JOURNAL: Is China a threat?

While the US Department of Defense continues to focus on the emerging threat of China as a conventional power and Goldman Sachs contemplates the exact date of China's emergence as the world's leading economy, another scenario is building steam: that China will implode. Thomas Lum, at the Congressional Research service, wrote a report earlier this year that details a growing tide of unrest:

In the past few years, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has experienced rising social unrest, including protests, demonstrations, picketing, and group petitioning. According to PRC official sources, “public order disturbances” have grown by nearly 50% in the past two years, from 58,000 incidents in 2003 to 87,000 in 2005. Although political observers have described social unrest among farmers and workers since the early 1990s, recent protest activities have been broader in scope, larger in average size, greater in frequency, and more brash than those of a decade ago. Fears of greater unrest have triggered debates with the Communist Party leadership about the pace of economic reforms and the proper way to respond to protesters.

Given globalization's tendency to catalyze social fragmentation and the rise of new methods of warfare (my global guerrillas), a meltdown scenario should be considered as a serious possibility. When China's economy does head south (since it is inevitable that all prolonged booms eventually go bust), the government's lack of legitimacy will likely become THE central issue. Also, while some could argue that a pacifist "color" revolution will step into any breach that emerges, I wouldn't put too much faith in it. The government will resist the rise of any mass political movement violently (which explains the state's recent crash effort to build a one million man paramilitary police force), and it will likely be successful in this effort. Instead, the real opposition will come from a reemergence of primary loyalties (loyalty to anything above the state) and their armed defenders: global guerrillas.

Comments

[Duncan Kinder]

China appears to be reverting to its Warlord Era status.

For a study of that era, read _China in Disintegration: The Republican Era in Chinese History, 1912-1949_, (1977) by James E. Sheridan

First sentence: "THE CONCEPT OF national integration has been a central concern of scholars writing about new nations emerging from the tribalism and cultural plurality of colonial Africa, and they have analyzed its meaning in detail"

http://www.amazon.com/China-Disintegration-Republican-1912-1949-Transformation/dp/0029286506/sr=8-1/qid=1159365815/ref=sr_1_1/104-7225567-5592723?ie=UTF8&s=books

Other books:

_Warlord Politics in China: 1916-1928_ , by Hsi-Sheng Ch'i (1979).
http://www.amazon.com/Warlord-Politics-China-1916-1928-Hsi-Sheng/dp/0804708940/sr=1-1/qid=1159366553/ref=sr_1_1/104-7225567-5592723?ie=UTF8&s=books

_Popular Movements & Secret Societies in China: 1840-1950_ (1972), Jean Chesneaux (Ed.)
http://www.amazon.com/Popular-Movements-Secret-Societies-1840-1950/dp/0804707901/sr=1-1/qid=1159366709/ref=sr_1_1/104-7225567-5592723?ie=UTF8&s=books

_Bandits in Republican China_ (1988), by Phil Billingsley
http://www.amazon.com/Bandits-Republican-China-Phil-Billingsley/dp/0804714061/sr=1-1/qid=1159366849/ref=sr_1_1/104-7225567-5592723?ie=UTF8&s=books

[John Robb]

Thanks Duncan!

[Dave Schuler]

Checked the news from China lately? The top Communist Party official in Shanghai was arrested on Monday; there are rumors floating around that the former party secretary in Guangxi and present vice chairman of the environmental committee has committed suicide; more officials have been arrested today.

Interesting times.

[enigma_foundry]

I find a China implosion scenario credible, because their leadership does, too.

My evidence is their extreme reaction to falun gong.

Also, recall their poor public health response to SARS? And the high rates of emerging infectious disease in South Asia? An event like that could clearly take away any legitimacy the government now possesses.

[Azrael]

I find predictions that china will implode or collapse to be at best wishfull thinking and at worst something akin to children covering their ears and yelling,"nah nah nah". Systems tend to hold together pretty well over time as long as most everyone has a chance to profit from the setup; and that's exactly what's happening in china. Everyone who could be a credible opposition to it's central command are becoming becoming filthy rich. My friend's company in Brazil was mainly involved in importing marble from italy to brazil, a few years back they decided to test the waters in china, now the chinese market represents ~90% of their sales. A lot of somebodys have the money to piss away on expensive italian marble; they're getting rich and they're building mansions ; they intend to stay around a long time, they're making the long term investments. Recently, as some here may already be aware, there are increasing questions regarding how much of china's defense r&d is being outsourced to certain u.s. firms. People who fear a change in goverance are not going to make these longterm investments , money , scientist to build the sort of transpacific relationships the prc is very actively persuing.

On this trajectory that our government has chosen ,China will not be a peer competitor to the u.s. , it will be the dominant player. Maybe if we get tired of eating sand, steps can be taken to ensure that the power structure that supercedes the unsc will have a disporportionally strong american voice. Otherwise, Ni Hao Ma and salam alekum chums.

[Iang]

I suspect (but don't know for sure) that China is a neocon stalking horse. "Fear of China" certainly appears at the apex of many triangulations of analyses of various machinations.

This doesn't mean that China is good or bad or the real mission ... but it does mean that there is more emphasis on dressing China up to be a threat, and news of unrest plays into that. I've noticed a a lot of anti-China FUD, including the western media and neocon sources. For that reason, I tend to treat both good news and bad news from China with unusually strong skeptical lenses, and I find the "implosion" theory as very difficult to sustain simply through lack of independent information.

[Manolis]

Stratfor has been talking about this scenario (bad debts, corruption, eventual economic and social upheaval) for quite some time.

What I'm interested in mostly isn't what happens in China-if the govt will retain control, if we will witness an emergence of disorganized unrest etc.

The real question is, how much will this derail the global economy given China's energy consumption, its role as factor to the first world's corporations, its foreign reserves etc.

[Claymore]

"while some could argue that a pacifist "color" revolution will step into any breach emerges, I wouldn't put too much faith in it. The government will resist the rise of any mass political movement violently, and it will likely be successful in this effort. Instead, the real opposition will come from a reemergence of primary loyalties that drive the development of small groups of global guerrillas."

Already happening as we speek- look up the Uighur Seperatist Movement. They have been networking with Al Qaeda.

[Claymore]

The "pacifist color" is a stage; it is what comes to fruition from a focoist urban strategy, inciting heavy handed retrobution from the government. Passive resistance empowers a movement with moral superiority and polarizes masses into their primary loyalties. Then you switch to a GG strategy through IO on extremist websites and message boards, importing a bazaar of jihadist from around the globe.

[undifferentiated tissue]

Many good points raised in your post, John, and in the comments. However, the question of whether the PRC is a threat (to the US? Japan? Indefinite western global hegemony?) is not the same as questioning the ability of the CCP to hold the current system together. I’m going to discuss the latter.

Can the CCP keep it together? Likely, at least for a few decades. IMHO, the days of ‘colour revolution’ in China, ie. ’89 Tiananmen square-style mass mobilisations that include educated urban youth, security forces personnel, students etc. are history. Although rural people and factory workers are protesting more assertively against corruption, exploitation and exclusion from the economic growth of the southern seaboard, the growing middle class, and especially ‘Gen-Y’ – the future administrators and managers of the state and economy – have made a notable ideological transition to strong nationalism. Don’t mistake the pragmatic economic opening-up of China for economic liberalism, let alone political liberalisation. Many young Chinese love that red flag. For these kids, Falun Gong is an embarrassment to personal and national pride (the gulag, torture and organ harvesting are oddly not a source of shame). The legitimacy of the Chinese state does not rest upon democratic processes and popular franchise (like in the US, right?); it is based upon keeping China free from foreign domination, and giving Chinese people some pride following long decades of humiliation and worse at the hands of Japan, Britain, and the other imperial usual suspects. ‘Serve the people’ can mean many things.

Duncan is right to mention Chesneaux’s book on secret societies, and the CCP is well aware of the role of such groups in historical popular anti-state movements (T’ai Ping, ‘Boxer’ rebellion, etc). Expect the campaign against ‘evil cults’ to continue indefinitely. Meanwhile, the jackboot remains tightly laced. Enhanced internal security technologies such as facial recognition-capable urban cctv systems imported from western companies help to keep the PRC locked down, despite the odd village or factory going postal.

On the other hand, an acquaintance in the Chinese military has told me that he expects a war in his lifetime (ie the next 10-20 years). While he did not specify invasion or civil conflict, he strongly discourages his foreign-educated child from returning to China. Might be something in that…

Old Chinese curse – ‘may you live in interesting times’.

[Azrael]

This is horrible to say, but it is in the best interests of the u.s. to prevent any disruptions in china. An economic collapse, a more populist gov't , anything that radically undermines the tyranny that rules in beijing would inevitable lead to a major regional and potentially extra-regional conflagration. IF china starts to come apart, the leadership or whomever replaces them will play the "us versus the rest of the world" card inorder to rally the people around a central government. Who wants to volunteer to stem that tide? The north is closed, india is closed, far south east eurasia is incompatible to the style of technological warfare the pla is trying to emulate; look to see a chinese adventure in central eurasia in the unlikely event of chinese poli-economic instability. Who'd stop them?

[JamesNostack]

I wonder what, if anything, constitutes "primary loyalty" in the Chinese context? In most of the failed states we've seen lately, the state is merely lines on a map, usually drawn by foreigners, with little connection to the nationalities within those lines. But China has been China for thousands of years. While there are regional and ethnic differences, I'd guess a lot of Chinese are damn proud to be Chinese, and the nation is a unifying force even if the state appartus provokes resentment.

My two cents, at least.

[Duncan Kinder]

Here is an interesting looking book, which I have not read:

The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime, 1919-1937, by Brian G. Martin.
http://www.amazon.com/Shanghai-Green-Gang-Organized-1919-1937/dp/0520201140/sr=1-1/qid=1159410986/ref=sr_1_1/104-5774429-6107924?ie=UTF8&s=books

Here is a review of that book.

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=5001325768&er=deny

Review:

The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime, 1919-1937. By Brian G. Martin. (Berkeley: University of Carolina Press, Pp. x, 314. $40.00.)

The author of this book presents the best available account of Shanghai's dominant gang and its famous leader, Du Yuesheng. Brian Martin uses a chronological approach to trace the Green Gang from a loose coalition of former Grand Canal boatmen and salt smugglers to a mature network that controlled Shanghai's opium trade, prostitution, and gambling in the first half of the twentieth century. Based on research in French police archives, Shanghai newspapers, and an impressive array of Chinese primary and secondary sources, Martin details how Du Yuesheng's power first arose through collusion with the French authorities in Shanghai.

Martin's analysis is impressive, but he does nothing to suggest its comparative nature prior to the last 15 pages; so his conclusion should be read right after the introduction. Martin argues that the Green Gang represents a secret society that was typical of late traditional Chinese society, and which "successfully adapted to the new socioeconomic and political orders of the treaty ports to become an integral element in China's emerging modern urban society . . . (1). He shows that similar gangs flourished in Italy, as the Mafia; in the United States, as prohibition-era gangs; in Japan, as yakuza; and in Jakarta, as the urban gangs in colonial Indonesia. Thus, "the Shanghai ' Green Gang was one variant of the phenomenon of organized crime, which was itself an intrinsic part of ... the emergence of a capitalist polity" (229).

The Green Gang grew up among the rootless, new immigrants who flooded into cities; it spread its power through close connection with Shanghai's docks and smuggling, found enormous profits and leverage by controlling much of the entertainment sector of the economy, and colluded with the police in the French Concession area of Shanghai in a pattern that parallels gangster activity in other modern cities. What makes Shanghai different, however, is the role that was played by Du Yuesheng. He emerged from amongst other Green Gang leaders to become first a ruthless, but capable manager, of Green Gang opium interests, and then, in succession, a trusted opium-tax farmer for the French, a controlling figure in several Shanghai banks, Chiang Kai-shek's ally in suppressing the Communists in April 1927, and a respected mediator in labor and kidnapping cases. He later emerged as an accepted community leader and philanthropist in Shanghai and finally reached his apotheosis as a stalwart of Chiang Kai-shek's corporatist Nationalist state in the 1930s.

Martin's case for Du Yuesheng's ability to adapt to the special demands of Chiang Kaishek's corporatist state is especially impressive. The only serious weakness in this account is Martin's failure to address fully Du Yuesheng's personality. While Martin is convincing in his explanation of the special niches in the Shanghai urban administration and in the emerging Nationalist state that Du Yuesheng located and exploited, he fails to present a complete understanding of this remarkable criminal figure. The book also has no maps to show the divided administration of Shanghai or to display the complex geographical character of Green Gang power. Even more surprising is the absence of any photographs of Du Yuesheng and his contemporaries. These elements aside, Martin's account remains an impressive accomplishment.

:End_of_Review

[PrahaPartizan]

As I recall, most mid-20th-century commentators on China (and even other areas in East Asia) noted that those societies worked despite the lack of governments operating under a rule of law. Instead, they depended on family ties to bind segments of society together and to compel obedience. The recent corruption problems in Shanghai would seem to indicate that this issue is raising its head again inside China (if it ever really went away).

When the society begins to fragment and bifurcate into rich and poor and one group of families watches out for its own while allowing the rest of society to slide into the pit, quite a bit of friction can be expected. China might not reach a tipping point within the next fifty years, but its history is not encouraging. Just look at the cycle of growth and collapse which Chinese society has experienced going back for 3000 years. What makes anyone think that this time is different? Chinese society hasn't really changed, despite all of the modernized gew-gaws which have been imported from abroad.

[jamie]

Over the long term, the political cycle in China proceeds by means of an constant dispersal and re-centralisation of power. Think of a gigantic fist constantly closing and opening. The apparent disintegration we're seeing now is a comnsequence of the general loosening of centrtal power that came with the economic reform process. Power over order and economic development was handed down the chain of command to the point at which a monolithic tyranny has been more or less replaced by a vast network of petty tyrannies and local fiefdoms. It's against abuses at this level that people are revolting, sometimes quite successfully.

This was the policy of Jiang Zemin and the "Shanghai Gang" who ruled up to 2002. The Hu administration have been engaged in a power struggle with the Shanghai gang since then, and the arrest of Chen Liangyu in Shanghai more or less indicates that they've finally succeeded.

I think what we're seeing now is the point at which the fist starts closing again. The disintegration scenario largely depends on whether Hu will be successful in recentralising power.

I posted on this in more detail here:

http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/blood_treasure/2006/09/rebels_tyrants_.html

And if you're interested in this kind of thing, you can't do better than monitoring this site:

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/weblog.htm

[Claymore]

"I wonder what, if anything, constitutes "primary loyalty" in the Chinese context? ...While there are regional and ethnic differences, I'd guess a lot of Chinese are damn proud to be Chinese"

Ask a Uighur muslim if they are proud to be brutally encroached upon and discriminated by masses of migrating Han Chinease. Their primary loyalty is ethnolinguistic (Turkic).

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9179/

[Azrael]

Han comprise 92% of china's demographic pie and control all the levers of state, the uighurs are just a sliver of that self same pie and as has been aptly put are,"brutally encroached upon and discriminated ". The uighurs are very much a subject people who play a marginal role in current chinese affairs and short of aquiring a wmd would be expected to continue to exert little or no influence in the evolution of the uni-cultural chinese nation-state.

[John Robb]

Primary loyalties: region, town, family, clan, and a host of "manufactured" groups (gangs, triads, secret societies). It doesn't have to boil down to ethnicity or religion (although adding that in, helps).

[Nic]

If memory serves, and it should, Foreign Affairs recently had an issue featuring Chinese scholars debating China's future. I don't remember all the points off hand, but one of the more interesting articles suggested that China would become a fully socialist country (in the European model?) in the next fifty-odd years. These could be the first externally visible "growing pains."

I do have a question, however; are there numbers somewhere about the amount of petrol the U.S. military consumes in a fiscal year? I've long akin-ed the U.S. military to the German Wermacht - an army does not fight on empty petrol tanks. The comparison isn't entirely apt given the superior quality of German infantry units, but the comparison can be made...

There was another point that I wanted to bring up, but I am out of time (class, you know). I'll get back to this later.

[Claymore]

"The uighurs are very much a subject people who play a marginal role in current chinese affairs and short of aquiring a wmd would be expected to continue to exert little or no influence in the evolution of the uni-cultural chinese nation-state."

No influence...huh? As in the majority population in Xinjiang province- a threat to any pipeline that would provide energy from the Caspian Region?

They were enough of a threat to have influenced the forming of the SCO.

[Azrael]

The uighurs haven't been the majority in chinese turkestan for over a decade. The official demographics don't take into account the multitude of han migrants working in the semi-official services sectors( food workers, forced labours and female fornicators for hire; etc...). Also not included in the official demagraphics are elements of the pla's 7th air army, their 9th air army, the 47th army group, the families and base support personnel of these troops and several reserve garrison units.

Overall the uighur population in chinese turkestan stands at about 9 million souls; roughly less than seven tenths of 1% of china's total population. I've heard many reasons why two nuclear armed nations , china and russia, would want to form the sco, but this is the first i've heard of the dreaded uighur threat scaring the two main pillars of the sco together. Ah well i live and i learn, it's better than dying ignorant.

[Claymore]

"I've heard many reasons why two nuclear armed nations , china and russia, would want to form the sco, but this is the first i've heard of the dreaded uighur threat scaring the two main pillars of the sco together."

Maybe you are right, but perhaps the SCOs sudden antiterror stance in 2001 influenced the attacks on 9/11, planting US forces right outside China's backdoor. The US supported islamic extremists in the past because it countered "other" influences in Central Asia.

[Claymore]

http://members.aol.com/posteritypress/trail.htm

Poole's new book may explain how China has been a threat.

http://www.terrorism.com/documents/TRC-Analysis/unrestricted.pdf

Yup. China is a threat.

[AK]

A belated comment from a new visitor to a very interesting blog. Details, as alwaysy are important.

The People's Liberation Army Armed Police (PAP, or PLAAP, as you will – in Chinese simply called “armed police”) were formed quite a while ago, primarily to provide employment for personnel made redundant from the downsizing of the PLA as well as consolidation from various "unofficial" PLA units ("private" security firms and structures associated with old PLA-run business that were mostly closed-down - really security components of large PLA firms).

While the PAP has been given additional riot-control responsibility this is not their primary function - it is the same problem with the Public Security Bureau: most of the personal are "local" and have already proved to be unreliable in the past.

(large scale) "Public Order" activities are actually the responsibility of PLA "special garrison units" - that are subordinate to each Military Region. As a rule they are not "local" troops and thus are counted on to get "wet" if necessary. If things really get out of hand each MR can also deploy the organic "special forces" contingent, which also is responsible for the periodic and unreported inner-PLA "terrorist" events. The PSB also has a "special" units for CT-type activity however they are more akin to SWAT units and would not really be active in a large-scale domestic situation.

A quick analytical note to end: "primary loyalties" in China has long been accorded to be "national" as well as "parochial". The national sentiment in China is such that the primary raison d'etre of the CCP is seen as upholding the "national dignity" of China - the worry is if they fail in this (failed Taiwan action, or the like) loyalty will collapse to the "parochial" level - and thus create the domestic "insurrection" that is often worried about.