Count Dooku gives advice to China

Much ado has been made about China’s eventual surpassing of the United States’ as the World’s pre-eminent Power.   Nevermind I cannot think of one instance where one up and coming rival surpassed or tried to surpass another on the global stage peacefully, without conflict.   Doesn’t happen. 

 

Sparta vs Athens?  War.

Spain vs England?  Same

Germany vs Britain?  Ditto

What about on the regional stage?

Japan vs China?

So let’s just get this out of the way;  China should someday surpass the United States as the World’s eminent Power……

Last year a global survey was taken and the question was asked:

“China will or already has replaced the US as Superpower”?

Now this is a bit of a clever question.  Because it asked not is or can, but will?  Of course China will!  But will it happen in my lifetime?  Of course not(Thank God).

Though it should happen within a couple hundred years….I’d say well before then.  Unless something else happens first.

It was interesting to note the country with the highest % of people thinking China’s rise is inevitable is….

China!

67% believed it would as opposed to 16% that wrongfully said NEVER!  To paraphrase Kiefer Sutherland, how can a billion Chinese be wrong?  

A good portion of those probably think China already has overtaken America.

Still, may I quibble?

After all, how can a nation with only a few nuclear weapons become greater than a nation with a few thousand?

As I write this there is a massive natural gas leak in California, and a lead scare in Michigan.  Doesn’t put much faith in the ability of the United States to get things done does it?   (No whiff of a Superpower there.)  Both caused by human error.  That is, the USA isn’t exactly acting like a SUPERPOWER if you ask me.   Much less look like one.    How can the Chinese come here and not think their future is so bright??

I think it’s silly the number of people predicting China will surpass America is only 67%.   Rather small, don’t you think?  After all, we only have 300 million people….it’s a matter of statistics.   

The problem with China’s very strong belief in its destiny is that it doesn’t look at statistics as the basis for its answer but PRIDE instead.   Or to use the “E” word, “emotion”.   I’ve been reading a lot of Stephen Ambrose lately.   I’ve finished “Nothing Like it in the World”, and am now on “Custer and Crazy Horse”.  Both of his themes in these books are the American sense of destiny.  The country must grow at all costs.  Virgin forests older than the hills must be cut down.  The buffalo that once roamed as far East as Ohio decimated.   Nothing must stand in the way.   And nothing does.

So it is with China.

Until about 5 minutes ago, I’d argue the vast majority of Chinese felt the same way about their environment.    Coal dust turning the snow of Beijing black?  So what!  It’s the price of industrialization.  The Gobi filling the air in Beijing with sand….it’s always been that way!

We’re all way too familiar with the problems China has.   The perception of China is always up and down.  Like with other countries.  America in particular.   The Chinese are all too aware of their own environmental issues.  Its waters are undrinkable.  To this day I will not eat fish in China.  (the salmon is imported)   We can only guess at how far past saving the soil is.   

But what I’m wondering is this….how can a nation with so many glaring and visible problems be so sure of its rise?   Of its importance? Where’s the logic in that? 

Try as a might, I cannot understand with what logical basis other than numbers and thus inevitability does China believe it will surpass America?   If you believe the numbers…(a very big if!), than doesn’t China already have a larger economy than America?   You remember China has 5 times America’s population, right?   That’s a lot of cash to spread around.

So, sure as the sun rises “in the West” I am certain China will overtake America. 

The Chinese are a proud people.  We know this.  It is that oh so volatile ingredient Pride along with that sinister tasting koolaid we call Sense of Manifest Destiny that fuels China on.  Nothing else.  

Many years ago when I was living in Tokyo I was able to catch my favorite football team on Armed Forces Radio.   To my surprise they were winning against their heavily favored opponent.  Then the tide slowly turned.   And as it did the announcer simply said “sooner or later a team needs to have talent” to sustain itself.   Emotion is finite.  It can only carry one so far.

And so it goes with China. 

Awhile back I wrote a piece on China’s vast foreign currency savings.   These savings were and still are a point of pride for China not only as a player on the global stage but amongst the people themselves.    China was in effect, in the process of buying its way into The Club.  China recently has been having the time of its life poking America in the eye with its new found “wealth”. 

Boy do things change fast.   China has been broke before.   But that was when everyone was poor.  And equal.  No one had a car.  Or an apartment.  The black market exchange rate was 12-1.  $1 for 12 rmb.   

Expectations were pretty low.

If China somehow manages to squander away its vast foreign currency holdings to maintain its economy, how will the Chinese People react?   That is the question.  How will the government explain it away?  More interesting to note….who will The Masses blame?    How will a People that think so highly of its self carry on?  To the point, will it let the government off the hook?  Or will folks like you and me simply be the scapegoat of yet another China Failing?

Meanwhile, while this survey confirms that while China thinks quite highly of itself, China is still drinking the koolaid of endless prosperity and inevitable domination of its region.   Like the American Pioneers of the 1850’s. 

It’s quite possible China can set yet another new record:  quickest collapse of a nation. 

Does that make me Anti-China?  Of course not! 

But when a country so sure of its self and its place in the world suddenly falls flat on its face we barbarians are all so curious how the Chinese People will react…..?

What was it Count Dooku said….?  Oh yes….

“Twice the pride, double the fall.”