Published On: Tue, Apr 14th, 2015
Western Nonsense and the Rise of China
Reginald Little (nsnbc) : Racing Global Change: The
rush of major Western nations to over-ride Washington’s objections and
become founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB) has inspired much comment about a decisive shift in global
financial authority from America to China. The AIIB is seen as the first direct challenge to the power of the international financial institutions (International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and World Bank) established by the Anglo American victors of World War
II after 1945. These have long served as financial tools to supplement
American military power in maintaining a global authority for the
Washington led English speaking peoples.
President Xi Jinping visiting Australia in 2014. Photo courtesy of AAP, Lukas Coch.
China’s dynamic economic growth,
mounting financial reserves, ambitious infrastructure construction and
deft diplomatic alliances are relentlessly posing questions about Anglo
American assumptions concerning their preferred global order. The West’s
widespread economic decline, financial bankruptcy, dependence on
inflated fiat currencies, troubled military technology and slippage in
educational standards, leaving aside ill-informed and confused political
leadership, are all contributing to a major shift of power from West to
East.
The change driven by Asia’s and China’s
rise has been given further momentum by ill-conceived American policies,
particularly in relation to Ukraine. Sanctions against Russia are in
the process of seriously alienating many of America’s European allies
and raising serious doubts about the future of both the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Atlantic Alliance, potentially replacing them with a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
Fundamental to a pace of change that
seems beyond the understanding of any Western leadership group is the
renaissance of Chinese classical wisdom, politics and strategy. This
began in Japan soon after its defeat and occupation in 1945 and has
spread throughout Asia, reaching a type of crescendo in China is recent
decades. Yet the West has defended a type of ”intellectual apartheid”,
which relentlessly reasserts the authority of a thought culture and a
value system that has bankrupted and crippled it. Most seriously, it has
obstructed any serious or effective study of this emerging rival,
leaving itself strategically defenceless.
Mutual, Reinforcing Denial: Both
West and East have, for contrasting reasons, long worked together to be
discreet and minimise awareness about the full extent of this power
transformation. The explicit defiance of express American wishes by
European leaders like Germany, Britain and France has, therefore,
focused attention in an abrupt, unprecedented manner on the depletion of
American, and any sort of co-ordinated Anglo American, global financial
authority. The IMF and World Bank
seem fated to quickly become under-funded, poorly governed, ineffectual
monuments to the past. Whatever the denials, this also poses immediate
questions about the continuing viability of other institutions defined
around 1945, such as the whole United Nations System with its five
permanent members of the Security Council, where two of the five are
less important European communities than non-member Germany.
There is a confusing tangle of interests
at work here that make it easy to overlook relentless change and
erosion of Western influence over recent decades. Beginning with Japan
in 1945, Asian communities with leaders grounded in the Chinese classics
have pursued soft and yielding strategies designed to gain advantage
from Western corporate short term profit maximization. This has required
the maintenance of mutually harmonious and desired relationships.
The Russian President Vladimir Putin
seems to be the only leader outside Asia who has learned from this Asian
example, even if his need to take a firm position in the face of
American initiatives in Crimea has compromised his capacity to fully
deploy soft strategies. American heavy handedness has, nevertheless,
enabled him to use American actions to undermine American interests in
Europe.
Just as Asians, and recently Russians,
have worked hard to minimize the appearance of Western vulnerability, so
the American led West tends to have sought to exaggerate its
maintenance of financial, economic, technological and military
superiority. Accordingly, both West and East have worked together to
exaggerate Western power and downplay any sense of Eastern advance or
challenge. In this environment, the explicit clash and resolution of
conflicting American and Chinese interests over the AIIB
represented a major shift in international awareness. Before long, this
may raise the consciousness also of American vulnerability in military
technology. Here its planned F35 fighter seems to be a monument to
corporate corruption, its aircraft carriers to be obsolete in their
vulnerability to supersonic missiles, its space innovation to be lagging
behind Russian laser weapon capacity and its major cities to be within
thirty minutes of nuclear obliteration.
While it is understandable that there is
nothing to be gained from conducting a scare campaign on these issues,
it would seem desirable that Western leaders displayed a little more
educated awareness of the likely future character of the global
community. Continued denial of reality only serves to advantage Eastern
strategies and disarm any Western capacity to respond in practical
terms.
The interest inspired by the prospect of
foundation AIIB membership possibly marks the beginning of a new spirit
of realism and recognition in Western capitals. Nevertheless, it is
notable that no one seemed more confused about appropriate action than
the leaders of Australia. It was hard to believe they were being
adequately briefed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
perhaps emasculated and cowed by successive budget cuts. The Western
nation most intimately integrated into, and most dependent upon, China’s
geo-commercial energies seemed unable to move independently of major
European communities, given the pressure exerted by Washington. That
very pressure, however, now seems to have led to a more or less united
and open recognition of the shift of financial power. Still, there is
little understanding of the reality that Western strengths continue to
be over-stated, while Eastern strengths are persuasively under-stated.
Australia’s political leaders are not
alone in their incomprehension and incompetence. At least three widely
followed and generally highly reputed alternative commentators, two of
whom are Westerners resident in Japan, have responded to this sudden
recognition of China’s financial rise with alarmed warnings about the
dangers of autocratic “Communist” Chinese power. The fact that they have
all used an irrelevant Western ideological stereotype, “Communism”, to
characterise China, illustrates the depth of Western ignorance. This
response to the AIIB
is a symbol and symptom of the inability of those using the English
language to escape the crippling limitations of stereotypes like
“Communism” and “Capitalism”, as well as most of the theoretical baggage
of rational economics.
Sadly, for an uneducated West, the
challenge posed by China has nothing to do with an anachronistic Western
ideology but everything to do with the renaissance of Chinese classical
wisdom, politics and strategy. With the exception of a handful of
individuals this has never been seriously studied in the West. It is
instructive that two alternative Western political commentators based in
Japan seem never to have remarked seriously on the profound shared
cultural roots that bond China and Japan and, in profound ways, set them
apart from the West.
From a Western perspective, in one sense
this is easy to explain. In another sense it is almost impossible to
explain. It is, of course, much easier to hold onto the reassurances of
the past. Yet, it is essential to prepare for the already identifiable
future, where the English language certainties of the past are replaced
by the imperatives of a world shaped by Chinese classics and history.
Having risen discreetly from almost total subordination in less than
half a century, China has the authority of a profound legacy of
millennia of recorded experience and wisdom that remains a closed book
to almost all outside Asia.
Western Ideological Stereotypes: The
continued use of Western ideological stereotypes like Communism and
Capitalism to address Asian situations could not be more misleading.
Japan, China and other Asian communities have drawn on very similar
forms of government organization and financial strategy to overtake
Western economies. Moreover, China, while always explicable in a
traditional context, has moved in terms of Western stereotypes from
explicit, assertive Communism to discreet, dynamic Capitalism and then
to a unique form of mixed Capitalism/Communism which is demanding a code
of behaviour with few of the West’s familiar tolerances.
Yet, it remains common for Western
journalists, politicians and others to speak dismissively of Communist
China whenever it is felt there is a need to be disparaging. This may be
emotionally satisfying but it is intellectually indolent and
dangerously misleading.
In fact, these Western ideologies have
done much harm in dumbing down political and economic analysis and
distracting responsible academics and officials from necessary
professional evaluation of unique Asian qualities in government,
commerce and finance. It is even possible to sense that some government
figures in China today see the use of the word Communist as having
several beneficial qualities. On the one hand, it reminds Chinese that
the revolution was not fought to benefit a small, privileged minority
and strengthens the authority of the present leadership in its
anti-corruption campaign. On the other hand, it confuses mainstream
Western thought which is easily distracted from working to comprehend
the economic competitiveness and financial sophistication of a
“Communist” China.
Most importantly, however, the
ideological stereotypes, Capitalism and Communism, sustain a type of
irrelevant thought culture that only serves to ensure that people and
governments in the West continue to deceive themselves about a type of
civilization challenge that has already bankrupted a succession of
Western communities that seemed to occupy positions of unchallenged
superiority. As financial, technological and environmental standards and
decisions are increasingly set in places like Beijing and Shanghai,
failure to comprehend the cultural processes of decision making will
incur an ever higher price. In this context, the Western usage of
Capitalism and Communism is little more than some form of tribal
ritualism.
Legal Confusions: The word “law”
can also be the source of serious misunderstanding and mutual
alienation. Put very simply there is Western “rule of law” and Eastern
“rule by law”. Western “rule of law” has evolved through a process that
has involved some form of process of negotiation between ruled and
rulers, with deference being paid to notions of “justice” and observance
of written legislation and recorded precedence. Eastern “rule by law”
evolved more as a prerogative of the ruler, who used it to ensure proper
behaviour and conduct in society and who could rightly expect the
people to act in accordance with correct standards, even if these had
not been codified.
For many with a Western background “rule
by law” can seem somewhat barbarous. Eamonn Fingleton, a resident of
Japan for more than two decades, referred in his book In the Jaws of the Dragon to
its practice in China as “selective enforcement of the law”. This was
intended as a pejorative description but it failed to reflect an
understanding of both its historical and contemporary practice.
Historically and ideally, “rule by law”
was administered by highly educated “Confucian Gentlemen” who were
expected to apply it in a manner that maintained harmony and productive
cooperation in the community. Of course, as in the West, practice not
infrequently parted from the ideal. Nevertheless, it is possible to
observe in Japanese and Chinese historical stories a type of
self-enforcing respect for unspoken forms of behaviour that make for
pleasant and productive societies.
Contemporaneously, society functions
gracefully without much legal formality and activity. More importantly,
however, the “selective enforcement of the law” has a contemporary
virtue and effectiveness largely lacking in Western “rule by law”
societies. Fingleton notes that there are laws against almost everything
but that they are rarely enforced. They are enforced, however, without
process and terminally, when the elite administrators in charge
(Confucian Gentlemen) determine that a party has become a disruptive and
harmful force in society.
In recent decades, it might be suggested
that elite administrators tolerated a wide range of behaviour as a
necessary condition of China’s rapid economic advance, built on
opportunistic relations with capitalist societies. When this purpose had
largely been achieved the highest levels of government adopted new and
more severe standards. Those thought to have been excessive and
disruptive in their behaviour were confronted with the force of “rule by
law’, not of ”rule of law”.
Any perceived injustice of this
selective enforcement of “rule by law” needs to be carefully evaluated.
It takes place in a social and administrative environment that is
founded on a value culture effectively unknown in the West. Western
protests can only be evaluated in the context of the almost total
failure of Western “rule of law” in the face of widespread systemic
corruption of Western democratic and legal processes. The capacity of
corporations to take over democratic and legal systems by paying the
going price for necessary politicians and lawyers has devastated Western
societies and economies. While the Chinese “rule by law” system is not
above corruption it has both historical and contemporary experience of
effective anti-corruption campaigns, has deeply built into its
educational ethos an observance of community virtue and has produced the
most dynamic and competitive modern economies.
Administrative Spirituality and Strategy: Chinese
tradition and culture is unique in being built around a form of
administrative spirituality. It might be thought that this derives from
forms of ancestor worship, whereby one’s worth is defined by practical
contributions to the family (past, present and future), of which one is a
member.
Moreover, the family can extend to
include many bloodlines as one works to make a substantial contribution
to the lives with which one interacts. This is not articulated in these
terms but reading of the Confucian and other classics tends to nurture
this sense of spirituality and fulfilment. Competition is not eliminated
from life but it is refined by a sense of inclusiveness, a preference
for soft strategies and a capacity to seek victory without destruction.
In some ways it almost seems to lead to the Chinese being more demanding
of themselves than of their enemies, who were not infrequently subdued
by a tributary system where more was given than was received.
The highly educated Chinese Confucian
administrator has long been a delicate master of complex situations who
has preserved a continuous sense of civilization through many dynastic
upheavals and given the Chinese people an unrivalled sense of cultural
identity. While learning and culture are the distinguishing qualities of
the elite administrator many historical stories display a quality of
strategic genius capable of managing the most challenging of human
situations.
This deep humanity of the tradition
accounts for its preferences for soft strategies, its capacity for
survival and its repeated ability to reinvent itself in new
circumstances after seemingly terminal decline. Mao’s Communist
revolution, Deng’s economic miracle, and Xi’s-corruption campaign
demonstrate the manner in which the elite Confucian administrator
responds to the human and community needs of his time. These reforms,
including Mao’s, are best understood as those of administrators informed
by classical teachings and historical experience and responding to
political realities.
In all this, it is also noteworthy that
Deng, Jiang, Hu and Xi have all mastered China’s earlier adversaries by
peaceful commercial and financial strategies. During the same period and
despite the earlier success of Capitalist Japan, no serious study
suggested that the West faced a major challenge from a fundamentally
different and in many ways more sophisticated administrative culture.
There was even less reflection on the possibility of this being founded
on a fundamentally different thought culture. The Western belief in the
role of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand of God” in determining desirable
outcomes in the marketplace remained unshaken. Asian administrators knew
better and got better results, displaying spiritual resolve and
strategic wisdom.
Cultural Cripples: When compared
with the vibrant economies of contemporary Asia, Western economies can
seem like cultural cripples, so fixated on individualised profit
maximization that they have ceased to see the world around them.
Moreover, their lack of cultural and intellectual assurance nurtures
only an ever more troubled clinging to a few certainties from a past
that has long faded. Western education based on abstraction ,
rationality, theory and belief, whatever the particular educational
discipline may be, does not equip the Western mind to understand the
subtleties of the intuitive, fluid, holistic, practical and strategic
Eastern mind, all packaged in disciplined, ritualized and courteous
manners.
Western peoples now face a challenge
that they have long assumed confronted only other, lesser peoples
–studying and mastering a difficult and unfamiliar language and culture
that nothing in their past has prepared them for. As John Hobson pointed
out in The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization, the West
sought to consolidate its sense of superiority and its imperial and
global order by working to capture all minds with a form of
“intellectual apartheid”. Any thought other than that deriving from the
European Enlightenment was inferior. In building an empire Western
peoples crippled their own capacity for observation and thought.
This deep conviction of Western cultural
superiority has been artfully encouraged and exploited by Asian peoples
who are more than well qualified for the task by their superior social,
administrative, educational, strategic and thought cultures. Caught off
guard by the West’s corporate organization and aggressive use of fossil
energy in the middle of the 19th Century, the Asian peoples
have used the following time to master the West’s secrets while having
to surrender few of their own.
As a result Western culture has become a
type of rehearsal of stereotypes, like Capitalism and Communism, and a
denial of the significance of the unfamiliar forces that please as they
take over most areas of decision and responsibility.
The power of the Western corporation has
played a critical role in this process. The ability of often contending
corporate interests to dictate political and legal processes with their
superior financial resources has led to the fragmentation of government
policies and strategies.
In fact, it is almost impossible for
Western governments to craft long term strategies. Corporate interests
and pressures are too fragmented to permit a firm commitment over time
if that fails to fully satisfy contending interests. The Chinese
tradition of administrative excellence and authority being fundamental
to both culture and government has in the West no presence and is almost
unimaginable.
Western and Eastern Governance: Previous
remarks all lead to difficult questions about comparative standards of
governance. The West has much in the way of regulations, procedures,
precedents and ideals but finds its capacity to maintain quality in its
governance steadily eroding. In contrast, the East, under the
traditional influence of the Chinese classics, tends to preserve an
administrative authority that can assert itself effectively when the
leadership decides it is necessary. In these instances, there is little
of the formal process or protection enshrined in the “rule of law” that
is deemed essential in the West.
The dominance of Western power in recent
political memory has ensured that Western corporate and other interests
have rarely been subject to Asian “rule by law”. It is most doubtful
that this situation will continue, however, especially where China is
concerned.
President Xi Jinping has given every
evidence that he is prepared to be as relentless in China as Lee Kuan
Yew was at an earlier time in Singapore in building a society that is
noted for its freedom from corrupt practice. This will, of course, be
much more important in terms of its ramifications beyond national
borders than was the case in Singapore. Indeed, attracting the attention
of Chinese authorities for corrupt practices seems likely to become
much more serious than a similar infraction in the West.
The situation may become even more
serious for Western corporations deemed guilty of contributing
substantially to China’s difficulties with problems like polluted air,
water, food and medicine. It may quickly become imperative for any
Western corporation with an interest in commercial exchanges with
Chinese, or other Asian, entities to undertake the serious education of
its personal in the Chinese historical experience of “rule by law” and
the delicate interaction of Confucian, Legalist and strategic
imperatives. Of course, until there is a broader recognition of and
consensus about the shift in global cultural authority, Western
political, corporate and educational cultures will obstruct such
practical initiatives.
The West’s Prison of Stereotypes: Political
and corporate initiatives to prepare for the type of global order
foreshadowed by the rush to become founding members of the AIIB
are likely to remain extremely difficult for some time. For a complex
of reasons, some skilfully disguised, the West has long been educated to
imprison itself in abstract stereotypes. These will work to inhibit any
easy understanding of Chinese classical culture and the history that
has been informed by it.
Consequently,
Western debate, analysis and evaluation of the rise of China, and Asia,
and the emergence of new global financial centres will for some time
rise little above the level of nonsense. The language and conceptual
tools, and also the historical knowledge, necessary for insight, focus
and purpose do not exist. Shocking as it may seem to some, the challenge
may prove little less daunting than that facing non-Western peoples
when confronted with the arrival of the English East India Company.
This time, however, it is the West’s own
commercial energies and ambitions that have drawn a long reticent
Chinese civilization into the inevitability of assuming global
responsibilities. Western efforts to retain the privileges of the recent
past now seem only to intensify its problems, whether in worsening
political credibility, deepening bankruptcy, declining technological
capacity, misleading diplomatic evaluation or counter-productive
strategic initiatives.
The qualities that have informed
China’s, and Asia’s, rise could, of course, come to the assistance of
the West. For that, it needs to master and tame misguided habits of
assumed superiority, intellectual apartheid and political assertiveness.
These need to be replaced with the qualities of humility,
self-discipline, rigorous education and soft strategies, which have
informed Asia’s rise.
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