Concerned media visions of the new world order??
China’s struggle in changing face while not loosing face is a process that is best understood in fiction. Studying the Chinese culture may be best introduce by the novel “Empire Of Glass” by Kaitlin Solimine
- Seismic Changes
- Early Connections
- China never warlike
- China world stage
- Breaking Trade Agreements
- Ties outside of China
Seismic Changes
The “Seismic changes in China over the last half century” to quote (Empire of Glass – novel) made my acquisition of credentials amid visions of china on main stream media hard to fathom. My experiences during my time in China was known within my circle of friends and it provoked a concerned question whether I thought we might end up in a war with China in the immediate future. By the time this question was posed, my China Credentials seemed to have lapsed as I grew older and also as my view on the Glass Empire was seen to be out of focus with the warmongering of today.
My history with China started in early nineteen eighties when I began studying Chinese history for my university entrance exams. I went to China in eighty four to study the language, the history, and to make individual contacts within the Chinese population.
My journey has a long and complex story, involving burning trains in Shanghai to the Tienanmen square massacre. I avoided anything to do with China for about ten years because I did not want the the Chinese that I had made friends with, join the thousands that disappeared after Tienanmen, many have never returned.
Early Connections
I was approached to be part of an Australian trade group trying to do business with exporting meat to Heilongjiang. I was to help with translation for the Australians and advise them on how to deal with Chinese customs and culture. I became very good friends with a couple of the Chinese delegation, one an English professor, the other a total wheeler dealer. Unfortunately I have outlived both of them.
Through the nineteen nineties I taught the Chinese language at TAFE in association with Newcastle University courses, which initiated many relationships with universities in China. My friends in China ranged from the federal minister for aged care and the Heilongjiang police commander, to the CEO of Heilongjiang Forestry which is a government business that employs over seven thousand workers.
All interesting times as I look back. It was good for my China credentials. Unfortunately now, being away from China for a number of years has diminished those same time sensitive accreditation’s, so being asked an opinion was delightful.
China never warlike
China has never been warlike outside their own borders and hey, they had enough wars internally to keep the population hopping. Their few outside attempts ended very badly, two attacks on Japan ended with the Chinese in one attack blown away by a typhoon. The other attack sort of stalled for a year or so as they argued about who was who and then the fleet caught fire. The Chinese seamed to learn from these and not try to invade other countries by sea again.
Please don’t mistake the Chinese for the Mongolians or Manchurian. After all Genghis khan was a bit of a terror throughout the Middle East. No, the Chinese are, and always have been good at administration, rule and order, dams, roads, markets etc. And they have been excellent at it. This is not a put down, ask any group of people what they would rather, slavery and death in war or a decent road to transport your produce on and law and order.
The present day Chinese are totally about law and order, cameras everywhere, thought reform schools, new roads and highways and buildings, buildings everywhere for the raging population. This of course does bring them problems, so busy are they trying to organise their internal affairs, like Mao Ze Dong of old they are totally failing to understand the outside world. It also allows some true fools in China, to sprout off without the faintest understanding of what they are talking about.
The fool who announced that China was advising its people not to travel to Australia as a holiday destination, unfortunately nobody told this fool that Australia had closed its borders to everyone, and China had complained about that at the time. So how did this misguided Chinaman think these tourists where going to get to Australia, we are an island, illegal, tourist, swimmers I suppose?
China world stage
I remember just after the Olympics a taxi driver, in Chendu, telling me how good the games had been for China. He said now the games had been held, all the other countries around the world would know about China. I found this was the prevailing attitude in China at the time. Yet, we in the outside world had hoped that the games would have given China a better understanding of the rest of the world, after all, we all knew what China was like.
The image we had and still have of the glass empire was only further enhanced when it turned out the girl who actually sang their anthem at the Olympics, was deemed too ugly, so they picked a much cuter girl to lip sync the voice. What a disgrace, how totally out of step with the message of the games.
China is not good with international messages, one will discovers as one looks around the world. Xi Jingping struts about talking up China’s one belt, one road policy. Xi thinks its great, perhaps no one has had the courage to add the bit most commonly heard where the Chinese have been, one belt to whip you and one road to lead you to poverty. I have yet to see a good news story from the one belt and one road.
China suffers from the concept of face/main, truth is not that essential. Much of the old world you see in China is in fact jiada fake. I once saw a wonderful poster in Beijing Airport extolling the Chinese navy. It was a line of destroyers stretching to the horizon but closer examination showed it was three destroyers photoshoped to be repeated, getting smaller towards the horizon. The Chinese don’t see a problem with this because it is how they envisage their navy (mian).
They have built beautiful highways that can only carry cars because the substructure is not strong enough. High speed train that can’t carry freight, grand airports and rail stations, all aimed at the wealthy in their own country and in overseas tourists. Well overseas Chinese tourists, the rest of them have to put up with corruption and lack of infrastructure.
In China, if the poor complain they get time in college, learning centers, thought reform camps, we call them. The modern China is city centric. If you check the population figures from UNESCO or Amnesty International over the last thirty years you will find great discrepancy with the figures put out by China today. in twenty odd years they have moved from 80% agrarian, with 60% of the total living in poverty, to over 60% urban, with over 40% middle class and almost no poverty. This is achieved by redefining the concept of urban and agrarian, poverty and middle class. It is by far the easiest way to move your country forward if you don’t care about substance or truth.
This is a country where the beggars hide out of sight of the millions of cameras, to dash out at passing, possible, begging targets. I watched a peasant woman stop and beg on a wide city bridge, within twenty minutes a van dragged her wailing, into it. Not to be taken to a shelter but to join the other beggars. Driven and dumped a couple of hundred kilometres into the country, where they cant afford to get back from.
Breaking Trade Agreements
The warmongers here cry, “what about trade, they are cutting existing trade deals as punishment for Australia for being naughty“. That is a little laughable as most of these trade problems pre-existed the present tit for tat. unfortunately it is a common problem with Asia all over, breaking trade agreements. No doubt the barley and the meat will end up in China, just through a third party.
The latest I heard was, China planned to cut iron ore and coal imports and buy these things from other suppliers. They have tried this before. Alas most of the decent world mines are owned by the same companies as they do here. That is not to mention the Chinese ownership and shareholding, already existing in much of the world mining.
The real reason for this move, to drop imports, is that with the world still struggling with COVID19. China is not selling much overseas and hence does not need so much raw material, it needs an excuse to slash imports. We know China’s growth figures are a lie and we know that China does not have a locally led resurgence in its economy, the Chinese are not working, hence they are not spending.
So really all the posturing and chest beating is being done to shift blame from Xi jingping. A short dash back in time to Nifty Nev (Neville Wran, former Premier of New South Wales 1976 to 1986), will see that his eighties trade mission to Japan was not really a success. The Japanese were always going to end up buying US coal, because the US held most of Japan’s wealth in US treasury Bonds and the US had said “you buy from us”. Nifty came back with all these possible contracts then instantly sacked all the guards on the coal trains, sending the industry into a twelve week strike. The Japanese then supposedly dumped the trade deals and bought from the US. So most of China’s posturing is for local consumption. Not forgetting that many Chinese live outside of China but hold loyalty to the mother land, after seeing our responses they tell their families back home.
After China’s performance in war waging history, we see that in 1950, they raced down through Korea with Russian aid and American arrogance and ignorance. Once the rest of the allies arrived, the Chinese were steadily driven back north, settling on the 38th parallel. They then picked on the poorly defended Tibetans and extended the Chinese jurisdiction. Following the infamous Vietnam conflict they also tried to invade Vietnam, but had their back sides severely whipped.
Their next great army attack was by the same brigade that lost in Vietnam. That brigade redeemed themselves by killing over five thousand activists in the Tienanmen Square massacre (so their figures say). Their latest effort is one of their best. They had a battle with the Indians, over a disputed border region. the battle took place with stones, knives and clubs. It was nasty and violent, with over forty Indians killed and China suffering similar loses.
China may have the second largest military force in the world but most of that force is made up out of conscripts, and have gained the name of “Sand-Shoe Soldiers”. From my personal observation of these soldiers, they seem poorly supplied and poorly armed with what we would call Rabbit Guns. The guns are about eighteen to twenty years old and look about as threatening as a Maori Haka.
Consider that the current count is believed to show that the US has eighty nuclear subs, China two, the US has three hundred and ninety destroyers, China about a hundred and eighty. A number of these are extremely old, I have actually visited some of them. Gen 5 fighter bombers, the US has the worlds top rated Raptor series, about five hundred, battle tested, the Chinese have two types, the Chendu and the Shenyang, about a hundred and sixty odd, field tested, this means they have not been involved in war games to test their abilities. The US has about eleven nuclear powered aircraft carries, where Russia has one, China has two carries (both oil turbine driven). It is needless to say that the US out-gun China independently, by the order of ten to one. Summing up the fire power by adding Japan and the Australian arsenal, then China is just a baby. And considering that its military forces are besieged by corruption and in-fighting, this baby may beat its chest but it is still a baby. Xi jingping has not helped in this situation, as he has steadily brought his aligned compatriots into power. Clearly our alliance with the US and with other smaller nations, that recognise the US as the big boy in the playing field, will command China’s respectful strategy. And contrary to its sabre rattling, China is not a threat other than through our own mismanagement in trade and immigration.
Ties outside of China
In my long standing experiences with China and our cultural differences, the trend in our population is leaning quite heavily towards Asian Chinese, and it seems there are more females than males with an increasing amount of Chinese females seeming to prefer marrying outside their culture. They like our strong beliefs. while we call them our friends and have differing opinions on many matters, it becomes obvious to them that, we are not afraid to stand up to them, which also commands their respect.
