Page 21 - Pakistan Link - March 26, 2021

COMMENTARY MARCH 26, 2021 – PAKISTAN LINK – P21

Peak China Is Around the Corner
n By Nayyer Ali MD administration’s blundering attempts to constrain
China mostly failed, but Biden has kept the ap-
Let China sleep, for when she wakes she proach while substantially upgrading the sophis-
will shake the world”. This quote, attrib- tication of the methods. China will no longer
“uted to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803, sum- have the wind at its back in global economic com-
marizes both the decrepit state of China under petition.
its last dynasty, the Ching, and The other major constraint on China’s rise
the obvious potential of such a is that the dominant power, the US, is not stand-
massive and rich civilization. ing still. American companies have dominated
Three of the most important the cutting edge technologies of the 21st century,
implements of modern life, pa- as reflected by the market value of the FAANG
per, printing, and gunpowder, companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix,
were Chinese inventions. But Google). While the US has only 330 million
for most of the last 200 years, people compared to China’s 1.4 billion, American
China has been preyed upon rather than shak- power does not exist in isolation. At a minimum,
ing much of anything. the US is part of a four-power Anglo-Saxon al-
The Ching dynasty collapsed in the early liance of Australia, Canada, US, and UK. Com-
20th century, giving way to decades of warlord- bined they have about 450 million people. More
ism and instability that culminated in the Japa- importantly all four nations remain open to im-
nese invasion of 1937, and finally ended with the migration and are very adept at turning immi-
victory of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Commu- grants into patriotic citizens in one generation.
nist Party (CCP) in 1949. But China remained in Over 25% of the children born in the UK this
self-imposed isolation and weakness for another year are to immigrant mothers. By 2100, this core
generation. Anglo-Saxon group will number perhaps 600
Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” from 1959 to million.
1962, when he tried to force China to transform was destined to dominate the globe and displace is now running less than 6% in official statistics, But beyond the shared English-speaking
into an industrial power, just resulted in mass the US as the world’s preeminent power. This idea and likely 4% in real terms as Chinese inflation of nations, the US has its NATO allies along with
famine and the deaths of over 40 million, in what was accepted with trepidation by Americans, and economic data is a constant. Depending on as- Israel, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Other
was the greatest mass killing in human history. embraced with some glee by non-American crit- sumptions, China’s current population of 1.45 bil- looser allies include Thailand, Indonesia, Philip-
Mao followed that up with the utter turmoil of ics of US power. lion people is set to shrink to between 750 million pines, Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine. Add in nations
the “Cultural Revolution” from 1966 till his death But just at the moment where this view of and a billion by 2100. that share a common anti-Chinese outlook such
in 1976, where he used inflamed mobs to impose coming Chinese dominance became convention- China also faces the economic consequenc- as India and Vietnam, and China is fast running
a state of constant conflict and ferment in the ser- al wisdom, the actual underlying historical trends es of becoming a middle-income nation. There out of possible friends that matter. China’s for-
vice of ideology, and at the expense of any compe- turned, and China’s rise is about to peak and then is something known as the “middle-income eign policy is based on bribing friendship with its
tent economic management. head toward a relative decline in importance. trap” where developing countries modernize to infrastructure projects, but it has to settle for fair-
But after Mao’s death the CCP came to be Several major factors are giving rise to this dra- a certain level, but then cannot sustain the high ly useless places like North Korea and Myanmar.
dominated by leaders who wanted to develop matic and unappreciated coming reversal. The growth rates needed to fully converge with de- This lack of significant friends explains the geopo-
China. They slowly, and then more rapidly aban- biggest is the population bust. litical importance of Pakistan to China, and why
doned Communist orthodoxy, and carried out China instituted an extremely coercive and China will continue to grow China is willing to spend such massive amounts
successive reforms that allowed China to begin to harsh population policy in 1980 that limited fam- and prosper over the next two of money to upgrade Pakistan’s economy. It is not
modernize. This process was greatly facilitated by ilies to one child only. A whole generation has generations, and its living standards an act of charity. Pakistan is the only major na-
American policy from the early 1970’s till Donald now grown up without siblings, cousins, aunts, tion in the world that China can bring onside, and
Trump. and uncles, but the policy did work. China’s pop- will rise further. But it is not going it will do everything it needs to achieve that.
Nixon in the early 70’s decided to play the ulation growth slowed sharply. The price though to topple the Anglo-American China is also constrained by very unfavor-
“China Card” against the Soviet Union, bringing is going to be catastrophic. China is growing old behemoth, its soft cultural power is able geography. The US has open access to both
China into an anti-Soviet understanding, though before it has grown rich. Its median age exceeded of the world’s oceans, add in Australia, America’s
not an outright alliance. By the end of the 1980’s, the US this year, and annual births have dropped non-existent, and it will not grow NATO, East Asian, and Middle East allies, and the
the Soviet Union was in its death throes, and the to under 15 million. Given the preference for fast enough to overtake the US US reach is unimpeded around the globe. China
need for a China Card diminished. But at that males and selective abortion, there is an even economy in size even with its fourfold is bounded by Siberia to the north, the Himala-
point, the US and Western business interests saw bigger shortage of girls, which will limit the next advantage in population yas to the south, the deserts of Central Asia to the
China as a potential manufacturing hub endowed generation’s births. Economically, this means that west, and its access to the Pacific is blocked by the
with unlimited quantities of docile and cheap la- China is going to have an aging, shrinking popu- islands of Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia,
bor. The era of outsourcing was on. lation with a massive number of elderly. veloped country living standards. This has been backed up by the US bases at Guam and Okinawa.
In the early 1990’s China and India had Currently China has 9 working age adults seen especially in Latin America, but also in Por- China will continue to grow and prosper
roughly the same GDP per capita, but while India for every senior, in 2050 it will be only two. Chi- tugal and Greece, and in the Arab World. Usu- over the next two generations, and its living stan-
grew, China soared over the next 25 years. Chi- na’s workforce is going to shrink by 200 million in ally this trap results from political and economic dards will rise further. But it is not going to topple
nese living standards rose to over double Indian, the next 40 years, a stunning amount given that structural constraints that prevent a country from the Anglo-American behemoth, its soft cultural
while China became the factory of the world, with the entire US economy has 150 million workers. fully modernizing. For China, the need to main- power is non-existent, and it will not grow fast
more manufacturing output than the US, Germa- This shrinking labor force means that China is tain a one-party state in which the CCP controls enough to overtake the US economy in size even
ny, and Japan combined. no longer the destination for offshoring Western everything, will play that role. China can never with its fourfold advantage in population.
The extremely high growth rates, particular- production as cheap labor will no longer be plen- fully modernize its economy while keeping the Peak China will happen soon, and then
ly seen in the 2000’s, combined with China’s pop- tiful. It also means that China’s annual economic CCP in charge. the world will realize that not much really has
ulation, now over 1.4 billion people, gave rise to a growth rate will slow substantially, in fact it has Secondly, the US and EU no longer see Chi- changed, just as peak Japan in the late-1980’s
cottage industry embracing the notion that China been dropping every year for the last decade and nese economic growth as benign. The Trump failed to ultimately alter the global order.
Asian Americans Experience ‘Far More’ Hate Incidents Than Numbers Indicate

n By H. J. Mai and Dec. 31, 2020. folks are really worried about this.”
By now, the number of reported incidents Jeung described the situation as a “nation-
surge in anti-Asian attacks report- has surpassed 3,000, according to Russell Jeung, ally traumatizing moment” for Asian Americans.
ed since the start of the pandemic a co-founder of the coalition and a professor of Nearly 44% of all incidents reported to Stop
A has left Asian Americans across the Asian American Studies at San Francisco State AAPI Hate have come from California. Asian
country scared and concerned, but a Los University. Americans account for roughly 15% of Califor-
Angeles-based civil rights group says the ac- “What we’ve discovered isn’t that we’ve just nia’s estimated 40 million people, according to the
tual number of hate incidents could be even had a spike, but we’ve had a surge over the en- U.S. Census Bureau. No other state in the conti-
higher. tire year last year with COVID-19 and with the nental United States has a larger Asian popula-
“There are far more people who have not president’s political rhetoric in the last adminis- tion.
reported incidents than those who have,” Connie tration,” Jeung told NPR’s Michel Martin. NPR’s Eric Westervelt reported last month
Chung Joe, CEO of Asian Americans Advancing The reported incidents range from verbal that business and civil rights groups across Cali-
Justice – Los Angeles, told NPR. harassments to physical altercations. Last month, fornia are demanding action in light of the surge
This underreporting is due to a combina- Denny Kim, a 27-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran, in violence in the San Francisco Bay Area, which
tion of several factors, ranging from language and was reportedly attacked by two men in LA’s Kore- left one man dead and others badly injured.
cultural barriers to a lack of trust in law enforce- atown neighborhood. In January, Vicha Ratanapakdee, 84, was
ment, Chung Joe said an interview with Morning The altercation, which left Kim with a black going for a morning walk in his San Francisco
Edition host Rachel Martin. eye and injuries to his nose, was witnessed by his neighborhood. Surveillance cameras captured a
“If the community feels that the police aren’t friend, Joseph Cha, local TV station KTLA said. man running at him full speed and smashing his
going to do anything, then chances are that word The two assailants, who ran off after the at- hate and violence targeted at our seniors.” frail body to the pavement. Ratanapakdee died of
gets around and the community feels next time tack, allegedly said that “all f-ing Asians gotta The rise in racially motivated attacks has put his injuries two days later. A 19-year-old man has
I’m not going to report it then. What’s the point?” die,” according to an entire community on edge. been charged with murder and elder abuse.
Chung Joe said. As a man in his late 20s, Kim is not the typi- “Many of the folks that I speak to are scared The issue has also caught the attention of
Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition aimed at ad- cal victim of anti-Asian attacks. Chung Joe said to go out or they’re encouraging their elderly par- President Biden, who signed a memorandum
dressing anti-Asian discrimination during the that most attacks target the more vulnerable ents not to go out of the house, even for things pledging to combat anti-Asian and Pacific Island-
COVID-19 pandemic, received more than 2,800 members of the Asian American community. like daily walks or trips to the grocery store,” er discrimination, shortly after taking office.
firsthand reports of anti-Asian hate, including “Women are targeted more than twice as of- Chung Joe said. “We do feel like there’s sort of a “The Federal Government must recognize
physical and verbal assaults, between March 19 ten as men,” she said, and “we are seeing a spate of bullet on our backs in our community. And so ASIANS, P28
www.PakistanLink.com