中美之间的意识形态与治理

OF IDEOLOGIES AND GOVERNANCES - USA V CHINA

YC Khng

1.0 End of History

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 solidified the primacy of USA as the sole superpower of the world. For some, 'liberal free democracy' is the only future governing system for the whole world to emulate. Since World War 2, USA dominated the world's economy, military and politics and the contest between her and the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1989 was depicted as between Communism and Capitalism. The Soviet communists were supposedly evil and authoritarian, while that of USA was good at heart. In 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed and USA was jubilant in her victory and since then had been advocating the superiority of the Western capitalist system  and pushing a lot of countries such as African, Asian and South American countries to adopt her system of Government under the banner of democracy, freedom and human rights.

Source: slate.com. The Fall of the Berlin Wall 1989

The West sets the benchmark for democracy as one man, one vote and that the rulers of that country are to be selected by consent of the majority.  However, in USA, the President is not chosen by the one-man-one-vote system. Under the 1787 United States electoral college system, it is the electors of the state that choose the President and not the American people. In the recent Presidential elections of George Bush Jr and Donald Trump, both lost the majority of the American vote by 540,000 and 2.8 million but won the electoral college vote of 271 vs 266 (Bush vs Al Gore) and 306 vs 232 (Trump vs Hillary Clinton) respectively.

Ever since Andrew Jackson in 1824 failed to win the  Presidency even though he won the popular vote, there have been calls to revamp the US electoral system to one-man-one-vote. Many considered the US electoral college system undemocratic as it permits a President who did not garner the majority of the votes. Furthermore, the winner-takes-all norm cancels the representation of losing candidates in each state and muted the majority's wishes.

Today, Republicans and Democrats who dominate the USA political landscape practice racism and gerrymandering in their historical climb to power. They are both beholden to well-financed lobbies and wealthy individuals.  Each cycle of election for offices requires vast amounts of money.  The US Supreme Court in 2010 gave carte blanc permission for money to be injected into the US electoral politics in the case of Citizen United vs Federal Election Commission.   According to the BBC, the latest 2020 Presidential and Congressional elections cost $14 billion.

Naturally and progressively, this means the democracy of the USA serves the 1% rich who has the financial means to fund the candidates to do their bidding. The hard-won rights to vote for women and blacks have not delivered the anticipated economic equality. Instead, the living standard of the man-in-the-street has degraded. For the past 40 years, the income of the bottom 50% of middle-class American people had declined significantly. There were no new infrastructures, no universal healthcare, no high-speed train, airports or ports, bridges are falling, huge federal debts, no money for education and scientific investments, and millions of homeless people living below the poverty line.

The final years of Trump's Presidency, marked by state-sponsored faked news, conspiracies, gun crimes, racially motivated attacks arising from the pandemic, insurgency in The Capitol, and the challenges to the integrity of Biden's presidential victory, exposed the unmitigated crisis of democracy in the United States. Contrary to the optimistic prediction of futurist Francis Fukuyama in 1989, by 2021, liberal democracy can hardly assert its claim of victory when no American politician is made accountable for what happened at The Capitol on Jan 6. Where is the rule of law in the United States democracy? This Jan 6 event is a manifestation of the failure of US democracy as the Republican Party is not interested in democracy per se. It is about which faction wields the most power.

Presently, USA democracy as defined by Abraham Lincoln as the governance “of the people, by the people and for the people” had developed into a Plutocracy. It is the governance “of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1% rich” as described by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Trump's Presidency of 2016 to 2020 tore off the facade of American Democracy as the “shining city on the hill”. It showed the real USA's racist, misogynist and a fascist dark side, as warned by previous US Secretary of State, Magdalene Albright, to the world.

2.0 Ideology

To maintain her primacy as a superpower, the ideology of democracy, freedom and human rights was cultivated to show that USA is “exceptional, peace loving, good at heart and always willing to change for the better”.

And with that ideology, USA engaged in covert or overt wars against other nations. The mainstream media and technologies of the western world are used as tools to this end, either in propaganda (disguised as free media) or surveillance by big tech.

Since the Second World War, the US established various political, economic, health and cultural institutions such as the United Nations, IMF, World Bank, WHO, Marshall Plan for Europe and Japan, SWIFT monetary exchange system etc to extend its hegemony.

Source: Watson Institute Research, Brown University USA

Instead of being peace-loving, the US, in the guise of fighting communism to defend democracy,  has engaged in numerous wars in Latin America, Middle East and the Far East, primarily for oil and natural resources.  In the twenty-year wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East since 9/11, 800,000 were killed, 21 million people were displaced, and failed states were created, not democracies. The current claim of championing a rule-based system for international governance runs hollow when the USA had already lost the world's trust after blatantly lying about the Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) as the excuse to invade Iraq. Instead of being “peace-loving”, Kate Hudson, the General Secretary of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said at the “No Cold War” inaugural forum on 16 June 2021 that the United States and its Nato alliance posed the greatest threat to the world.

As Professor Mearsheimer said on CGTN lately, that USA/West's conflict with China is not about ideology but power supremacy, while Professor Etler of the University of California, Berkeley added that it is also about inability of USA/West to accept a non-white nation performing so much better than them for years to come.

Mike Pompei's Office of the Secretary of State Policy document titled “The Elements of the China Challenge” published at the end of 2020 confirmed the Professors' analysis. Mike Pompeo's policy document essentially confirmed that China was extending its influence internationally because, unlike the Soviet Union of the past, China's economic and technological success was formidable.

3.0 Enter the Dragon

Chinese civilization stretched back more than 7,000 years. For 4,000 years, she was ruled by various dynasties based on meritocracy predicated on the Imperial Examination System, where any Chinese can be an official after passing the examination. Throughout her history, the emperor was the absolute ruler (authoritarian by modern definition). The governance was by the ‘mandate from heaven', an unwritten contract of the ruler to the ruled. The ruler is to ensure a stable, united country with prosperity and harmony for all Chinese and the ruled are to obey the decree of the ruler. When the mandate was not fulfilled, revolts followed, and dynasties changed. This was the ancient accepted norm and mindset, and over the ages, it had ossified into superstitions, blind obedience of the elders and authority. There were ages when peace and prosperity reigned, but there were also ages when the rulers corrupt, and the people suffered. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, famine and floods occurred, and when the ruler was benevolent, the common folks had food to eat while in dire times of corruption, many starved and died. This ebb and flow of prosperity and miseries throughout the ages also reflect the struggle to distribute wealth and power in Chinese society.

In 1949, China underwent tremendous change. With the Communist Party of China (CPC) victory, there was a wholesale revamp of the Chinese mindset where superstition and blind adherence to elders and authority were replaced with scientific facts and pragmatism to deal with the nation's problem. Women were liberated, agrarian reforms were made, and universal education was instituted. The economy in 1949 was based on centralized planning economic model, and politics was based on Soviet-influenced ideology.

The United States was ideologically hostile to the founding of New China for fear that the socialist revolution would spread to the region. From 1950 to 1972, USA imposed a total trade embargo on China when China entered the Korean war to stop the Americans from advancing beyond the 38th parallel. The GDP of China in 1952 was just US$31 billion, and yet she survived the 22 years trade sanctions.   After concluding that to fight against the Soviet Union, it is better to have China on side, USA lifted the trade embargo in 1972, after the Nixon visit to China.

From 1978, China realized that her economic model based on strict centralized planning without the input of market economy was inefficient and stagnating growth.  Deng Hsiao Ping famously said “it does not matter if a cat is white or black, as long as it can catch the mice” and with that pragmatism, reform in China began in earnest.

At that time, China was really backwards in every way but she knew and used the leverage of her cheap labour to attract foreign companies to invest and produce goods for the developed countries. China also used the savings of her own poor people to invest in her development as observed by Charlie Munger, co-chair of Warren Buffet's Hathaway. Of course, foreign investment from Japan and the Chinese diasporas of the world were also welcome to invest in her development.

During the 22 years of total trade embargo by the West lead by USA, China did not sit idly by. She pushed forward universal education, agrarian reform, liberated women into the work force and experimented with mass political participation.  Social, political and economic experiments such as the Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward, and farms collectives were introduced.

Some of them were catastrophic and compounded by natural disasters, millions died, but she learned. Her population had become educated, and as a robust civilization, she moved on. This is the resilience of the Chinese civilization, the ability to withstand foreign economic aggression while able to execute internal social and economic experimentation and, when failed, stood up again.  In dire social and economic crises, China did not export its internal problems to other countries as the West and Japan did through colonization.

In a short span of 40 years, from 1980 to 2021, China GDP grew from a mere USD$90 billion to USD 16 trillion, second only to the USA. Contrary to Western expectation, China did not remain a docile sweatshop for its industries and consumers. Unlike many underdeveloped Third World countries, China managed to defy that fate. Thanks to its highly meritocratic and authoritarian political control, it worked foreign capitalism and local capitalists to serve the needs of its long-term national rejuvenation programmes and modernization.

During this time, China lifted 850 million Chinese out of poverty. She also built crucial infrastructures such as high-speed trains, new roads, airports, megacities, space stations, exploration of Mars, supercomputers, renewal energy projects, 5G technologies, AI innovation,  smart cities etc. She achieved all these without engaging in war against anyone.

Ironically, USA under Biden now tries to emulate various China's economic type of projects for the United States, but could not get consensus to have sufficient funds from Congress or private capital and thus her economic development languishes.

USA is good at one thing, though; spending trillions of dollars fighting unending wars of “democracy, freedom and human rights” against many countries. In the 20 years after 9/11, the US managed to spend $6.4 trillions of tax payers monies for the Afghan and the Middle East wars.

The speed and scale of China's development within such a short time of 70 years (with the explosive growth in the last 40 years) for such a large population of 1.4 billion is unprecedented in human history. With the policy of Poverty Alleviation, a whole ecosystem of wealth distribution is executed. It is the first time in 4,000 years of Chinese dynastic history that there is no hunger in China, and almost everyone is educated, has health care and a roof over their head. Using a pragmatic market economy to generate and distribute the wealth to all Chinese via a socialist system is now famously known as “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”.

Despite the success thus far, China's per capita is still one-fifth of United States, and as Piketty rightly pointed out, income disparity remains a problem. China is still a work in progress.

4.0 Technology 

The 21st century saw the rapid acceleration of various technologies from telecommunication, nanotechnology, IoT, AI, advanced robotic, drones, renewal energy, quantum computing, de-desertification, gene splicing and therapy, nuclear power, supercomputers and space exploration etc.

In 2015, China mapped out an industrial strategy known as “Made In China 2025” (MIC 2025)  policy, and it targets ten sectors for advancement, innovation and independence, namely; 1) electrical equipment,   2) farming machines, 3) new materials, 4) energy-saving and new energy vehicles, 5) numerical control tools and robotics, 6) information technology, 7) aerospace equipment, 8) railway equipment, 9) ocean engineering equipment and 10) high-end vessels and medical devices. USA/West was concerned about MIC 2025 policy as it threatens their supremacy in technology.

China was considered to be behind USA in technology, but by 2019, in the field of telecommunication, Huawei was the leader in the world.

Huawei started off as a small private company in Shenzen, a small fishing village of 30 thousand people opposite Hong Kong. It is now a mega city of 12 millions. Ren Zhengfei founded Huawei in 1987 with 21,000 Yuan (US$5,000) and in 1992 aligned the business towards server switches which sold for 1/3 of the price of the competitors. Huawei business began to grow, and along with it came contracts from various companies, including the Chinese Government, for telecommunication equipment such as 3 and 4G network. She also expanded overseas to sell their telecommunication equipment. In 2019, Huawei overtook Apple in smartphone delivery of 240 million vs 200 million.

When the standard of 5G was to be decided, there were two competing technologies, namely LPDC as championed by USA/Qualcomm and Polar Code which was an untested technology promulgated in a  theoretical paper in 2008 by a Turkish Professor, Dr Erdal Arirkan. The 3GPP standard committee decided to allow the results of these two technologies to prove themselves.

In 2009, Huawei began to invest and develop 5G technology using Dr Erdal Arikan's Polar Code instead of LDPC code. At that time, the polar code was an unproven technology, whereas USA/Qualcomm's LDPC was a code that was used for 3G and 4G. However, 5G is a quantum jump from 4G, and therefore LDPC technology may not be suitable.

Huawei took the gamble and bet on Arikan's Polar Code. And after a decade of hard work and billions of dollar of investment, the Polar Code prevailed. In 2016, 3GPP adopted the Polar Code and this established Huawei as the industry leader as it can move data better, with a secure ecosystem, cheaper to install and deployed by 30% of the global market.

Source: Photo: China News.
Poster: 1960 A Child's Dream by Wang Wei Shu,
Shanghai People's Art Publishing House

Huawei was involved in installing 3G and 4G in the Western countries and rural area of USA for more than 20 years. Up till 2016, there was no complaint of her spying for China, but with the advent of 5G, Huawei was attacked for spying for the Chinese Government when she overtook Apple in smartphone sales and Nokia and Ericson in 5G in technology superiority. At present, USA cannot compete because there is no company in the USA that can produce the whole suite of 5G technology.

Source: Mercury News.
“National Emergency surrounding Huawei”

There is similar fact evidence to demonstrate that whenever foreign companies have technologies that surpass USA companies, the USA will deploy various ways to undermine them.  In the 1980s, Japan's Toshiba was well ahead of the USA in semiconductors technology.  Likewise, in 2013 Alstrom of France was ahead in power and transportations technologies. In both instances, the companies and their executives were charged and fined. The plight of Huawei's senior executive Meng Wanzhou is not dissimilar. Similarly like Toshiba and Alstrom, Huawei was put on the “entity list” in 2019, unable to sell or buy products from USA or any products such as semiconductors made by USA technology from third country.

To date, there is no evidence or truth that Huawei is a security risk as her equipment and software were tested by British Intelligence who found to be much more secure than that of CISCO.  Hence the attack on Huawei is just a power play to ensure no high tech company can surpass that of USA.

5.0  Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) 

Since 1949 after the CPC achieved victory, China has been consistently working with the 3rd world countries.  She was the first to invest in Africa without colonization or overt exploitation. In 2013, President Xi Jinping announced the US$ trillion investment for the modern Silk Road or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to connect China to 70 countries from Central Asia to Europe. The idea was ridiculed by  the West as a boondoggle and a waste of money.

By 2021, BRI had 138 countries and 30 international organizations participating. As a result, many rails, roads and power projects had come to fruition. It is now a reality and moving fast with connectivity, including telecommunication, health and environment sustainability.

Various think tanks in the United States had advised Congress that the recipient countries welcome the BRI, and it would be hard for the United States to match dollar for dollar. BRI was the only initiative that countries participating saw a tangible improvement in their infrastructure, enabling their economic growth as in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Even in Greece, the BRI investment in the Greek Port project was generously complimented by the Greek former foreign minister Yanis Varoufakis.

Despite constant Western accusations of BRI being a debt trap, corrupt, non-transparent and a vehicle for Chinese expansionism, the fact that third world countries continue to welcome Chinese investments speaks for itself. Otherwise, the G7 summit in June 2021 would not need to counter BRI with an aspirational slogan to Build Back Better World (B3W). But, unlike China, no new money was pledged by G7 countries.  Every G7 country is adversely affected by the pandemic. In the USA, Biden is still struggling to raise $2 trillions for his “Build Back Better America”. In Britain, the long-delayed Crossrail train for London is still short of £1.2 billion, let alone other areas of the economy. Once the sound-bites of G7 are over, these G7 politicians will not agonize over the infrastructure needs of poor third world countries. Neither would hedge-funds in the West be rushing to the aid of the third world. This was the scenario already predicted by the various United States think tanks since 2015.

This B3W scheme is also fragile as it depends on the outcome of the US Congress election in 2022. If the Republican wins, then this scheme is dead in the water.  Although lately there is bi-partisan legislation to apportion US $50 billion for semiconductors and R&D investment to challenge China, it would be impossible to get the Republicans in Congress to fund US$ trillion to help build the developing world's infrastructures.

China's relation and “win-win” diplomacy with the non-aligned movement and the 3rd world countries dating back to 1949 is now paying dividends because the developing economies are experiencing explosive growth and account for 2/3 of the world's economy compared to 1/3 by the West. The underpinning of goodwill and trust over the last 40 years means the BRI will be progressively successful with more and more participation from developing countries. The threat BRI posed to the West is not security but potential loss of the new emerging markets once they are in sync with the Chinese system. The American greenback would be the first to be affected as the currency of exchange would be in RMB instead of US dollars.

In 2017, BRI is included in the constitution of China and this initiative is to end in 2049. It can be seen with there is detailed mapping of BRI from start to finish and China has long term strategy and commitment to see this through to completion in order to address the infrastructure deficit of the 3rd world, unlike the recent ad hoc B3W scheme from the G7.

From the latest speech of Biden, he described the contest with China as “democracy against autocracy” instead of “communism against capitalism”. This is because if he had used “communism against capitalism” then he would have to tacitly concede that the “End of History” had not ended and that the “liberal free democracy” had failed. By saying that liberal democracy had to show results that benefit the people, Biden had conceded defeat. Conversely, by admitting that China is able to extend its influence internationally, the United States has recognized the prowess of Chinese style socialism in delivering economic and technological progress.

Given the competing ideologies, the ultimate test is how well each ideology is able to deliver a stable, peaceful and harmonious environment for its people.

Chinese Poster for the People's Militia air-raid exercises. 1965.
US President Johnson was depicted as the aggressor.
US hostility against China clearly has not changed.

6.0 Possible Outcomes

It will either be War, or Peace. It depends on whether the United States would reconcile with the reality of a multi-polar international environment.

For the United States, the pressing existential issues are universal health care, narrowing the acute income disparity, systemic racism, religious extremism, a dysfunctional right to bear guns, improving education, and rebuilding collapsing infrastructures, reducing its enormous carbon footprints, and the pandemic.

For China, the challenges are how to continue to improve the living condition in the rural areas, bridge the income disparity gap, and integrate the minorities. On governance, it has to promote more democratic participation and representation gradually. As an emerging superpower, it has to demonstrate its ability to cooperate with the international communities on climate change, pandemic, space exploration, and trade. And most importantly, the BRI has to deliver tangible progress to developing nations.

Each ideology exists and thrives within the context of the respective country's political and social history. It is not a zero-sum game, just as Chinese socialism cross-pollinates with the capitalist market economy to achieve what they are today. In the same vein, Biden's ambitious infrastructure programmes and multi-billion dollar subsidies for R&D are carbon copies of the Chinese model.

When peaceful coexistence between the competing ideologies collapses, it may end with war, especially if the United States disregards the reality of a multi-polar world.

Suppose the United States continues to disregard the tectonic shift of world powers and insist on its hegemonic position as the self-appointed world's ideological policemen. In that case, the second outcome maybe war.

Fortunately, at both the recent G7 meeting and the Nato summit, the United States stopped short at calling China an enemy, but a security risk and a systemic challenge. It beggars belief that China, with just one overseas military base in Djibouti, could pose a systemic challenge to the United States and the West when the USA has 800 military bases worldwide. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, on military spending, United States alone has spent more than 10 other countries combined, as shown in the chart below. Regarding nuclear warheads, the USA, UK and France together have over 6000, against 350 on the Chinese side.

In reality, the United States cannot afford a war with China despite its military prowess because its economy and supply chains are too intertwined with China. A war could trigger a collapse of the United States economy, with unimaginable adverse consequences to the West's capitalist system. Notwithstanding that, both Biden and those in the Republican camp continue to rachet up attacks on China out of domestic electoral needs. On the other hand, drumming up the war in the South China Seas benefits those in the industrial-military complex. It is not a coincidence that the leading military suppliers are sponsors of an Australian think tank, the ASPI – Australian Strategic Policy Insititute responsible for churning out massive propaganda against China over Xinjiang.

US Warships in the South China Sea

With the world biggest aircraft carriers from the United States, Britain and France muddying the waters in the South China Seas over Taiwan, United States, with its allies, run the risk of crossing China's red-line over Taiwan. The normalization of China-United States relationship engineered by Dr Henry Kisssinger was predicated on United States recognition of the one-China policy, and accepting China's sovereignty over Taiwan.

It does not take a genius to realize that with the western warships now deployed in the Taiwan Straits and South China Seas to flex their muscles at China, just one accident could be enough to spark a war.

After suffering the hundred years of humiliation, China will certainly not allow this gunboat humiliation to happen again. The chances of the current tension ending in military conflict are high, and the likelihood of a nuclear war, however remote, cannot be discounted. If this comes to pass, everyone will lose, and the earth's survival will be at stake. Let's hope sanity will prevail.