Making China Great Again

There’s an interesting article at the European Council on Foreign Relations by diverse authors on China’s grand strategy which I commend to your attention. If you haven’t been paying attention, China’s objective is to become the world’s pre-eminent power, something many Chinese believe is their rightful place, first cultivating economic strength and then military strength. They will accomplish this by exploiting their greatest strength: being a command economy controlled from the top. That is the context in which I see Chinese President Xi’s consolidation of power in his own hands.

Read the whole thing.

Unlike many I tend to see China as a challenge but not a threat. I continue to believe that what China perceives as a strength is actually a weakness and that what the Chinese authorities have been referring to as their “rise” and now refer to as their “rejuvenation” has been much more the consequence of Western fecklessness than of Chinese acumen.

Is China now the world’s pre-eminent power? By purchasing power parity standards they already have the world’s largest economy although by nominal standards they’re still lagging behind the U. S. by about a third. I wonder how the accounts would stand if debt were taken into account. IMO China’s own internal contradictions will be their downfall and it can happen catastrophically and abruptly.

I don’t honestly care whether the U. S. is the world’s pre-eminent power or not as long as our real economy grows, median incomes rise, and standards of living improve. We should stick to our knitting and worry about our own internal contradictions rather than about China.