Saturday 28 September 2019

Seven Decades Of Chinese Growth Now Bearing Fruit

The modern history of China is often a sad one, brutalised and exploited by the British Empire,
a fierce occupation by the Japanese during WW2 and a country that never fulfilled its potential until the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took over in 1949 although things never really improved under the new rulers for so long.
Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward saw tens of millions starve to death with The Cultural Revolution adding another two million to that grim toll in a bloodbath of ideological frenzy.
It was only when Mao died in 1976 that China under Deng Xiaoping began to flourish, loosening the grip of Communism and integrating into the global economy even if it never embraced Western capitalism.
In 1949, average life expectancy was 36 years and China's GDP was $30.55 billion where today, its GDP is $13.6 trillion and life expectancy is 77 years.
With each building on the successes of the previous leader towards making China the World leader, the current leader, Xi Jinping, has said that China is not changing to fit the World but the World is changing to fit China.
Military spending has increased 83% over the last decade to £170bn, the second largest in the World after the US and China has upgraded in every department of its military including it's nuclear arsenal which worries it's neighbours especially Taiwan although it has resisted becoming embroiled in any of the Western wars in places like Libya, Afghanistan and Syria and has not fought a war for over 40 years.
China's economy is second only to the US and is expected to overtake that imminently, a reason America under Donald Trump has attempted to curtail it with a trade war although Africa is where Chinese trading eyes are looking, China being one of Africa's greatest trading partners and growing at 20% per year according to consulting firm McKinsey.
As well as trade it exports expertise globally in infrastructure - especially in building roads, bridges, airports, railways, 5G internet and power stations. 
As for the World changing to fit China, Hollywood have rewritten films to show China if not in a good light then not in a bad one with one eye on the massive Chinese market and there has been a 20% rise in the UK alone of people learning Mandarin, pushed by the Government announcing plans to teach the language to school pupils.
The latest stage is an attempt to develop its image abroad with Xi Jinping developing China Global Television Network (CGTN), and expanded massively across the world, including a new hub in the UK and recruiting Western Broadcast journalists to make it appear slicker.
As 70 years of building are now bearing fruit, it will be a battle whether the West changes to fit China as Xi Jinping states or whether China will have to change, and reform, to fit in with the West and continue it's rise to the top seat.
As the UK was usurped by the US, an increasingly unpopular America run by an even more unpopular leader is being hunted down by China and could very soon find itself relegated behind an increasingly globally dominant China.

2 comments:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...

you are nice to the chicoms.

Mao KILLED millions.

Can you say it? He MURDERED millions...

Starvation didn't kill them.

the cultural revolution didn't kill millions.

MAO KILLED MILLIONS AND SOME SOURCES SAY MUCH LARGER NUMBERS THAN YOU USED...

they haven't embraced capitalism... the hell they haven't. they just don't let the citizenry have it. they still used forced labor for their citizens.

are you actually celebrating their military build up? let's hope you don't live long enough to see it in action. the Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and South Koreans are scared shitless... India too...

that is not Trump's motive. He has said many times he thinks his predecessors gave away the game and he is just trying to level the playing field.

the US did not usurp the UK. Yawl gave it away - not that you could have maintained it anyway...

did you forget to mention that the chinese people do not have:
- right to free speech or worship
- right to bare arms for self defense
- right to privacy
- right to due process in court
- right to leave the country
- right to democratic self rule

Plus,
- when did they get rid of the one child policy?
- what is the air quality in china?
- what is the poverty rate in china?
- what does poverty in china look like compared to poverty in the USA or Europe?
- how is the wealth in china distributed?
- do they have a free press?

are you working for the chinese?

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...

the people have gained much economically compared to the horror they had before - though the leaders have gained thousands times more (typical leftist leaders), all the people lack is individual liberty and basic human rights... then of course there were the MANY MILLIONS MAO MURDERED...