Hacker News Reader

Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

> The idea of a race, a zero sum game when it comes to development, is an uniquely Western way of thinking

It's not uniquely "Western" - as Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese, and even Chinese strategy has shown.

That said, it is a reductive way to think about power and society, which is the point of this article, and something I agree with as well.

A "race" implies an existential competition, which nation state competition should NOT be. Doesn't mean we shouldn't build deterrence, but it doesn't mean falling into the depths of McCarthyism.

> ploy that pundits promote in order to get money to their military industrial backers.

There is a real competition, but overly histrionic punditry on both the US and Chinese sides might inadvertently lead us into an accidental war.

There is a lack of mutual understanding in the upper echelons of power in both Beijing and Washington DC that is leading to myopic competition.

View on HN

We in the west are also extremely good at projection - seeing our own aggression in whatever the Chinese are doing. The interpretation of made in China 2025, that being used as key justification for the tech war, is a good example of this.

Also just in simple things like “lack of mutual understanding”. I don’t think that is true. I think the Chinese understand the mechanics of western government and politics quite well, whereas we in the west have very little understanding of the Chinese ditto - simply because we don’t bother as we are the top dog.

> I think the Chinese understand the mechanics of western government and politics quite well

The same issues in the US with regards to Chinese policy exist in the Chinese view of the US as well.

Most policymakers and staffers on either side of the Pacific haven't actually spent extended time or intercultural experience with the other, and those who have the experience with both Asia and the US remained in the private sector due to better prospects and (in the Chinese case) inability to join the civil service due to age and examination restrictions and (in the US case) due to clearance restrictions.

On top of that, those in the policymaking level are those who had around 20-30 YoE within their country's civil service, meaning most policymakers and senior staffers today started their careers in the late 80s/early 90s.

This is a major reason why Chinese policymakers have been fairly hawkish compared to a decade ago, as the early 1990s was an existential decade for China - the Tiannamen Square Massacre and subsequent sanctions, the Taiwan Straits Crisis, and the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade all solidified an anti-American viewpoint among Chinese policymakers who started their careers in that era, unlike the policymakers from 1973 to early 90s who had experience working closely with the US (eg. there was even a US Army listening post in Turpan staffed by both US and PLA soldiers during the 70s and 80s [0]).

[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-...

Far more Chinese leaders have spent time in the US than vice versa. Many top Chinese communists have degrees from US universities. I don't think you can find a single US politician or top civil servant with a degree from a Chinese university.

I am not saying that US politicians should go and study in China but the claim of equivalence in counter party understanding is just not true at all.

The Chinese hawkishness today is reaction to the changed attitude of Americans, they were (naively) hoping for the better all the way up to the Biden admin; the experiences of 90es/early 2000es drove China closer to the west regardless of the events you mentioned.

That is the newer generation who are a generation or two from power yet, this generation is even being delayed since leadership changes come during presidential changes, and Xi, the last leader to come of age during the cultural revolution, is holding power beyond ten years. Xi literally came in after Hu and said he wanted to make things more like they were under Mao, and not to make Mao a dirty word like it was under Hu. Also, Xi was the first monolingual president who never practiced as anything other than a politician (Hu, Jiang were foreign educated and practiced as engineers before going into politics, they could also speak English and/or Russian, Deng was famously intellectual). I don’t think people can appreciate just how much of a step back Xi was in terms of technocratic leadership for China.

China started its hawkish transition as soon as Xi became president, not during the Biden or Trump administration. Where we are right now was a result of gradual aggression increasing since 2012.

Top that off, Xi is the first (hopefully last) princeling president who brought in a lot of other princelings as well into senior leadership positions. I’m surprised this didn’t implode, and maybe either the technocrat approach had problems (not enough red family support?) or they are somehow coasting and building on achievements during Hu (probably a combination, Hu was really weak because he didn’t have red family support).

> I’m surprised this didn’t implode, and maybe either the technocrat approach had problems (not enough red family support?) or they are somehow coasting and building on achievements during Hu (probably a combination

The technocratic model was dependent on regional execution, and while some of the coastal provinces had fairly motivated and professional cadres, a lot of the interior regions had limited administrative capacity.

Xi's admin (most likely Li Keqiang) pushed a lot of QoL improvements like indoor plumbing, better quality of rural and vocational schools, more efficient distribution of direct benefits, etc but it's still very much a work in progress.

Also, Hu's model was definetly opposed by the "Red Family" due to the corruption and perceived undermining of the values of the Chinese Revolution [0], and they had the pretention of thinking they were much like the "Gang of Four"

[0] - https://www.aisixiang.com/data/46522.html

Li Keqiang wasn’t a Xi ally and was constantly sidelined by him, being retired just before his unexpected death, and was replaced with a yes man. There are multiple red families and they are more like china’s aristocracy, controlling vast swaths if the the more boring parts of the private economy (like sanitation, taxi, real estate agencies, jewelry, etc…). They are each worth billions, and didn’t get there via civil servant salaries. The quickest way for a western newspaper to get blocked is to report on those numbers.

> There are multiple red families and they are more like china’s aristocracy, controlling vast swaths if the the more boring parts of the private economy (like sanitation, taxi, real estate agencies, jewelry, etc…).

Yep! There's a reason why I linked that specific reunion.

It was a who's who of the Red Families in 2011 (including Xi's), and it was there that Xi Jinping's leadership challenge to Bo Xilai truly began.

"参加纪念活动的有：叶帅之女叶向真、叶帅的侄子叶选基、胡耀邦之子胡德平、华国锋之子苏华、彭真之子傅洋、习仲勋之女习乾平、陆定一之子陆德、王若飞之子王兴、黄炎培之子黄方毅、肖劲光之女肖凯、张爱萍之子张胜、纪登奎之子纪坡民、苏振华的子女苏承军和苏承业、张鼎丞之女张延忠、谭震林之女谭径远和女婿虞大江（江华之子）、耿飚之子耿远志、杨成武之女杨俊生和杨杨、张廷发之子张鹏、马文瑞之女马晓力、罗青长之子罗援、彭冲之子许海星、严佑民之子严小江、李琪之女李海文、包惠僧之子包楚弓、齐燕铭之女齐翔延、李鑫之子李赤子、贺炳炎之子贺陵生、王诤之子王苏民、程世才之子程力、周希汉之子周泰阳、史进前之子史小刚等。周总理和叶帅等人当年身边的工作人员以及当年执行逮捕“四人帮”命令的8341部队的部分老同志也参加了纪念活动"

> Li Keqiang wasn’t a Xi ally and was constantly sidelined by him

Towards the end that's true, but Li still had plenty of autonomy in his role and a lot of the social reforms and poverty eradication policies that happened in Xi 1 and 2 were really similar to the policies Li promulgated.

> Many top Chinese communists have degrees from US universities

Most leaders with a US educational background were primarily part of the Hu Jintao administration.

No one in the current Standing Committee of the Politburo spent an extended (as in multi-year) stay within the US or the West [0] (attending Bowling Green or UI for a couple weeks to months is not enough time to truly understand the US) nor are they technocrats (Hu's administration was unique in the amount of practitioner Engineers it had in its standing committee).

> The Chinese hawkishness today is reaction to the changed attitude of Americans

It very much did start in the 1990s [1] at the policymaking level and remained an active part of Chinese planning [2] for decades [3][4].

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Politburo_Standing_Comm...

[1] - https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-hi...

[2] - https://www.jis.pku.edu.cn/docs/2018-07/20180703142847819805...

[3] - https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/323960205.pdf

[4] - http://dangshi.people.com.cn/n/2014/0504/c384616-24971840.ht...

China has made the most nukes in the past decade than any other nation in the world.

China has also dramatically increased the size of its military fleet, released movies (Wolf Warrior) to build nationalistic zeal and it's Diplomats have taken a liking to that nationalistic / aggressive stance.

There is no 'projection' here. It's simply acknowledging that China's war investments have grown dramatically and it's own diplomacy has shifted as a result.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com