RealPolitix.com – The Non-Partisan Blog about Politics and Technology Archive for October 2009

There are no more vivid impressions on life than those from your childhood and I can still remember mine about China. Books like The Story About Ping and The Seven Chinese Brothers fascinated me with their watercolor prose and mythological timelessness. I can also remember a time as a very young boy when I was in the garage with my father. He was fidgeting with some cheap gadget he had recently bought and then cursed in frustration as it snapped in half. He handed me the pieces to investigate and there I had my first experience with “Made In China” as I read it off the back of one of the fragments. “Made In China?” I inquired. “Yes,” my father kvetched, “everything made in China is crap.”

The term “Made in China” really started in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping opened up several Special Economic Zones along China’s eastern coast. In these zones, for the first time since the dominance of Mao, regular citizens were allowed to openly engage in business. It is no surprise that some of these SEZs, such as Shenzhen, quickly became a place where the adventurous type could find his fortune. Despite the traditional Chinese stance denouncing traders as the lowliest class, the Chinese as a people have always been natural entrepreneurs. Like my father calls them, they are the Jews of Asia. (Like from all great minds, his wisdom often seems contradictory.)

How times have changed since the days when almost all Westerners had only a few simplistic evocations of China: the exciting and mystical exoticism of storybooks and kung fu movies, the cold, gray symbolism of Communism, poverty and leftover feudalism and, more recently, the image of billions of blissfully ignorant smiling factory workers producing the low-end products gracing endless shelves at Wal-Mart. The rising influence of China a.k.a. The Sleeping Giant is now impossible to ignore and therefore our ideas must evolve and grow along with China else we will be forever trapped in a child-like and perhaps dangerous fantasy.

Growing numbers of people are well aware of this phenomenon. What else could explain the exponential jump in American students of Mandarin Chinese? Individual states in the US have seen students studying Mandarin increase from practically zero to thousands in just the past few years. The so-called “Third Wave” of international expatriates is at its crest as droves of job hunters and thrill-seekers make the trek once overwhelmingly made in the opposite direction. The popularity of Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese film, music, art and books has been slowly but surely growing in the West, making the Japanese Manga/Anime craze of yesteryear seem downright conventional. Just recently, a handful of Chinese rock bands just capped off a nationwide tour in the US, playing their last show as headliners at the Chinese Culture Festival in Washington D.C.

Of course, one only has to open a newspaper or turn on the television to get a picture of what is happening in China these days. More so than ever before, nearly every political decision made by the Chinese government is talked about and milled over by countless editorials and talking heads. More interestingly, what used to be only criticism has begun to develop into praise, even envy, of the way the Chinese do things. For example, Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times that frequently used to bemoan the Chinese reluctance to improve human rights and the environment, now can be seen applauding the Chinese system for its success in getting quick and practical results – especially in contrast to the currently bedraggled partisan politics in the States.

Undoubtedly so, many things Chinese are not met with open arms. In fact, many people’s perceptions of China are still so much like the foggy and unknown (and therefore threatening) concepts previously mentioned. For example, recall the recent Chinese company’s purchase of Hummer. Many Americans were aghast to behold the loss of a quintessential American icon: the bold, braggartly and bombastic SUV once driven by the Governator himself. Cable news scaldabancos from coast-to-coast enlivened the fears of many Americans: China is an unstoppable colossal firebrand that, if it is anything like the West was centuries ago, will utterly destroy us. The best expression of this was relayed to me by my friend who was chatting with a cowboy in a bar in Texas. As my friend ordered his beer, the older roughneck said: “Hopefully I won’t be alive to see it, but one day you’ll be payin’ for that beer with Chinese dollars.”

So, let’s put this all to rest. First of all, most Chinese wouldn’t believe you if you told them that China would soon become the world’s superpower. It would be akin to telling a geek in high school that one day he would be a rich and suave playboy. “But I can barely get a date now,” he would lament. Most Chinese don’t see what we see – a fast rising economy and world influence projected by a media saturated with their successes. Instead, they see the China of everyday life and recent past: dirty, poor and still in many ways backwards.

Assuming that China does become Number One, that old cowboy was right about one thing: he won’t be alive to see it and it’s perhaps likely that neither will many of us. Although upwards of half of the general populations of developed nations like the USA and Japan believe that China already is or soon will be the world’s superpower, experts estimate that even if this occurs, we still have another forty years or so. Their journals and articles are littered with language like “not anytime soon” and “nowhere close.” So if you are waiting to pay for that beer with “Chinese dollars,” by that time it’ll be a real flat one.

OK, so worst case scenario: we wake up tomorrow and the Chinese are our new overlords. At this point only one question would remain: how bad is it? Well, historically speaking, not too bad. The Chinese have also been a world superpower many centuries ago. Although they would demand tribute from surrounding areas, they were never too aggressive. China’s borders have pretty much been the same throughout the ages, meaning they were never too interested in vast conquests or takeovers. China, or Zhongguo in Chinese, literally means “The Middle Kingdom”. Could this be because they are so focused on their own business? One can only hope.

As I’ve said many times here increased regulation including net-neutrality regulation will result in poorer quality services and/or higher costs.  This is a natural byproduct of governmental interference in the market.  Gizmodo had an article that articulated this very point in regards to the recent regulation called for by the FCC chairman Julian Genachowski.  The regulation he called for has resulted in AT&T allowing VOIP on the iPhone.  AT&T is allowing it not because they feel it’s good for business.  Rather they are seeking to be ahead of the regulations forthcoming and provide a way for them to justify price increases. It’s always been my opinion that the FCC and Congress should spend their time and energy increasing competition and seeking ways to break up these sudo monopolies owned by the telco and cable companies.  Instead Obama’s administration will monkey with the market decrease quality and increase prices.  Further placing the US at a disadvantage on the world market. Cross Posted at RightSideofTech.com