The Qianlong-Dilemma

After reading Eric Li’s piece in Global Times, Modernity's grip challenged by China's rise, it drew me once again to a recurring question I’m getting into the habit of asking people,

“Outside of China’s rapid monetization …. that’s MONETIZATION not modernization, of its land and human capital, how exactly is China’s rise manifested?

Where is China leading the world?

Li certainly seems to think that China’s rise is more than just economic. He alludes to other great qualities of the historical Chinese nation that needs to be openly debated in the modern Chinese nation. This really goes to the heart of the question I keeping asking without getting a satisfactory answer,

Just what is rising China offering?

What does China, the great nation, represent outside of economic mercantilism run by an elite, authoritarian board of aloof directors?

Li and other commentators emphatically refer to China offering an alternative way to the West’s liberal democracy and universal rights but always seem to fall short of suggesting just exactly what that is.

Oddly, Li uses Emperor Qianlong to make his point that the days of Western supremacy are numbered in the face of what he calls a “credible” alternative from a rising China. From where I’m standing, the mistakes of Qianlong certainly are a good lesson for modern day China, but Li has got his simile all topsy-turvy. Rather than the West facing a modern day version of the Qianlong-Dilemma, it is in my view history repeating itself once again with the top echelons of the Chinese ruling elite closing themselves off to what the outside world is offering. This time, instead of it being knick-knacks, today it is the free flow of ideas from other countries that is being sanctioned and held at arms length by the xenophobic Chinese ruling class.

Just as Emperor Qianlong decreed that the great Chinese nation had no need off anything McCartney was offering, likewise it is all too familiar to hear the CCP decree that Chinese people have no need for concepts like, universal human rights, individual freedoms, freedom of the press, freedom of association and freedom of information and anything else that challenges its dominance. According to the CCP, and just like Qianlong, anything that China needs can be found within China’s vast lands and long history.

Qianlong closed the door to trade and sealed China’s fate. Likewise the CCP’s main job these days seems to be closing doors and sealing up cracks to cocoon itself and the Chinese nation from any untoward outside influence it deems polluted. Crazily, the latest Internet search block in China is former president’s Jiang Zemin health! It would seem that there are no limits to the CCP paranoia and rather than learning from Qianlong’s mistake they are exceeding him in his pious, insular tendencies.

We all know what happened to Qianlong and his descendants and it remains to be seen how the princely descendents of the CCP will deal with this new 21^st century “fork in the road”.

Open up or close up … what’s it going to be CCP?

Or maybe they can open up some parts of China but keep the majority of it under tight control? Well, that’s been done before and we all know what an unmitigated disaster that was.

Which brings us around to my initial question again. If China is so keen to shutdown outside ideas, what is China offering in their stead? When McCartney turned up on Qianlong’s doorstep with his ships full of 18^th century oddities we all knew what the West was trying to peddle and that remains the same today. Writer after writer are happy to spill pots of ink proclaiming that China doesn’t need these ideas to become great. However, the inkpot seems to dry up once it is time to offer the alternatives. Of course Li would proffer that China first needs to confidently debate its great history and treasure trove of ideas and then present them to an expectant world in a coherent way. Which seems to be relying on history a little too much as a means in itself. As the age old saying goes, “history waits for no man”. Likewise the world neither has the patience of the inclination for China to engage in a great debate upon what righteous ideology it wishes to bring to the table. The world is looking at China now and assessing what it stands for NOW, not in the past or the future … NOW.

So, the CCP’s short-sighted policy of, “making China number one by any means,” and then deal with the consequences later really isn’t indicative of a major, future power that has the potential to usurp the West. We are constantly told that the Chinese civilization stands for harmony, benevolent rule and peaceful coexistence, but when we look at the China the CCP has created we see none of these. Do we have to take it on faith alone that the CCP will get around to the “good stuff” just as soon as they’ve quelled all dissent, maximized all profits and utilized all resources in the making of their interpretation of an urban utopia? Until this day comes, you can forget about harmony and peaceful existence… and benign rule? Well, that’s just not practical in a time of national development.

China’s time maybe approaching but look what the CCP is blatantly engaging in as it so vociferously rejects Western values

• Systemic corruption
• Entrenched cronyism
• Paranoid isolationism
• Personal repression
• And a cavalier development at any cost

Are these the factors that make up the CCP's credible, alternative world view?

It reminds me of an old 1980s advert from the US, where an old woman would visit her local fast food restaurant and scream,

“Where’s the beef?”

Insinuating that the burger contained little or no beef. In the case of China, where is China’s beef? What does it stand for? What qualities does the CCP practice at home and export abroad?

That’s an open question… please feel free to answer it