.585 $10.314
2016 $16.208 $11.036
2017 $16.857 $11.809
2018 $17.531 $12.635
2019 $18.232 $13.520
2020 $18.962 $14.466
2021 $19.720 $15.479
2022 $20.509 $16.562
2023 $21.329 $17.722
2024 $22.182 $18.962
2025 $23.070 $20.289
2026 $23.993 $21.710
2027 $24.952 $23.229
2028 $25.950 $24.855
2029 $26.988 $26.595
2030 $28.068 $28.457

[jskirwin@yahoo.com]

Well ODA, I checked your figs, and according to the CIA you actually may have underestimated China's 2000 GDP by 1/2 a Billion. Not bad...

However, as an armchair economist I'm sceptical of linear projections - whether on on the Chinese growth rate or the US budget for that matter.

Take a look at the graph below taken from the Economist magazine (www.economist.com). As you can see the larger an economy gets, the slower the growth rate. This is the same reason that companies like GM or Microsoft do not rule the world (well, maybe the reason the former doesn't). It's hard to maintain high growth in mature economies and mature companies.

http://www.economist.com/images/20000408/csu762.gif


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I take refuge in the Buddha.

[This message has been edited by jskirwin@yahoo.com (edited 10-10-2001).]

[This message has been edited by jskirwin@yahoo.com (edited 10-10-2001).]

[This message has been edited by jskirwin@yahoo.com (edited 10-10-2001).]

[Anssi Hakkinen]

Actually, China's GDP figures in the CIA World Factbook are somewhat unreliable, because they are Purchasing Power Parity -corrected. With the "pure" World Bank figures China's GDP is something like a fifth of what CIA says.

[Major Robert Dump]

George Will, a columnist for the Washington Post, predicts that China will use the United States "war on terrorism" as a launching pad for an assault on Taiwan since most of the US forces are leaving that region temporarily unguarded.

Damn, get ready for another price increase on RAM.


But seriously, China has no more room to expand. Something has to give, either internally or externally. It will be interesting to see what they try to "annex" in order to expand the Chinese empire.

[This message has been edited by Major Robert Dump (edited 10-12-2001).]

[Slyspy]

I know very little on this subject, but I do know that it belongs in Off Topic not Japanese History And Cinema.

Still Japanese, Chinese whatever. They're all the same anyway. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif


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"Put 'em in blue coats, put 'em in red coats, the bastards will run all the same!"

[TemujinForever]

It is predicted that by 2007 China's economy will be the largest in the world.
http://www.megastories.com/china/economy/economy.htm

The Dragon is rising...

[Gothmog]

Khan7, what do you guys really know about China? It almost made me laugh if only the comments were not this insulting as well as silly.

One thing for sure: Chinese know American better than the other way around. And ignorance is not always a bliss, especially if combined by arrogance.

Go back to STW strategy, that's one of the few things that you are really good at.



[This message has been edited by Gothmog (edited 10-16-2001).]

[Brown Wolf]

Quote Originally posted by Gothmog:
Khan7, what do you guys really know about China? It almost made me laugh if only the comments were not this insulting as well as silly.

One thing for sure: Chinese know American better than the other way around. And ignorance is not always a bliss, especially if combined by arrogance.

Go back to STW strategy, that's one of the few things that you are really good at.

[This message has been edited by Gothmog (edited 10-16-2001).][/QUOTE]

LOL

THAT IS SO FUNNY!
The Chinese know america?
yeah right................so we really do hate china and think the chinese are out to get us like the propaganda machine says

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[jskirwin@yahoo.com]

While I don't buy the China surpassing the USA args of this thread, I'm left wondering what it would mean if the Chinese economy really did become larger than the USA. Although paranoid by nature, I'm having a hard time thinking about what the negatives of such an event would be. If China can manage to feed/clothe/modernize a billion+ people while at the same time maintaining the integrity of the nation - then hey, I'm glad I studied Chinese.

As long as the US maintains growth friendly policies towards its economy (low interest rates, rates of taxation) then "Wansui!"



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I take refuge in the Buddha.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

Inner Mongolia will be liberated by the Mongols under leadership of the New Great Khan, so good diplomacy will be to be friends with Mongolia and one day they save u from the chinese...

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Quote I gallop messages around, dont track me I can bring war as well[/QUOTE]

[tienyi]

Well I think that since we are living in a peace world, why can't every country just respect each other and help each other, I thought every country after World War 2 have all signed peace treaties to avoid unreasonable wars, because killing to meet goals is a selfish unless you have a reasonable answer.

[Jaguara]

I think that the assesments of China are a bit oversimplified and exaggerated.

Particularly in the case of their supposed stability. The consensus of most international geo-political analysis groups...such as stratfor.com and janes.com. is that they are far from stable. Yes, the core urban areas are very much under the yoke of the communist government...but that is far from the case particularly in remote rural areas. More and more the government is resorting to crackdowns on all organizations that might have a potential of someday being a threat, such as Falun Gong. These are acts of despiration. I am not saying that they are on the verge of collapse or anything, but they certainly have a lot of issues at home to work out before they can go out and conquer the world so to speak.

That being said, China (and India for that matter), both have huge potential if they can properly industrialize and modernize. But that will take more than a few years. The main question is if it is even possible under their current system, certainly it is slowing their growth.

One little side note, the Chinese are currently concentrating on re-building their fleet - which currently consists mostly of patrol-type missile boats and gunboats. Though details are scarce, it is estimated that in 10-12 years they could deploy a formidible blue water navy. You have to wonder what Taiwan thinks of that...or for that matter...Japan.

Jaguara
(stirring up the pot...)

[This message has been edited by Jaguara (edited 11-23-2001).]