Yes, that’s right, it’s a myth that China will rise and become the world’s second largest power after America, or even overtake it. The only thing that is true about this is that the USA is declining, but this does not mean the rise of China at the same time. On the contrary.
First, let’s clarify what causes rise and what rise is at the first place. Social initiatives based on spontaneous self-organizing creative initiatives cause a rise, progress and prosperity. This is what made the West great. Prosperity does not only mean material well-being, it is always just the tip of the iceberg, the materialization of mental, moral, emotional, and even spiritual well-being. Sadly the modernist approach tends to overlook this very basic fact.
All of this requires freedom, because there is nothing in totalitarianism that would make this possible. China seems to be a counterexample for this, but in fact it is not. No innovation comes from China. They either got or stole everything from the West. They develop only because they are left behind, and it is easy to produce a ten percent annual GDP growth in a country where many people still plow with wooden plows in the countryside. It is enough to buy a new tractor every year to undertake this.
Then, when all such inventions come from China, I emphasize ‘inventions’ and not the mass production of inventions that define our everyday life, such as the car, zipper, hourly news, or even movies, then I will be willing to believe that China is the world’s second pore, or a pore at all. China, on the other hand, does not create any trends in any field that would affect the world. They just use western trends for their own benefit without inventing any new, for example, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took over Hollywood. However, this did not make China the first pore, or even the second, only a part of the first.
In addition, autocracies like China always have an Achilles heel, which, when cut, collapses the system that was believed to be rock-solid until then like a house of cards, and in the case of China, it is the economy based on the US dollar.
China doesn’t even have a convertible currency. The exchange rate of the Chinese yuan is determined by the state in relation to the dollar, and is not affected by fluctuations in the world exchange rate.
What everyone knows, even elementary school children, is that cheap Chinese products flood the world like dumping. However, they receive USD as salary, which they accumulate, and with this they buy up the public debt of Western democracies, among others, including the USA. In other words, the USA is indebted for China by its own currency. China doesn’t even have a convertible currency.
Yes, there are bilateral agreements between China and other countries, for example African countries sell mineral resources to China in exchange for Yuan, precisely Chinese products. You can only buy Chinese products directly from China for Yuan. However, this alone does not change the fact that the world economy is based on US dollars, and anyone who wants to buy anything from China with any currency must first convert it to US dollars. Chinese sellers then exchange the USD into their own currency at the Bank of China, and the dollar is directly controlled by the CCP. I am well aware how it works, because once upon a time I myself regularly imported products from China, which I then sold on the UK market.
Sounds great for China, eh? Well, not really. It has a huge downside. The entire Chinese economy has become extremely dependent on the US dollar, and this makes China vulnerable beyond imagination. No one thinks that this does not frustrate them, it frustrates them a lot, but so far they have not found a way out of the dollar trap, and I don’t yet see even the chance of it.
That is, the Chinese economy, no matter that it is the second largest in the world, is tied to the US dollar. If once the USD will collapse then the Chinese economy will collapse with it at the same time. As simple as that.
China is not rising and strong, its power is just an illusion. This is because there is no civil society based on strong self-organization behind it, which could be the engine of the national economy. The world is invariably unipolar. China is actually like a big colorful balloon, it can be blown up huge and it looks really impressive, but there is nothing inside, only the great emptiness. For which, as we know, a needle is enough to prick to even visually become nothing. This is all what totalitarianism can produce, form with no content.
In conclusion; China will not prove that development does not require freedom and that wealth can be created even in a totalitarian state. This prosperity is partly relative partly illusion. All prosperity must be an illusion, which is not associated with psychological well-being, which requires freedom. On the other hand, even that relative prosperity cannot be sustained for long, it will be swept away by the first wind, because it has no solid base. Lasting prosperity can only be produced by freedom and people who can live with it.
In fact, China is in a much bigger crisis than the West, since it is a multi-ethnic country at the first place, which is held together by oppression. China has a lot of internal problems, which consume the reserve of society, including the upcoming demographic collapse. Due to the one-child policy, China’s demographic situation is even more deplorable than that of Europe. If the CCP thought that this characteristically narrow-minded, shockingly arrogant and heavy-handed intervention in the order of nature would not avenge itself, they fatally screwed up. No matter whatever they do, it is too late to do anything. This policy caused irreparable damage to Chinese society, the long-term consequences of which we do not even see today.
The irony is that China has the real potential, because China’s average intelligence is outstanding in the world, and they have created one of the most ancient and most brilliant cultures in the world. Many inventions came from ancient China that we still use today, such as porcelain, paper, and gunpowder, since the ancient China was based on little state structure before the forced unification, such like the medieval Europe. But this flourishing is no longer possible in Communism or even state capitalism what is called China today.
Thanks for reading me!