Comparing China and America
Economies Diverge, Police States Converge
I have followed China’s development, its
stunning advance in forty years from impoverished
Third World to
a huge economy, its rapid scientific progress. Coming from
nowhere it now runs neck and neck with the US in supercomputers,
does world-class work in genetic engineering and genomics (the
Beijing Genomics Institute), quantum computing and quantum
radar, in scientific publications. It lags in many things, but
the speed of advance, the intense focus on progress, is
remarkable.
Recently, after twelve years away, I returned for a couple of weeks to Chungdu and Chong Quing, which I found amazing. American patriots of the lightly read but growly sort will bristle at the thought that the Chinese may have political and economic systems superior to ours, but, well, China rises while the US flounders. They must be doing something right.
In terms of economic systems, the Chinese are clearly superior. China runs a large economic surplus, allowing it to invest heavily in infrastructure and in resources abroad. America runs a large deficit. China invests in China, America in the military. China’s infrastructure is new, of high quality, and growing. America’s slowly deteriorates. China has an adult government that gets things done. America has an essentially absentee Congress and a kaleidoscopically shifting cast of pathologically aggressive curiosities in the White House.
America cannot compete with a country far more populous of more-intelligent people with competent leadership and the geographic advantage of being in Eurasia. Washington’s choices are either to start a major war while it can, perhaps force the world to submit through sanctions, or resign itself to America’s becoming just another country. Given the goiterous egos inside the Beltway Bubble, this is not encouraging.
To compare the two countries, look at them as they are, not as we are told they are. We are told that dictatorships, which China is, are nightmarish, brutal, do not allow the practice of religion or freedom of expression and so on. The usual examples are Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and North Korea, of whom the criticisms are true. By contrast, we are told, America is envied by the world for its democracy, freedom of speech, free press, high moral values, and freedom of religion.
This is nonsense. In fact the two countries are more similar than we might like to believe, with America converging fast on the Chinese model.
The US is at best barely democratic. Yes, every four years we have a hotly contested presidential election, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. The public has no influence over anything of importance: the wars, the military budget, immigration, offshoring of jobs, what our children are taught in school, or foreign or racial policy
We do not really have freedom of speech. Say “nigger” once and you can lose a job of thirty years. Or criticize Jews, Israel, blacks, homosexuals, Muslims, feminists, or transsexuals. The media strictly prohibit any criticism of these groups, or anything against abortion or in favor of gun rights, or any coverage of highly profitable wars that might turn the public against them, or corruption in Congress or Wall Street, or research on the genetics of intelligence.
Religion? Christianity is not illegal, but heavily repressed under the Constitutionally nonexistent doctrine of separation of church and state. Surveillance? Monitoring of the population is intense in China and getting worse. It is hard to say just how much NSA monitors us, but America is now a land of cameras, electronic readers of license plates, recording of emails and telephone conversations. The tech giants increasingly censor political sites, and surveillance in our homes appears about to get much worse.
Here we might contemplate Lincoln’s famous dictum, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Being a politician, he did not add a final clause that is the bedrock of American government, “But you can fool enough of the people enough of the time.” You don’t have to keep websites of low circulation from being politically incorrect. You just have to tell the majority, via the mass media, over and over and over, what you want them to believe.
The dictatorship in China is somewhat onerous, but has little in common with the sadistic lunacy of Pol Pot’s Cambodia. In China you do not buck the government, propaganda is heavy, and communications monitored. If people accept this, as most do, they are free to start businesses, bar hop, smoke dope (which a friend there tells me is common though illegal) engage in such consumerism as they increasingly can afford and lead what an American would call normal lives. A hellhole it is not.
Socially China has a great advantage over America in that, except for the Muslims of Xinjiang, it is pretty much a Han monoculture. Lacking America’s racial diversity, its cities do not burn, no pressure exists to infantilize the schools for the benefit of incompetent minorities, racial mobs do not loot stores, and there is very little street crime.
America’s huge urban pockets of illiteracy do not exist. There is not the virulent political division that has gangs of uncontrolled Antifa hoodlums stalking public officials. China takes education seriously, as America does not. Students study, behave as maturely as their age would suggest, and do not engage in middle-school politics.
In short, China does not appear to be in irremediable decadence. America does.
An intelligent dictatorship has crucial advantages over a chaotic pseudo-democracy. One is stability of policy. In America, we look to the next election in two, four, or six years. Businesses focus on the next quarter’s bottom line. Consequently policy flip-flops. One administration has no interest in national health care, the next administration institutes it, and the third wants to eliminate it. Because policies are pulled and hauled in different directions by special interests–in this case Big Pharma, insurance companies, the American Medical Association, and so on–the result is an automobile with five wheels, an electric motor but no batteries, and a catalytic converter that doesn’t work. After twenty-four years, from Bush II until Trump leaves, we will neither have nor not have national health care.
China’s approach to empire is primarily commercial, America’s military. The former turns a profit without firing a shot, and the latter generates a huge loss as the US tries to garrison the world. Always favoring coercion, Washington now tries to batter the planet into submission via tariffs, sanctions, embargos, and so on. Whether it will work, or force the rest of the world to band together against America, remains to be seen. Meanwhile the Chinese economy grows........
A dictatorship can simply do things. It can plan twenty, or fifty, years down the road. If some massive engineering project will produce great advantages in thirty years, but be a dead loss until then, China can just do it. And often has. When I was in Chengdu, Beijing opened the Honking–Zhuhai-Macau oceanic bridge, thirty-four miles long.
In the US? California wants high-speed rail from LA to San Fran. It has talked and wrangled for years without issue. The price keeps rising. The state can’t get rights of way because too many private owners have title to the land. Eminent domain? Conservatives would scream about sacred rights to property, liberals that Hispanic families were in the path, and airlines would bribe Congress to block it. America does not know how to build high-speed rail and hiring China would arouse howling about national security, balance of payments, and the danger to motherhood and virginity. There will be no high speed rail, there or, probably, anywhere else.
China has a government that can do things: In 2008 an 8.0 quake devastated the region near the Tibetan border, killing, according to the Chinese government, some 100,000 people. Buildings put up long before simply collapsed. Some years ago everything–the town, the local dam, and roads and houses–had been completely rebuilt, with structural steel so as, says the government, to withstand another such quake. Compare this with the unremedied wreckage in New Orleans due to Katrina.
Here we come to an important cultural or philosophical difference between the two countries. Many Orientals, to include the Chinese, view society as a collective instead of as a Wild West of individuals. In the East, one hears sayings like, “The nail that stands up is hammered down,” or “The high-standing flower is cut.” Americans who teach school in China report that students will not question a professor, even if he spouts arrant nonsense to see how they will react. They are not stupid. They know that the Neanderthals did not build a moon base in the early Triassic. But they say nothing.
This collectivism, highly disagreeable to Westerners (me, for example) has pros and cons. It makes for domestic tranquility and ability to work together, and probably accounts in large part for China’s stunning advances. On the other hand, it is said to reduce inventiveness
There may be something to this. If you look at centuries of Chinese painting, you will see that each generation largely made copies of earlier masters. As nearly as I, a non-expert, can tell, there is more variety and imagination in the Corcoran Gallery’s annual exhibition of high-school artists than in all of Chinese paining.
People alarmed at China’s growth point out hopefully that the Chinese in America have not founded Googles or Microsofts. No, though they certainly have founded huge companies: Alibaba, Baidu, Tiensen for example. However, the distinction between inventiveness and really good engineering is not always clear, and the Chinese are fine engineers. With American education crashing under the attacks of Social Justice Warriors, basing the future on a lack of Chinese imagination seems a bit too adventurous.
Yesterday's Country
For many years the United States has
regarded itself as, and been, the world’s technological leader.
One can easily make a long and impressive list of seminal
discoveries and inventions coming from America, from the moon
landings to the internet. It was an astonishing performance. The
US maintains a lead, though usually a shrinking one, in many
fields. But:
China has risen explosively, from being clearly a “Third World” country forty years ago to become a very serious and rapidly advancing competitor to America. Anyone who has seen today’s China (I recently spent two weeks there, traveling muchly) will have been astonished by the ubiquitous construction, the quality of planning, the roads and airports and high-speed rail, the sense of confidence and modernity. Compare this with America’s rotting and dangerous cities, swarms of homeless people, deteriorating education, antique rail, deindustrialized midlands, loony government, and the military sucking blood from the economy like some vast leech, and America will seem yesterday’s country. The phrase “national suicide” comes to mind.
A common response to these observations from thunder-thump patriots is the assertion that the Chinese can’t invent anything, just copy and steal. What one actually sees is a combination of rapid and successful adoption of foreign technology (see Shanghai maglev below) and, increasingly, cutting edge science and technology. More attention might be in order. A few examples: A few examples from many that might be adduced:
“China Confirms Scientist Genetically Engineered Babies”
Supposedly the intent was to make the twins resistant to AIDS. It was done using CRISPR-Cas 9, a gene-editing technique invented in the West by Jennifer Dooudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier but quickly mastered by China. It seemed odd that AIDS resistance would be the goal since the disease is easily avoided. Maybe, I thought, for some technical reason the insertion was particularly easy. But then:
“China’s Genetically Edited Twins May Have Enhanced Brains ‘By Accident’”
“By accident” indeed. Since the researchers admitted being aware of the neurologic effects of CCR5, the gene in question, the experiment sure looked like a shot at increasing intelligence. But maybe not. Then:
“Chinese researchers insert human brain gene into monkeys, making them smarter”
Whether the insertion in fact had the effect described, I do not know, and the story maybe or may not be sensationalized. Of interest are, first, that it was an attempt to engineer intelligence, second, that it involved inserting a human gene in a (presumably) lower primate, and third, that the Chinese did it.
“China, Huawei to Launch 5G network in Shanghai Station”
Though 5G is usually presented as an improvement to smartphones, it is far more, and the Chinese seem poised to jump on it hard. See below.
“World’s First 5G powered Remote Brain Surgery Performed in China”
It is interesting that China and South Korea are clear leaders in 5G. The US, unable to compete seeks to prohibit its European vassals from dealing with Huawei by threatening sanctions. Germany has refused to obey. .
Huawei’s 5G Dominance In The Post-American World – Forbes
Whether Forbes’ overstates the facts can perhaps be argued. That China has come from nowhere to be ahead in a crucial technology ought to be a wake-up call. That America has to rely on sanctions instead of better technology accentuates the point.
“More Than 510,000 Overseas Students Return to China”
This year. A couple of decades ago, Chinese students in the US often refused to return to a backward and repressive country. It now appears that Asia is where the action is and they want to be part of it.
“Chinese Bullet Trains Depend on Mega Bridges”
These things are everywhere. Click the link. In most countries roads and rails follow the contour of the land. China likes pillars.
Digging subways is expensive and disruptive, cutting highways through cities is destructive of homes and business, so China goes with sky-trains. Building these takes about half the land as roadways. The bridges are built offsite and then erected with a special crane.
“China Develops Infrared Light to Alter Genes of Cancer Cells””
A team led by Professor Song Yujun from the Nanjing University’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences designed an infrared light-responsive nano-carrier to be used for the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool, which will have great potential in cancer therapeutics. The strong penetrability of infrared light enables scientists to precisely control the gene editing tool in deep human tissue”
I am clueless as to the function of IR in this but, as with so very many stories coming out of China, it does not suggest copycatting. increasingly, the Chinese seem to following from in front.
“China Breaks Quantum Entanglement Record at Eighteen Qbits”
In a new record, Pan Jianwei and colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China, eastern China’s Anhui Province, demonstrated a stable 18-qubit state. The previous record of 10 qubits was set by the same team. The breakthrough was made possible by simultaneously manipulating the freedom-paths, polarization, and orbital angular momentum of six photons.
“The speed of quantum computing grows exponentially as the number of qubits in an entangled state increases … the achievement of an 18-qubit entanglement this time has set the world record for largest entanglement state in all physical systems,” Wan
(Noah’s ark measured 300 Qbits, but the (barely) antediluvian technology has been lost.)
Open Date: Dec. 31st, 2002
Total Length: 30 kilometers (19 miles)
Highest Speed: 430km/h (267 mi/h)
Duration per Single Journey: 8 minutes
Frequency: 15-20 minutes
Route: Longyang Rd. – Pudong International Airport (PVG
Trains relying on magnetic levitation float on a field of magnetic repulsion, having no contact with rails. This reduces friction and ends wear on wheels and rails. China did not invent the technology but uses it well. Before this train, the trip from downtown to the airport took forty minutes to an hours. Now, eight minutes. The technology is German, the idea a century old, but the Chinese decided that they wanted it, and got it. The ability to make a decision and act on it without years of political wrangling and lawsuits gives China a major advantage over other countries.
The video is long, at 43 minutes, a bit ray-rah, and wanders briefly off into the history of elevated rail in Chicago but gives a good picture of the train, the technology at a non-specialist level, and the China in which it runs.
Rand: Chilling World War III Wargames show US Forces Crushed by Russia and China
“RAND Senior Defense Analyst David Ochmanek discussed the simulations at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington D.C. last week. “In our games, where we fight China or Russia … blue gets its a** handed to it, not to put too fine a point on it,” he said, during a panel discussion. Blue denotes U.S. forces in the simulations.”
The reasons for this are several and belong in another column. The military’s utterly predictable response is “Send more money” instead of “Maybe we should mind our own business and spend on our economy.” The point here is that the world is changing in may ways and Washington seems not to have noticed.
Conclusion
The list could be extended at length, to cover numbers of patents awarded, scientific papers published, quantum communications, investment in education and technological research and development, supercomputers and chip design and many other things. Beijing is clearly bent on Making China Great Again–as why should it not? Meanwhile America focuses more on transgender bathrooms and whether Bruce Jenner is a girl than on its endless and draining wars. China sends its brightest to the world’s best technical school while America makes its universities into playpens for the mildly retarded. The country crumbles but spends drunkenly of defective fighter planes it doesn’t need in the first place.
This won’t work a whole lot longer.
China Strikes Oil [ 4
March 2023 ]
QUOTE
Chinese state-owned oil and gas corporation CNOOC has announced the
discovery of a major oilfield with light crude reserves of 100 million tons
in the Bohai Sea, which stretches along the country’s northern coastline.
According to a
statement from the company on Wednesday, the Bozhong 26-6 oilfield lies
in the south of the Bohai Sea, with an average water depth of 22 meters. The
discovery well was drilled and completed at a depth of 4,480 meters, and
encountered a total of 321.3 meters of oil pay zones. The well was tested to
produce an average of approximately 2,040 barrels of crude oil and 11.45
million cubic feet of natural gas per day, the report said.
UNQUOTE
This is good news for once. It will obstruct American sabotage operations
like their attack on Nord Stream.