Mumbai: According to foreign policy experts like Brahma Chellaney, China now faces a lasting damage to its image – and possibly to its economic interests. While another geopolitical observer Bill Chen on Quora remarked that the greatest threat to China, is the Chinese people themselves! While the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think-tank in its report of 2011 on strengths and weaknesses of China, feels that China’s penchant to do anything to win, which includes others games could prove its undoing in the long run.
In the aftermath of the outbreak of the outbreak of the Corona virus from China, these prophecies seem to be coming true. It is little wonder then since March 27, China has tried to block any debate in the United Nations on Corona virus.
In series of tweets in recent days noted geopolitical observer Brahma Chellaney remarked “China faces lasting damage to its image – and possibly to its economic interests. The man made calamity has fueled an unparalleled global crisis whose costs will continue to mount for weeks. But once countries ride out the crisis, there will be reckoning”.
Taking pot-shots at China’s new ‘Health Silk Road’ (HSR) cover-up for its faltering ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, Chellaney on March 30 tweeted “conjuring up the image of a ‘Health Silk Road’ is just one example of how Beijing, through a well-oiled propaganda machine, is seeking to rewrite the history of a China-originating pandemic. By the way, can its ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative (OBOR), now be called ‘One Belt, One Virus”. This was in response to the tweet by China’s Xinhua News Agency (@XHNews) on Health Silk Road.
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Chellaney was equally unsparing of the World Health Organisations (WHO) handling of the pandemic. In a tweet he remarked “Japan is the world’s third largest funder of the UN and its agencies. Nothing better illustrates the WHO’s credibility problem than Japanese deputy Prime Minister statement that many people worry that the agency’s acronym may have to change from WHO to CHO (Chinese Health Organisation)”.
Bill Chen however, in his comments on Quora on March 27, feels that “the greatest threat to China is the Chinese people themselves. History has repeatedly proven the fact. It took Quin 650 years and 36 generations to unify the country, yet it was undone multiple times from within, in the two millennia after, and the mandate from the heaven even passed into hands of foreign conquerors, several times. Once torn apart, it takes a long time to make whole again, as repeated cycles of dynastic collapse have shown”.
According to Chen, “modern China has huge inequality. China has vastly different socioeconomic conditions. For example, smart phone penetration is only about 50% and there are still tens of millions who live in abject poverty – the poorest of the poor for whom hunger is the real problem”.
Pointing to the Chinese regimes dictatorial repressive ways, he adds “how do you keep a society from breaking up if hundreds of millions do not enjoy or can even relate to the prosperity of their costal compatriots? By keeping a tight rein on things. China spends more on internal security than defence, which clearly shows where the priority lies. This is why China is very sensitive to politicization of any social issues”.
The CAP in its report of January 14, 2011 feels that China’s penchant for taking short-cuts to achieve progress while undermining others often through stealth and deceit could well prove to be its undoing in the long run. The CAP argues that the tremendous growth achieved by China in terms of its technology products is often refinements (reverse engineering) of imported pre-existing technologies. “China courts foreign companies to move their manufacturing facilities, (to China), then coerces those companies to share their technology with the state”.
Despite, China spending billions of dollars in Research and Development (R&D) and increase in patent applications, the CAP points out “many of the Chinese institutions of higher education receiving governmental R&D grant money experience alarmingly high rates of academic dishonesty. And even when instances of scientific misconduct are exposed, the government agencies responsible for dispensing grant money are given little incentive to pursue or punish such allegations”.
While many point towards the vast labour force that is available in abundance now and low wages that is powering its growth, CAP opines that China’s cheap labour is going to run out soon. As its citizens are becoming wealthier and fewer workers are remaining in the countryside, workers are becoming more vocal in their demands for higher wages, add to that the demographic reality of an aging population, the CAP feels “China’s days as the cheap-labor factory floor of the world will draw to a close”. The findings appear to be a grim reminder to the fate that awaits Indian businesses who shifted their production base in China.
The CAP adds that while China has been heavily investing in its own innovation engine, it argues that its investment policies are plagued by ‘mal-investment’ or are poorly planned. It argues that heavy investment in highly speculative real estate development has resulted in creation of ‘Ghost Cities’, new metropolises eerily absent of inhabitants. It further adds that as China’s population growth begins to taper off, the demand for this real estate is bound to fall, offsetting gains made in other sectors of the economy.
While most attribute China’s phenomenal growth to a strong central government, the CAP opines that China often delegates substantial authority to its provincial and local governments and does not maintain necessary oversight. Besides, the absence of any opposition and a free press is sorely lacking in cases like over-investment in real estate that has created Ghost Cities around China.
