Joe, you might be interested in this book: Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power.

Here's a (subscription-only) review of the book in TNR.

Here's another review in Foreign Affairs.

Oh, and don't forget energy flows. That's the key to China's future.

Thanks, praktike!

That book hits at one of the countervailing trends I was referring to - What Dan Darling calls the "Constantinization of China."

As for energy flows, it's in the questions AND in the "12 under-reported global trends" link. A Worthy reminder, and I'll add John Atkinson's recent piece on China & renewables in the questions to give it one more angle.

Gotcha on enery. Reading too quickly! Re: the Christianity thing, the TNR review sounds some cautionary notes as to just how Christian a lot of these folks are. Short version: many of them are weird and cultish to the point that they hardly resemble Christianity at all.

Short version: many of them are weird and cultish to the point that they hardly resemble Christianity at all.

This differs from how Christianity was initially practiced in Ireland, France, and Germany how? Not to mention Southern California now. ;-)

The Globe and Mail article sited was part of an entire Saturday issue devoted to China. Don't know how many major newspapers would be willing to try that (perhaps 80% of the paper's content was China related, even the Sports section!)

It does bring up a more troubling topic. Even if China manages to avoid all the traps around it, what happens when the number of people with Western-levels of resource consumption doubles or triples?

What if the Western standard of living is only possible because Westerners are not all that numerous?

>>"state capitalism under dictatorial control"

There's something very wrong with this phrase. Capitalism usually involves private ownership of the means of production. Ownership involves control not just title. Private title combined with authoritarian government control is fascism, not capitalism. (Proponents of Social Security privatization should keep this in mind.)

Perhaps a more accurate term would be state corporatism under dictatorial control.

T.J., "corporatist capitalism" would indeed be a more accurate term. Thanks.

Tom West, Lester R. Brown's book Eco-Economy posits more or less that very idea. The 2 biggest stumbling blocks to equivalence are apparently [a] the water required - and it isn't just agriculture, it's manufacturing and much more; and [b] the difficulty of even approaching our protein diet levels.

This is before we even touch fuel consumption, paper and hence forestry requirements, etc.

Barriers A & B may be addressable by growing incentives to use water in much better ways as scarcity (and hence price) go up, but [b] in particular seems especially difficult given the various forces and tradeoffs at work. B is also addressable by having more vegetarians and so driving down demand, of course. Or by ramping up imports of grain (an indirect form of importing water, which then gets used directly or for feed) and/or protein products themselves (beef, fish, pork etc).

If xenophobic nationalism and food dependence both grow, down the road we may get to test the proposition re: people biting the hand that feeds them.

Beyond that, China has a real set of constraints challenges ahead as it climbs the growth curve. That could be bad, but it could also be good if they react by developing innovative solutions that are useful to the rest of us. Time will tell.

Finally, now that we've seen "the China" effect in markets like oil and container shipping, it would be interesting to get someone who could project what rising protein demand in China and India might do to the cost of beef et. al. in our own supermarkets down the road, based on how "expandable" our production and indeed global production may be. Africa could certainly support much more productive farming if run better, and China and India have always played in the politics over there....

Joe,

I have been looking at China myself some.

Here is bit I got by e-mail today. It seems to correspond to reality.

Economically China is a mercatilist power. Its economy is run by the government. Their policy is to subsidise exports to America/the World in order to build the Chinese economy.

The writer thinks that an American pullout from Iraq will be followed by an economic collapse in China (their whole economy is a bubble economy).

But just because they work against the regime does not mean that these Christian groups are reformers. Many house church leaders are quite conservative and narrowly focused on evangelism. Put down for so long--the church in China was much more harshly suppressed than in Poland--many house church members have little knowledge of the Bible or of liberal, and liberating, theology. Evangelical Christianity is spreading so quickly in China in part because it is so emotional, so experiential. The Bible is used "as a talisman, like Mao's Little Red Book," Richard Madsen, a scholar of Chinese Christianity, has observed. Lambert admits that there are only about twelve hundred students across China engaged in full-time theological training--the kind of education that would help them to teach average Chinese about the textual basis of Christianity, and about the potentially liberal aspects of the faith. There are few well-trained Protestant pastors; Time has reported that in the Chinese countryside there are some fifty thousand believers for every cleric. This lack of training only plays into the hands of the most demagogic and least intellectual evangelical groups.

Consequently, while some house church leaders are knowledgeable about textual and traditional Christianity, too many house church worshippers gravitate to the most superficial and most heterodox elements of the religion. Though some house churches, especially those in urban areas, seriously study biblical themes, often house churches focus on the unthinking and the superstitious--miracles, instant salvation, acts of physical transport such as weeping and shouting. Faye Pearson, a foreign teacher of Christianity in China, told Time that seven out of ten converts to Christianity in the country "come to faith through illness": they believe that Christianity has healed them. Even Lambert admits that "Chinese Christians adhere to a robust biblical supernaturalism which believes in a sovereign God who can answer the prayers of his people in remarkable ways." In fact, many Chinese Christians follow what is essentially folk religion with only minor Christian elements. All this is not exactly the basis for the kind of intellectual ferment that produced liberation theology, or Solidarity.

China will confront us militarily or break us economically in about 10-15 years, after we've exhausted ourselves running around and invading the Arab world, looking for what started out as a few fanatics but is growing into a major movement because of Bush's bumbling.

China will confront us militarily or break us economically in about 10-15 years, after we've exhausted ourselves running around and invading the Arab world, looking for what started out as a few easily dealt with fanatics but may grow into a major movement in large part because of Bush's bumbling.

Read Invasion by Eric Harry for a well thought out scenario, with a few pulpy plot details.

Firstly, I think that China could be considered a Fascist state now, because it fits the definition as I understand it. They are still Commies at heart, however.

Regarding "klatuu"'s comment about an exhausted U.S. being overtaken by China: In the old-fashioned war paradigm that may have held true, but it may not apply here. Think about it -- the smallest proportion ever of the U.S. population will be involved in actual military activity in a major war (less than 1% vs. 10% in WWII), and there is no rationing, no sacrifices, the lowest casualty rate of any major war the U.S. has fought (again, take the larger U.S. population into account here), and a thriving economy with huge depth unrivalled anywhere. Unless terrorists do manage to cause enormous catastrophies stateside or to other strategic assests, I don't see how we will "exhaust" ourselves.

praktike: The elite horror of evangelicals contained in that excerpt is pretty disgusting.

China is subsidising the American economy in two ways.

They send us cheap goods. They buy T-bills.

Once they stop doing that their dollar holdings lose a lot of their value and their economy falls like a stone down a deep well.

The cost to America: devaluation of the dollar (inflation) and the loss of subsidised goods (inflation). For America the adjustment will be difficult. For China almost impossible. It could mean the return of regular Chinese famines.

What Mao did with a gun the present rulers are doing with a yuan/dollar. Cute.

Sorry if that excerpt appears "anti-evangelical." Read the whole article before you make up your mind.

Well this sure is interesting. Powell sells out Taiwan. What the heck is going on?

Since Prak doesn't toot his own work, I'll do it for him.

Here's a great post by Praktike on China, Iraq, Terrorism.

Prak refers to a couple of good books as well, but here's a taste of the China part.

For instance, what kind of long-term threat does China represent? Is China truly looking to embrace the world community and build better lives for its citizens, or is it merely boosting its economy in order to build up a military capable of challenging the United States, swallowing Taiwan, and dominating the increasingly important oil and natural gas supplies of Central Asia and Africa? As China’s middle class continues to grow, will it create pressure for political reform, or will China emerge as some kind of quasi-fascist powerhouse? Will China’s integration into the world economy preclude it from military aggression? Will U.S. influence in the region decline as other powers such as Japan and South Korea become increasingly dependent on Chinese markets?

As an aside, Chez Nadezhda is becoming a must visit place for me, on smart, moderate, views regarding foreign affairs, national security, etc. With multiple smart people contributing, I recommend giving it a look see.

Joe,
Still, stupidly, not intimidated by the quality of commenters to your post.
An important, I think, factor in any China story would be the ever closer relationship between India and the US, a naturally occuring one as India, w/o the USSR, is moving steadily toward a more market, less socialist, economy and in foreign affairs is becoming much closer to the US. Not to mention the burgeoning military cooperations between isolationist Bush and India.
India has been a huge brake on Chinese expansionism, and will only gain in stature, economically and militarily as she grows closer and closer to the US.
Sure hope some of the intellects here can spare the time to comment on, hopefully to flesh out, my concepts.
Mike

BTW I agree with JC about Chez Nadezhda.

Aw, shucks, you guys are the best. We need to do some design work, though, and light a fire under the hamsters running the server ...

I agree wholeheartedly with JC (shocka) and Dave about Chez Nadezhda. I love sites where the IQ gradient is high enough to keep out trolls! :)

BTW, looking back at RAND's list of global trends sure is interesting. They separated "The Hindu-Muslim Divide" from "The Indus Water Fight," which I found odd. I think that this summer's negotiations over the latter have been promising, and Musharraf's diplomatic foray regarding Kashmir could help with the latter, if the Indians take him seriously.

I don't see these small nationalist elements, nor the slightly larger religous ones as any real threat to party control. Nor do I see the numerous recent "reforms" as relinquishing any party control (in fact the opposite). A few pesky nationalists aren't going to bring the CCP down. China wil not slip into anarchy, certainly the era of the Red Guard was a signifigantly more choatic, and the party weathered that well enough.

Remember, guys like Vladimir Zhirinovsky grew out of a defunct communist system that failed to change it's operative features. China has (so far) sucessfully evolved its external-operative features while strengthening the CCP and maintaining a coherent (and decidedly non-fascist) ideology.

What I don't understand is the need to be more afraid of some implausible neo-fascist China as oppossed to the real threat the still very-intact ideology of the CCP represents today.

In the event that China really did get annoyed at the USA (say if the USA prevented a forceful reintegration of Taiwan), has any economist actually carefully posited what would happen if China dumped all of its T-Bills on hand at once?

It would certainly harm China, but China has the advantage of using force to suppress unrest. What would the economic effect be on the USA? Economic disaster ala Germany 1930, or an unpleasant recession? All I've heard is armchair speculation.

I don't see these small nationalist elements, nor the slightly larger religous ones as any real threat to party control. Nor do I see the numerous recent "reforms" as relinquishing any party control (in fact the opposite). A few pesky nationalists aren't going to bring the CCP down. China will not slip into anarchy, the era of the Red Guard was signifigantly more choatic, and the party weathered that well enough.

Remember, guys like Vladimir Zhirinovsky grew out of a defunct communist system that failed to change it's operative features. China has (so far) sucessfully evolved its external-operative features while strengthening the CCP and maintaining a coherent (and decidedly non-fascist) ideology. This would preclude any sort of mass-economic meltdown such as the late-USSR experienced.

What I don't understand here is the need to be more afraid of some implausible neo-fascist China as oppossed to the real threat that the still very-intact ideology of the CCP represents today.

In the above analysis I don’t see any mention of rapidly advancing technology.

China is investing heavily in biotech and nanotech. China isn’t reluctant to use biotech and that should mean plants enhanced with high quality proteins and plants that require much less water to grow. Biotech and nanotech should significantly reduce resource requirements.

Language translation software should lower the language barriers that tend to insulate societies. No modern nation can afford to cut itself off from the global Internet or global commerce. Connectivity should tie China more strongly to the global community.

Praktike's article about assumptions is useful, and I enjoy Chez Nadezhda as well.

I'm going to start with another Praktike quote from the article JC refers to:

"This turned out to be a prophetic prediction, and something that no doubt provides Wolfowitz with a sense of infallibility after 1991. Given what we know about how Wolfowitz views the world and how long ahead he thinks, it is likely that he sees China in the same way: regionally ambitious, fundamentally irrational, and in danger of becoming a military competitor"

I suspect the projection of certainty re: China on Wolfowitz et. al. is just that - projection. People at that level have been though enough scenario efforts and analysis efforts to understand that. As A.L. puts it (in a different context), position players don't make it to the major leagues if they can't hit a curveball.

Per praktike's quote in JC's comment, the simple answer is: we don't know. We can't know. Not even Wolfowitz can know - and he knows that.

Instead of knowing, we have to look at different forces acting on the relationship, and on China, and at things like cultural attitudes to power, and at trends, and at history. When we do, all we can say is that certain patterns are realistic possibilities. Which means policymakers have to think about those possibilities, and plan knowing that this may be the future their successors face. That means working hard to keep their options open until there is a decisive turn for good or ill, or until the risk level rises to a point where in their judgment it forces action.

There's real value in keeping one's options open in the face of unclear policy situations. Up to a certain point, anyway.

My take: it would surely be foolish to dismiss the possibility of a neo-fascist China, given the warning signs we can already see. That means the ability to enact a policy of containment if necessary is an important goal, and strategic positions must not be given up lightly (this largely explains why the USA still bothers with South Korea). Until this possibility can be dismissed, relations with China should remain wary and with "Plan B" always in the background.

At the same time, it would also be foolish to assume that this is China's only future. Hence the prospect of engagement over North Korea, economic links like the WTO, and other activities designed to draw China in and hope they'll play. Or even tacks designed to engage the Chinese people, and affect trends in that country. That last bit has to be played carefully, but the stakes are too high to take it off the table.

To an outsider, this will look like the USA is pursuing 2 tracks at once, tracks which are slightly contradictory. That's a correct assessment - and smart policy, too.

Smarter policy still looks at the scenarios, and the forces shaping events, and the kinds of events that could be critical tipping points, without committing to any one scenario. That way, if a possible future begins to come true, it's possible to see the signs early and begin to make appropriate changes quickly.

That's the goal behind the questions above. Because the goal of this site is about fostering that kind of intelligent engagement. Because the issue is important but uncertain. And because in a democracy, our views and choices matter.

So, that's what I'm trying to do in this post. Thanks to everyone who's participating, and reading, and thinking here (you too, Mike, and thanks always for your valued participation in this blog on several levels).

Who else wants to play?

I have lived in China for the last ten years, mostly in Beijing.

I do not have any special knowledge of energy and military issues nor of economic theory. However, I have lived in China's capital, read its daily newspapers and talked to its citizens almost every day for the last decade.

I have worked for Chinese people, employed Chinese people, had dinner with government cadres in five star hotels in Beijing, and shared cigarettes with peasants in remote villages.

More to the point of Joe Katzman's post, I have written for Chinese newspapers and received hate mail for my efforts, and been on the wrong side of an angry mob in a xenophobic mood. After the US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, I watched university students, tacitly egged on by the authorities, throw molotov cocktails at the US Embassy.

I have seen the best and the worst in the Chinese people. And I believe that the worry about Chinese nationalism is only taking into account the worst.

There are two factors that must be considered, if Americans — I am South African — are to evaluate Chinese nationalism as a threat:

Being practical is one of China's strongest values
Chinese people and the Communist Party want to trade. Trade will trump all other considerations for the next few decades in China.

Japan has never said sorry
Aside from the Belgrade embassy bombing, the most passionate Chinese nationalism and xenophobia in the last 20 years has almost always been directed at the Japanese.

There is a reason for this: namely, the Other Holocaust. During WWII, the Japanese committed the most despicable war crimes in China: rape, mass executions, concentration camps, torture, and chemical, biological and psychological experiments on human beings. That is the memory Chinese people have of Japan's behavior just over 50 years ago.

Japanese war crimes in China are not on the scale of Nazi Germany. Japan's biggest slaughter of the war was the Nanjing Massacre, where about 300 thousand civilians were murdered, often after rape or torture. It doesn't quite have the same force as "six million" (a number every vaguely educated Goy knows). But 300 thousand is one hundred times the number of people killed on September 11. And 300 thousand is only the death toll of one particular Japanese war crime; there were many others in a long and horrible war.

Unlike Germany, Japan has never apologized for its war crimes in China (nor for those in Korea). Japanese high school textbooks, unlike in Germany, do not teach young Japanese about the crimes of their forefathers. Japanese political leaders, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, regularly make visits to shrines to Japanese war heroes. This does not happen in Germany.

In other words, the Chinese have a legitimate grievance against the Japanese. This is significant for America: The best way the US could help to defuse Chinese nationalism would be to pressure Japan to admit its war crimes and say sorry.

Joe is right. It would be wrong to project too much certainty on Wolfowitz regarding China, although I think we've seen in Wolfowitz a great deal of hubris regarding Iraq. He was a true believer, and I think he has to be somewhat chastened at this point given that so many of his assumptions proved to be wrong.

As to China, it certainly has a number of possible futures open to it, one of which is the kind of fascism Joe worries about. I think it's nearly impossible to predict what's going to happen. But prudence dictates that we help China envision a better future and steer them towards it, and not take actions that will aggravate the worst aspects of Chinese behavior. I like the idea of working with Japan to resolve pent-up hostilities as a starting point, and engaging China on Central Asian issues and nuclear proliferation as well.

In fact, many Chinese Christians follow what is essentially folk religion with only minor Christian elements. All this is not exactly the basis for the kind of intellectual ferment that produced liberation theology, or Solidarity.

praktike, I wasn't entirely being facetious in comment above. Liberation theology was developed in a Latin America that has been majority Christian for nearly 500 years and Solidarity emerged in the context of a Poland that has been Christian for more than a thousand years. During most of the time and for most of the people in both cases Christianity has been a combination of traditional folk practices, what conventional Western Christians would recognize as Christianity, and Lord knows what.

If Christianity obtains a real foothold in China, it will be constructed on real Chinese roots. Successors of Francis Xavier like Matteo Ricci and Niccolo Longobardi had pretty good results doing just this until the Emperor banned Christianity in 1722.