Jon sent me this link, suggesting that it was good “hobby horse bedding”. It starts with the notion that the pattern (and method) of China’s rise to economic superpower status actually follows that of the United States:
The last time a rising power came bursting onto the international scene and successfully supplanted the existing dominant power was when the United States was a boisterous upstart with a stampeding economy. Back then, America employed its own ruthless political machinations to advantage economic production — slavery and Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policies made cotton king, while the three-fifths compromise ensured southern political control of Congress.
Meanwhile, we stole designs of British factories for replication here, jump-starting our own industrial revolution. And we forced Britain into a two-front war in the midst of its cataclysmic fight with Napoleon. To outside appearances, America orchestrated political, military, and economic power in ways that shrewdly upended existing rules to our advantage.
Just enough historical parallels to make an interesting story. But the Chinese are not (yet) in a position to actually supplant the Americans, and much of the reason for that isn’t so much economic as it is political:
America is the democracy that those people living under authoritarian regimes choose whenever they get the opportunity. It is a democracy often mistaken in the short run, with the best means of correcting itself, and by its sheer existence, a reminder to others of what they might make for and of themselves. The international order is genuinely different because of the rise of an economically and politically liberal American polity. The Chinese model doesn’t have the kind of advantages that make for success competing against the American one. There’s no reason to believe Chinese citizens aren’t yearning for what Americans get to take for granted. To the contrary, there are many signs that the Chinese are increasingly agitating for it.
American power is robust and enduring because it is built on the strength of ideals that foster our advantage. China is banking on prosperity reducing the desire for political rights, on centralized control by elites that will make “better” choices than individuals would make for themselves, on nationalism and grievance to trump the appeal of values we claim to be universal, on mercantilist foreign policies and the threat of force making them preferred allies. It didn’t work for Palmerston in a much more conducive age and it is unlikely to work for China’s leaders.
A quick search of the blog will come up with lots of posts on China and its economy. This is what Jon refers to as my “hobby horse”.
