China Counting: How the West Was Lost

233 Pages·2010·0.799 MB·English

by  Alex Mackinnon, Barnaby Powell (auth.)

China Counting
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China Counting
How the West was lost
Alex Mackinnon
and
Barnaby Powell
© Alex Mackinnon and Barnaby Powell 2010
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-23403-1
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identifi ed as the authors of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-31347-1 ISBN 978-0-230-25103-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230251038
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments x
List of fi gures and tables xi
Introduction 1
Western greed and Chinese fear 2
Fixing a context 3
Forming an opinion 5
Forecasting a global future 8
Part I Politics, opportunism, environment,
might, society
Introduction 11
Executive summary 13
Chapter 1: Politics 15
Introduction 15
The problem 16
Internal affairs 18
The solution lies overseas 21
Contagion at the border 23
About face? 27
Political direction 29
Political tension 30
Chinese democracy 31
Chapter 2: Opportunism 36
Introduction 36
The problem 37
The solution 38
Secreting the state 41
Opportunism knocks 44
Chapter 3: Environment 46
Introduction 46
The problem 47
v
vi Contents
The solution 49
The disaster 53
Chapter 4: Might 55
Introduction 55
The problem 56
The solution 58
Technological might 61
The mighty plan 67
Chapter 5: Society 68
Introduction 68
The problem 69
Needham’s Puzzle 70
An imperial societal solution 72
The upwardly social middle classes 73
Confucian society 75
Loss of control 76
Language and knowledge in society 78
Guanxi – the Chinese problem solver 79
The student and business mandate 80
Building society’s bridges 82
Homecoming 83
Chinese societal behavior 85
Points to ponder 88
Part II Power, opportunities, equilibrium,
military, science
Introduction 93
China’s view of the West 94
Telling it like it is 96
Chinese young people’s view of the West 97
Arts and crafts 100
Weighed in the balance 101
Executive summary 103
Chapter 6: Power 105
Introduction 105
The three main strands 107
Western tables are turned 109
Contents vii
Chapter 7: Opportunities 112
Introduction 112
Developing and developed traffi c 114
After the ovations 116
The Great Learning 119
Into Africa and Latin America 121
Chapter 8: Equilibrium 123
Introduction 123
The main culprit is coal 124
A selfi sh equilibrium or a green fuse? 126
Chapter 9: Military 129
Introduction 129
Tactical asymmetry and Taiwan 130
Mutually assured destruction and combat readiness 132
The American Sun Tzu 134
Chapter 10: Science 136
Introduction 136
China resurgent 138
Freedom from disease 141
Qing and Fa 142
Some animals may be more equal than others 144
Brightest is not always best 146
Points to ponder 148
Part III Potential, outcomes, evolution, mastery,
second sight
Introduction 151
Metamorphosis 153
Executive summary 156
Chapter 11: Potential 157
Introduction 157
Shifting the gears in the West, China and India 161
The true nature of growth 165
State capitalism 166
Sovereign wealth funds 168
viii Contents
Chapter 12: Outcomes 172
Introduction 172
Bothersome borderlands 174
The diaspora of desperation 177
The Greater China bloc coalesces 178
Chapter 13: Evolution 181
Introduction 181
Earth Enterprise 182
Elective affi nities 184
Growth – the great shibboleth 185
Chapter 14: Mastery 187
Introduction 187
From the back foot to the giant leap 188
Drawing down the moon 190
Chapter 15: Second sight 191
Introduction 191
Values 193
Cross-reach 196
Education and distance learning 197
China’s new age 198
Obamarama 202
Points to ponder 204
Postscript 207
References 208
Glossary and index 213
General references 220
PREFACE
Chinese overseas expansion is clearly accelerating. The
global door is held open not only by hordes of swift feet
but also by hoards of credit and cash.
(Mackinnon and Powell, 2008)
In writing this book, we are conscious of the continuing fl ow of
written material on China and its place in the world. We have there-
fore tried to capture a contrarian tone in this, the second of our
books on China’s entry to the world stage. We should in fact say
re-entry or reappearance: China dominated the world several cen-
turies ago but did not, as the denizens of Madison Avenue might
put it, market itself very well. Indeed, China has until recently been
most inward-looking – even to the point of imitating a hermit, a
hermit with a large army, of course.
It is, however, the fall of the West that we wish to juxtapose with
China’s rise: the greed of Western fi nancial houses, the selfi shness
of Western consumers, the lust for power of Western politicians, the
military offensives in the Middle East, the hand-wringing and hand-
washing over Africa – Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe, in particular.
All these Western moral failures have allowed China as a nation, often
deemed to be totalitarian in its attitude to society, to take, slowly but
surely and step by step, control over the world’s resources and trade.
There is nothing in our book to say how this increasing control by
China can be stopped or even wrested away. This book says how
to accept it, how to understand it, how to reciprocate and how to
ensure that Chinese society does not make the mistakes of our own
‘liberal’ democracies. We are not advocating appeasement or claim-
ing ‘peace in our time’ but we are pointing out that knowing China
and the Chinese is the fi rst step in a new Long March, away from
economies underwritten by political lobbying, from poverty rein-
forced by fi nancial chicanery, from greed tempered only by fear. In
short, we argue that the West has lost the plot and it is China that
really counts if we wish for an improvement in our global society.
We are urging the ostrich in all of us to lift our heads from the sand
and look around at what is coming our way.
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