There is a lot of talks about the invest-ability of chinese businesses. Most are discussing it in terms of capital allocations and how an autocratic regime might change a situation with the snap of the fingers, and they cannot understand why these actions are taken other than to say ‘they are just crazy’. I would be highly suspicious of such a superficial analysis.
I am NOT here to argue whether China is invest able or not. You will not understand what is going on there using simple capitalistic arguments. China knows how to use capitalistic means very well but it has to be consistent with its national interests. Not everything is about money. A broader view is required.
We should understand China’s actions as part of strategies to counter the US influence both on the international and its domestic scene. The internal actions are taken to support the external actions but also to course correct and to move away from any external influences that may lead to disunity or fragmentation within (see below).
Investments in China can only improve if US-China relations improve.
The US wants to contain China for two reasons:
- it cannot accept another hegemon (Monroe doctrine). It still wants to pass its boats off the coast of the PRC in the Taiwan Strait without contest.
- The US believes that all national states ought to be democratic in the western sense. It applies continual pressure and hopes for a collapse of strong autocratic states. A Fukiyama moment, finally?
China has stood up (to take Mao’s), and grown. It is still seeking its place in an international system. It wants to be part of a multi-polar world, and will be a significant pole if not in the world in Asia.
Internally, it will do what it needs to do to keep the country together and to develop it. It wants to shine on the outside and improve its inside.
‘Eat or drink bitterness’ that is not a Xi’s saying. It is a chinese saying. The Chinese people has had many hardships throughout its long history. They took it. They were resilient. They were self-sufficient. They survived, and they thrived, maybe like Jensen said during his recent Stanford talk because they experienced hardship, they were then able to so thrive. However the cycle in the case of China can be very long. To the long term thinkers: it is longer than you think.
Xi said it recently because the external environment has changed against China, and chinese people should prepare for it and batten down the hatches.
Of all the governments of China some have been better than others. All of those have been formed by Chinese or sinicized people in a continuum. One of the government’s main goal is to keep China together. That has been the case ever since Qin Shi Huang more than 2000 years ago. So when you say, the PRC is doing whatever for its own survival, it is because it is also about the survival of China. Currently the government of China is the PRC and the Chinese people wants to keep it together.
Imagine a place larger than Europe and as diverse but under a single government. That is China. It is not an easy task to govern and to hold it together. This what the Chineses have done for millennia, and it forged in time a culture much more homogeneous than in Europe. So, sure the current chinese government wants to continue naturally.
Btw, Jensen and his family did not flee anywhere. They immigrated to the US from the Republic of China. Like most immigrant families, the 1st and 2nd generation had to work very hard to improve their situation. That is a generic traits of most if not all immigrants. However Jensen is chinese, and chinese immigrants anywhere are mostly very hard working folks who put a premium towards education, and have a capacity to take a lot of hardship. They take it because they know that they will succeed.
tj
that is what started it all.