I was startled to come across the following tweet my Sohrab Ahmari, someone I'd not heard of, but turns out he's the editor of the op-ed page at the New York Post:
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He deleted it the same day, with the comment:
Taking these point by point:
(1) "I'm at peace with a Chinese-led 21st century".
This begs two questions:
(i) will it in fact be a "Chinese-led 21st century"? and
(ii) if it is, could I (could we) be at peace with it?
Niall Ferguson writes this week in Why is the west imitating Beijing? that the west may, kind of inadvertently, stumble into letting China become the world leader, by copying what they're doing. That may be one path to a "China-led 21st Century".
Mark Tooley is not so sure. He concludes his Decadent US vs Virtuous China? with this observation:
All nations have some natural virtue, including of course China. But the coercive machinery of dictatorship corrupts national character. In democracies, there is at least the opportunity for virtue to thrive. May America amid its sins seek virtue and justice. And may America never be at peace with a world led by tyrants.
One senses that the world -- China apart -- very much wants the US to retain its preeminent role in international affairs. Remember, the US has many allies. China has none but the maverick and crooked North Korea. No other countries are rushing to be allies. In our region, here in East Asia and down to SE Asia, countries are wary of rather than welcoming to China's new aggression.
I recall something I heard so many years ago: that American has one word to define it: "Freedom". China has no such single word definition. "Xi's Dream" doesn't cut it.
A lot of the gloom about America may be precisely because it is so open. Precisely because it allows Freedom of the press. China, by stark contrast, allows no such openness and anyone who tries is soon dealt with.
Tooley notes:
America’s warts are always displayed, examined, spotlighted, debated and often exaggerated. But in this furious self-critique it has a ceaseless energy and dynamism that never quits and ultimately strives for better. Competing dictatorships, by contrast, hide their faults, fabricate their successes, and silence any truth tellers.
So, I don't buy that it's going to be a "Chinese-led 21st Century".
But if it were? Would I be "at peace" with it? I may be reconciled. I'm not sure about "at peace". In a sense I'm reconciled already, living as I do in a part of China known as the "Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong".
But I will only remain reconciled as long as we keep our openness to the international media and international connections to the internet. I know that whenever I visit the mainland I miss terribly those connections, even as I know I can set up a VPN, which is just a hassle. That's the main thing for me. For others, there are different hurdle points. Just today was news that 40% of companies surveyed by the American Chamber of Commerce are planning to move out of Hong Kong "sometime" in the next year, due mainly to the implementation of the National Security Legislation.
And in any case, I've lived in the actual China. China-China as it were. I've lived in Beijing and Shanghai. And visited nearly all the provinces. And I've had wonderful times there. So that's a bottom line. I could easily be reconciled. Not too sure about "at peace" though.
(2) "Chinese civilisation, especially if it recovers its Confucian roots, will contain a great deal of natural virtue". I'd say "yes, I agree". But also "that's a pretty big 'if'".
I've studied the Confucian Analects, in the original classical Chinese, an enormously rewarding and enriching experience, which has one marvelling at its wisdom. But whether China can "recover" these roots is at the very least very doubtful.
Still, it reminds me -- and us -- that there's much to admire in Chinese culture, and that one can admire this without admiring the current dictatorship in Beijing, under the rule of Xi Jinping. We can most certainly separate out the Chinese people from the leadership in Beijing. Separate out Chinese culture from Beijing autarky.
(3) "My wife is Chinese-born so I don't need lectures on the horrors of the CCP". I don't quite get this. Does he mean that his wife constantly reminds him of the horrors of the CCP? If that's his point, it's not at all universal amongst the "Chinese-born". I also have a wife who is Chinese-born. But whereas I tend to bang on about the horrors of the CCP, she most certainly does not. There's are range of views out there amongst these "Chinese-born" folks, Sohrab!
But for those -- like me -- who don't like the CCP, even perhaps actively loathe it, or are activists in fighting it, from a distance, they need to bear in mind confirmation bias, especially bias along the lines of "I don't like xxx, therefore xxx will/must fail". That's rather the line of the likes of Gordon Chang et. al. whose loathing of the CCP blinds them, who keep predicting its downfall. This is an inherently unfalsifiable prediction and when it doesn't happen they say "it hasn't collapsed yet".
Oh dear. I've made no prediction, so I guess it's time to make one. China, under the CCP, will outlast all the current crop of prognosticators, and most certainly me. It may not "lead" the 21st Century, but will continue to grow its economic and military clout. And so will the US. We may yet have to choose sides, as John Mearsheimer powerfully argues. And if that time comes, I'd have no hesitation in choosing -- for all its warts and foibles -- those United States of America.
