China and the West
Photo of Hong Kong, courtesy of Wang Wenbin Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson ζ±ͺζζ
8.16.2022
China and the West
Sometimes, it is necessary to write when one has little to write about. Understanding reality, writing down what one thinks about, putting unconscious themes – or subliminal themes – onto a white surface, making a print of what was earlier in the abstract domain, these in and of themselves are accomplishments at a time when there are too many events and thoughts going on in one’s brain, too many developments in the physical world to keep track of, too many notifications on social media, too many emails and too many…
It is still an odd thing for me to be back in the west. I lived almost two years in China, in Beijing no less. It has been clear to me since living in the vibrant financial and industrial center of the world that the future is China and China is the future. Clean streets, a disciplined population, Wifi three levels down in the underground, polite people, humble attitudes, respect for the teacher, cheap but tasty and healthy food, cheap metro fares, sky rising buildings that get built over wide regions in less than two years, electronic cars and scooters, zero crime and personal safety for women and minorities, all these are characteristic of life in China, as anyone who has lived in China for a long period can say. I am not using this opportunity to refute every single allegation made against China in areas such as Xinjiang, Xizang (Tibet) and Hong Kong. This has been done effectively by the Qiao Collective for instance. I am simply speaking from my own subjective and human experience.
Westerners like to talk too much and advise in advance what their intentions are, leaving little room for surprises, burdening themselves with the obligation to live up to what they promised, and causing the person to expect what has been uttered, therefore creating the possibility of the awareness of deception and disillusionment. The Chinese, as a rule, don’t talk too much. They do. After a lesson they send the homework. After a commitment they send the money via WeChat. Customers use WeChat to pay for goods in a supermarket and in a market stall. The availability of technology, the availability of the means to means to transfer money quickly and easily through a WhatsApp-like app, has accelerated economic development and progress. Business is being done at a lightening speed, buildings are being erected, fast trains enabled, development is taking place all across China in remote villages too. This economic development is also spilling over to continents such as Africa, Asia, Latin America and Southern Europe.
When one encounters the Chinese speed and method of doing things, even when considering the technological gaps between it and the west, gaps that are being narrowed every day but that exist nevertheless, a realization erupts that leaves no room for doubt: China’s economic growth is invincible, China is taking over the world, China is catching up so quickly that it is leaving no stone unturned on its path to progress. In China, every day one sees more advancement. One senses you are part of a historical process of progress where things are constantly improving.
In the west, by and large, things are constantly declining. I am not just referring to my experience of living in a Greek island, where the wi-fi in a program for which I paid 35 euros, is constantly interrupted, (where the wi-fi did not operate in the metro in a US instance), the middle class is shrinking while in China the middle class is expanding.
What’s more, Germany is heading to a major energy crisis that will in turn freeze its industries from developing. The GDP in China is based on real industry while the US GDP is based more on finance. No people in history have come out of poverty so quickly as China did, and the credit for this goes to the Chinese Communist Party and to Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening-up. In China, the government tells the companies what to do. In the US, the companies tell the government what to do. That’s why the Chinese economy is expanding to the benefit of its people, the Chinese people are richer, and the Chinese do not have massive inflation. While there are hiccups, and while there are problems, they are not ones that the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) can’t tackle.
The Chinese do not export their models to other countries, they seek to trade and to teach by example. In the coming decade it will become clearer and clearer that the Chinese model is efficient and human-centered, while the US model is ineffective and profit-centered.
Immanuel Wallerstein has written extensively while serving as a sociologist at Princeton on the decline and collapse of capitalism as a system, a process that is likely to continue for several more decades. He wrote a book analyzing contemporary events with this perspective. In truth it is getting tiring to read the news and to analyze contemporary developments when the big picture is so obvious. It seems repetitive to constantly analyze the current news while the west is declining and fighting as a wounded animal against the rising powers of China and Russia. When the big picture is clear, the small facts make more sense. However, with a politically-correct, Woke generation that is consuming pharmaceuticals heavily and believes that gender is a metaphysical construct, with a generation of class, style and values gone for several decades, with a generation addicted to social media and dopamine consumption rather than to the deeper kind of pleasure that comes out of reading books, when generation-x seems to have less and less sex, with people burdened by their jobs and lacking free time besides shallow entertainment, it is worth pondering what will it take to wake up the current generation from its slumber, as we edge towards catastrophe.
