Month: October 2015

Hillary’s decision to oppose the TPP without even reading the final version is only explicable as one of an ongoing series of efforts to protect her left flank from Bernie Sanders.  It is almost certainly unnecessary, it won’t work–given her history, she can’t out-Sanders Sanders–and it is extremely bad policy.

I have to assume she thinks the agreement will pass with purely Republican support, so there is no substantive risk in treating it as a political football.  I disagree;  given the current state of the GOP, nothing they do can be taken for granted.

If the TPP fails, due in any part to her opposition, and she is elected, what is she going to say to our putative partners to the agreement?  Go make a better deal with the Chinese?

That Trump’s stated position on illegal immigration is wildly impractical, racist, and vile is beyond debate.   The question that is worth posing is whether he actually believes it.

I doubt it.  Whatever you may say about the man, he isn’t stupid.   Furthermore, as far as I know, he doesn’t have any history on this issue prior to the campaign.    In all likelihood, his statements are pure opportunism;  he saw how the Romney campaign profited from attacks on Rick Perry from the right in 2012, and drew the correct conclusions.

It has been American policy for many years to accommodate the rise of China, but only within established international norms (i.e., not by imposing its will on smaller neighboring nations).  The TPP is the latest, and perhaps most important, expression of that policy;  it ultimately gives the Chinese the choice of isolating themselves or joining a club in whose rules it had no say.

President Obama is going to have a difficult task explaining the fairly subtle distinction between rules-based policy and Chinese containment to the American public and the rest of the world in the process of selling the agreement.  For their part, the Chinese have never accepted the notion that they are bound to follow international norms in areas they consider to be their own territory, particularly since the rules, in their eyes, were made by hostile countries and are stacked against them.  Don’t be surprised if more aggression in the South China Sea ensues, even though that, in a sense, would validate the purpose of the agreement.

The President signed a trade pact.

Some Congressmen claimed that it lacked

Sufficient protections.

Fearing defections,

He told them to look at the facts.

The real significance of the TPP is geopolitical, not economic.  One hopes that Congress will look at the big picture and not a multitude of details that won’t matter in the long run.

I think it is fair to say that there is a consensus in China that corruption is a serious problem within the country.   There are three widely different potential ways to address the issue:

1.  If you are a liberal, the solution is to open up the one-party system, free the press, and depoliticize the judiciary.
2. If you are a Maoist, corruption and capitalism are essentially the same phenomenon, so the correct answer is to return to the county’s socialist roots and eliminate inequalities created by the unwarranted growth of the private sector.
3. Identify a few handy scapegoats and destroy them in public in order to send the right message to the rank and file.

Naturally, the government has chosen #3.  Will it work in the long run?  Probably not, particularly since the use of connections is a part of Chinese culture that long predates Communist rule.  More likely, it will just drive the problem further underground.

Historically, the Chinese Empire was able to dominate its neighbors, due to its superior size, strength, and level of civilization.   Adjoining countries which had accommodated at least some aspects of Chinese culture were treated (generally benignly) as vassal states; other nations were viewed purely as barbarians.

Western nations did not fit in this paradigm; hence, the Empire’s conceptual and practical difficulty in dealing with them.

While the ultimate scope of the international ambitions of the current Chinese state is not clear, it is reasonable to assume, based on its actions in the last few years, that its aspirations in the near abroad are consistent with China’s traditional behavior towards its neighbors.  Call it the Xi Doctrine.

Stuff just seems to happen every time Jeb! says “stuff.”  As a potential comforter-in-chief, he is definitely a work in progress.

Now that’s a good way to win friends and influence people.

The success of the Chinese government over the foreseeable future will depend largely on its ability to resolve, or at least paper over, the following contradictions:

1.  The ideal:  Marxism, a Western ideology with universal values.  The reality:  Chinese exceptionalism.
2.   The ideal:  Marxism, a dynamic, forward-looking ideology.  The reality:  A culture that attaches great value to harmony and stability.
3.  The ideal:  A decentralized, consumer-driven economy.  The reality:  Very extensive government intervention in the economy to promote stability and maintain a monopoly on power.
4.  The ideal:  An economy that promotes innovation.  The reality:  Minimal respect for property rights for parties without government connections and severe limits on the free flow of information.
5.   The ideal:  Encourage investment through a predictable system of taxation and commercial law.  The reality:   Government retains arbitrary powers; capital flees the country.
6.  The ideal:  Eliminate endemic corruption.  The reality:  A one-party system, a politicized judicial system, and no freedom of the press.
7. The ideal:  Accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan by tolerating different systems.  The reality:  Intolerance of democratic ideas in Hong Kong hardly encourages the notion of an improvement of relations with Taiwan.

 

 

Today is National Day in China.  In light of that, and the fact that the rise of China is likely to be the biggest geopolitical challenge we will face in the first half of the 21st Century, today will be the first of several posts on the workings of the Chinese system and what it means for the rest of the world.

Visiting China for three weeks a few years ago and reading some books obviously doesn’t make me an expert on such a complex subject, but the following observations are just common sense:

1. China is a very vibrant and colorful country.   People who grew up during the Mao years and became accustomed to seeing pictures of hordes of indistinguishable people wearing the same clothes frequently have the wrong impression.  The Chinese are nearly as gregarious as the Italians, have the same pride in their culture as the French, and are as pragmatic as Americans.
2. The Chinese are extremely proud of their accomplishments as a civilization.  Why wouldn’t they be?  The record speaks for itself.
3. The Chinese don’t love their government–they tolerate it as long as it works.   National pride revolves primarily around their culture, not their government.
4. The Chinese people don’t claim any right to rule themselves on a day-to-day basis, but have no reluctance to complain when things go wrong.  Given the strength of the apparatus of repression, you have to be brave to take your complaints public, but they do when necessary.
5. China is a very resilient nation.  World War II, the Civil War and its aftermath, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution–the list of disasters just in the last 80 years goes on and on, but the people are optimistic about the future, and they don’t dwell on the past.  The reasons for this will be the subject of a future posting.