Well, China...
Next to Japan and US, was a subject of my last year graduation paper. Its history, its psychology, its predictable future, its relation with Europe. I will not detail the fascinating mental complex of the present-day (aware) Chinese - mixture of superiority, vulnerability and humiliation that craves revenge - ; I will say it does explain the motivations of the Chinese government, it does define its relation to the West (China makes enough distinction between Europe and US, so that it behaves in one way with the EU15 and in another with Washington DC). Seeking to use Western technology, expertise, investment and market access, China tries to mobilise its own vast resources so as to make itself either an Equal of the West, or the Superior, if possible.
(The paradox of such a belief : China would be nothing but a half-Occidental power ; it's naïve to imagine it will preserve its specificity, when an occidental-type economy is definitely going to change its society, its customs, etc. If China wants to claim the Chinese superiority over the West, she should abandon everything Occidental - thus, everything that's foreign - and prove the world this superiority by its own Chinese means. Of course, this will never happen.)
Getting to the Chinese economy. I'm afraid I am one of those who contest the general trend of imagining China a future superpower.
Its main deficit is the lack of the middle class (whose beginnings were crushed by Mao). Second : a great part of China's economics are based on piracy of Western-products and the lack of copyright laws. Indeed, OMG, China's annual growth was 8% since 1979 ! A shocking growth in 24 years ! BUT !
Let us not be tricked by numbers. And, to clear the picture, let me also say that Bosnia's annual growth was 17%. But it's the departure level that matters, not the number in itself. If one begins at -55... We're talking in the same way about the "4 ASEAN Dragons" and their amazing economic results : but not to many noticed that the GDP of the 4 states put together barely reached the level of the Netherlands (at least in 1995 ; in 1997, the crisis followed...) The same numbers will display another amazing reality : China is the second economy in the world, measured by purchasing power parity (waaaay before Japan, and this in 2001) ; it's the 7th in terms of current exchange rates. But, when one looks at the GDP/capita... the 150th place in the global ranking. That means a very low level of consumption, and this - we all know - is certainly not stimulating the economy.
Only 1% of United Kingdom's exports are directed to China. 2% for the US. China's share of world trade is less than that of the Netherlands (or of the Belgium and Luxembourg put together). There is no hint of economic superpower as imagined by a lot of post-Spenglerian westerners. China is economically weak. The skyscrapers in Peking, Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong are Potemkin-villages, façades. The interior of the country is suffocated by poor communications, poverty in rural areas, underdevelopment. A further liberalisation of the economical regime makes Beijing wonder if the state will not collapse or break in 3 : a developed eastern, maritime, China ; a rural mid-China and a Muslim-western China (centred on Ürmüqi). God knows which are the virtues found by China in such an impossible-to-handle system (communist debilitating rule and economical liberalisation
), for there aren't any !
We forget the Chinese inflation. We forget this country has little framework to sustain the economical expansion, we forget the state-owned properties that are grossly inefficient and suck budget funds ; 50% of these enterprises are loss-making, absorb 75% of the domestic credit, while 20% of these loans are non-performant. These are Chinese figures ; Westerns estimate higher. If China survived the turmoil of the 1997 crisis it was exactly because it's a closed economy, for all changes in the last 24 years. And so, the greatest result of the last 5 years was the agricultural reform : China is now able to feed its people. (Exports ? Not in this century ; excepting rice and bamboo.) I would add the 100 million floating population from the rural areas to the urban - it needs (new) roots.
As about a "Chinese century"... I personally don't see it possible due to some of the aforementioned statements. China is not a military superpower and will never be ; so rapid are the current advances in US military technology that - honestly ! - China has to run in order to stand still. All China did was reinforce traditional military means - which are both old and obsolete.
Superpower on equal status with the US : a Beijing delicious fantasy perfumed with Ming reveries.
