China Going Backwards

It has been fashionable in multiple circles to believe that China will take over the title of most powerful nation during this century. Much has been made of their economic growth and of their acquiring companies, land, and ports in other countries. This has presented an impression of an unstoppable juggernaut backed by the reality that they have become the main manufacturer of goods in the world. But does this mean China is ready or able to take over the lead?

I do not think so. Despite their growing military aggression in Asia, there are cracks appearing. With protests sporadically appearing in different regions, the specter of civil unrest has cast a long shadow across the very large country. In December, the village of Wukan rose up against land seizures and managed to make international news. That inspired another uprising in the nearby city of Haimen despite knowing they would be beaten by police.

It is no wonder that the authorities are spooked  for they have witnessed successful uprisings in Arab countries this past year. They too sit on a powder keg of poor and oppressed citizens. But what is interesting to me is that the latest uprisings are in in southern China, which is supposed to be the wealthy part of the nation.

Another intriguing tidbit of information is that the wealthy are looking to escape the country in the future. From other things I have read, there is a sense of fear that another peasant rebellion could happen. So we have the wealthy prepared to pull the handle on their personal ejection seats at the first sign of serious unrest.

So when President Hu wrote a piece saying that China is under cultural attack from the West and then the government restricts television broadcasts in order to present a more pure socialist message it made my antenna go up. This strikes me as being both a reaction to domestic control problems and preparations for conflict. The latter could be internal or external, with the latter being of particular concern to me.

It is not unknown for nations to attack others to bleed off internal pressures that have become too difficult to regulate. However, this may not be the conventional bombing or invading of another country kind of attack. The communists running China have been orchestrating cyber attacks on other countries for years. Asymmetric warfare is at the heart of Chinese military planning, being a theory of fighting a foe who is more powerful by using unconventional means. Right now, that means using cyber warfare against America.

Frankly, I do not think that will do a thing to vent social pressures at home. So the odds of an open confrontation with the United States to whip up patriotic fervor are increasing. While the OWS idiots focused on the spurious one percent here, the income disparities in China make us look well balanced by comparison.

With a housing bubble bigger than the one that popped here and a massive population that are truly dirt poor, China has problems too big to easily fix no matter how much state control is imposed. Actually, state control rarely fixes problems and just breeds more from what I have seen. Aggravating this is how they are driving out Western companies and nationalizing companies again. Wealth and power are being consolidated in the hands of an elite few, as is typical with socialist systems. It is sadly reminiscent of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

With Europe and the United States poised for even worse financial problems in 2012, China will become even more unstable as the buyers for their manufactured goods dry up. November and December saw drops in manufacturing there, so those ballyhooing increased manufacturing in the States should take a reality check, stat. Demand is still not coming back. The fact that Hu and company think that the US is deliberately taking economic hits to undermine them financially does not help things either.

An unstable China will be prone to doing things that would be out of character for them in recent decades. People in the West have forgotten the China that invaded their neighbors Vietnam and India. Suffice it to say, nobody in the region has though. There is quite a military build up going on throughout Asia right now due to Chinese naval aggression at sea.

I would like to be a fly on the wall in some of the intelligence briefings in the region. Even the cash strapped Philippines government is looking to get F-16 fighter jets because of what has been going on.

It is going to be an interesting year.