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Worth an hour of your time. For a major world issue. China in the East and China in the West.
Snips (not necessarily in order of his talk):
- “Statistically China is engaging in the greatest re-militarisation of any country in absolute and relative terms in peacetime history”.
- Importance of Communist Party membership. Now 100+ millions. They include many of the middle class, so the middle class has been suborned.
- Authoritarian governments like China can rapidly increase economic growth in a poor country. That becomes more difficult as the country becomes richer. (PF: with this analysis, is John subject to some of the same self-delusion that led the west to open up their markets to China in the 90s and 00s, in the hope that doing so would lead them to become more open and liberal? IOW, that authoritarian China might manage to move past the “middle class trap”, in a way that other countries have not? I hope not, but maybe).
- Taiwan: Tied to Xi Jinping making it his legacy. That’s dangerous. Though the Russia experience in Ukraine may have given us a few more years of breathing space.
- SEA countries don’t want China to dominate. Don’t like its values.
- China is Leninist. As I’ve often said: an authoritarian-bureaucratic-state. Closer to Mussolini’s Italy than any other country today. Concerned mainly with maintaining power, not so much with making revolution.
- Uygurs: Why is China imprisoning them? Because Beijing can’t stand differing viewpoints. (PF: agree, but also the issue that China fears they might join the East Turkmenistan Liberation movement.
- Why China is punishing Australia. The “Fourteen Grievances”. From 43'00
- The West and other open economies need to understand importance of enlightenment structures. Enough of constant self-abasement. (Comes with a first-generation immigrant perspective. Similar to Konstantin Kisin)
From the video intro:
Dr John Lee is a political scientist, specialising in Chinese political economy, at the Hudson Institute. Dr Lee has authored several books about international security including 'Will China Fail?' and 'The Free and Open Indo-Pacific Beyond 2020' as well as writing for some of the world’s most popular publications including The New York Times, The Australian, and Wall Street Journal.
