Why is China Winning - Arnaud Bertrand
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This article is a good example of arriving at the right conclusion (China is indeed "winning" in most dimensions) based on wrong reasoning: the West isn't de-industrialising in the quest for Net-Zero, it's de-industrialising itself because of greed, foolish ideological geopolitics and hubris. Germany is a case in point: what's driving its de-industrialisation is because its economic model was based on two things, cheap energy from Russia and the Chinese market. And foolish geopolitics made it sever its relations with Russia and it's currently in the process of doing the same thing with China, its biggest customer, whom it constantly antagonizes for ideological reasons and because it is subservient to interests which aren't its own. Or take the US: it's not "Net Zero" that drove its de-industrialisation, but imperialism, greed and hubris.
The belief that it could stop making anything real itself, subcontract the doing to "cheap labor" countries that it'd pay in US dollars that would anyhow flow back its way when those countries used these dollars to finance Americans' debt-fueled living standards. This obviously required that all these countries be subjugated to the US, which is why it pursued a strategy of worldwide military hegemony. This worked until it didn't and countries like China predictably started a) going up the value chain instead of remaining "cheap labor" forever and b) refused to change their political system to one under the US's thumb. Which means that China is "winning" because contrary to Germany (and most other Western countries) it insisted on remaining sovereign instead of being subjugated to the US, acting pragmatically in the interests of its people as opposed to Washington's.
And contrary to America it didn't embark on a foolish journey of trying to subjugate others and convert them ideologically but instead remained ruthlessly focused on improving itself, doing business with everyone regardless of ideology and spending absolutely nothing on military adventures abroad. So yes China is winning but no, it ain't because the West is "woke" or whatever but because its historical model of hegemony which worked during 250 years has now become untenable in a multipolar world. It will now have to do the hard work of pragmatically improving itself, and of understanding others as opposed to subjugating them. It hasn't understood that yet (as this article illustrates), let alone started the work, so it's going to take a while... Src for the article: telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10…
