China and the Art of War: Part 2

In Part 1 I explained the basics of The Art of War and why China might be engaging in a hidden war against the West – and everyone else. In the next two parts I will give some examples of how, where, and what they are doing that suggest that very idea.

These methods are primarily economic and social, although naturally there is a military component to all of this too. And to play my own Devil’s advocate, improving military capabilities and trying to get rich are pretty common place. In fact, if a major country wasn’t trying to achieve this you’d ask questions about their governance and mentality – looking at you Europe!

Economic War:

If I am poor I want to be rich. I want to be as rich as I can. To do that I need to work, hard, really hard. Or smart, really smart. If I can do both, then great. I also probably need to educate myself. The Chinese understand this, they always have, it is a Confucian truism. You get educated, work hard, look after your old folk. It has been the basis of Chinese culture for thousands of years.

However, for most of their history they ran a rather elitist policy. It was hard to get into the educational establishments that one needed to. Since the change in 1978 things got easier, or at least there were more opportunities for individuals to get educated, to work hard, and to make money. This is true at both the individual and collective levels. And this has allowed China to grow its resources from the ground up.

Remember when things were all made in Japan? Then it was Taiwan. And we used to all think that anything made there was cheap and nasty. Now anything made there is high tech, quality craftsmanship. Cause all the cheap shit is now made in China; actually, all the shit is made in China. How did this happen?

China needed money. China also has a load of people. And Japan got really rich. Buying Japanese wasn’t cost effective anymore (buying American or European had already become too expensive by the early 1980s). Buying Taiwanese just pisses off the Chinese. China also had an enormous market that capitalist pigs, I mean corporations, desperately wanted access to. All of this was a perfect capitalist storm:

– need cheaper manufacturing costs? China it is.

– access to newer and bigger markets? China again.

So, all they needed to do was move their manufacturing to China, get access to these enormous new markets, and pow! Loads more money for the capitalists and more cheap shit for the materialist hordes to waste their hard earned dosh on.

In the 1990s Foreign Direct Investment in China boomed, by the 2000s it had gone supernova! Although as a percentage of China’s GDP it has now actually gone down – China now rich see. Western corporations and governments licked their lips at the possible megabucks to be made. The only problem was the short term thinking of the West got it all back to front. It was China that was actually making the big bucks.

Because China now got a huge influx of money. They were also able to move people out of the countryside and into the cities. They got to experience their own Industrial Revolution. They started sending their increasingly large middle class overseas to study. Then took their ever growing cash reserves and started investing wherever they could. They started doing what Japan did in the 1980s, but better. They have started buying everything; infrastructure, sports clubs, businesses, land and property, and doing it all over the world.

The Chinese understand the West, or at least the key parts of it. They know that love of money and a short term outlook is what we are all about. China doesn’t care if it takes thirty years to make money or for an investment to mature.

They also understand that investment in infrastructure bears economic fruit. The West was so keen on cash in the hand that they destroyed their economies and sold everything off to the highest bidder. There was no need to make anything anymore. We were now a ‘service economy’, we didn’t need to make stuff because everyone worked in a soul destroying office selling ‘knowledge’ to people that simply wanted to buy a new dishwasher at a reasonable price.

Want to see how much China invests? Well you can look here, or here.

Westerners have increasingly been sold the consumer economic and social ideal. The more you buy, the happier you are. But you need money to buy stuff and all the money has flown to China.

So, how has the West responded? Housing. Buy houses, build houses, fix houses. Which can then be bought by cash rich Chinese investors, thereby pushing house prices up and making sure that a whole generation will never be able to buy their own home.

You see China has all the manufacturing. They make almost everything that we buy. You can’t buy most everyday things without them having ‘Made in China’ emblazoned on the back. Because they own all of that they also have most of the money. This means they can also do most of the investing. Sure, there are still things made elsewhere but not much, and in many cases, things are put together with parts all made in China. There are rich people all over the planet but increasingly a smaller and smaller middle class in the West while the Chinese middle class get bigger and bigger.

This is just economics, right? Things move in cycles. This was to be expected. If the West weren’t so consumerist or so focused on cheap goods then they wouldn’t have moved everything away?

Actually, no, well, yes too. Capitalism will always look to maximise returns for shareholders, that means lower costs, higher margins. China was inevitable, at least from a manufacturing perspective, and soon China may become too expensive and everything will move to Somalia. I agree with that.

The real problem is selling everything to the Chinese. Although it seems that some countries – such as Australia – are finally starting to wake up to the problem, although whether they can really do anything about it remains to be seen.

China has played an economic blinder. They have simultaneously propelled their own economy into the stratosphere while burying their enemies under a massive pile of plastic novelty gifts. In doing so they have been able to build a modern military, develop cutting edge technology and medical research, and buy half the world. Not bad in forty years. And they have done it with our acquiescence.

When China accepts their award for ‘Best New Superpower’ at the United Nation’s ‘Let’s celebrate all the World’s Dictatorships Award Ceremony’ (commonly known as the General Assembly meeting) they would be wise to give their thanks to the West – especially the USA, UK, and France – they will hold aloft their glittering prize and announce that they ‘couldn’t have done it without you’ while muttering something about climate change and meat eating being bad.

Belts and Roads:

Soft Power, no it’s not a type of detergent, it’s an international relations term that means how a country can use its social and cultural influences to control foreign powers. America has used soft power for decades manipulating the world in its image. Rock ‘n’ roll, movies, sports, are all ways that the US of A has influenced the modern world. And they are not the first. The British did the same. There’s a reason why India plays cricket. And before them the Romans made the world in their image. Although one might ask what did they ever do for us?

China has understood this well. It is one of the reasons they have invested so much money into the film industry, and one reason why Disney are so far up China’s ass you can see the Great Wall from inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride (that’s not actually true for those of you who take everything seriously).

The Eastern Bloc put so much effort into winning at international sport for this reason. Whole generations of athletes became so completely fucked up so that a white East German girl could beat the evil black Americans – they were evil because they were American not because they were black for all you racists and woke apologists.

China are trying the same thing. But they are a bit fucked at it because all their athletes seem to get done for drugs or come from America….

Nevertheless, they have an ace hidden in their pocket, actually more like hidden in their wallet. The Belt and Road Initiative, while it sounds a little domestic violency it is actually an economic development policy.

This is a policy that sees China investing in building much needed infrastructure across much of the non-developed world; Asia, Africa, Russia (yes Russia), and any other places lying around that could do with a good road and a nice new belt. Oh and Australia too – that cheeky chappie Dan Andrews working for the benefit of Victorians again! What a guy.

What does China get out of it? Apart from the thanks of dodgy Third World despots it gets a lot of goodwill – soft power – oh and it gets a lot of access to natural resources like minerals, oil, and loads of other shit that one needs to make stuff. China can then make this stuff to sell to rich countries while ensuring that the non-rich countries (and there a lot of them) side with China on pretty much everything. Not even mentioning that China doesn’t lecture people on how to do their business. No pushing democracy, no criticising their corruption, genocides, or anything nasty.

Not like the belligerent Western colonial racists always criticising, always invading, regime changing, and doing loads of other bad shit. China just gives money, builds a road, and in return all they ask is for a mining concession and for you to shut up about Taiwan, Tibet, and those pesky Uighurs, who are being properly ‘re-educated’. Easy peasy.

If I am an African despot – or Melanesian – wanting to entrench my rule, embezzle more dosh (my five mistresses cost a lot you know), while seemingly improving the lot of my people – and investment does do this – then China’s deal looks pretty fucking good.

In Part 3 we’ll get a little more conspiratorial…that’ll be fun.