Tuesday, October 22, 2019

You can never be China’s friend’: Spengler: Asia Times

Do the Chinese have the same concept of friendship that we have?
The Chinese, as individuals, have no friends. China, as a country, all the less so.

I think the Chinese are not curious about how the barbarians govern themselves as long as they’re subordinate to China, economically and technologically. The Chinese are the least ideological people in the world and the most pragmatic.

If China loses its edge in technology, if they fall behind the West, if the Communist Party is seen to have failed in competing with the West, I think that will be a significant threat to its power.
You can’t effect that by complaining about human rights in China. China’s violation of human rights is repugnant to us. Of course, we will complain. But that doesn’t really do anything. The Chinese only respect power, and our power is in innovation. If we show that we can out-innovate the Chinese and leave them behind in critical sectors of technology, I think that will undermine the credibility of the present government.

A lot of my American friends say the problem is the wicked Chinese Communist Party which is oppressing the good Chinese people. I think that’s complete nonsense. I see the Communist Party as simply another manifestation of the Mandarin administrative cast which has ruled China since it was unified in the third century BC.

Certainly no Augustinian sense of common love to hold a country together. What holds the country together is ambition. Therefore, it’s critical that the meritocracy be fair.
Xi Jinping’s daughter goes to Harvard, but no Chinese president can get his child into Peking University unless she gets the right score on the gaokao, the university entrance exam.

Of course, we need to worry about the Chinese. If the Chinese dominate the next wave of major industrial applications, we’ll be poor, and we’ll be less secure. We’ll be dependent on them, and I don’t like that.
I don’t think the Chinese plan to invade us or establish an American Communist Party on the model of the Chinese Communist Party.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/10/article/you-can-never-be-chinas-friend-spengler/