THE ECONOMIST JUST DOESN'T GET IT

 

The British-based The Economist, widely considered to be a sort of Bible in the world of contemporary capitalism, just published a very interesting article about the growing rivalry between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China.

It is very enlightening and well-informed and may constitute the way the Western world see the enfolding event. Yet, a few notes and corrections are in order.

Some are somewhat minor. The article seems to imply that Hong Kong is not truly inside the political borders of continental China. It is true that it is a special administrative territory, with a autonomous status negotiated between the Chinese and the British governments before the 1997 reintegration with China, and supposedly guaranteed for many decades. It is also true China didn't remain true to its word, and engineered a crackdown resisted by most of the population. Still, the territory is undeniably an integral part of China.

More importantly, the article downplays the threat of war in Taiwan. China will quite probably try to grab back the island, seen as a rebellious province, in the coming years or decades. It is probably just a matter of time.

It must be said that the Chinese civil war of the first half of the XXth century is not yet over. There is still a last chapter to write about it, before closing that major period of history. The victory of the Communists led by Mao Zedong over the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-Chek didn't happen in 1949, as commonly believed, It really happened in 1950, when the People's Liberation Army took the island of Hainan, the next biggest in China, located to the south-west of Taiwan, not very farm from northern reaches of Vietnam. That event is largely forgotten today.

Hainan is close to the peninsula that lies to the south of Zhanjiang, the southernmost main naval base of the present Chinese Navy (PLAN), in Guangdong, and it was thus relatively easy for the Communists to land on the island and captured it. At that time, only the relatively large width of the Taiwan Strait saved Chiang Kai-Chek and its forces of the Kuomintang, that and the strength of the US Navy, America being of course closely allied with the Nationalists. That much is clear in retrospect.

Another weakness is that the article seems to misunderstood the real nature of the reconfiguration of alliances and coalitions presently taking shape between the two economic and military giants. The number of countries leaning strongly, moderately or slightly toward the United States, such as presented by The Economist, is mainly a reflection of what the Americans, and the Western World in general, presently expect or wish.

The end result of the current reconfiguration of forces, in what is beginning to be a bipolar world, even taking into account all the countries that will choose to be as neutral or no-involved as possible, or try to be, may eventually prove to be a rude awakening for some...

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https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/03/30/why-the-china-us-contest-is-entering-a-new-and-more-dangerous-phase