Month: October 2025

The PRC has now lasted longer than the USSR. How did that happen?

I think there are two reasons. First, the PRC leadership was far more willing to show flexibility on economic policy than their Soviet counterparts. Admittedly, if the USSR had adopted a state capitalist, export-driven approach to prosperity, it would not have been embraced by the capitalist world, but a significant reshaping of the economy might still have been possible without giving up political control; after all, even Lenin was willing to tolerate the NEP. Second, the USSR wasted a lot of resources and a lot of international credibility trying to impose its uninspiring political and economic model on the rest of the world. The Chinese believe too strongly in their own exceptionalism to try that.

Based on the experience of the Warsaw Pact countries, we knew what to expect in a world dominated by the USSR: collective farms; minimal private property; no First Amendment rights; no political freedom; and an economic system in which the needs of the USSR predominated. It was a terrifying, and therefore unifying, vision.

There is no evidence that China aspires to anything like that; the Chinese feel too strongly about their own exceptionalism to dictate terms to the rest of the world. What does the CCP actually want? As far as I can tell, here is the list:

1. COMPLETE SOVEREIGNTY OVER TAIWAN: The Chinese claim to Taiwan is not as strongly based in history as the government insists, but to Xi, the island is to China as Northern Ireland is to the Irish Republic–a sore thumb that needs to be eliminated.
2. SOUTHEAST ASIA IS AN UNDISPUTED CHINESE SPHERE OF INFLUENCE: Japan and South Korea would be permitted to keep their economic and political systems, but would no longer be independent actors in foreign policy.
3. ECONOMIC SELF-SUFFICIENCY: No more long and vulnerable supply lines.
4. KEEP THE REST OF THE WORLD VULNERABLE AND DEPENDENT: This particularly applies to the EU.
5. REWRITE INTERNATIONAL LAW AND REFASHION INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS TO BE MORE FAVORABLE TO CHINA: This project is already ongoing.
6. LEADERSHIP IN ALL TECH FIELDS: While the Chinese economy as a whole is struggling, the country is meeting the standards first set out in “Made in China 2025.”