Making Sense of China’s Meteoric Rise
Tue 5:45 pm +00:00, 4 Mar 2025
Source: https://www.unz.com/bhua/making-sense-of-chinas-meteoric-rise/
I’ve posted the intro to this long essay below
There is a lot more at the link above
I highly recommend a full reading
He covers Chinese philosophy, religion and meritocracy in some detail
There are many lesson here for Westerners, we’ve still got a lot to learn as a society
The China Phenomenon
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This essay is the second installment of my interview with Mike Whitney published on Unz Review. This is quite lengthy as I was trying to cover many grounds in Mike’s expansive question about the underlying forces for China’s resurgence.
Here’s the question:
Western pundits seem perversely fixated on the size of China’s economy, but what interests me is the China Phenomenon, that is, how the Chinese government managed to transform a poor, agrarian country into a technologically advanced, state-of-the-art civilization in which poverty has nearly been eradicated, standards of living continue to rise, and the masses of people seem to support the government’s vision of the future. How did China become the expression of 21st Century modernity it is today? (Or am I overstating the case?)
China’s Revival in the Context of its History
The west likes to talk about the rise of China. For the Chinese, it is not a rise. It is a return to normalcy – the place China occupied in the world for most of its existence.
Most educated people are aware China is the oldest continuous civilization in the world with a history extending back 5 millennia. For most of the 5000 years, China was one of the wealthiest and most advanced civilizations on earth.
There were 24 imperial dynasties during this time and China was one of the most powerful states in the world at least during 6 dynasties – Qin Dynasty (221 – 206 BCE), Han Dynasty (202 BCE- 220 CE ), Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 CE), Song Dynasty (960 – 1279 CE), Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644 CE), and first half of Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1912 CE).
In comparison, ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Ottoman, and more recently Spain, the Netherlands, France, Britain, Germany and Japan all experienced one great historical period as a powerful empire. But they are unlikely to rise to that position ever again.
Most westerners get their impression of China being poor and backward from its humiliating history in the last 150 years since the Opium War in 1839 and the early rules of PRC under Mao. China had a terrible 150 years – the very nadir of the civilization since its inception. But China is now back on its feet and is rising to the top of the world for the 7th time.
The US, with its unique deficit of history and historical awareness, happened to go through its peak years during the time when China had its worst. It is no wonder the US perennially underestimates China. Now we are at a point where things normalize, and China will return to the position it has long been used to. And the US and the others will need to find their equilibrium, whether they like it or not.
The famous investor Ray Dalio published his book The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail in 2021, in which he explored the cyclical patterns of history to understand the rise and decline of empires, economies, and global powers. He studied the recurring patterns and life cycles of multiple Chinese dynasties and global empires. It is very instructive to use the cyclical patterns he presented to understand the world we live in.
In his analysis, the world events we are experiencing today are just another historical cycle of the rise and fall of empires. It so happens China is on the up trajectory and the US the down trajectory now, while the reverse was true 150 years ago.
Most Chinese are not surprised as westerners about the revival of China since we have been through such cycles many times for millenniums.
The secret to the remarkable resilience of China is that China is not a nation state, it is a civilization state. China has had uninterrupted unitary central government since 221 BCE and its identity is civilizational rather than Westphalian.
Chinese-ness is an embedded innate quality that doesn’t change over time. This stands in sharp contrast with the west whose identity is diluted and changed through colonial expansion and subsequent immigration from former colonies (talking about a historical boomerang).
China’s return has much to do with the Chinese political system which in turn is based on its own historical and cultural traditions. China derives its confidence in its path not from validation by others but through its own long history and culture, which is unequalled in the world. China views its destiny through its own lens.
The naivety of the US neoliberals, from Bill Clinton onwards, who believe they can somehow influence the political evolution of a civilizational state that has 4 times the population and 20 times the history is nothing short of ludicrous.
Someone wise once said “anyone can become an American but only a Chinese can be a Chinese”. That’s probably the most astute observation about the Chinese by a westerner.
If you use the framework of historical Chinese dynastic rise and fall, it is easy to understand China’s current situation and what the future holds.
The first stage of a dynasty is revolution and birth of a new order (dynasty). Modern China went through that between 1912 and 1949 when the communist party won the wars against the Japanese and the Kuomintang. The second stage is consolidation of power and institutionalizing governance. This happened during Mao’s watch between 1949 and 1976. It was a turbulent and chaotic time as the revolutionaries grappled with actual ruling. The guiding ideologies were faulty and many bad mistakes were made.
The third stage is a period of prosperity as course corrections are made, right policies implemented, and meritocracy installed. This is where we are in the dynastic cycle. President Xi’s specific target is to reach the rejuvenation of the country by 2049, which should mark the end of this stage.
The fourth stage is the peak of national economic, political, technological and military power. The peak typically breeds seeds of its own demise. If not managed properly, the second half of this stage could see ossification of institutions, arrogant power elite, entrenched interests, too much debt, wealth disparity, polarization, and economic and political decay. This is the stage the US empire is in right now.
The last stage is the fall when the house of cards crumble and a new revolution must happen to dismantle the old order and begin a new one.
The burst of innovation and creativity you are witnessing now in China are features of the third stage in the big cycle. This forms a self-reinforcing flywheel. We can expect to see more breakthroughs in technologies, economic progress, and improvements in standards of living in the coming years.
