"Why does God need a Starship?" - Demystifying Xi

There is a moment in Star Trek V where Captain Kirk asks the "all powerful" being from beyond the Galactic Barrier, "Wait a second...why do you need US to do anything for you?"  To which the all powerful being kind of goes "uuuuuuuuuuuh......"

Look, I get that China is the rising power.  Anyone who pays attention to history and world affairs gets that.  But I kind of have to ask...what does that do to change certain well observed rules in history?

There is a well known stereotype called the Inscrutable East which is widely understood to be racist as all out fuck, and I approve those who recognize it as such, but when I see people who approve of a lot of the things that China does well apply it to China somehow being exempt from these rules, I'm like...Excuse me?

Let's look shall we?

1) Democracy is a western form of government.

Is it? There are plenty of other philosophers who abstractly discussed the ideas of self beyond the greeks even if they didn't put it into practice, but I find the idea that the people of Asia are not able to have democracy because they are somehow 'unworthy' of it to be racist, even if it is applying the racism to themselves.  Let's call a spade a spade.  Democracy works because it WORKS just like Science works because Science Works.  If you want to start saying that Asian governments can't be democratic because the people there can't handle a democracy, explain India.  Explain Japan.  Sure, they work DIFFERENTLY, but China has no excuse for not embracing democracy just because of ancient greece.

2) Democracy is the best form of government except for all the others....except for China.

Churchill has this quote because Democracy isn't the most efficient form of government, no matter what your flavor; Direct Democracy, Democratic Republic, Swiss Democracy, Parliamentary Democracy, etc etc.  Splitting up authority means that power is less powerful.  Period.  But the thing is, you lessen your likihood of a crazy person getting into control.  In the US, we've had a lot of inept middling people muddle their way through four years of the executive without causing an implosion of power or having the military take over.

The reason Democracy brings wealth isn't because of all the wonderful things it does, its because of the transition of power.  Lack of democracy means that the sovereignty of the nation lands on Rule of Force not Rule of Law, no matter how much you try and pretty up the words.  This is something the Chinese understood, it's why they made up their own little version of the Sith "Rule of Two." After the last Chinese Civil War they said, "Let's not do this again, be poor and get overcome by richer countries."  And it worked.

Twice.

And now it's broken.

3) China is Strong.

No it's not.  It's just not.  Sure, it has a lot of soldiers, a lot of money, and a lot of soft power.  For an authoritarian regime, it's damn smart. It studies everyone else in the world and says "How can I do that smarter?"  It studies it's own history with remarkable efficiecy and says "How can we avoid ever making that mistake again?" And it even has an ideology to it.  The Chinese Communist Party are the ultimate nationalists, they really DO want China to be strong as compared to the North Korean Party which just wants to be in power and survive by any means necessary.  Sure, there are ideologies there, but there is also insanity.

My point is, that despite having an ideology, China does insane fucking stuff when it fears a threat.

It banned talk of Time Travel to go back and change the past in fiction so the party wasn't there.

Just recently, it banned pictures of the letter N or WINNIE the POOH?!

That's why they were so obsessed with Fulan Gonh, because of their past when religions rose up against them.

But this isn't careful meticulous planning, this is FEAR.  Fear of their own people, fear of the fact that their Faustian bargain that they made with their own people after Tienanmen Square, Growth in exchange for their freedom simply isn't sustainable. 

In fact, it has been fraying for some time.  That's why China has begun to increase authoritarianism.  That's why Xi is seizing power instead of their pathetic attempt to circumvent democracy.  Democracy works because it works, not because it's fantastic.  If you are going to come up with a system that concentrates almost all power in one guy except for another guy, you need more of a check on the would be almost dictator beside 'the party.'  Our country has LOTS of problems, and one big baby disgusting problem in the white house...

But in two years historical context says that America is going to pick another leader and move on.

Sure, there is thunder on the horizon of civil war, and despite Russian attempts at agitation, it has been like that for decades, yes, this time is different but this post is about China.

Xi is behaving like a dictator.  And he has as thin a skin as Thailand. 

I want to share an anecdote about Saudi Arabia when my wife and I visited Portland.  I brought up at our bed and breakfast that sooner or later things would change in Saudi Arabia.  A senior gentleman there said, "I'm sorry Tom but you're wrong."  Then he told us some wonderful anecdotes about his experience in Saudi Arabia and how efficient wise and all knowing the kingdom was.  And though dubious, I admitted I might be wrong.  Nope, I was right.  Saudi Arabia is a kingdom, and like a kingdom, no matter how you try to slice things up, when you transition power, sooner or later someone will want to take power.  Now the Crown Prince is doing just that.  Sure he is instituting 'reforms' but that's because he is aware of the same things I was several years ago; Saudi Arabia has PROBLEMS and the people there are SICK of living under oppression.

The people of China are getting richer.  They are tired of a cowardly inept government and when they do take power, they are going to be pissed at all the western companies that helped them do it.

Xi is a tyrant, a dictator in charge of a country that happens to have more resources than others but all their ideologies are lies and all the dancing around the fact that "China is Different" is just either racism or naivety.