“Why is there an America?”

August 25, 2022 10:14 AM

For those three decades, planet China revolved around a mysterious sun — the United States. Cunning, baffling and powerful, America as an idea (much more than as an actual place) allowed Chinese to redefine themselves and their expectations of life .... Capitalism, on the other hand, has changed the country utterly, down to every city, town, village and family. Shanghai has always been the capital of that revolution — the altar where prayers to the power of global wealth and enlightenment were cast off in the direction of distant America. With a certain vision of Shanghai vanishing, what’s next for the country? from The Rise And Fall Of Chimerica by Jacob Dreyer [Noema]
posted by chavenet (13 comments total)

Interesting piece, though it feels odd to have grand overviews of intellectual political history that talk about how you adopt the technological progress of liberalism while remaining socially and politically conservative and have a true democracy that reflects the will of the people rather than their votes without once bringing up fascism. History never repeats, so what happens in China won't be the same as what happened during previous combinations of economic liberalism and authoritarian populist politics, but it's worth recognizing the rhymes.

One might even go so far as to argue that China has so far followed the pattern of previous American economic colonies. As the article says, all of the rhetoric in the 1990s was that the great thing about opening up China economically was that political change - freedom and democracy and liberalism - would automatically follow. The governmental attitudes that led to the Tiananmen massacre would fade away, and wouldn't that be great?

But if you look at most of the economic colonies of America, the preferred political form has always been fascism-in-all-but-name. It has always been a "strong government" willing to crush dissent so that maximum economic advantage can be extracted. The Tiananmen massacre wasn't what American economic elites were trying to change, it was what they were attracted by. The Tiananmen massacre was the great thing about opening up China economically. It told American investors that China finally had the desired fascist strong government and they wouldn't have to worry anymore about pesky revolutionaries.

Where China is departing from previous American economic colonies is in growing economically powerful enough to perhaps rival its would-be economic master. In that way it's in a position that places like South Korea or Indonesia or El Salvador have never been.
posted by clawsoon at 1:07 PM on August 25, 2022 [9 favorites]

still reading it, holding my interest, thanks for posting chavenet!

whether it's misplaced, I'm not sure, but I take hope from this: The real test of any system of thought is to provide an alternative. China isn’t that. Not yet. With the property bubble slowly bursting, China needs to find a new direction, whether by elevating more of its population into the wider economy or through technological innovations that can be exported to the Global South.

we do need an alternative. we can hope that the new direction China takes will ultimately move things in a positive direction.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:54 PM on August 25, 2022 [3 favorites]

With the property bubble slowly bursting, China needs to find a new direction, whether by elevating more of its population into the wider economy or through technological innovations that can be exported to the Global South.

Or finding colonies, provinces, hinterlands of its own for the kind of extraction that worked for Europe and the US. The Uighurs, possibly Sri Lanka.
posted by clew at 3:43 PM on August 25, 2022 [7 favorites]

Writing style seems very based in a weird mystical Orientalism. I find it difficult to believe that anyone in China would find American chaos to be so hard to believe -- it's 3000+ years of smaller empires and colonial states still fighting eachother until very recently, and even then that is still recent history. "America is a young country" is what I've always heard.
posted by yueliang at 5:31 PM on August 25, 2022 [10 favorites]

Hard to believe that Chinese thinking was ever captured by an idea of America. My impression has always been that the USA and China are alike in one respect: they both tend to think of all foreign countries as marginal, with the story of the world being very much the story of their own countries.
posted by Phanx at 1:50 AM on August 26, 2022 [5 favorites]

Yes and no Phanx - during this whole modernisation and rapid development phase China was looking mainly to the USA to emulate. The big problem I see China facing now is that they have (well, sort of) caught up to the developed world and now there is no easy formula to follow.

Wow, yes, cool, highways and cars and trains and skyscrapers and factories... OK, so you want to be out in front now? OK, China, lead the way! Nobody's homework to crib, let's see your original vision and forward thinking! Much harder to be the frontrunner...
posted by Meatbomb at 2:02 AM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

A quote I remember from a couple of decades ago from a Chinese official, though I can't find it now, went something like, "To be like Chicago, that is the dream!"
posted by clawsoon at 4:22 AM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

I am an American, and Wang’s question about why America exists is one that I have never been able to answer. In fact, it may not exist in any meaningful sense

This is another idea that rhymes with old fascist criticisms of liberal states. Liberal state citizenship is a dry, dead legalism, they argued, not at all like the vibrant romantic Nation that lives wherever the hearts of our people beat.

the real estate theorist Zhao Yanjing wrote:

We should not get carried away when we think about the United States. There are two authentic Americas — the America of capital, which is backed by Wall Street, and the true America, which is backed by the military-industrial complex and the rednecks.

I've gotten the impression from elsewhere that the same divide is opening up in China between the "Magic City" of capitalist Shanghai and similar cities, and the 40-50% of the population who still live in rural poverty. I guess if you imitate American economic policies, you end up with the same "coastal elite versus rural redneck" divide that America has?
posted by clawsoon at 4:44 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

"Real estate theorist"?
posted by trig at 4:56 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

"Real estate theorist"?

Google says "professor of urban planning", which gives less of the smell of "not sure if Proudhon or Trump".

I guess if you imitate American economic policies, you end up with the same "coastal elite versus rural redneck" divide that America has?

...which I guess is to say that the Chinese government hopes it has created one unified nation because the opinion polls tell it that it has, but the economic reality is that it has created two nations, just like America, and it will have to deal with the grubby consequences of that instead of being able to launch into some clean, profound new vision of the future.
posted by clawsoon at 6:01 AM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

Or finding colonies, provinces, hinterlands of its own for the kind of extraction that worked for Europe and the US. The Uighurs, possibly Sri Lanka.

Hasn’t China dropped a ton of money over the years on infrastructure throughout Africa?
posted by Thorzdad at 11:06 AM on August 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

How much of this is the author finally realizing that American exceptionalism is a myth and that actually most of the world doesn’t see America as some beacon on a hill to strive towards?
posted by interogative mood at 6:34 AM on August 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

most of the world doesn’t see America as some beacon on a hill to strive towards
I dunno, interrogative mood, some of the urban planning I have seen around the world seems pretty cargo cultish in terms of aping all of the mistakes of USA 1950+... Highways and skyscrapers and put everyone into a car seems to be the trend for development up to now.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:59 PM on August 28, 2022 [1 favorite]