by FRANCESCO SISCI
IMAGE/Good Reads
There are very solid and reasonable concerns in Michael Pillsbury’s book The Hundred-Year Marathon, besides the easy slogans and catchy phrases that sometimes make it sound like a modern version of the Protocols of Sion, applied to Beijing as the sham Protocols were applied to Jews to justify the Shoah (see also here
In a nutshell, the question is this: will China succeed in overtaking the US as superpower number one sometime before the middle of this century by peaceful means without even waging a war as the US itself did with Great Britain?
Pillsbury warns there is such a plan, which has been there for over 80 years. However, it is unclear whether it is a definite plan or rather a vague ambition harbored by all states and people alike to one day become great.
Plan or no plan, China’s rising economic weight is an objective challenge to the world order as it is. With a larger GDP, Beijing could start an arms race that could eventually bankrupt Washington, as the US did with the USSR at the times of the Cold War. But perhaps this is just tunnel vision, as the world is made of many countries besides these two powers.
At the time of the Cold War, both competitors had allies and played a complex game were states were won or lost to the other side. Here, if it is this game, China plays alone, it does not have any ally, whereas the rest of the world basically sides with the United States, if the US does not make too many mistakes.
But where is the Chinese plan? Pillsbury brings in documents attesting it, yet many facts seem to contradict this interpretation.
China’s recent fast development hinges on the adoption of capitalist methods and market rules that have radically transformed Chinese society, making it more similar to Western society. This is something contrary to the intentions of the official propaganda after, say, the violent crackdown of the student movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Then the government started a campaign against “the peaceful evolution” (heping yanbian), which was considered an evil plan hatched by America to transform China into a capitalist country. Beijing then declared its determination to fight against that plan. And yet, a few months after the crackdown it was clear that the only way for China to develop was to accept this peaceful evolution, which China basically did so far with its economy.
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