I think we fundamentally misunderstand China.
First, it’s not communist. Autocratic, yes. Authoritarian, certainly. Capricious and racist and a danger to its neighbors? Why, yes!
But China is capitalist as fuck. It’s a lot more capitalist than America. I was reminded of this recently writing about a company called SOS Limited.
SOS is a Bitcoin miner. You can’t get more capitalist than that. When you visit SOS’ Web site , it’s a collection of gobbledygook and Internet buzzwords that will make you swoon. In America, SOS would have been shut down by regulators or judges years ago. In China, it’s business as usual, capitalism red in tooth and claw. I compare Chinese capitalism to Deadwood , the TV show. As Randy Newman might put it, “If Mao Zedong were alive, he’d be rolling around in his grave.”
China has been capitalist for less than half a century. A teenager in Shanghai lives in a futuristic world of apps and instant gratification. His grandmother, younger than even I am, grew up amid grinding poverty and arbitrary power. Talk about a generation gap!
What both sides crave more than anything else is stability. China’s government gives them more of that than they’ve had for 110 years. China has essentially recreated the old Mandarin system of technocrats and bureaucrats. Xi Jinping isn’t President. He’s the emperor, only chosen by the party. He can lose the Mandate of Heaven if he threatens the system’s stability.
That threat is real. The recent floods are just the first of many. Just as our recent wildfires are the first of many.
Neither side can afford a Cold War. There’s a far more existential battle ahead. Wasting time, and money, on the differences between our two capitalistic systems means losing the larger battle, which is to save human life on Earth. The people, on both sides, who want to see the other side as an “enemy,” as “other,” who are fighting the War of All Against All, are truly doing Satan’s business.
Humanity must learn to hang together, or we will surely hang separately.
