China's Silk Road Illusions
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It's likely the USA's ROI (if you will) will be increased debt and enemies for years to come. China on the other hand seems hardly interested in such things. The outlook for their ROI is much brighter.
USA: America is the chicken. To be a modern country, it is hypothesized that the developing country needs immediately adopt American systems, laws, behavior & structures (the Washington consensus, etc.). In essence, and to keep it short, the 'free-markets' will take over, and standards of living will boom.
China: China is the egg, because they view modernization more or less independent (i.e., democracy is not a necessary). As long as people are given economic opportunities, the rest will evolve around it, systems and laws will adapt and be in sync with the development. That is, it is willing to offer lots of infrastructure and development opportunities to very poor countries, and it is up to those countries to take the opportunity to exploit it.
As someone who enjoys studying economics, I think we're at one of the most important points in time. USA & China, under two diametrically different systems have been able to grow extremely large economically - that means more data points to understand how to modernize other parts of the world.
It seems to me that China is following the framework that the US has set to become a superpower.
Politics: When the US was developing, only rich, educated white men could vote. In China right now, only those who are eligible to join the CCP can be involved in politics.
Slavery: While China doesn't have de facto slavery, their province/city registration system places migrants in extremely disadvantaged positions. As for the US, well, I'm sure we all know.
Protectionism & IP Theft: During the Industrial Revolution, the US was extremely active in stealing tech from Europe. And only when the US started to develop their own tech, did they start caring about intellectual property. This is also the case in Japan and South Korea, so I can see China following this path as well.
Other issues, like eminent domain, limitations on free speech, and violating the rights of individuals as long as it's in the national interest are things that a developing superpower does.
It was only after the US became a superpower, that we start to see a really big difference in the behavior of both nations.
Though I do agree that the rhetoric of both nations was vastly different from the start. The US always espoused American values, even if those privileges only applied to a subset of people. While China keeps on emphasizing a harmonious society, they really mean that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
No doubt it is politically, economically and militarily an unpopular notion in the current climate that seeks a tougher stance on China policy. Steve Bannon, in particular, explicitly views American policy of the last 60 years as creating a "tributary state" to the PRC here in the USA.
But an intense negotiation. With lots of concessions for American enterprises in energy, aerospace, engineering, telcom, and transportation across the Silk Road region. And even partial funding coming directly from China's dollar reserves. This could end up being the "Deal of the Century" ;)
> Although increasing trade with China might have contributed to the decline in demand for production workers, it clearly wasn't the primary force behind the trend. [3]
It is merely politically convenient to exclaim "China" when talking to the public like during the Zambian elections with Sata. "Michael Sata called Chinese “infesters” rather than “investors,” threatened to kick out Chinese workers, and pledged to implement foreign exchange controls that would prevent Chinese firms from repatriating their profits [...] One month later, Sata told the Chinese ambassador to Zambia and a group of Chinese businessmen, "My dear sisters and brothers from China, you are very welcomed in Zambia because we are all-weather friends." During a one-week visit to China in April 2013, Sata signed several investment agreements and requested that Chinese companies invest in railways, agriculture, and mining. On his return, he proudly announced to residents of a rural district that Chinese companies would develop Zambian wetlands for rice production." [4]
Same with American politics, we just shot nebulous words and concepts like, "Freedom", "democracy", etc. without understanding the underlying implications. The press highlights the any negative news about China, but how often do you hear things like this from American leadership in the mainstream media:
> “I want everybody playing in Africa,” President Obama stated during a press conference in South Africa in late June 2013. “The more, the merrier. I think that’s good. . . . It gives Africans leverage” to ensure that such economic interactions are “good for Africa.” [4] (pg. 106)
[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/may/impact-ch... [2] https://piie.com/publications/policy-briefs/payoff-america-g... [3] https://piie.com/commentary/op-eds/us-needs-invest-minds-not... [4] http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR521.html
I take it you have not read H.L.Mencken's reporting on party conventions in the 1920s. I was a bit incredulous of delegations cheering speeches by marching around the aisles for ten or twenty minutes, but I suppose there was no point in misreporting that ...
No good link in a quick search, but perhaps starting from here: https://www.dclibrary.org/node/32107
Edit: There's a sample down from the page heading "416 A Mencken Chrestomathy" in https://biblio.wiki/wiki/A_Mencken_Chrestomathy . Other books had much fuller accounts of several conventions he reported on.
Rather than immediately following american "style", it is conjectured that you need to be given america's blessing and be allowed in our international world order.
> China: China is the egg, because they view modernization more or less independent (i.e., democracy is not a necessary).
Britain, Japan, Germany, France, etc all modernized when they weren't a democracy. If we are talking post ww2, south korea, taiwan, singapore, etc all modernized while they weren't real democracies.
You could be a dictatorship and still be part of the american world order - saudi arabia, kuwait, SK/taiwan for most of their history.
> that means more data points to understand how to modernize other parts of the world.
Modernization doesn't require data points. It's simply a political choice. As long as a major power isn't actively preventing you from modernizing, any country can modernize. It's simply a matter of political stability and investing in education and industry.
What makes china unique is that they are building institutions outside of the US world order ( AIIB, RCEP, BRICS, SCO and of course the belt and road initiative ).
https://www.brookings.edu/research/chinas-emerging-instituti...
But world order doesn't necessarily have anything to do with modernization.
I've long felt that the EU should have been doing something similar: instead of barriers around the EU market, they should have offered free trade with any developing country, as long as they follow certain basic values like free press, human rights, and at least some degree of democracy. Economic development in exchange for European values. If handled right, I think that could have done a lot of good in the world. Now China seems to beat us to it.
Many modern countries these days don't adopt the American system, but are striving towards being modern, pluralist democracies with functioning social systems, good governance, and sane judicial systems.
It's also the de facto point of view of western countries, and the yardstick by which they judge other countries.
(Including various "NGOs" and "world organizations" that measure the world with the same yardstick and are influenced by the same ideologies and even follow the same political goals).
If the US is the yard-stick for good governance, then we're all in big trouble.
I'm just going to focus on one element due to space; one of the core pillars of American economic thinking is the idea of free markets. Through bilateral relationships or organizations like the IMF, etc., developing nations are given a road-map of how to modernize. It may not have to be a carbon copy of America (and that was not my point), but there is certainly an element of shaping developing countries to accept American ideals. However, have you ever noticed that no country has ever modernized through free markets, it always required a lot of protectionism. [1], [2]
Free-markets is a big topic that the American government likes to complain about with regards to China. Ironically, Americans seem to think protectionism doesn't exist in America. "For example, from 2008 to 2016, the US implemented over 1,000 discriminatory trade policy measures, followed by India and Russia, with both implementing nearly 600 similar policies each. Trade-impeding measures have also increased at a much faster pace than measures to liberalize trade." [3], [4], [5]. A little hypocritical if you ask me.
> Many modern countries these days don't adopt the American system, but are striving towards being modern, pluralist democracies with functioning social systems, good governance, and sane judicial systems.
I'll assume you are contrasting with China, so I'll go point by point
* Modern: Just to reiterate, my previous spiel was that China views modernization as independent to other society structures. Their experience has proven that to be the case. Without a doubt, cities like Shenzhen are modern.
* Pluralist democracies with functioning social systems, good governance: Ultimately, the purpose of a democracy is to get the voices of citizens heard. Note that surveys show almost 90% of citizens in China are satisfied with their government while in the West, we are perpetually annoyed at them. Democracy is not a panacea for stability, success, etc.
* Sane judicial systems: That depends how you view it. In America, look at the amount of people locked up for minor drug crimes. I call that insane. In China, the law is more flexible and based on circumstances. "Despite the tough laws, authorities have usually turned a blind eye to farmers growing their own low-THC varieties because they were an important source of income for some farmers." [6] It's also important to note westerners and easterners look at the concept of Law very differently. "Easterners and Westerners have fundamentally different understandings of the nature of contracts. In the West, a contract is unalterable; in the East a contract is continually renegotiable in the light of changed circumstances (Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1993). This drastic difference of view has often resulted in conflict and bitterness between Eastern and Western negotiators." [7]
[1] PDF Warning: http://ecdpm.org/wp-content/uploads/PMR-15-Politique-Develop... (pg 38 and in French)
[2] "...free market approaches have not proven to be 'very effective' in helping countries achieve this." http://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2017/oct/e...
[3] http://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2017/oct/e...
[4] Is China the Most Protectionist Country? No, Not By a Long Shot https://piie.com/blogs/china-economic-watch/china-most-prote...
[5] http://www.eulerhermes.com/economic-research/blog/AllInfogra...
[6] http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2108347/green...
[7] Richard Nisbett, Kaiping Peng, Incheol Choi, Ara Norenzayan - 2001 - Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic vs. Analytic Cognition
> I'll assume you are contrasting with China, so I'll go point by point
No, I'm saying the US is not a pluralist democracy with good governance etc. Obviously, China isn't either. If you're trying to find a modern democracy, look at some EU countries, to a lesser extend Canada, maybe New Zealand, Australia. I think those countries are becoming a guide on what to emulate, while the US is becoming more and more dysfunctional.
I think attributing this to protectionism is not really helpful. There are many protectionist states (or states with a "strong industrial policy") that don't develop at all economically.
The examples of Europe before the early 20th Century and Far Asia in the late 20th century are certainly prominent but what about the other protectionist countries during that time or today?
You can find the "most protectionist" (by some measure) countries here:
http://www.heritage.org/index/explore (Click on "Trade Freedom" and then check the top vs bottom of the list)
So we have examples and counter examples, not a strong case in favor of protectionism IMO.
in fact, after WWII, not any country modernised itself after becoming a democracy. South Korea was in a military dictatorship, Singapore is run by a single family.
I agree that American ROI on military spending is negative, though the degree to which this is true is debatable. (The American defense industry doubles as a federal jobs and R&D program.) I do not see how China building an expensive, low-throughput transportation mode that is uncompetitive, even without a traversable Arctic Ocean, is productive.
And you're underestimating the extent to which China is making enemies in the South China Sea region. These are countries with potentially significant military capability, too, like the Philippines and Japan, not bands of goat herders.
No it's not[1]. As a % of the total budget it's around 16%, which is huge. And furthermore the appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are mostly not included - they have been funded by "supplemental" spending bills, which total well into the 10 figures.
The Philippines doesn't really have a navy worth talking about. Japan can defend itself but that's a different (also kinda dicey) sea - they could only really go on offence in cooperation with the USA. China's main military threats are on land and come from its western borders - Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and of course India. With the possible exception of India I don't see any of them picking a fight anytime soon.
[1] https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1792_201...
If all but one of those (i.e., Russia) are "friendly" (i.e., most would say China v US is unlikely given the shared financial interests), who / what exactly is the USA so heavily armed for? Is military force as a proxy for diplomacy wise?
So regardless, of the percentage of X or Y it's pretty clear these weapons are an enabler. Yet infrastructure is crumbling? Schools not as competitive? Etc.
also note that Chinese design/build/operate advanced weapons like anti satellite missiles, anti aircraft carrier ballistic missiles, ballistic missile launch early warning systems, J-20 stealth fighters, military grade satellite navigation system on its own, india can not even build self-propelled artillery on its own.
Both nations know this full well, that is why there will be long lasting peace in the region/border.
But I do agree that neither will risk a major confrontation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_China%E2%80%93India_borde...
This is a topic I've discussed quite extensively with my Chinese friends and my impression is that while Taiwan remains a sore point, that ship has sailed for the time being. The fact that it's independent and not a colony helps - Hong Kong was a different story. And there's no pressing national security need for the territory like Tibet.
The feeling towards Taiwan (amongst my circle anyway) is a bit like a wayward child - to be held in check, and encouraged to return, but certainly not warranting military action with its accompanying loss of life. And the politburo's main goals are stability and its own continued reign. So long as Taiwan doesn't do anything to threaten those, China may rattle its sabre every once in a while, but it's probably safe for now.
My personal prediction for Taiwan (as a white layperson, mind) is that as the mainland prospers and stabilises, and gets over its remnant paranoia from the bad old days - and as the island gets over its own adolescence - the emnity and restrictions will gradually dissipate and the countries will move closer together naturally. It might not be a Chinese territory again like HK, but it's hard to imagine too many restrictions being in place in 50 or even 30 years' time. In the end, Taiwan needs China a lot more than the other way round, and will inevitably gravitate towards it.
That's assuming China doesn't collapse spectacularly, of course. Then all bets are off!
Japan has "significant military capability"? with an aging and shrinking population and a GDP growth lower than 1%? nice joke.
It's fascinating how much we romanticize about past cultures and how much if it is wrong. I love reading history and this almost always turns out to be the case. Digging into any topic reveals they are always far more complex and multilayered than the the common caricatures you find in media and in generalized accounts.
China's popular understanding of the Silk Road seems to be way off, which is inspiring bad policy descisions.
WW2 is another great example of this, no topic has had more books and films than WW2 yet the perception vs reality is incredibly wide in popular US culture.
Particularly with how Germany really lost the war to the Soviets in late 1942 when they failed to subdue Russia in the early invasion. The west (US/UK/Canada) largely just cleaned up the mess from 1943-45, as the Nazi's were fighting an impossible war after that point. Even then Russia did most of the work in terms of raw combat. But even when this is noted in history books Russia's success is largely dismissed as merely due to their fortunate geography and willingness to treat their soldiers like expendable fodder. But it was in fact largely due to Russia having better technology than Germany (specifically better tanks/armour [1]) and the geography was far less of an issue to the Nazi's in 1942, who unlike Napolean had highly mobile tanks, aircraft, trains, and Blitzkrieg tactics.
The silk road and China's alleged cultural dominance seems to be no different. Being of far less importance in actual trade volume and influence than is commonly understood.
[1] particularily the KV-1 tank, which grinded Operation Barbarossa to a halt https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kliment_Voroshilov_tank
> In certain situations, even a single KV-1 or KV-2 supported by infantry was capable of halting large German formations. German tank armament was too poor to deal with the "Russian Colossus".
That greatly overstates the USSR's role. While the USSR and the Germany were basically locked in a massive conflict hemorrhaging manpower, the USSR's side was largely propped up by the US lend-lease program, which supplied crucially needed supplies of logistics, particularly trucks. Without such support, the USSR would have faced the same problem that Germany did: a critical inability to properly supply their front-line troops.
Also, Russian geography also killed the Germans. Blitzkrieg, where every 30 miles you have to wait a week for supplies to be brought up, doesn't work when you're traversing 600 miles of terrain. It works even less well when the railroad is a single-track feature that's incompatible with your rail system, even the major roads are barely passable in the best times and impassable in the season of mud, and all of your supplies are being carted by horses (which have this nasty habit of dying in -30° weather).
Lend-lease may well have been the most important US contribution to the European theatre, because it helped the USSR to mobile their forces and move them around faster.
And the Russian tanks absolutely did matter. Russia had the best tanks in the early war, and those sufficiently stumped the weaker German tanks to make them rush the overly expensive and inefficient but powerful Tiger into production.
But it was absolutely a case where every bit helped. British intelligence and bombing, taking Italy out of the war, Overlord, it all mattered. But most of the blood was spilled in Russia.
Exactly, the entire German gamble of invading Russia was a repeat of their (genius) invasion of France: highly mobile overrunning of tanks combined with lethal Luftwaffe air support.
The problem was entirely the fact the Germans were completely caught off guard by the quality of Russian tanks and anti-tank guns.
The Nazi's should never have invaded Russia, but their baises against the slavs made them feel superior. Likewise in these biases still exist in North American / European accounts of WW2, where Russia's technological and industrial dominance is downplayed.
It makes sense in the context of the Cold War but in 2017 it saddens me this is still up for debate. Although the fact anti-Russian sentiment is still highly politicized in mass media this might be expecting too much from popular culture on my part...
But without US-provided materials and equipment Soviets will not be able to produce tanks during 1942-1944.
This is an oft repeated lie we tell ourselves. US contribution to USSR's military production was less than 1%. And by the time our "help" reached the soviet union, the soviets had already beaten the germans.
The battle of moscow ended in January 1942. That's when ww2 in europe was over. The rest was brutal clean up duty by the soviets.
> Without such support, the USSR would have faced the same problem that Germany did: a critical inability to properly supply their front-line troops.
Firstly, germany's problem was lack of oil. Not the number of trucks. Secondly, The soviet military industry was the largest in the world until we joined the war and their military production was never affected. And the soviets had tons of oil. Only second to the US.
The lend-lease history saving the soviet union is propaganda. If we had stayed neutral in ww2, the soviets would have beaten the germans. Other than stalin giving up, there was no way for germany to beat the soviet union. Look at the stats.
Even most blatant Soviet propaganda put that into 4%.
Marshal Zhukov said that Lend-lease was critical to Soviet victory. And that was from a man who took Berlin.
Just a few facts: for USSR lend-lease accounted for 30% of trucks, more than half of aviation fuel and about 93% of railroad equipment.
So it's definetely not a propaganda.
Does it? 4% is still nothing.
> Marshal Zhukov said that Lend-lease was critical to Soviet victory.
So did stalin. Politicians, generals, etc say a lot of things. Especially about "free" stuff.
> Just a few facts: for USSR lend-lease accounted for 30% of trucks, more than half of aviation fuel and about 93% of railroad equipment.
Facts you just made up?
> So it's definetely not a propaganda.
4% to 93%. Sounds a lot like propaganda.
the KV-1 tank, which grinded Operation Barbarossa to a halt
The real key to the Soviet win is that they could endure 3:1 loss ratios and still outdeploy the Nazis at better than 3:1.
But even then, the KV tanks were only a small part of their arsenal; the Russians had settled on three different categories of tanks: mobile tanks (their very fast BT tanks using Christie suspension), medium tanks, and heavy tanks. The latter category included the KV-1 and KV-2 tanks, and that was the smallest and most expensive group, but also the group that would always be at the center of any attack or defense.
The reason the T-34 was such an important tank, is that it combined aspects of all three categories; it was intended as a medium tank, but it had Christie suspension like the BT tanks, making it faster than most other medium tanks. And due to its sloping armour, it was almost as tough as a heavy tank (against tanks at least; it was vulnerable from the air). This combination made it the precursor of the Main Battle Tank.
Remember the Nazi's invasion depended on their multiple tank groups making a very fast progress through this country, until they reached Moscow. It was not total war combat until much later.
Many of them were halted or destroyed when they faced a single inantry group backed by a KV-1. That was enough to cripple their invasion (among the other equivalent Russian tanks).
If you don't believe my account I highly recommend this book which is the best coverage of the eastern front, and questions much of the popular accounts of WW2 with some great research and plenty of citation:
https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Barbarossa-Germanys-Cambrid...
The railroads to Europe are still heavily subsidized, and are coming back to china mostly empty. They'll make more sense when trade becomes more balanced, but that isn't today.
For cities like Lanzhou, Xining, Urumqi etc it makes sense to develop a land route. The economics are even better than Chongqing since Chongqing actually has access to the Yangtze river.
You were fundamentally wrong, and remain wrong.
Well, the winner writes the history books.
Russia was the winner.
My point was the German generals knew this well beforehand. Everyone knew they couldn't beat the Russians in a straight up one-on-one war over a long timespan. They only had a short time window to run them over with their tank/aircraft tactics. And that failed because the Nazi's largely underplayed the quality of Russian tanks/technology.
It doesn't matter if you have 10 German tanks vs 1 Russian tank if those ten tanks can't penetrate the armour of the Russian one. This is a critical difference. Especially when the Nazi's were already strapped for fuel and armaments. Which is why a small number of KV-1s would grind the invasion to a halt until reinforcements could arrive.
As soon as they had to wait for the supply lines and infantry to catch up then the Blitzkrieg tactics are no longer effective and Nazi Germany is now facing Russia on their terms.
It's amazing how this is seemingly such a controversial topic when plenty of well researched literature will back me up here...
The better German tanks came too late and too little, true.
The T-34 was better than what the Germans had at the time.
If you're saying you'd rather go into battle with 5 fully operational T-34s than 5 fully operational Tigers, then we seriously disagree.
At the start of the war, the Germans had nothing that could touch a T-34. Well, no they had no comparable tank; T-34s are vulnerable from the air, and the Germans had Stukas.
It's worth nothing that due to the need to churn out T-34s at a rapid pace, the quality sometimes suffered, and some T-34s were badly put together. Also, it was a very uncomfortable tank to use, and the turret of that early version was too small.
But assuming I get fully functional T-34s, I'd absolutely prefer to go to war with 5 T-34s than with 5 PzIV-Ds or PzIIIs, which was the best the Germans had at the time.
The German generals (and to a lesser extant Hitler) knew Russia could ramp up tank production fast and had way more soldiers then them if it turned into trench warfare or even total warfare level tank vs tank or aircraft vs aircraft fights. Largely because Germany already had to deal with the UK+America+Canada on the other front and we themselves limited in their own production ability vs the much larger Russia (regardless if the Russian industry was less advanced, it was still more advanced than the biased Germans expected the slavs to be).
The simple fact the Russian's had ANY tanks that they couldn't easily deal with, let alone not destroy at all with their own tanks, totally caught the Nazi generals off guard and slowed the whole invasion down.
The technological advantage that Russia had early on can not be downplayed. It was absolutely critical.
Had they kept Hitler's egomaniacal lust to crush Stalingrad itself at bay and instead simply encircled Stalingrad to cut off its supplies and proceed to take the Caucasus oil fields instead, the whole war could have turned differently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34#German_use_of_T-34s
Also comparing very different tanks in a general manner has its problems: each has its strong and weak points, it is very difficult to say which one of the differences would be of benefit in a given battle.
They expected a repeat of the French army capitulation and found a far better army than their anti-slavic literature groomed them to believe they'd be facing.
They expected Russian farmer rednecks, not an industrialized modern army (although I refuse to extend my praise to their infantry which had plenty of issues, other than their dogged determination, which was a serious threat when Hitler was demanding quick wins, even when they did always eventually win).
China is saying, here is a 'story' to help you understand what we're trying to do with the Belt & Road Initiative. In essence, the focus is not on the truth claims of history, but it is a guidepost of what they want to do in the future.
The author on the other-hand seems to be saying, because the history is inaccurate, the corollary is that the Belt & Road initiative will not succeed (which is not a logically consistent argument).
All the railways, shipping ports etc also add value to the countries they are in. The same as China is building so many dams around the world. There's a lot of power being played here benefiting China and locally.
Do these countries really care is there's a border dispute in the Caucasus?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming%E2%80%93Singapore_rail...
Again if we remove the fixation on Chinese export and view the situation more objectively: Pakistan and the Middle East have the youngest populations in the world. If they can develop into manufacturing centers, it will not only alleviate the potential for radicalism. It will also compensate for the aging demographics of China, whether that is what China intends or not.
TL;DR it's not what they promise.
But where is the news in this?
I think the interesting facts are that (a) they still manage to influence countries with their plan (and might for instance gain more influence over Afganistan than both US and Russia have achieved), (b) they still manage to increase internal growth through their projects. Both are really good things for China. That you need to tell a story of historical values with such a big plan is normal and should be expected. Sadly the article doesn't discuss that and instead just focusses on showing the obvious. Also it vastly underestimates the middle east. There's a reason why there's so much fighting in this area. And it's not just oil.
The existence of an interesting article is news enough.
Well, do share that non-oil reason you had in mind there!
Now readers are bound to come up with common tropes like "sectarian strife" or "tribal rivalry", but again.. he made it sound like there's a transdimensional portal hidden in the ME or something.. clearly had a non-obvious aspect in mind, that I wanted elaboration on. =)
"More likely, however, China’s dependence on trade, and particularly its interest in Middle East oil, may fall almost as fast as it has risen over the past thirty years."
I think OP was just pointing out that there is more than oil in the Middle East.