By Pradip Baijal
Jun 6 (IANS): The opening lines of the recently-released 'United States Strategic Approach to The People's Republic of China' are: "Since the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) established diplomatic relations in 1979, United States policy toward the PRC was largely premised on a hope that deepening engagement would spur fundamental economic and political opening in the PRC and lead to its emergence as a constructive and responsible global stakeholder, with a more open society."
More than 40 years later, it is abundantly clear that this has not happened as the US and its seven Presidents from Richard Nixon till Donald Trump were made to believe by the Chinese that 'all was right'. Only Trump opposed the deal in his 2016 election manifesto and won the election, but the short-term economic pressures of the deal were so severe that he could also do nothing till 2020, when he issued a new tariff notification. So, unable to deal with China effectively alone, for the first time the US talks of a 'democratic coalition' against China, hoping this coalition will pressure everyone to act, and reduce short-term pressures on the American economy.
After all, the entire democratic world is adversely affected by Chinese actions in the market and vis-a-vis China's monopoly over UN institutions, the OBOR scheme to approach new markets and the handling of Covid cases. Based on Bloomberg data, I have shown in my book that if business continues as usual, China will have 50 per cent of the World's GDP in 2070. Along with the US, it is already approaching 50 per cent of the world's GDP (PPP basis-China 22 per cent and US 20 per cent), making the rest of the world 'puppets', achieved due to US-China collaboration.
It may be recalled that the US changed in the 70s when China brought immense pressure on it, taking help of many other 'innocent' world leaders. The policies China laid down with the help of the Americans were progressive, since the US was made to believe for almost 50 years that it had stakes in China's growth. It is also surprising that Deng Xiaoping guided this change, even after he ceased to be the Chief Executive in 1987(after his mandatory retirement in 1987 according to the 10-year rule, which was later changed for Xi Jinping.
The Politburo, the real power in China, knew that they needed Deng to take the growth forward, and check Maslovian forces, and CIA moves to bring more freedom and democracy through Tiananmen freedom agitation. Deng was, therefore, appointed Defence Minister equivalent till he suppressed the Tiananmen movement in 1989. But the suppression caused 30,000 lives to be lost against 300 originally stated, and three Chinese battalions revolted. China's Politburo needed a scapegoat, and again this was Deng. But he saved himself by getting a letter from Bush Sr. that though he will not support him publicly, he sympathised with him for dealing with the freedom movement so strongly. No one has found a reasonable explanation to this letter.
The deception does not end here. It was now thought that Deng would fade away after Tiananmen. He did not, and guided the development of South and West China till he died in 1997. And his investment/industrialization policies continued in China even after his demise, thanks to his brainwashing of the Politburo, and China achieved miraculous growth during the period 2005-2015.
It may again be recalled that Bush Sr. openly said that he did not support the Tiananmen massacre. Despite the Tiananmen massacre, the US made China apply for WTO membership in 1998, and got them accelerated membership in 2001, thus including one billion Chinese workers in 2001 into the WTO framework to everyone's disadvantage, particularly democratic Russia's since it had become more democratic with Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev as leaders at US instance, but had to wait till 2012. As a matter of fact, Gorbachev was the free world's observer at the time of the Tiananmen agitation. But, China fooled everyone and went ahead with the massacre, and later attracted huge FDI, mostly from US companies. But, no one in the US understood the facades in China at all stages, and cooperated with them till 2015. The opposition to China only started showing in Trump's election manifesto in 2016.
Deng wanted the growth to be shown gradually and invested mostly in slow moving infra-structure projects. When Goldmann Sachs looked at the BRICS nations in 2001-05, it found all four countries (later five) were growing similarly. The miraculous growth came mainly in 2005-15, when from 1.8 times India in 2005, China was five times India, and came in the same ball-park figure of GDP vis-a-vis US (PPP), and US panicked, at long last. But, action only came when the entire world was hit by Coronavirus in 2020, leading to intense rivalry between China and the US and also the rest of the democratic world for the way China handled Coronavirus pandemic, suppressing facts.
It is now an opportunity for the entire democratically-elected world to get together to fight China. Everyone, including the US, knows that with China's very strong presence in the manufacturing world, the US alone cannot take up this fight, and all democracies need to come together to fight the mighty China. For the reader, having studied the growth patterns in different periods of time, and in different countries, it is now easy to analyze the reasons behind miraculous growth in China, and reverse the factors responsible. All the world's democracies will have to design the reversal path, like China had designed its own growth path in the 60s, and forced it on the US and rest of the world. It also convinced the US to be a participant, despite many in the US knowing that the path was 'hara-kiri' with the US strengthening its own rival which would take over, by fair or unfair means.
When the world's opposition to massive manufacturing in China, even for fulfilling the world's demand started getting opposed, it came out with OBOR policy connecting the markets with China's factories of mass production. Fortunately, this policy also started being opposed in most countries. The remedies to China's monopolization in the world lie in dismantling the processes they created with the help of the US. I have summarized them below:
A. One dedicated man changed a country as big as China, and made it a rich communist state, following the model of a very small city state. Such men will have to be identified.
B. Deng Xiaoping had infused capitalism in the Chinese economy and subsequently the Chinese state promoted meritocracy, following the Singapore model, and likes to define itself as an 'efficient state'.
C. The US maintained total secrecy because it was helping a country which was not following the basic rules of democratic systems to fool other countries into believing the façade of the multilateral institutions. The secrecy and façade continued till China officially launched OBOR and crossed US GDP (PPP) in 2014. Xi's decision of giving up Deng's policy of being humble while on their miraculous growth path will perhaps and hopefully be questioned in China in the future.
D. The US tried to plot Tiananmen coup for bringing democracy in China. Deng Xiaoping thwarted it with full might knowing China won't survive long if it follows any other political governance system. But the US lost its way while trying to bring democracy. Perhaps US MNCs enjoyed the Chinese system, giving them higher profits from its regimented labour.
E. China, and particularly Deng, learned reforms from many countries and implemented them with Chinese characteristics.
F. US-China cooperation has changed the world and reversed the balance of military and financial power from the West to Asia.
G. Most of the growth post 1950 in China and India was due to technologies of IR 3.0., IR 4.0 and IR 5.0, giving natural advantage to China and India. China also is a developed country now. China and the US will now use new methods/technologies to stop this higher growth. This is happening already, and the democratic world will have to learn to check technological deviations.
Whichever country is able to deal with the changes better, will be the winner.