Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[CougarKing]

Perhaps one of China's so-called African allies would probably want to look closer at these fighters again.

China's AVIC steps up sales push for FC-1, J-10 fighters

DATE:30/09/09
SOURCE:Flight International

"While AVIC's main job is to manufacture aircraft, the company also fulfills a national agenda by producing military aircraft for China's political allies around the world," says a source close to Chengdu's state-owned parent company. "There are also countries that would like to buy a good fighter, but not at the cost of a Western fighter.

"While China's military aircraft have been exported for many years, this is the first time that there is a concerted effort to properly market them and establish a support network," the source adds.

Beijing could extend loans to purchasing countries and offer local assembly if there are sufficient orders, the source adds.

Flightglobal

 

[CougarKing]

Such statements reaffirming so-called "Communist solidarity" between these two should be taken as nothing more than as statements meant for public or international consumption, since some would argue that the benefits to China of further propping up the North would not outweigh the disadvantages.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/091005/world/international_us_korea_north_china

China vows to stand by North Korea

1 hour, 43 minutes ago


By Chris Buckley


BEIJING (Reuters) - China vowed to strengthen bonds with North Korea, saying on Monday that its traditional ties with the isolated state were a boon to peace.


The renewed commitment between the two communist neighbors came in messages between President Hu Jintao as well as other Chinese leaders and North Korea's top leader, Kim Jong-il, who on Sunday greeted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the start of a visit focused on bolstering bilateral relations.


The messages marked 60 years since the two countries established formal ties on October 6, 1949, and did not mention North Korea's nuclear weapons program, instead stressing their focus on shoring up sometimes tense bilateral relations.
"History demonstrates that developing China-North Korea relations is in keeping with the fundamental interests and shared wishes of both countries' people," said the congratulatory message from China, issued by the official Xinhua news agency. "It also benefits protecting regional peace and stability."


In a message to China, Kim Jong-il and other North Korean leaders said relations between the two countries would "constantly consolidate and develop," Xinhua reported.


The mutual wooing between the world's third biggest economy and the impoverished and reclusive North has underscored how Beijing's approach to Pyongyang diverges from the harder line long favored by Washington, Tokyo and other regional capitals.


Other governments have pushed China to use its crucial energy and food supplies to the North to put more pressure on Pyongyang to curb nuclear weapons development.


Analysts have said China, the closest North Korea has to an ally, would not send Wen unless it had some assurance from Pyongyang that could ease tensions following its second ever nuclear test in May and its claims to have made progress in enriching uranium.


China wants North Korea to return to international talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons plans.

Six-party talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States ground to a halt about a year ago, with Pyongyang saying it would boycott the sessions aimed at curtailing its nuclear weapons capability in return for aid.


But Beijing does not want international pressure on North Korea to risk political turmoil there that could release a flood of refugees into China.

North Korea's Kim Jong-il made a rare appearance to greet Wen at the start of his trip, showing how serious he is about shoring up ties with China. Kim is widely believed to have suffered a serious illness last year.


Wen also held talks with North Korean Premier Kim Yong-Il -- no relation to his supreme leader -- who told him Pyongyang was open to talks on its nuclear weapons program, which has drawn United Nations Security Council sanctions backed by Beijing.


(Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Jeremy Laurence)

 

[a_majoor]

China's energy needs and some of the areas where they will come into conflict with others:

Power-Hungry China

The International Consequences of China’s Quest for Energy

The Middle East, the oil baron of the world, is the region on everyone’s mind today when it comes to energy policy. Too little attention, however, has been paid to power-hungry China, where economic expansion, a burgeoning car craze, population growth, and strained power generation have resulted in rolling blackouts across the country and unleashed a newfound hunger for energy supplies, especially oil.

At present, the vast majority of China’s energy supply comes from coal. Mushrooming mining towns, a specter from early American history, are springing up across China’s landscape with a vengeance. In 1949, China had just over 300 developed mines. By 2002, the government counted 489 large mines, 1,025 medium mines, and over 140,000 small mines under development. China has cherry-picked from the pool of modern drilling technology in the hopes of producing an energy boom.

“In the past 50-odd years, China has made great progress in its use of geophysical exploration, geo-chemical exploration, remote sensing, drilling and tunneling technologies, laboratory test and computer technology for mineral resource prospecting,” the Chinese government said in a report released in December 2003. “It has raised the scientific and technological level of its mineral resources exploration.”

While China would like to depend “mainly on the exploitation of its own mineral resources” to meet the needs of its “modernization program,” according to the Information Office of the State Council, there remains “a fairly large gap” between the country’s energy demands and its domestic supplies of oil, natural gas, coal, clean coal, and coalbed methane.

Twenty-two of China’s 29 provinces and regions were hit by blackouts in 2003, ten more than the previous year. “Last year, Chinese power use rose 15 percent to a record 1.908 trillion kilowatt-hours as the economy grew at its fastest pace in six years,” according to the International Herald Tribune. In February 2004, the Chinese government announced it would invest roughly $24 billion in new power plants that would generate three times the electricity used by New York City. “I don’t know of another country besides China that’s adding more generating capacity in a single year,” said Hao Weiping, an official at the National Development Reform Commission.

China’s oil industry is also producing at record levels. According to an account published in Fortune magazine in February, “Daqing, China’s largest oilfield, is a sprawling state-run colossus: 90,000 workers tending 50,000 wells linked by a maze of pipelines and storage tanks across an 800-square-mile expanse in the northeastern corner of the country. In the city of Daqing itself, hundreds of rusting pumps bob methodically—beside government office buildings, behind restaurants and karaoke bars, and in the midst of dingy housing blocks.”

Thanks to a booming oil industry, China is now the world’s fifth-largest producer of crude oil. But growing production still isn’t enough to keep up with growing demand. China is set to become the second-largest consumer of oil in 2004, behind only the United States. Last year, China consumed an average of 5.46 million barrels of oil per day, forcing the country to import $16.5 billion worth of refined oil products—roughly a 30 percent increase over the previous year.
Late in 2003 the government also announced plans to develop four “strategic oil reserve” sites capable of holding 75 days worth of oil, mirroring the U.S. underground reserves stored in salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico.

At present, roughly four-fifths of China’s oil imports come from the Middle East—a fact that worries American lawmakers and Chinese officials alike, albeit for very different reasons. “By 2015...three-quarters of the Gulf’s oil will go to Asia, chiefly to China,” said Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat (quoting Mother Jones). “China’s growing dependence on the Gulf could cause it to develop closer military and political ties with countries such as Iran and Iraq.”

But the real fights of the future may involve the search for expanded oil resources outside the Middle East. China knows it needs to reach into its own territories, out into the seas, and out to neighbors in the hopes of scoring more of the world’s precious oil from less volatile areas of the world. “China, the United States, Japan, Europe and, increasingly, India—all growing leery of dependence on the volatile Middle East—are elbowing each other in a rush to nontraditional oil sources in West Africa, the Caspian Sea, Russia, South America and elsewhere,” according to the Associated Press. The dueling aims of the United States and China may have placed the two countries on a collision course over oil supplies, with implications far beyond the energy sector.

“Interestingly, the three African countries visited by President Hu Jintao in late January and early February—Egypt, Gabon and Algeria—are all oil-exporting states,” according to the Singapore Business Times. “The trip’s main purpose was to secure oil sources and to build up energy relationships with those countries.” China has signed agreements with France’s Total Gabon oil company to ship Gabonese oil to China, and China has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in refineries in Algeria in the past year.

The race for international energy supplies will create a new series of energy alliances and new twists on existing ones. What this means for geopolitics and American interests in the years ahead is an open question—one of great strategic, economic, and ethical significance. As the Singapore Business Times recently observed: “The Chinese realize that they are late arrivals while the U.S. already has secured its sources of oil, primarily in Saudi Arabia. China therefore feels that it has to compete aggressively with the U.S. and Europe, and is willing to take the oil wherever it can be found. While Western countries are sensitive to dealing with governments suspected of proliferation or of human rights violations, the Chinese are not deterred by such inhibitions.”

The Editors of The New Atlantis, "Power Hungry China," The New Atlantis, Number 4, Winter 2004, pp. 114-116.

 

[Edward Campbell]

A comment by Bruce Riedel, in response to a question by me, got me to thinking about the hideously complex relationships between Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan. Each is connected to all the other by ties and divisions. There are a few coincidental interests between China and India – mostly economic and most of those related to how they will deal with “us,” in the West.

The India-Pakistan dispute is well enough known. Ditto the Pakistan-Afghanistan situation. What may be less clear is the evolving nature of the China-Afghanistan and China-India relationships.

China borders Afghanistan but only for a short distance that in what is in one of the most remote and difficult regions in the world. But China’s neighbours, especially, Tajikistan are also neighbours of Afghanistan and unrest in Afghanistan can and does spread through them into China, especially into the “troubled” Xinjiang province with its own Muslim separatist problems. China stoutly opposes militant Islam and takes some pretty “firm” measures against it.

China and India have a very complex relationship. They have been at war, time and again, over disputed borders and they were, and still are, “competitors” in Asia. But the relationship has softened since around 1990 and there is much trade, commerce, investment and even tourism between them. But China is still Pakistan’s protector and Pakistan is still the most significant threat to India. China is also, I think a restraining influence on Pakistan, even as it tries to counter growing Indian influence in Asia.

These relationship stretch further to embrace e.g. Burma and Sri Lanka and to put the “Stans” (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) into play in a competition between China and Russia which also brings the long standing and generally warm India-Russian relationship (now considerably cooled or, at least, overshadowed by a much warmer India-US relationship) back to life.

Finally, of course, there is the USA. Both China and India are being actively courted by the USA and both are trying to exploit that courtship to their own, particular advantages.

It’s not a mess but it is a minefield into which only the most astute and careful diplomats (or angels) will want to tread. Sadly, not everyone who will rush in will be astute and careful or an angel.   

 

[Kirkhill]

According to Wikipedia (sorry but its speedy) India under the Raj comprised 8 major provinces, 5 minor provinces and 565 Princely States - extending from Aden to Singapore.    There are your original fault lines.  They existed prior to the Raj and the Raj briefly united them.  They didn't survive as an entity with the end of the Raj.... par for the course for any Empire.

Russia couldn't handle the Stans.  China is struggling with its regions and its home population.

3 billion people  or so, roughly the world's population in 1900, is too diverse a bunch of opinions for any one (or three) government(s) to represent and govern effectively.  Consider the potential numbers of Georgias, Azerbaijans, Ossetias, South Ossetias and Nagorno-Karabakhs.

Until you have a multitude of Singapores and Hong Kongs will you really be able to realize the democratic ideal of commercial states pursuing their own enlightened self-interest?

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
3 billion people  or so, roughly the world's population in 1900, is too diverse a bunch of opinions for any one (or three) government(s) to represent and govern effectively.  Consider the potential numbers of Georgias, Azerbaijans, Ossetias, South Ossetias and Nagorno-Karabakhs.

Until you have a multitude of Singapores and Hong Kongs will you really be able to realize the democratic ideal of commercial states pursuing their own enlightened self-interest?

Some Chinese will tell us that the way to manage a huge and diverse "country" (empire, if you like) is through one country n systems. For some Chinese there is a philosophical problem: they believe they are entitled duty bound to rule "all under heaven" (天下) or, perhaps, the entire most of the Sinic world. For the Chinese who believe this, the tenet is, roughly, that anything that ever was Chinese is always Chinese. Thus a "way" must be found.

A syndicate (Bruce Riedel used the phrase today and I like it) of small states and even statelets bound only loosely to a great power would be a better model but I cannot see the Chinese reconciling themselves to it any time soon.

 

[Kirkhill]

Some Chinese will tell us that the way to manage a huge and diverse "country" (empire, if you like) is through one country n systems.

Isn't that, effectively, the tale of the Holy Roman Empire?  Infamously derided as neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.  It rumbled along as an entity for the best part of a thousand years only really coming to grief when the "elected" Emperor started to take himself seriously and dictated to his realm.  As long as he was content to be a figurehead the system worked.  His reputation survived intact.  When he started to rule then the competitors came out of the woodwork.

 

[Edward Campbell]

In a way, but the Chinese, unlike any Europeans, thus far, have reinvented themselves and have, perhaps, learned something in the process.

The ethnically Han Chinese Ming succeeded the Mongol Yuan and were succeeded, in their turn, by the Manchu Qing dynasty. Each was an “empire” that endured for at least a century and, in the process, Sinified the “northern barbarians” and incorporated many of the Northerners’ values and ideas and the Northerners, themselves, into the Chinese “system.” It was, in fact, the Northerners’ broader view of empire that dragged the Chinese out of their traditional xenophobia and prompted them to see “all under heaven” as more than just the Han (汉人) people.

Whether the Chinese can continue, now, in the Red Dynasty, to rebuild their empire remains to be seen. But the new “emperors” (Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao)
do (did) take themselves and, especially, their “mandate” very seriously, even when they play Mister Dressup for the masses.

Please remember Zhou Enlai’s famous quip when he was asked for his assessment of the French Revolution, “It’s too early to tell,” he said in 1971, nearly 200 years after the fact. The Chinese take a long, patient view, when assessing their plans and policies and those of others; we must do the same when we assess them.

My guess is that the Chinese, Han and “minorities” alike, are more united than they have ever been and that while unity does not equal strength it does magnify it. I also guess that the Chinese leadership has a long term plan with a well defined aim – I’m not sure I understand either – and I am fairly certain they, the Chinese people and their leaders, have the patience and the will to see it through.

 

[a_majoor]

Looking at the power of the "economic card":

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/06/assessing_chinas_financial_power

Assessing China's financial power
Tue, 10/06/2009 - 1:35pm
Your humble blogger has a rather long essay in the Fall 2009 issue of International Security.  What's a lowly IPE scholar doing publishing in a high and mighty security journal?  Assessing whether China's massive holdings of dollar-denominated assets is a big deal or not.  The title may or may not give away my argument:  "Bad Debts: Assessing China's Financial Influence in Great Power Politics."

Here's the abstract: 

Commentators and policymakers have articulated growing concerns about U.S. dependence on China and other authoritarian capitalist states as a source of credit to fund the United States' trade and budget deficits. What are the security implications of China's creditor status? If Beijing or another sovereign creditor were to flex its financial muscles, would Washington buckle? The answer can be drawn from the existing literature on economic statecraft. An appraisal of the ability of creditor states to convert their financial power into political power suggests that the power of credit has been moderately exaggerated in policy circles. To use the argot of security studies, China's financial power increases its deterrent capabilities, but it has little effect on its compellence capabilities. China can use its financial power to resist U.S. entreaties, but it cannot coerce the United States into changing its policies. Financial power works best when a concert of creditors (or debtors) can be maintained. Two case studies—the contestation over regulating sovereign wealth funds and the protection of Chinese financial investments in the United States—demonstrate the constraints on China's financial power.

Read it and weep. 

 

[Kirkhill]

In a way, but the Chinese, unlike any Europeans, thus far, have reinvented themselves and have, perhaps, learned something in the process.

The ethnically Han Chinese Ming succeeded the Mongol Yuan and were succeeded, in their turn, by the Manchu Qing dynasty. Each was an “empire” that endured for at least a century and, in the process, Sinified the “northern barbarians” and incorporated many of the Northerners’ values and ideas and the Northerners, themselves, into the Chinese “system.” It was, in fact, the Northerners’ broader view of empire that dragged the Chinese out of their traditional xenophobia and prompted them to see “all under heaven” as more than just the Han (汉人) people.

Whether the Chinese can continue, now, in the Red Dynasty, to rebuild their empire remains to be seen. But the new “emperors” (Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao)
do (did) take themselves and, especially, their “mandate” very seriously, even when they play Mister Dressup for the masses.

Please remember Zhou Enlai’s famous quip when he was asked for his assessment of the French Revolution, “It’s too early to tell,” he said in 1971, nearly 200 years after the fact. The Chinese take a long, patient view, when assessing their plans and policies and those of others; we must do the same when we assess them.

My guess is that the Chinese, Han and “minorities” alike, are more united than they have ever been and that while unity does not equal strength it does magnify it. I also guess that the Chinese leadership has a long term plan with a well defined aim – I’m not sure I understand either – and I am fairly certain they, the Chinese people and their leaders, have the patience and the will to see it through.

I think you may be a bit too hard on the "Europeans" or at least ALL the Europeans.  You may be confounded by the Bourboniste tendency of the Western European aristocracy (those which remember everything and learn nothing).  Many other Europeans seem to go through regular reinventions.

It can fairly be claimed that I am overly Eurocentric in my outlook ( h*ll, I am Scotocentric).  But what I am doing is trying to find the underlying commonalities so as to better appreciate the differences.  For me the Han are the archetypical "Other".  Their language, and to a lesser extent their appearance, defines their difference.  The lack of commonality in language is the real "barrier".  I can puzzle my way through the Euro languages, even when written in cyrillics but Chinese, like Arabic,  is closed to me.

When looking at the way they order their lives I find myself trying to compare it to that which I know and, recognizing that all societies change over time and often end up ploughing old ground I also look for instances where one society's past may be reflected in a similar situation in another society's present. 

You have to be careful though because in culture, as in biology and linguistics similarities may be the result of common causes, or the may be result of divergent causes or they may be pure coincidence.....

To that end, and with those caveats in mind, I would point to a couple of instances in British and Canadian history.  It is well recognized that when England "conquered" Scotland (politically) with the Union of the Parliaments in 1707 that the chief beneficiaries were the Scots.  They ran down the road to London and proceeded to make a fortune and, more importantly, became the "British" political class providing many of the leading politicians and entrepreneurs for the next century or so.  Less well recognized is that they were following a pattern established when London "conquered" the Welsh and ended up with the Welsh Tudor's on the throne, Bristol merchants dominating the overseas trade and West Country sailors ripping off the Spaniards.

The Canadian example is one that I believe is a current example that we are seeing unfolding today - and that is, following the colonization of the West by Eastern Canada interests, and Montreal (followed by Toronto post 1970) using the west as its empire the "conquered" or at least the "junior partners" of the west are now running back down the road to the East and establishing themselves in the power structure.

I believe there is something about the complacency of entrenched interests at the core of a society versus the dynamicism of the fringes, and especially conquered fringes that results in the core being confronted with the need to "adapt or die".  In the case of London, to the Scots and the Welsh I might add Normans, Jews, Genoans and Huguenots each of which came and changed London even as they became Londoners.

Your observation that the Han became Mongols even as the Mongols became Han falls into line with that...  Or as another Scot put it " I experience you as you experience me.  My experience of you changes your experience of me even as your experience of me changes my experience of you."  R.D. Laing - or words to that effect.

So while I accept that the Han adapt, I don't accept that they are particularly, or uniquely adept in that regard.  They may be but you are going to have to supply more convincing proof.

I have more sympathy with your oft repeated observation that "culture matters" and that they have a strong and sufficiently rigid cultural core that bends but slightly.  It is that rigidity that gives me pause and makes it hard for me to see them, for the foreseeable future, as anything other than "the Other".  It is that "Otherness" that makes it easy for me to perceive a future with conflict between "Us" and "Them".

I don't think their experience of me is that much different than my experience of them.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I wasn’t clear, happens a lot with me.

What the Chinese, Han and other “minorities,” learned from the Mongols, especially, was the “art of empire.”

Prior to about 1115, when the Jin (金) (as opposed to the other Jin (晋)) took over, the Chinese – except for the remarkable and sui generis Tang (唐) – were generally inept imperialists, in fact they were so divided that they couldn’t even unite their own “country” much less make it into an empire.

The Han, because of their sheer numbers and the richness of their culture, Sinicized the invaders but there are still perceived “differences.”

(Parenthetical anecdote: Some years ago some friends, a married couple, invited me to join them at a luncheon in honour of the husband’s parents. I was a little reluctant because I understood that the wife and her mother-in-law were, to be kind, at daggers drawn. (Chinese mothers-in-law are a bit notorious and put most of the dragons in our, Western, mother-in-law jokes to shame.) Anyway I went and, because my Chinese is totally inadequate, the conversations were able to flow past me like deep water over a pebble. My friends translated bits and pieces, to keep me “in the loop” but it was obvious, thanks to body language and facial expressions – which are pretty much the same in China as in the West, that mother-in-law was “putting the boots” to daughter-in-law, while father-in-law and husband tried to divert my (and the children’s) attention away from them. But, suddenly, it all changed: mother-in-law went quite pale, then blushed furiously, daughter-in-law/wife beamed and the body language reversed itself: mother-in-law was submissive. An hour or so later, as we walked away, I finally said: “OK, what was all that about?” Wife, still beaming, said, “I reminded her that she and her oh so smart son,” (husband has a PhD in physics from China’s famous Tsinghua University) ”married above their station. I am Han,” she pronounced, ”and they are Manchu.” Now, the Manchu “minority” is, for all intents and purposes, gone, fully Sinicized for generations centuries – more so, I would suggest, that the Scots are Anglicized, but the Han still look down their noses at them!)

My point, finally, is that the Chinese were a great empire; it crumbled and was rebuilt and crumbled again and is, right now, being rebuilt yet again. This is the difference between China and Europe: the Chinese have rebounded because, I think they “learn” from their history. (I know Mussolini tried, but he was hardly a Trajan, was he?)

(Another parenthetical anecdote: the Chinese may be the only people to “celebrate” their humiliations. During those interminably boring, Stalinist 60th anniversary celebrations there were several references to China’s great national humiliations. One, of which I took note, involved the flag raising. There were a carefully noted 169 steps to the flag pole, representing the 169 years since 1840, when, in the 1st Opium War the British humiliated the Chinese at the Pearl River Delta. The goal, discussed in the English TV coverage, was to remind the Chinese viewers that China is recovering (not has recovered) from humiliation by foreigners. (Westerners are, generally, called foreigners, Russians (and many others) are still, very often, called barbarians - if the speaker thinks the stranger might not understand.)

The Chinese are different and culture does matter, but I think that the calculus of imperialism is pretty standard, across the board. It appears to me that the Chinese have the ability to comprehend that calculus (so, probably, does everyone else) and they have the resources (geopolitical “position,” population and hard and soft power) and the will to apply it in their region and the world. That’s what I believe they learned from the barbarians.

This is the Social bit in the title.



Edit: two typos

 

[Kirkhill]

Reading you is always a learning experience for me Edward.  Thanks, Chris.

 

[CougarKing]

According to Wikipedia (sorry but its speedy) India under the Raj comprised 8 major provinces, 5 minor provinces and 565 Princely States - extending from Aden to Singapore.    There are your original fault lines.  They existed prior to the Raj and the Raj briefly united them.  They didn't survive as an entity with the end of the Raj.... par for the course for any Empire.

Russia couldn't handle the Stans.  China is struggling with its regions and its home population.

3 billion people  or so, roughly the world's population in 1900, is too diverse a bunch of opinions for any one (or three) government(s) to represent and govern effectively.  Consider the potential numbers of Georgias, Azerbaijans, Ossetias, South Ossetias and Nagorno-Karabakhs.

Until you have a multitude of Singapores and Hong Kongs will you really be able to realize the democratic ideal of commercial states pursuing their own enlightened self-interest?

Chris,

Did you ever read this older thread reply about why I doubt mainland China will fracture along the same lines as Yugoslavia?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

And in other news, Taiwan is in talks with Germany over acquiring those rejected Greek subs, as described in this other thread update.

 

[Kirkhill]

After reading that reference CD I do recall reading it the first time.  I accept your argument of internal cohesion.

But.

Surely internal cohesion isn't so absolute as to prevent fracturing along tribal, clan, hong or even triad lines?  It used to be an article of faith in Britain that we could beat up on each other (Tcheuchters, Sassenachs, Geordies, Taffs, Brummies, Scouses, Micks.......) but we came together when confronted by others (Frogs, Dons, Dagos....) and yes I am being purposely offensive.

Having said that my comment wasn't so much wondering if the split was likely, much less inevitable, as wondering if it was desirable.... even a necessary pre-condition for a stable order.  Its the centralizing/decentralizing argument.

For the west, in my opinion, the most stable orders have been those that allow for degrees of autonomy, and where authority is institutionalized rather than personalized.  When institutionalized then stable governance can last for a century or three.  When personalized it only lasts decades - the life of the individual.

You report regularly on the problems that the CCP has with unrest in the hinterlands, and even in the Han home regions.  Won't that pressure at least cause the CCP to consider enhanced autonomy?  I thought that that was the intent of "one country -  many systems".

 

[CougarKing]

After reading that reference CD I do recall reading it the first time.  I accept your argument of internal cohesion.

But.

Surely internal cohesion isn't so absolute as to prevent fracturing along tribal, clan, hong or even triad lines?  It used to be an article of faith in Britain that we could beat up on each other (Tcheuchters, Sassenachs, Geordies, Taffs, Brummies, Scouses, Micks.......) but we came together when confronted by others (Frogs, Dons, Dagos....) and yes I am being purposely offensive.

Having said that my comment wasn't so much wondering if the split was likely, much less inevitable, as wondering if it was desirable.... even a necessary pre-condition for a stable order.  Its the centralizing/decentralizing argument.

For the west, in my opinion, the most stable orders have been those that allow for degrees of autonomy, and where authority is institutionalized rather than personalized.  When institutionalized then stable governance can last for a century or three.  When personalized it only lasts decades - the life of the individual.

You report regularly on the problems that the CCP has with unrest in the hinterlands, and even in the Han home regions.  Won't that pressure at least cause the CCP to consider enhanced autonomy?  I thought that that was the intent of "one country -  many systems".

I was talking about cultural cohesion more than political cohesion in that other post, IIRC. And I was talking about all those Han groups already within the PRC, not those that have recently incorporated (Tibet is arguably recent but more so with Hong Kong and Macau) or yet to be incorporated (Taiwan).

Essentially my point back then was that no matter how China was organised politically- whether fractured such as in the 3 Kingdoms period or the 1945-49 Continuation Civil War or united as it was during the Qin, Han or Ming dynasties- there will always be an established Chinese culture or national consciousness that outlasts any dynastic cycle and which negates all provincial differences among Hans. This will be true not only for Mandarin/Bei jing hua/Putonghua-speaking Hans, but those who speak Cantonese, Fukienese, Hakka and so forth.

For example, have you ever wondered why Cantonese opera was still based on such common themes such as tales of emperors and concubines which mirrored Jing Ju(京剧) or Beijing Opera?

The Tibetans and Uighurs are not part of this greater Chinese cultural cohesion in spite of Xinhua/CCTV's efforts to help the government portray the Tibetans/Xizang ren and the Uighurs as just two more groups of the 50 or so zu/族/ethnicities within the greater PRC.

The Taiwanese ben sheng ren/native Taiwanese self-determination cause is a more recent phenomenon borne out of their common experience during their years as a subjugated, Japanized people from 1895-1945 and the initial cruel years of Guo Min Dang occupation when Taiwan was returned to the ROC.

One of the closer foreign parallels (to pan-Chinese cultural cohesion) might be Pan-Slavism from the 1800s, the movement which made the Slavic people of Eastern Europe, such as the Serbians, etc., look to Russia and made them hope they could be liberated from the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, IIRC.

I also thought about possibly thinking of Germany as another parallel because even if Germany as a united country has only been around since the late 1800s, all those princely states like Bavaria, Brandenburg-Prussia, etc. all spoke German. Also, all those Germanic tribes and "Teutonic" culture have been around since before the Romans, in spite of being divided among many clans. Even the Austrians identified with this during 1938 Auchluss when Nazi Germany assimilated them into the Third Reich.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
You report regularly on the problems that the CCP has with unrest in the hinterlands, and even in the Han home regions.  Won't that pressure at least cause the CCP to consider enhanced autonomy?  I thought that that was the intent of "one country -  many systems".

I think the problems the Deng Dynasty has are “normal.” Canada has Aboriginal and Québec problems; New Zealand has a Maori problem; Spain has Basque and Catalan problems and so on. China’s problems are neither unique nor overly dangerous – no matter what the Han in Xinjiang province might claim. That doesn’t mean that China doesn’t have Tibetan and Uyghur separatists (and a few others, too, I think). = Does anyone know is there is an established English (real English, please) spelling of Uyghur? =

China is doing two things:

1. One country n systems is designed to accommodate provinces and territories like Hong Kong, Macao and, eventually, Taiwan that have advanced socio-economic/political systems that are, broadly, incompatible with the standard, national regime. One country n systems applies even in Red China, proper – there are dozens of “special” this, that and the other zones and the like where special provisions are made to allow (actually to experiment with) different socio-economic/political ideas; and

2. Local autonomy is designed to provide both a safety valve for and a window on Chinese opinion. Right now local autonomy is pretty much confined to (apparently free and fair) local elections in villages and small towns with, consequential, local decision making.

I suspect official Beijing is both fascinated and worried. What happens, I’m told, is that the locals tend to elect non-Party mayors and councillors who tend to make decisions that are, often, at odds with the district, province and national policies but which work. But how long can this, popular, I have heard, local autonomy be confined to a (relatively) few villages and towns? Soon the bigger towns and cities will want the same thing. And where and how can it be stopped? The Deng Dynasty knows that it must find a way to tap and measure and, above all, comprehend the public opinion and the public will and it appears to have decided that elections are the best (only?) way to do that. But popular, free, fair elections are dangerous, even destructive to oligarchies, especially to those that derive their mandate from heaven (天) rather than from the people.

 

[CougarKing]

That doesn’t mean that China doesn’t have Tibetan and Uyghur separatists (and a few others, too, I think).

You have heard the of the Taiping (太平) rebellion which occurred during the Qing Dynasty, right? Many of those rebels were from the Hakka minority of China, IIRC.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The separatist chickens are coming home to roost, according to this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today's CNN web site:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/12/china.xinjiang/

China issues death sentences over Xinjiang riots

    Story Highlights
    * Six sentenced to death over riots that killed 200 people in western China
    * Riots prompted by simmering resentment between Uyghurs and Han Chinese
    * Uyghurs are mostly Muslims in western China's Xinjiang province

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Six people were sentenced to death for murder and other crimes in riots that killed about 200 people in western China, state media reported Monday.

A seventh person was sentenced to life in prison, the Xinhua news agency said.

The riots in July were prompted by long-simmering resentment between minority Uyghurs and majority Han Chinese. The Uyghurs are mostly Muslims in western China's Xinjiang province. Some Islamists refer to the region as East Turkistan.

Last month, China sent 7,000 officials to Urumqi to ease tensions after Han Chinese protested a series of attacks in which syringes were used as weapons. The syringe attacks by Uyghurs started August 17.

This is not as much as the Han Chinese in Xinjiang wanted; it's more than many Westerners will find acceptable.

 

[Edward Campbell]

But there is a fine balance in these things as this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Reuters (India) web site, shows:

China gives death sentence over Uighur brawl case

Sat Oct 10, 2009 6:12pm IST

BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in southern China has handed out a death sentence to a man involved in a brawl in July blamed for being the trigger to deadly riots in the restive far western region of Xinjiang.

State media said the fight erupted between a group of Han Chinese and ethnic Uighur workers from Xinjiang at a factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong province, after a rumour spread that some Uighurs had raped two women.

The courts in Shaoguan also gave another man life imprisonment, and nine others got sentences ranging from five to eight years in jail, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Two Uighur workers were beaten to death in the fight, and three others were severely injured, the report said.

"The court was told that the brawl started after a Uighur male worker was found by other workers chasing a Han woman intern surnamed Huang in the factory," Xinhua said.

Other Han then turned on the Uighurs, beating them with iron bars and stopping medical personnel from treating the wounded, it added.

The man given the death sentence was a Han Chinese.

Nearly all Uighurs to whom Reuters spoke in Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi, where almost 200 people died in the July riots, traced the protests back to their own anger over the confrontation in southern China.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Thus, one Han Chinese was given a death sentence, clearing the way for several Uyghurs to receive the same.

 

[CougarKing]

Back to the naval front:

Beijing To Build Large Destroyers
Beijing plans to build a new generation of large destroyers as part of its effort to develop a blue-water navy, a report from an official ship-building institute shows

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df646910cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=0e63fb2db0534210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=China&s=News