5. A gradual shift from a Western to an Eastern model of society
5.2. Toward a world confederation of regional blocs (REBS)
The Western centric world institutions, created after the 2nd World War, did not adapt to a changing Geo-political reality. Western countries have been resisting the institutional reset that naturally should have followed the shifting of the center of gravity of the economy-world towards East-Asia. Under necessity the world is now starting to turn toward an alternative institutional setting to accomplish what the international institutions no longer can. Along the last decades we observed the the first timid steps of the re-organization of the world, into Regional Economic Blocs (REBs) and the twenties, of this 21th century, will see an acceleration of that process.
Resisting a changing reality has always been a losing proposition. The geo-political reality has unfolded ever further away from a paralyzed Western centric world order. East-Asia is in an advanced stage of transformation and is becoming the dominant REB. Faced with the shift of the economy-world to East-Asia he US is retreating locally from the geo-political reality. As a consequence the Western centric world order is now completely out of order and the resulting political chaos is endangering world peace.
Societal evolution and changing geo-political contexts are natural processes that are out of humanity’s control. The fact is that the present geo-political order is no longer adapted to the present context but the interrelations of nations-states have still not matured to the point that negotiations between state actors could lead to a compromise on a new architecture. The necessity and the urgency to preserve world peace are furthermore fostering a very particular geo-political context in which, in all rationality, a World War is excluded while tensions nevertheless continue to simmer.
5.2.1. REBs are the only stable institutions left
In the present context, of a crumbling Western world order, the existing Regional Economic Blocks (REBs) are the only stable institutions left. The national responses to the corona-virus pandemic showed, for the whole world to see, the shocking contrast between East-Asia’s effective governance and the radically incompetence of the West. East-Asia’s response to the corona-virus will be described, in future history books, as the turning point that started to unify the nations of this earth around the idea of mandating the East-Asia REG to lead the world’s response to the 3 factors of humanity’s predicament in Late-Modernity :
- the present contradictions of the governance-world
- the convergence of the multiple side-effects of Modernity
- the end of Modernity and the emergence of a new way of life in After-Modernity
This thought is driving the West completely nuts and its politicians are losing their minds at the idea that China could be seen leading East-Asia in guiding the world out of its predicament. But China is not seeking to run the world. It is searching for a pragmatic way out of the world’s predicament. Something that would benefit the whole of humanity. The fact is that the nations of this earth are not yet ready to mandate the East-Asia REG to lead the world’s response. Two views are in competition :
In matter of fact China does not want to ‘rule the world’ and it does not care about a ‘Chinese century’. This is indeed not part of the Chinese societal DNA. But how could Western powers know when they are constantly glorifying their exceptional provincialism. Their accusations are founded in their ignorance of ‘the other’ and so they can only project upon China the behaviors that they themselves would manifest if they were in China’s shoes. This kind of attitude will soon come to be seen as unacceptable by the entirety of our species. The citizens of this earth want results, they want solutions to the 3 factors of humanity’s predicament in Late-Modernity.
Necessity is the mother of all inventions and the first necessity that we are facing today as a species is survival. I trust that the ‘instinct of life’ will soon force humanity to act innovatively and responsibly in order to successfully answer the 3 factors of humanity’s predicament. We know for a fact that such an answer can be nothing else than a global answer that is applied locally at the scale of the earth. My thesis is that under the urgency of necessity the REGs will automatically converge on the idea of a REGs deliberative confederation…
“ On the one end of the spectrum, that view is put forward by Kishore Mahbubani, a former Singaporean diplomat and an influential thinker, who recently argued in an article for The Economist magazine that the pandemic could mark the start of an Asian century led by China. (…)
On the other end of the spectrum are right-wing commentators in the US like Tucker Carlson of Fox News, who claimed Beijing had taken advantage of the chaos to advance its plan to ‘rule the world’. He too said the disaster could herald ‘a new Chinese century’. (1)
Necessity is the mother of all inventions and the first necessity that we are facing today as a species is survival. I trust that the ‘instinct of life’ will soon force humanity to act innovatively and responsibly in order to successfully answer the 3 factors of humanity’s predicament. We know for a fact that such an answer can be nothing else than a global answer that is applied locally at the scale of the earth. My thesis is that under the urgency of necessity the REGs will automatically converge on the idea of a REGs deliberative confederation…
5.2.2. our primate ‘grape-cucumber moment’
Modernity, from a historical perspective, emerged in Western Europe. From there it further developed geographically into European territorial extensions (US, Canada, Latin-America, Australia,…). And its further dazzling economic development cycles forced the rest of the world to follow suit, sometime along the twentieth century, in order to survive the Western driven onslaught.
But, while all nations on earth were subscribing one after the other to Modernity, the fabric of its Western center of gravity was fraying. Representative democracy incentivized diverse interest groups to lobby the political decision-makers in the hope of gaining decisions favorable to their interests. The lobbying by interest groups, chief among them the big capital holders, first resulted in a patchwork of social groupings that grew isolated from one another and resulted in the fragmentation of Western societies.
Later, under the pressure of the big capital holders, the successful implementation of the neo-liberal agenda dismantled Western ‘State protective institutions’ : ‒ social, ‒ environmental, ‒ health, ‒ education, ‒ and other institutions that protect society and the citizens from imbalances originating in the market. This was accompanied by a heavy propaganda that projected a dualistic narrative (good vs evil) glorifying the individual while debasing state institutions. This dualistic propaganda resulted in the elimination of most state protective institutions while its twisting of the minds resulted in a hyper-individualism that kept the individuals glued in front of their screens.
Finally the public answers to the corona-virus amplified the individual sense of isolation and separation while the need for social protection was maximized as a consequence of the Covid-19 sickness and the closure of the national economies. Gross National Products collapsed and job losses jumped to some 50 million in the USA during the span of a short 10 weeks.
Coming out of isolation it downed on the unemployed that as a result of the elimination of state protective institutions they are now on their own. Life for them has suddenly transformed into a struggle to survive. Anger started boiling in the kitchens and is waiting for an opportunity to explode in the open. A few days ago a video on YouTube, showing the live suffocation by a white police agent of a black Minnesota citizen, acted like the match that sets ablaze a mountain of accumulated dry frustrations.
The mainstream media has been focusing on the racial tension, between the white policeman and its black victim, as if they wanted to hide the primary cause of these accumulated dry frustrations. Race in this particular instance is merely the form taken by a brutal murder that was televised for all to see. The atrocity of this murder than acted as a pin that pricks a balloon of anger. The anger was the cause of that chain of events. Western societies had indeed transferred cash, within the last few weeks, from their central banks to their billionaires which had the effect of growing their wealth by more than 20% while more than 50 million citizens were losing their jobs. Here is how Jim Cramer host of CNBC‘s “Mad Money” describes what just happened :
The really significant thing, in the state’s handling of the pandemic, is that it appeared to be fighting a class war in the name of Western big capital holders against the citizenry which resulted in a vast increase of what was already an intolerable level of social inequality. This is the monkey ‘grape-cucumber moment’ of Western societies (3) when the 99% are manifesting their rage against what is viewed morally as being an inhumane and unacceptable society.
Now the burning dry frustrations of the 99% are spreading the fire from city to city and America followed by the whole West are on fire now :
What is most interesting is that the enemy who fights the Western people, in the US and Britain, is not the internationalist big capital faction. It is its nationalist faction that is seconded by its national servants. In this particular case it is Trump and his state servants who are the enemy of the people. The richest members of the internationalist faction have already their homes abroad and, understanding that the societal contradictions have reached a moment of truth, the others are ready to leave at the first sign of danger. Western nationalists want to use force to impose their authority while the internationalists act like rats jumping from a sinking ship.
Far away from America, in Hong Kong, the fire is similarly being entertained by the economic frustration of the working citizens. Big capital there is also mostly in the internationalist camp but, at the difference from America, it wants to stay put in Hong-Hong because next door, in mainland China, is where the bulk of the world’s profits are going to be generated over the next decades. The Hong Kong big capital holders accumulated their capital inside Hong Kong by owning the political decision making process. The rules of the game were thus stacked, since the start of the liberation from Britain, against the citizens and it is these rules that impoverished the population and infused a sense of injustice in the minds of the younger generations.
It is only recently, with the Chinese economic explosion, that Hong Kong big capital holders put their eyes on looting the Chinese Mainland. They are still legally based in Hong Kong and in a game of mirrors they deflect popular anger by reflecting it on the Chinese authorities. But this is kind of a dangerous game and this danger transformed them from nationalists into internationalists. In their eyes China is the big price and they have ensured their backs in Hong Kong by buying citizenship titles in various Western countries like Canada, Britain, the US or other.
Those who are going to feel obliged to leave Hong-Kong are its younger working citizens who burnt down their mountain of dry frustrations during the demonstrations of 2019. Not much is left to burn nowadays. The mainland has furthermore announced a national security addendum to Hong-Kong's constitution that will inevitably target some of the organizers of future demonstrations. So many of Hong-Kong’s politically active younger working professionals are feeling that the only path forward is the emigration route to Taiwan, to Britain, or other destinations.
These 2 examples illustrate contextual similarities and differences between the US and Hong-Kong that will have significant consequences for their future :
But, while all nations on earth were subscribing one after the other to Modernity, the fabric of its Western center of gravity was fraying. Representative democracy incentivized diverse interest groups to lobby the political decision-makers in the hope of gaining decisions favorable to their interests. The lobbying by interest groups, chief among them the big capital holders, first resulted in a patchwork of social groupings that grew isolated from one another and resulted in the fragmentation of Western societies.
Later, under the pressure of the big capital holders, the successful implementation of the neo-liberal agenda dismantled Western ‘State protective institutions’ : ‒ social, ‒ environmental, ‒ health, ‒ education, ‒ and other institutions that protect society and the citizens from imbalances originating in the market. This was accompanied by a heavy propaganda that projected a dualistic narrative (good vs evil) glorifying the individual while debasing state institutions. This dualistic propaganda resulted in the elimination of most state protective institutions while its twisting of the minds resulted in a hyper-individualism that kept the individuals glued in front of their screens.
Finally the public answers to the corona-virus amplified the individual sense of isolation and separation while the need for social protection was maximized as a consequence of the Covid-19 sickness and the closure of the national economies. Gross National Products collapsed and job losses jumped to some 50 million in the USA during the span of a short 10 weeks.
Coming out of isolation it downed on the unemployed that as a result of the elimination of state protective institutions they are now on their own. Life for them has suddenly transformed into a struggle to survive. Anger started boiling in the kitchens and is waiting for an opportunity to explode in the open. A few days ago a video on YouTube, showing the live suffocation by a white police agent of a black Minnesota citizen, acted like the match that sets ablaze a mountain of accumulated dry frustrations.
The mainstream media has been focusing on the racial tension, between the white policeman and its black victim, as if they wanted to hide the primary cause of these accumulated dry frustrations. Race in this particular instance is merely the form taken by a brutal murder that was televised for all to see. The atrocity of this murder than acted as a pin that pricks a balloon of anger. The anger was the cause of that chain of events. Western societies had indeed transferred cash, within the last few weeks, from their central banks to their billionaires which had the effect of growing their wealth by more than 20% while more than 50 million citizens were losing their jobs. Here is how Jim Cramer host of CNBC‘s “Mad Money” describes what just happened :
“… that’s the thing with this pandemic it has been one of the greatest wealth transfers in history and it’s a wealth transfer that was mandated by the state.” (2)
The really significant thing, in the state’s handling of the pandemic, is that it appeared to be fighting a class war in the name of Western big capital holders against the citizenry which resulted in a vast increase of what was already an intolerable level of social inequality. This is the monkey ‘grape-cucumber moment’ of Western societies (3) when the 99% are manifesting their rage against what is viewed morally as being an inhumane and unacceptable society.
Now the burning dry frustrations of the 99% are spreading the fire from city to city and America followed by the whole West are on fire now :
“ The act of looting is a long-standing American tradition, dating back to the theft of Native lands and African enslavement. And today, while wealthy people don’t loot strip malls, they are adept at looting natural resources and labor, from the coalfields of West Virginia to Jeff Bezo’s Amazon warehouses. The poor, exerting their nominal power—even in a destructive and violent manner—display an entirely natural reaction to a continually powerless state of being. For them, looting is a cry for help, an expression of hopelessness.” (4)
What is most interesting is that the enemy who fights the Western people, in the US and Britain, is not the internationalist big capital faction. It is its nationalist faction that is seconded by its national servants. In this particular case it is Trump and his state servants who are the enemy of the people. The richest members of the internationalist faction have already their homes abroad and, understanding that the societal contradictions have reached a moment of truth, the others are ready to leave at the first sign of danger. Western nationalists want to use force to impose their authority while the internationalists act like rats jumping from a sinking ship.
Far away from America, in Hong Kong, the fire is similarly being entertained by the economic frustration of the working citizens. Big capital there is also mostly in the internationalist camp but, at the difference from America, it wants to stay put in Hong-Hong because next door, in mainland China, is where the bulk of the world’s profits are going to be generated over the next decades. The Hong Kong big capital holders accumulated their capital inside Hong Kong by owning the political decision making process. The rules of the game were thus stacked, since the start of the liberation from Britain, against the citizens and it is these rules that impoverished the population and infused a sense of injustice in the minds of the younger generations.
It is only recently, with the Chinese economic explosion, that Hong Kong big capital holders put their eyes on looting the Chinese Mainland. They are still legally based in Hong Kong and in a game of mirrors they deflect popular anger by reflecting it on the Chinese authorities. But this is kind of a dangerous game and this danger transformed them from nationalists into internationalists. In their eyes China is the big price and they have ensured their backs in Hong Kong by buying citizenship titles in various Western countries like Canada, Britain, the US or other.
Those who are going to feel obliged to leave Hong-Kong are its younger working citizens who burnt down their mountain of dry frustrations during the demonstrations of 2019. Not much is left to burn nowadays. The mainland has furthermore announced a national security addendum to Hong-Kong's constitution that will inevitably target some of the organizers of future demonstrations. So many of Hong-Kong’s politically active younger working professionals are feeling that the only path forward is the emigration route to Taiwan, to Britain, or other destinations.
These 2 examples illustrate contextual similarities and differences between the US and Hong-Kong that will have significant consequences for their future :
Contextual similarities between Hong-Kong & the US :
- rat race and inequality :
Citizens are made captives of a tightly controlled real estate credit scheme that leaves no room for anything else than work, work, and more work … Primatologist Franz Dewaal shows us that inequity is a sentiment shared, with us humans, by primates. Check “What happens when you pay two monkeys unequally? Watch what happens”. In the human case this ends up like these “Los Angeles streets on fire amid demonstrations”. The demonstrations of 2019 have definitely awakened the political elites in Hong-Kong to the urgent necessity to facilitate the acquisition by young couples of more reasonably priced dwellings. It is thus expected that new measures will soon be put in place that are meant to abate the anxiety of the younger generations.
In the West this rat race results in “50% of Millennials moving back Home with their parents after college”. Generation Z has high Student loan debts and experiences difficulties finding good paying jobs which is compounded by high housing costs. This results in difficulties saving money and so the reason for living with parents. Losing their jobs during the pandemic was the last straw that freed their rage at the televised images of Minneapolis. The Intercept reports that students and faculty from the U.S. military war colleges had already been conducting war games to test how to handle the launch of a protest movement by generation Z :
The reality on the ground ran faster than the projections. But the projections by the military confirm the reality of the disaffection of generation Z from the rat race which gives credence to the idea that the societal atomization of Western nations is a process that leads to collapse for which the powers that be have no other answers than the use of force.“ Documents obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act reveal that a Pentagon war game, called the 2018 Joint Land, Air and Sea Strategic Special Program, or JLASS, offered a scenario in which members of Generation Z, driven by malaise and discontent, launch a “Zbellion” in America in the mid-2020s. (…)
According to the scenario, many members of Gen Z — psychologically scarred in their youth by 9/11 and the Great Recession, crushed by college debt, and disenchanted with their employment options — have given up on their hopes for a good life and believe the system is rigged against them. (…)
In early 2025, a cadre of these disaffected Zoomers launch a protest movement. Beginning in “parks, rallies, protests, and coffee shops” — first in Seattle; then New York City; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Las Vegas; and Austin — a group known as Zbellion begins a “global cyber campaign to expose injustice and corruption and to support causes it deem[s] beneficial ”. (5)
- dualism in social conditions :
Big capital holders became excessively rich by exploiting the last drop of blood and sweat of the working citizens. And central banks’ initiated policies to counter the corona-virus was one more opportunity to extract some more wealth from the working middle-class for distribution to the big capital holders whose wealth, as a result, accrued by some 25%, or over $US 550 billion, while over 50 million Americans lost their jobs. A dualism that extreme can only provoke strong resentment and eventually violence.
The same can be said of the living conditions in Hong Kong of the younger generations. Dual social conditions, in the West, are inevitably shrinking societal cohesion to the point that societal reproduction becomes hazardous and the last resort for the elites is then the use of state force which translates in totalitarianism. The spontaneous response is then popular revolt but it is never a match for state force. State force can only be broken ‒ or by a successful social revolution ‒ or by a societal collapse resulting in the rule of nature directing the further path of societal evolution.
Contextual differences between Hong-Kong & the US :
- emigration :
In Hong-Kong it is young professionals who are leaving, while in the US it is big capital holders and their professional servants who are departing their nation of origin. The influence on Hong-Kong of this emigration will be nil. China will indeed supply any quantity of happy replacements. In contrast the emigration of big capital holders and their professional servants from the US will have an ever deeper negative impact on internal investment, high-end consumption, and the technology savvy which bode ill of the idea of ‘Make America Great Again’.
-
Immigration desirability :
Whatever the Western media may peddle as non-sense the fact is that Hong-Kong, in the future, will largely maintain its attractiveness for foreign investors and individuals. There will be no substantial difference in Hong-Kong’s way of life, after the application of the national security constitutional addendum, other than eventually a higher sense of political stability that will vastly enhance the business climate and the touristic attractiveness of the city in the years ahead. China has indeed the wisdom to be satisfied with the security of its one nation and it is not wanting to touch the working of its second system.
The US will experience the opposite of Hong-Kong. The images of the live suffocation in Minneapolis appeared so extremely disturbing for foreign viewers that their perception about the US radically changed. The attractiveness of the country was indeed badly hurt and this will result in shorter immigration lines in the future which will cut the traditional source of the country’s free supply of top scientists and technologists.
In sum Hong-Kong’s immigration attractiveness should soon be boosted while few people will feel attracted to move to the US during the coming years. This will definitely have a determinant impact on the economic dynamism of both Hong-Kong and the US albeit in opposite directions.
More generally the reset of the center of gravity of the economy-world is impulsing a worldwide process of changing life conditions that is rapidly redrawing the internal dynamics of the REBs. And so a re-balancing of the relative economic might of the REBs is taking place that will inevitably help to stabilize ‒ the economic dominance of East-Asia and ‒ the new world order that is slowly emerging from that economic dominance.
The dominance of East-Asia, in matter of fact, finds its substance in China’s economic growth which is irresistible to its neighbors. The growth of the whole of East-Asia is indeed being pulled by China’s massive economy. The rest of the world is not absent economically from East-Asia but its impact is dwarfed by China’s. This reality is not lost on the rest of the world and China’s competitors are trying all they can to contain China’s continuous development by trying to put a wrench in its development and in its relations with the other nations of East-Asia.
Europe tries to lure Russia out of China’s embrace while the US is trying to expand the G7 to South Korea, India, and Australia. But all these attempts to divide East-Asia are bound to fail for the good reason that the size of China’s economy is rapidly going to be so overwhelming that all outside resistance will appear to be futile. And the economic reset following the destabilization provoked by the corona-virus is drastically shortening that moment of reckoning. The biggest world financial institutions now project that by 2030 China’s GDP calculated in dollars will have overtaken the US GDP and calculated in PPP terms it will be not far from 2 times the US GDP. And China’s distancing of the other powers is going to expand further over the whole 21st century.
More generally the reset of the center of gravity of the economy-world is impulsing a worldwide process of changing life conditions that is rapidly redrawing the internal dynamics of the REBs. And so a re-balancing of the relative economic might of the REBs is taking place that will inevitably help to stabilize ‒ the economic dominance of East-Asia and ‒ the new world order that is slowly emerging from that economic dominance.
The dominance of East-Asia, in matter of fact, finds its substance in China’s economic growth which is irresistible to its neighbors. The growth of the whole of East-Asia is indeed being pulled by China’s massive economy. The rest of the world is not absent economically from East-Asia but its impact is dwarfed by China’s. This reality is not lost on the rest of the world and China’s competitors are trying all they can to contain China’s continuous development by trying to put a wrench in its development and in its relations with the other nations of East-Asia.
Europe tries to lure Russia out of China’s embrace while the US is trying to expand the G7 to South Korea, India, and Australia. But all these attempts to divide East-Asia are bound to fail for the good reason that the size of China’s economy is rapidly going to be so overwhelming that all outside resistance will appear to be futile. And the economic reset following the destabilization provoked by the corona-virus is drastically shortening that moment of reckoning. The biggest world financial institutions now project that by 2030 China’s GDP calculated in dollars will have overtaken the US GDP and calculated in PPP terms it will be not far from 2 times the US GDP. And China’s distancing of the other powers is going to expand further over the whole 21st century.
5.2.3 On the assembling of a world confederation of REBs
The dynamic reset of the economy-world has not been accompanied until now by a corresponding reset of the world order. The Western political world does indeed not accept to reform the international institutions because it does not want to transfer some of its prerogatives to the newly emerging large economic actors. But this does not stop the dynamic economic reset and to satisfy its rising institutional needs the national actors, by necessity to conform to reality, fall back on alternative regional institutions that portend a new international architecture in the near future that will be based on the interactions between Regional Economic Blocks (REBs).
The Corona-virus deflated the bubble of everything unleashed by the central banks and the world enters now in an economic depression that, in all probability, will last a decade or more. But some nations are visibly faring better than others and this is accelerating the formation of the new geo-political architecture that has been simmering over the last decades.
The retreat by the US, under President Trump, from the international order that it assembled after the 2nd World War is accelerating the formation of a new alignment between nations that shifts alliances based on political calculations of economic opportunity in the new context. The sanctions of the Anglo-world pushed Russia and China to join in a strategic partnership. The economic collapse of the US following the corona-virus outbreak now forces Europe to calculate where its economic interests will be best served. The EU is now thinking about ‒ canceling its sanctions on Russia and, ‒ entering into a free-trade agreement with China. The calculation is that its best interests should be served by opening avenues, for exports and investments by its corporations, towards East-Asia.
East-Asia is the REB at the center of this new geo-political architecture. It is unifying under the economic pull of the Chinese economy that absorbs the exports ‒ from the members of ASEAN on the South, ‒ from Japan and South-Korea on the East and ‒ soon the exports from the joint-ventures in the Far-Eastern Northern corridor between Mongolia, Russia, Japan, South-Korea, North-Korea and China. The whole of East-Asia is actively investing presently into a unified communication space (UCS)6 that will definitely integrate its territory into a unified regional entity that will come more to act internationally as a REB.
The whole of East-Asia will furthermore soon be concluding a free-trade agreement with Australia, New-Zealand, and India could join it in the coming years. Once signed the 15 member countries of this Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will represent over 30% of the world's GDP and China will represent over half of that. Pulled by China East-Asia, over the last decades, has been the most dynamic economic region of the world representing some 30% of the wold’s economic growth. It has also been the most successful area in defeating the first wave of the corona-virus which will help it grow faster than most other REBs over the coming decade and thus further increase its relative economic strength in comparison with the rest of the world.
On its Western border the ‘East-Asia REB’ is flanked by Pakistan and the Eurasian Economic Union (‘EEU REB’), that is powered by the Russian engine. China is investing heavily in communication corridors, in both the EEU and Pakistan, that will further inter-connect Iran and the Tri-Continental-Area, with East-Asia and the EEU thus shaping a Unified Communication Space (UCS) that will eventually be expanded to Europe and Africa.
The Corona-virus deflated the bubble of everything unleashed by the central banks and the world enters now in an economic depression that, in all probability, will last a decade or more. But some nations are visibly faring better than others and this is accelerating the formation of the new geo-political architecture that has been simmering over the last decades.
The retreat by the US, under President Trump, from the international order that it assembled after the 2nd World War is accelerating the formation of a new alignment between nations that shifts alliances based on political calculations of economic opportunity in the new context. The sanctions of the Anglo-world pushed Russia and China to join in a strategic partnership. The economic collapse of the US following the corona-virus outbreak now forces Europe to calculate where its economic interests will be best served. The EU is now thinking about ‒ canceling its sanctions on Russia and, ‒ entering into a free-trade agreement with China. The calculation is that its best interests should be served by opening avenues, for exports and investments by its corporations, towards East-Asia.
East-Asia is the REB at the center of this new geo-political architecture. It is unifying under the economic pull of the Chinese economy that absorbs the exports ‒ from the members of ASEAN on the South, ‒ from Japan and South-Korea on the East and ‒ soon the exports from the joint-ventures in the Far-Eastern Northern corridor between Mongolia, Russia, Japan, South-Korea, North-Korea and China. The whole of East-Asia is actively investing presently into a unified communication space (UCS)6 that will definitely integrate its territory into a unified regional entity that will come more to act internationally as a REB.
The whole of East-Asia will furthermore soon be concluding a free-trade agreement with Australia, New-Zealand, and India could join it in the coming years. Once signed the 15 member countries of this Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will represent over 30% of the world's GDP and China will represent over half of that. Pulled by China East-Asia, over the last decades, has been the most dynamic economic region of the world representing some 30% of the wold’s economic growth. It has also been the most successful area in defeating the first wave of the corona-virus which will help it grow faster than most other REBs over the coming decade and thus further increase its relative economic strength in comparison with the rest of the world.
On its Western border the ‘East-Asia REB’ is flanked by Pakistan and the Eurasian Economic Union (‘EEU REB’), that is powered by the Russian engine. China is investing heavily in communication corridors, in both the EEU and Pakistan, that will further inter-connect Iran and the Tri-Continental-Area, with East-Asia and the EEU thus shaping a Unified Communication Space (UCS) that will eventually be expanded to Europe and Africa.
The size of this UCS will dwarf the rest of the world in the following fields :
1. population : UCS = 6,771,966,761 versus the rest of the world 1,122,851,978
Graph 1 : UCS. Source worldometers. Modified by laodan
Graph 2 : Rest world. Source worldometers. Modified by laodan
2. gdp : UCS = 57,450,000,000 versus the rest of the world = 28,070,000,000
Graph 3 : UCS. Source : IMF. 30 June 2019. Modified by laodan
Graph 4 : Rest of the world. Source : IMF. 30 June 2019. Modified by laodan
The investments to create such a unified communication space (UCS) are undertaken primarily in order to help poorer countries, on China’s borders to develop economically. China will eventually recuperate its investments, in whole or in part, through the resulting increase of foreign trade. These investments are in no way meant to subjugate, the nations making up this UCS, as Western countries are quick to accuse China of colonial or imperial intentions. But when the West accuses China of such behaviors it merely projects what itself would do if it were in China’s shoes because it can’t start to imagine that China has another way of looking at things. China is a nation that lives and breathes along the lines of a radically different worldview than the West. The problem of the West is that it is intellectually lazy. Westerners don’t know China. They don’t have a clue about the worldview shared by all Chinese citizens nor do they know the axioms of its civilization. (7)
The fact of the matter is that during the whole span of 5000 years, since the start of its power society, China never colonized any outside nation. Notwithstanding this fact between 65 and 70% of its territory was nevertheless incorporated by outside conquerors who governed China by starting a Chinese power dynasty.
Kublai Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, vanquished the Chinese army and established the ‘Yuan dynasty’ that reigned over China, for approximately one century, from 1271 to 1368. The Yuan dynasty was the first non-Han Chinese dynasty to rule all of China and it expanded China to Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang.
Hong Taiji, the 2nd Kahn of the later Jin Dynasty, established the ‘Qing dynasty’ in 1636. By 1644 the dynasty reigned over all of China. In 1911 Puyi, the last emperor of the ‘Qing dynasty’, abdicated. During its reign the dynasty expanded China to its own Manchu territory, that today forms the 3 Northern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, while also consolidating China’s power over Taiwan, Mongolia (Outer-Mongolia annexed by Russia), Xinjiang, Tibet, Outer-Manchuria [annexed by Russia after the 2nd opium war.
The fact of the matter is that during the whole span of 5000 years, since the start of its power society, China never colonized any outside nation. Notwithstanding this fact between 65 and 70% of its territory was nevertheless incorporated by outside conquerors who governed China by starting a Chinese power dynasty.
Kublai Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, vanquished the Chinese army and established the ‘Yuan dynasty’ that reigned over China, for approximately one century, from 1271 to 1368. The Yuan dynasty was the first non-Han Chinese dynasty to rule all of China and it expanded China to Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang.
Hong Taiji, the 2nd Kahn of the later Jin Dynasty, established the ‘Qing dynasty’ in 1636. By 1644 the dynasty reigned over all of China. In 1911 Puyi, the last emperor of the ‘Qing dynasty’, abdicated. During its reign the dynasty expanded China to its own Manchu territory, that today forms the 3 Northern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, while also consolidating China’s power over Taiwan, Mongolia (Outer-Mongolia annexed by Russia), Xinjiang, Tibet, Outer-Manchuria [annexed by Russia after the 2nd opium war.
Map Source : Wikipedia
All in all the Qing Dynasty had increased China’s territory to a total of some 13 million sq. Km. But with the 2nd opium war and the unequal treaties imposed on China around 1860 it had to cede 3 million Sq. Km. To outside imperialist powers The map here under gives an overview of the territorial gain that China inherited from the invading Qing.
Author : Philg88. Attribution Wikimedia Foundation
The Chinese paradox, of territorial expansion through conquest by outside powers, is difficult to fathom for Westerners. Some go so far as “revisioning” history and accusing China of being an expansionist nation. But expansion means spreading out by taking from the outside to add to the inside. As the sketch presentation here above confirms this has not been what has happened. Some outsiders conquered China, combined their territory it to China’s original territory, and reigned over the whole while also sometimes adding foreign lands by conquest. The Qing reigned over China for nearly 300 years a period longer than the entire existence of the USA. How then to accuse China of expansionism for the increase of its territory when this expansion was realized by an invader Qing ?
Nowadays China is building up its military strength, not to conquer new territory but, to resist Western aggression. It learned the hard way, from the last 300 years, that only economic and military strength can protect from Western imperial aggression. What China ambitions to realize, in this 21st century, has nothing to do with such Western categories. Its ambition is two-fold :
• it wants to rejuvenate its nation to put to rest 3 shameful centuries of colonial destruction at the hands of a brutal imperialist West
• it wants to participate in “a community of nations that share a common destiny in a sustainable ecological future”. The idea being that to counter its predicament in Late-Modernity humanity has to learn to live with the systemic complexity of the interactions between the different sub-ensembles of the ensemble earth.
Nowadays China is building up its military strength, not to conquer new territory but, to resist Western aggression. It learned the hard way, from the last 300 years, that only economic and military strength can protect from Western imperial aggression. What China ambitions to realize, in this 21st century, has nothing to do with such Western categories. Its ambition is two-fold :
• it wants to rejuvenate its nation to put to rest 3 shameful centuries of colonial destruction at the hands of a brutal imperialist West
• it wants to participate in “a community of nations that share a common destiny in a sustainable ecological future”. The idea being that to counter its predicament in Late-Modernity humanity has to learn to live with the systemic complexity of the interactions between the different sub-ensembles of the ensemble earth.
_________
Notes
1. “Coronavirus leaves China to rule the world? Truth is, it’s neither ready nor willing” in SCMP by Wang Xiangwei. 2020-05-16.
2. “Jim Cramer: The pandemic led to 'one of the greatest wealth transfers in history”
3. “The ‘monkey cucumber grape’ test: fairness at work” in SkillPacks.
“Capuchin monkeys reject unequal pay” on YouTube by TVP University. 2012-12-15.“The new finding that even monkeys reject unequal pay is very important… it suggests that this is a very deeply rooted behavior that we observe among humans.” Ernst Fehr. Swiss economist.
4. “It’s a Class War now too” in ‘the unbalanced evolution of Homo Sapiens’ by Joshua Frank. 2020-06-02.
5. “Pentagon War Game Includes Scenario for Military Response to Domestic Gen Z Rebellion” in the Intercept by Nick Turse. 2020-06-06.
6. A Unified Communication Space (UCS) interconnects the territory of its national members by land and by sea through different means of communication : ‒ internet high speed long distance fiber optic cables that extend to regional 5G wireless networks, ‒ intelligent freeways for cars and trucks, ‒ high-speed trains for the transport of people and goods, pipelines transporting oil and gas, shipping lanes and ports and so on....
7. About civilizations, worldviews, and culture :
My thinking relies on a theoretical model of societal evolution that I derived as an analogy to biological evolution. A first version of this theoretical model was given in a series of articles titled “From Modernity to After-Modernity” that totals some 1500 pages in book format (see posts 199 to 237).
In this model a civilization relates to a societal approximation of reality that gives rise to a model of society relying on power as its organizational principle. The reign of civilizations started sometimes approximately 5000 years ago. The approximation of reality by a civilization is codified in the form of axioms that act as the civilizational foundations of its societies. In this understanding a civilization, in analogy to mathematics, relies on axioms as the starting truths upon which to further build its abstract logical system. And, in analogy to the abstract logical system of mathematics, societal worldviews are abstract logical systems of approximation about reality.
Societal worldviews are also the raw material used to build the walls and the roof of a civilizational house. That means that over time a civilization may come to regroup diverse societies having each developed their own logical system of approximation about reality that is rooted in the axioms of that civilization (Japan, Korea, China for example or France, Germany, and the European countries as another example). The sharing of a worldview by the citizens of a society enhances the societal cohesion of the group which is necessary for its societal reproduction over the long haul.
With time worldviews evolve and this evolution of worldviews is rooted in culture in its broad sense which is given by all the behaviors and ideas of the individuals in the present of a society. Culture is thus the life of a society in the present. Any observer of a given society views its culture like the decoration (design) that procures the present image of that society. The more knowledgeable observers know that a civilizational house may regroup different societal images.
Culture evolves from the present moment to the next present moment. And ‘Replicable cultural memes’, in one moment, set the path of societal evolution in analogy to ‘replicable genetic mutations’ that set the path of biological evolution. Memes are cultural mutations. Replicable cultural mutations are integrated in the societal worldview at the image of replicable genetic mutations that are integrated in the genetic code. The genetic code gives the biology while the societal worldview gives a society’s approximation of reality which is the indispensable instrument to ensure societal reproduction over the long haul.
No comments:
Post a Comment