An Alternative View of China

2024 Note: Please forgive the pro-Russian bias in the 2016 version of this post.  It has turned out that Russia has proven itself to be a nation of thugs ruled by a thug named Vladimir Putin, and that Russia is actually guilty of trying to turn the world into its global empire.  Witness the Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  I still have great respect for China, although I'm somewhat less than enthusiastic about Xi Jinping.  For a more up-to-date presentation of my views on Russia, please read the posts on Russia on the sidebar of this blog.  Also, please note that the producer of the "Saker" podcast has shown himself to be a liar, a hired mouthpiece of Vladimir Putin.

A lot has been written lately in the financial press and in the "doom-o-sphere" about the supposed implosion of China's economy.  If you read sources like the Wall Street Journal, or listen to people like George Soros, the current deflationary financial crisis which is sweeping the world is supposed to be hitting China especially hard.  Yet there is an alternative view.  Remember that China is one of the last large nations which is fighting to maintain its sovereignty in the face of efforts by the Anglo-American empire to wreck and subjugate it.  Remember also the attempt at a "color revolution" which was staged in Hong Kong in 2014.  I am also thinking of a podcast which I heard in which the speaker suggested that the West might try to punish China for its support of Russia during recent Western efforts to wreck the Russian economy.  It stands to reason that the attempted punishment of China would be performed with the same tools used to attempt to punish Russia.

To be sure, China's economic policies could stand a bit of correction.  It's not a sustainable policy to try to get something for nothing by attracting foreign investors to bet on perpetual economic growth in a finite country on a finite planet.  A much better policy at this stage of the game is to voluntarily transition one's country to the kind of society that can function well and sustain itself even in an age of scarcity.  That way, other countries can't hold you hostage.  Nevertheless, I would not be willing to bet that China is ready to collapse.  That doesn't seem to be a safe bet.