Friends, my latest article is a reflection on all that is going horribly wrong for China's leaders, who heretofore seemed to be enjoying a charmed existence. China is entering a new phase of its history, when its seemingly inexorable rise to greatness is replaced by a series of giant question marks, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance. See if you don't agree...
Red China is on the Ropes –
Beware!
Chicom haters
(like Yours Truly) will be chuffed at the recent spate of bad news
for China's hard-line communist leaders, but at the same time the
world as a whole must view these developments with a certain amount
of trepidation, simply because adversity is a foreign country, as it
were, for many Chinese bigwigs, and how they will react to
disappointment and frustration is anyone's guess.
Most
recently, the Chinese government announced that the country's
population is, for the first time since the 1960s, falling.
What's more, ultra-low fertility rates mean that the Chinese have
reached the same demographic dead end that we face in the West:
unless we import oodles of immigrants, our population levels will
soon enter a death spiral, and able-bodied workers (or factory
drones, as the Chinese prefer to think of them) will be hard to find.
In
addition, supply chain disruptions, COVID craziness, and
international mortification over Chinese tyranny have all combined to
stifle China's economic growth rates, which have, as everyone knows,
been incredibly robust for decades. China's GDP grew
only 3%
in 2022, putting the country in the same economic doldrums that we
face here. This begs the question: will the Chinese people continue
to accept CCP hegemony/thuggery when the party loses its trump card
of never-ending and rapid improvements in the standard of living?
The
Chinese leadership, in the wake of massive, nationwide protests,
recently found the courage (or was it the cowardice?) to abandon its
insane “zero COVID” policies, permitting the Chinese people much
greater freedom. Its reward was a huge
spike
in COVID cases and COVID deaths. China is thus facing a reckoning
with COVID, in the here and now, that most Western countries had
months or even years ago. Its medical infrastructure, which was never
all that strong, is straining to cope.
Communist
China is also facing unprecedented levels of criticism and scorn
internationally. According to a Pew
poll,
82% of Americans now view China unfavorably. Not since the era of Mao
has Red China been held in greater contempt in the West. What's more,
this onslaught is bewilderingly multifaceted, from the Chinese
perspective.
China's
government is blamed for everything from the genesis
of COVID,
to pollution and carbon
emissions,
to ravaging
the civil liberties
of its citizens, to exterminating the Uighurs,
to pilfering Western government and corporate secrets
and technology, to corrupting
and/or intimidating politicians, celebrities, and opinion leaders
worldwide, to threatening
the peaceful people of Taiwan, and much, much more! So far, none of
this criticism has led to meaningful sanctions, much less to serious
preparations for military conflict, but it is leading to
countermeasures against Red Chinese influence operations, espionage,
property acquisition and corporate takeovers, and, perhaps most
alarmingly for the Chinese themselves, it is causing some
mega-corporations
to question whether they want to do business so extensively within
and with a country whose reputation is so checkered, and whose future
is so beclouded with uncertainty and dread.
All in all,
things aren't looking so hot for the Chicoms, who until recently
seemed to be on one of history's greatests “rolls” of all time.
For those who have tended to view the rise of China and the expected
global hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party with apprehension,
verging on horror, these developments seem overwhelmingly positive,
at first glance. Perhaps it was always inevitable that China would
come down to earth, at some stage, and probably it is for the best
that it has, BUT...
The giant caveat
to the humbling of Red China is this: a cornered animal is always a
dangerous one, and thus it is possible that the Chinese leadership
will respond to all the aforementioned headwinds in an aggressive or
destructive way. Stripped of its legitimacy, its reputation for
competency, and the aura of historical inevitability that have
shielded the CCP for so long, party leaders may lash out militarily
in an effort to refocus Chinese public opinion on external threats,
or they may greatly intensify efforts aimed at internal repression,
which could cause even greater revulsion in, and estrangement from,
the world community.
In
the worst case scenario (or is it the best case?), even the social
and political stability of China could be jeopardized, with
essentially incalculable, but deeply sobering, ramifications for the
global economy and for world peace. Lest we forget, China has
enormous leverage internationally, given its financial and
manufacturing strength,
and it has vast arsenals of shiny new weapons, including ICBMs,
which, heretofore, the Chicoms have felt no compelling urge or need
to utilize. If China implodes, however, all bets are off.
One is reminded
of the old saying, “May you live in interesting times”, because
Red China's current stumbles are the very definition of
“interesting”: indeed, the fate of all of us is bound up in the
decision-making of a small band of corrupt, pseudo-Marxist, and
decidedly peculiar party bureaucrats in Beijing, who – God help us!
– could easily steer their massive country, and the world as a
whole, into an abyss, if they and we are not very careful.
Fingers crossed!
Dr.
Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred
and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com.
He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
And here it is at Townhall:
https://townhall.com/columnists/nicholaswaddy/2023/01/20/red-china-is-on-the-ropes-beware-n2618526
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