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408 points seapunk | 22 comments | | HN request time: 0.853s | source | bottom
1. roenxi ◴[] No.21202536[source]
It is interesting to look back at the last ~50 years from a strategic standpoint. The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy, and that attempts to resist that would lead to economic collapse.

With benefit of hindsight maybe that strategy was too passive. China has embraced the technical aspects of Western society but it looks dangerously like it will carry them with an authoritarian philosophy. It is a pity; particularly since the English Common Law system combined with separation of power is the greatest accomplishment of the Anglosphere and China would have really ushered in an age of enlightenment had they taken that on.

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2. jhanschoo ◴[] No.21202777[source]
> The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy

Early on, not without reason. The outcome of the Cold War seems to be to the democratic-capitalist West's favor. It seems to me that as we move closer to contemporary times, this ideological component starts to take a backseat as businesses grew increasingly reliant on China's affordable export economy.

3. deogeo ◴[] No.21202822[source]
> The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy, and that attempts to resist that would lead to economic collapse.

I'm sure the corporations that make those trade agreements saw it as nothing more than cheap labor and large market. How this would help liberty is just something they tacked on to sell it to the public.

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4. cafard ◴[] No.21202880[source]
Did the West make that bet? Or did the businesses of the West see a big market and ultimately a big, inexpensive supply chain?
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5. TeMPOraL ◴[] No.21202908[source]
I'd say the latter, and "the bet" was used as an after the fact excuse.
6. eropple ◴[] No.21202927[source]
I tend to think that, worst of all, the West saw an inexhaustible supply chain.

Nobody was thinking about what to do next after all that money filled the coffers of a political establishment not under any pressure to liberalize.

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7. cm2187 ◴[] No.21203076[source]
I am less pessimistic than you, I just think it will take more time. With the economic prosperity brought by capitalism, a large middle class is appearing in China. And I think ultimately this middle class is what will push for more democracy.

But it takes time for that middle class to form, to reach critical size, and for it to propagate through the senior ranks of the regime. It might happen in 15-20 years.

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8. cm2187 ◴[] No.21203086[source]
That came after China was addmitted in the WTO. I think the West made that precise bet when they admitted China, market forces did the rest.
9. rqs ◴[] No.21203094[source]
> China has embraced the technical aspects of Western society but it looks dangerously like it will carry them with an authoritarian philosophy.

How about tweak the thinking a bit: What's in there for China to totally embraced democracy? Will it become an advantage for the country (Or the leading elites at least), guaranteed? What if the change has failed and lead to something worse?

There are risk factors, and people don't like to take risks. Which is why societal changes are more likely to occur during crisis and disasters, because people simply have nothing to lose anymore.

For CCP, the "Take half the cake" approach is less risky for them, so they did that, and now everybody see what's happened after.

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10. TeMPOraL ◴[] No.21203128[source]
I'm not sure about this at this point. The way I see it, wealth and prosperity allows liberal values to grow, but does not force them. It's possible there will be a change from within, but it's also possible that Chinese citizens will make a society that's free and liberal for them but not for everyone else. I think it's a matter of what cultural values are allowed to develop, and their government has ample tools to influence that.
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11. zentiggr ◴[] No.21203219[source]
And they'll wind up like the American middle class, paupered by the corporate/government back pocket usurpation of process in pursuit of profit and control.

If I could take a time machine back to stop one influential person, it would be James M. Buchanan. Tracing the rise of 'corporations should be unfettered to operate as they wish' thinking back to him, is an interesting exercise.

12. roenxi ◴[] No.21203395[source]
The 5 eyes are a totally disproportionate amount of the worlds military spending. They have a lot of faults, but they also look a long way into the future to spot potential threats.

America has been implementing a worldwide strategy against Russia for a very long time. If you look at a map US allies make a nice little fence around Russia.

It seems unlikely that trade agreements are being made with gay abandon and no consideration for the geopolitical situation. People like to pretend that there isn't a scheme afoot, but that is a ruse. Integrating with China would have been given extensive consideration beyond "cheap goods, aye?".

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13. pbourke ◴[] No.21203436[source]
Is your argument that adopting democracy and the rule of law are risky to elites and the ruling party? Well, yeah - that’s sort of self-evidently true.

> How about tweak the thinking a bit: What's in there for China to totally embraced democracy?

Tweak your thinking a bit: the advantage would ultimately be to the anonymous Chinese citizen 50 years from now who wants to vote, express an opinion, join a social group, participate in a religion, petition their government for redress, etc.

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14. TeMPOraL ◴[] No.21203456{3}[source]
Speaking of that, can someone explain me how did the West figure that both this and oil imports were a good deal? A book on energy/climate I'm reading[0] is making a point that in the last decades, the West funneled ridiculous amounts of money to oil exporters, which are predominantly authoritarian nations that don't give a fuck about human rights or Western values. And those nations used the money to gain control over companies and assets in the Western nation. The exact same thing can be said about outsourcing manufacturing to China and them using the money to buy Western companies and real estate.

So, what am I missing here? How on Earth was this a good idea?

--

[0] - a polish one, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22310339-wiat-na-rozdro-....

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15. eropple ◴[] No.21203544{4}[source]
> How on Earth was this a good idea?

On whose time horizon?

If yours is "the next five years", it probably looked pretty good for a solid thirty years or so.

16. jorvi ◴[] No.21203621[source]
> English Common Law system combined with separation of power is the greatest accomplishment of the Anglosphere

An extremely weird statement considering the trias politica hails from France and a vast bulk of legal scholars considers civil law superior to common law.

17. rqs ◴[] No.21203730{3}[source]
> Is your argument that adopting democracy and the rule of law are risky to elites and the ruling party?

No, just trying to explain why China does not go all-in and jump to the democracy train.

CCP apparently don't want to build something (Institution of democracy for example) that will later overthrow them (too risky, even maybe there is something good in it), and elites are bounded with CCP (That's why many of them are allowed to be elites). For CCP, "Without the CCP, There Would Be No New China"[0] is still the safest approach to any domestic problems.

Also, the westerners did not bring democracy into China, so Chinese people are not necessarily benefited from the western democracy. No benefit, no motive.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_the_Communist_Party,_T...

18. Aunche ◴[] No.21203761{3}[source]
> it's also possible that Chinese citizens will make a society that's free and liberal for them but not for everyone else.

In the short term, probably, but change takes time. It took 90 years for the US to ban slavery and another 100 for minorities to officially be equal in the eyes of the law.

19. AFascistWorld ◴[] No.21203767[source]
> Clinton began his term believing that trade sanctions could pressure China to improve human rights conditions. But after a year of debilitating debate, he was forced to reverse his policy of link- ing trade to human rights. >He was right to do so. By continuing to grant MFN to China, Clinton will help advance the $38 billion trading relationship which the U.S. now enjoys with the world's fastest growing economy. Moreover, by increasing prosperity in China through greater trade, the U.S. can help to create the economic freedoms that are the foundation upon which political freedom will someday emerge.

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>Clinton began to end this spectacle of confusion last week when he decided to renew MFN almost with- out condition. Perhaps the most important aspect of his decision is philosophical; the President has now adopted the view that trade relations must be separated from U.S. political goals with China. Moreover, he has endorsed the view that increased U.S.-China trade can promote economic freedoms, which in the long run will spur the growth of political freedoms in China.

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>This step alone will help to reassure Asian friends and adversaries that Clinton plans to get a better grip on foreign policy.

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>Now that Clinton has reversed his policy, he should move quickly to exact a price-of Beijing's cooperation in two areas of critical concern to the U.S. They are:

* Ending North Korea's nuclear threat...

* Better treatment for Hong Kong and Taiwan...

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https://www.heritage.org/report/the-collapse-clintons-china-... June 3, 1994

20. deogeo ◴[] No.21203778{3}[source]
All the massive five-eyes apparatus does you no good if the people supposed to act on that intelligence are corrupted, and look to their own interests first:

https://www.jonathanpollard.org/1998/040798b.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Deception-Clinton-America-Chinese-Mil...

https://www.businessinsider.de/china-acquiring-military-secr...

https://nypost.com/2019/05/11/the-troubling-reason-why-biden...

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21. dexen ◴[] No.21203888{4}[source]
>West funneled ridiculous amounts of money to oil exporters, which are predominantly authoritarian nations

The countries in question are authoritarian specifically because of the single dominant source of income (the oil exports). A specialized economy that relies on foreign sales is pretty easy to put under governmental control - and the arrangement is also convenient for the buyer. For non-authoritarian setup, you want diversified economy that's largely self-sufficient and trade-balanced; in such economy the government is mostly just an arbiter between roughly equal businesses and consumers.

>outsourcing manufacturing to China and them using the money to buy Western companies and real estate

The single biggest failure of the several recent US administrations: allowing the Chinese supply chain to become dominant; even "too big to fail". So big that there's a persistent narrative "we can't tariff chinese imports because it would hit the US consumers hard.". It is indeed similar to how the problem of oil imports used to be[1].

There's no fixing it other than slowly but surely shifting the bulk of imports away from China and towards multiple alternative sources[2]. Once there are several major sources of import competing[3], putting a tariff or two on China won't move the prices all that much, thus making the tariffs a practical tool of trade negotiations again.

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[1] big props up to both Obama and Trump for helping domestic US oil extraction expand & provide a counterbalance to the foreign exports

[2] India is a particularly good candidate for a major trading partner, with compatible culture, existing economic ties, and already growing industry

[3] diversity

22. kipchak ◴[] No.21204187{4}[source]
I wonder if it's a bit of a race between how much you can spend versus how much you loose to corruption, like filling a barrel with holes in it by adding water faster. Supposedly the US's classified intelligence program budget is 81.1 billion, larger than 9 of the next top ten foreign nation's total military expenditures.

https://sipri.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/fs_1904_milex_...