I have a dog in the China policy fight.
Our 30 year-old son has a job waiting in Taiwan. He just needs a visa. Taiwan is slow-walking it because of COVID. China’s belligerence toward Taiwan means we have worries.
Most of what is being written about America’s China policy is bullshit. It’s Cold Warriors anxious for a fight, Republican apparatchiks looking to take Biden down, human rights activists who see China “getting away with it.”
Here’s what I think. Xi Jinping is in trouble. He pretends to be Mao but he’s not. There is opposition to his policies kept inside an opaque party. Jack Ma is still a party member.
China has huge debts. Property debts, government debts, corporate debts. There’s still room to maneuver because the Yuan trades at 6.45 to the dollar. That’s not a manipulation. If China were manipulating the currency it would trade at 7 to the dollar or more.
China has an energy crisis and an environmental crisis going on at the same time it’s the world’s biggest producer and buyer of solar energy. The floods that overtook the country this summer are a lot like California’s fires and Louisiana’s hurricanes, but they’re happening to 20 times more people.
China has a military-industrial complex that wants to be fed. Killing and occupying people who don’t want to be killed and occupied costs money. That “Belt and Road” initiative won’t build itself.
Taken together, China’s policies make some sense. Kicking tech is popular. (Imagine if we did it.) Kicking billionaires is also popular. (Again, imagine if we did it.) Even telling kids to put the video games down is popular with the parents. Flying jets over a “country” you say is a runaway province keeps the generals on side.
But China’s people are sick of being in debt, sick of 72 hour weeks. China is aging. China is also not North Korea. Xi is not Kim Jong Un. North Koreans are starving, they’re notably smaller than the people on the other side of the Korean peninsula. That road leads nowhere.
Beijing is filled with mandarins and party functionaries who are worried. Some about some things, others about many things. Adjustments in policy can be made, under Xi’s banner. If that banner gets tattered, then the leader can be retired, without any outward change to the system. If you don’t think that’s possible, you’re an idiot.
The question is what America can do about this. The answer is, not much. We’re resolute concerning Taiwan but not belligerent. We’re engaged. Any positive move on China’s side will be met positively. Nick Burns, the President’s nominee as ambassador, is an experienced diplomat. If the Republicans would get out of the way and confirm him, I think he’ll do fine.
That’s the real problem. China may have problems, but we have just as many, just as big and just as dangerous. I’d just offer this to both sides. It’s a key political lesson of my life, maybe the residue of my aging process.
Extremism in the defense of liberty is a vice, for in extremism there is no liberty. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is a virtue, for without moderation there is no justice.
