China, global economy, politics

China, Issue No. 1

*| Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira | The aristocrats to the lamp post | Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira | The aristocrats, we'll hang them |
|---|---|---|---|

Here in the world, there isn't even a project for a World Assembly of States. Already, de Gaulle said, "the UN, that thing..." As you'll read in the two texts by Pomagalsky, economic maneuvers by various parties are accompanied by strategic maneuvers, on both sides. In the Middle East, Americans are not really fighting terrorism—it's just a pretext. They aim to limit and delay China's access to major oil sources and its explosive development.

As Pomagalsky emphasizes, the Americans are not doing this out of greed, although the country's leaders all have close ties to oil companies (Exxon, etc.). The United States is fighting for its survival within a relatively short timeframe—about 20 years. As we'll see, China is quietly arming itself, trying to conceal the true scale of its military budget. Alliances are being formed without the slightest hesitation. Tomorrow, countries will sign "agreements" because it's in their interest—economic, strategic—regardless of "democracy," "human rights," or "women's rights." Countries like China, Russia, Iran, and even North Korea.

All of this far exceeds the repercussions felt by populations in European countries, who increasingly notice that more and more products come from China, and more and more Europeans are unemployed, taking to the streets.

China is a giant whose scale, strength, and magnitude are difficult to grasp—just as is India. The current situation is not accidental. It's no surprise. It's the result of twenty years of sustained effort, tied to the way China has chosen to transform itself into an army, into a "marabunta" (warrior ants that sometimes march across South America, devouring everything in their path). China isn't doing this to harm the rest of the world. It's doing it to escape the long-standing poverty it has endured. For this, the highly authoritarian cadres of the Chinese Communist Party are fully utilized. Thus, China is a very efficient dictatorship. In China, trade unions simply do not exist.

Aside from "technical border peculiarities," like the Muslim Uyghurs, which Pomagalsky mentions, there is a remarkable ethnic and cultural unity. China is essentially pragmatic and... nationalist. I believe that's the word that best characterizes the Chinese, and one we must engrave in our minds. China is "without qualms." The entire Chinese population also carries a massive sense of revenge. The Japanese atrocities (bacteriological weapons conducted by General Hi Shi in Manchuria), massacres, and the Opium Wars have not been forgotten.

China utterly disregards the economic and social consequences its legitimate economic expansion creates around the world. The Chinese simply apply the (liberal) rules of the game that prevail elsewhere, which were once used to dismantle the Middle Kingdom. But they have the impoliteness of doing so with astonishing efficiency. They are legendary traders. When doing business with Chinese, you have a 99% chance of being cheated—with a smile. Westerners are astonishingly naive in this arena (I think of Eurocopter personnel who decided to collaborate with the Chinese to jointly produce helicopters). The Chinese expertly exploit competition, negotiating alternately with one partner or another to achieve their ultimate goal: technological transfer. To win the market and gain a short-term advantage, there will always be a fool who provides the blueprints, the manufacturing process, and later returns saying, "We beat such-and-such a competitor."

Unconsciously, Westerners still hold a rather primitive image of the Chinese. In their minds, they picture ragged, barbaric, uncivilized beings, as portrayed in old films like "The Yangtze Patrol" or "The 55 Days in Peking," featuring Charlton Heston (a film depicting the siege of foreign legations in Peking by "rampant hordes" during the time when Westerners were dismantling the country, applying colonialism without remorse). Here, "civilized" Westerners face brutal, bloodthirsty hordes—cunning, recognizing only force, ignorant of pity. The overall perception remains colonialist. The image of the Chinese evokes that of the Indian in 1950s Westerns or the "yellow" villain from American B-movies. Westerners imagine them as unintelligent, uncreative, incapable of mastering cutting-edge knowledge in any field. This underestimation is widespread. In the 1950s, for example, Westerners completely underestimated the Russians, especially in space. How could people so poorly dressed, unable to produce decent lipstick or quality socks, using lamp-based computers resembling old 1950s oscilloscopes with ugly designs, possibly venture into space? Until the late 1960s, I remember that Soviet delegates, upon arriving abroad, would immediately go buy synthetic socks—finally ones that wouldn't fall down their calves.

I've already described the shock of Westerners discovering in 1982 that China possessed a MHD technology as advanced as their own, bubbling away in scientific complexes resembling old cement factories. Of course, there remains much poverty in China. The Chinese land is poor, and rainfall is scarce. Pomagalsky will provide compelling statistics. In Shanghai, we're deep in the third millennium—but this "Chinese miracle" is mostly confined to the southeastern coastal belt. Just take a train and go 100 kilometers inland, and you quickly find filthy countryside. In China, it's common to say, "We eat everything that flies, except airplanes." They eat dogs. There are indeed restaurants—though officially banned—where you can eat live animals, with the ultimate refinement being monkey brains served decapitated in front of the customer. Poor peasants sell their children for 400 yuan to "services" or officials, who then resell them to foreigners wanting to adopt them—ten times the price, pocketing a comfortable profit in the process. Human rights remain a rather vague concept in such a vast country. The Westerner perceives what they see as barbarism (though they sometimes do far worse, using famine as a weapon) and associates it with backwardness. But we must not forget that China is the third country to have sent humans into space, which implies an entire scientific and technical foundation that Europeans lack.

When Westerners trade with China, they naively believe they hold an unassailable technological advantage. A gross error. The awakening, which is near, will be extremely brutal. The Chinese silently digest everything...