An episode of the “Dragon Blade” film (2015). It features a song that the Ancient Romans never sang and an encounter with a Chinese community that never took place. Yet, the movie conveys an eerie fascination about something that could have happened if the two Great Empires of ancient times had met somewhere in the middle of the Eurasian Plains. Eventually, Chinese and Westerners will have to meet each other and become friends. But we’ll need to avoid the mistakes of the past that led to three major commercial wars that unbalanced the whole world.
Trying to make sense of geopolitical tensions between the West and China in the 2020s without mentioning the CCP, Taiwan, TSMC, advanced semiconductor manufacturing or AI is about as credible as trying to make sense of the geopolitical situation in Iran in the 1970s without mentioning the CIA or Islam or explaining the Gulf Wars of the 90s without any reference to oil.
The Belt and Road initiative is not the Silk Road. It involves the building of new infrastructure, but it is also a projection of soft power, largely through finance, to build a multi-national coalition to rival that of the US-led order.
On a "rise of the rest" level, this is a noble aim, but one of the factors that has prevented it from achieving its intended ambition is entrenched traditions of kleptocracy in the countries China is trying to build up. China makes loans for the completion of ports and other infrastructure, the money disappears into Swiss Bank Accounts, Bitcoin, overpriced "art" and other money-hiding mechanisms, and the infrastructure projects languish in a half-built state. Now China has pulled back on the endless flow of money to places like Sri Lanka, Suriname, and Zambia.
The West couldn't find anything that China was willing to import to acheive something approaching trade equilibrium. China would rather manufacture everything "in house" often by ignoring patents and through industrial espionage. But China found a way to empty its own coffers by trying to finance the build-out of a modern trade network without first figuring out how to make sure the money they put up actually went to build infrastructure and not enrich corrupt local officials.
Also, the wealthy Chinese elite are doing everything they can to get their money out of China. Western (including Australian) real estate is a popular place to park Chinese wealth to put it out of the reach of the CCP, but it's not the only path by which wealth is now fleeing China.
Seems like elites in China are also the same kind of chips off the old human basic stock. Problem of all governments is how to get investment money to honest capable people, to carry out practical worthwhile projects to completion. The number of elite parasites with position and political nous, but without serious competence just grows and grows.
Dragon Blade is a nice film with a lot of interesting and inspiring ideas, great propaganda for the Chinese selling their rulership as "first among equals"...
We must distinguish a lot looking at China, we have an "imperial history" and a parallel history of different ethnicities and commercial ventures inside the empire. The Chinese empire had fallen quite a lot of times, for sure once every change in "dynasty", from invasions from the outside or under the weight of internal corruption, but China is HUGE so almost never happened that all different provinces and ethnicities get in distress at the same time and any "imperial power" have little problem eve if corrupt and incompetent to respond at localized distresses using the might of the other provinces.
Took quite a lot to break the empire, but the seeds were there, a perfect detention cell and wealth pump feeding a ruling elite necessary, but that didn't need real skills to function immobile and immutable and ferociously and aggressively resisting to changes.
Chinese are merchants and mercantilist, all Asia is dotted from Chinese enclaves many centuries old, but mercantilism (as pure capitalism) is an ancillary economy depending on an "empire" (state or similar) as "buyer of last resource" because maximizing return of investments kill buyers as it is doing today:
- killing external buyers-
-dumping products on markets underpriced (internal overcapacity) deindustrializing other "partners"
-currency manipulation, creating products externally cheap but internally profitable
-social mobility perceived as based on corruption and nepotism
-rapid formation of huge conglomerates and decline of small and middle-sized economic actors (big have lobbing power)
-collapsing internal house market, important because was the Chinese "retirement plan" for a huge share of population
-birthrate free-fall indicating huge internal social stress
This is not a Chinese only sin, Germany too and others are walking this path, this is the effect of mercantilism because it's a system of wealth pump based on external export obtained trough internal market compression, quite effective if you find "others" open to be spoiled!
Empires fall by implosion from internal inconsistencies and power concentration or simply by the entropic disease, their "death" is reached when become so unchanging and immutable that it can not react to new stimuli: when a new situation or event manifest the solution is more of the ones previously used because even if not efficient is the one that preserve the status quo!
Personally, I suspect that Roman Empire didn't "bleed dry" to China because we didn't see a corresponding "empowerment" of Chinese economy, Roman fell under their own weight as today we see the American Empire falling under its own weight and not bleeding dried by other (as happened to URSS).
Empire is the "Buyer of Last Resort" so mercantile economies are always depending on his whim, be free from empire need a for of autarchy and self-reliance....
Trying to make sense of geopolitical tensions between the West and China in the 2020s without mentioning the CCP, Taiwan, TSMC, advanced semiconductor manufacturing or AI is about as credible as trying to make sense of the geopolitical situation in Iran in the 1970s without mentioning the CIA or Islam or explaining the Gulf Wars of the 90s without any reference to oil.
The Belt and Road initiative is not the Silk Road. It involves the building of new infrastructure, but it is also a projection of soft power, largely through finance, to build a multi-national coalition to rival that of the US-led order.
On a "rise of the rest" level, this is a noble aim, but one of the factors that has prevented it from achieving its intended ambition is entrenched traditions of kleptocracy in the countries China is trying to build up. China makes loans for the completion of ports and other infrastructure, the money disappears into Swiss Bank Accounts, Bitcoin, overpriced "art" and other money-hiding mechanisms, and the infrastructure projects languish in a half-built state. Now China has pulled back on the endless flow of money to places like Sri Lanka, Suriname, and Zambia.
The West couldn't find anything that China was willing to import to acheive something approaching trade equilibrium. China would rather manufacture everything "in house" often by ignoring patents and through industrial espionage. But China found a way to empty its own coffers by trying to finance the build-out of a modern trade network without first figuring out how to make sure the money they put up actually went to build infrastructure and not enrich corrupt local officials.
Also, the wealthy Chinese elite are doing everything they can to get their money out of China. Western (including Australian) real estate is a popular place to park Chinese wealth to put it out of the reach of the CCP, but it's not the only path by which wealth is now fleeing China.
Seems like elites in China are also the same kind of chips off the old human basic stock. Problem of all governments is how to get investment money to honest capable people, to carry out practical worthwhile projects to completion. The number of elite parasites with position and political nous, but without serious competence just grows and grows.
Dragon Blade is a nice film with a lot of interesting and inspiring ideas, great propaganda for the Chinese selling their rulership as "first among equals"...
We must distinguish a lot looking at China, we have an "imperial history" and a parallel history of different ethnicities and commercial ventures inside the empire. The Chinese empire had fallen quite a lot of times, for sure once every change in "dynasty", from invasions from the outside or under the weight of internal corruption, but China is HUGE so almost never happened that all different provinces and ethnicities get in distress at the same time and any "imperial power" have little problem eve if corrupt and incompetent to respond at localized distresses using the might of the other provinces.
Took quite a lot to break the empire, but the seeds were there, a perfect detention cell and wealth pump feeding a ruling elite necessary, but that didn't need real skills to function immobile and immutable and ferociously and aggressively resisting to changes.
Chinese are merchants and mercantilist, all Asia is dotted from Chinese enclaves many centuries old, but mercantilism (as pure capitalism) is an ancillary economy depending on an "empire" (state or similar) as "buyer of last resource" because maximizing return of investments kill buyers as it is doing today:
- killing external buyers-
-dumping products on markets underpriced (internal overcapacity) deindustrializing other "partners"
-currency manipulation, creating products externally cheap but internally profitable
-investing in infrastructural projects in other countries realized by Chinese industries, creating a debit trap (https://www.cigionline.org/articles/beijings-top-down-foreign-investment-model-is-roiling-african-economies/)
-killing internal market-
-workers feeling overtaxed for no returns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping , http://chinascope.org/archives/31432)
-social mobility perceived as based on corruption and nepotism
-rapid formation of huge conglomerates and decline of small and middle-sized economic actors (big have lobbing power)
-collapsing internal house market, important because was the Chinese "retirement plan" for a huge share of population
-birthrate free-fall indicating huge internal social stress
This is not a Chinese only sin, Germany too and others are walking this path, this is the effect of mercantilism because it's a system of wealth pump based on external export obtained trough internal market compression, quite effective if you find "others" open to be spoiled!
Empires fall by implosion from internal inconsistencies and power concentration or simply by the entropic disease, their "death" is reached when become so unchanging and immutable that it can not react to new stimuli: when a new situation or event manifest the solution is more of the ones previously used because even if not efficient is the one that preserve the status quo!
Personally, I suspect that Roman Empire didn't "bleed dry" to China because we didn't see a corresponding "empowerment" of Chinese economy, Roman fell under their own weight as today we see the American Empire falling under its own weight and not bleeding dried by other (as happened to URSS).
American Empire is today pivotal to economy of other nations as buyer, sanctioning is his most powerful weapon because of this! (https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/06/24/bank-of-china-halts-payments-with-sanctioned-russian-lenders-kommersant-a85503)
Empire is the "Buyer of Last Resort" so mercantile economies are always depending on his whim, be free from empire need a for of autarchy and self-reliance....