The Chinese Challenge: China’s Strengths and Weaknesses

China is far from a finished product. If you want to know its future, it is logical to start by identifying its strengths and weaknesses, which are as follows:

STRENGTHS

  1. A LARGE POPULATION: China’s size alone would give it substantial regional, and even global, influence.
  2. STABLE AND COMPETENT GOVERNMENT: Regardless of your feelings about the Chinese system, you have to give the government enormous credit for what it has accomplished over the last 20 years.
  3. A RESILIENT, PRAGMATIC PEOPLE: Consider how much the Chinese have endured within your lifetime, and how far they have come since the Cultural Revolution. Could we have done that? I’m not so sure.

WEAKNESSES

  1. POWERFUL, UNFRIENDLY NEIGHBORS: We have Mexico and Canada as our neighbors; they have Russia, Korea, Japan, India, and Vietnam. In spite of Trump’s best efforts, it’s not exactly the same thing. Just dominating the region will be an enormous challenge.
  2. DEMOGRAPHIC ISSUES: The population is aging rapidly, due in part to the one child policy, which will inevitably slow down economic growth in the foreseeable future. In addition, the Chinese have avoided creating much of a welfare state by relying on families to take care of their own. With urbanization and the aging population, at some point, that will no longer work, which will further increase the strains on the system.
  3. LACK OF LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC VALUES: It has always been assumed that the rule of law, a free press, official transparency, and respect for property rights are essential to economic development after you reach a certain level. China doesn’t have any of that; the Communist system naturally results in rampant official corruption and arbitrary decision-making. Will the Chinese be the exception to the rule, due to their size? That’s the $64,000 question.
  4. RISING EXPECTATIONS: No one who survived the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution is going to have anything but gratitude for the current regime. Younger Chinese, however, will have much higher expectations for their government, which is bound to make mistakes along the line. How tolerant will they be of those mistakes? No one knows the answer to that yet.