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China is, above all, fascinating. It is a state that is capable of astonishing feats of engineering and yet it will occasionally build a bridge that will collapse within months of its completion. Its government seems at times to be preternaturally competent, and at other times to be singularly dedicated to causing misery and dysfunction for its own people. It has a cultural history as expansive and complex as any on Earth, and long periods of stability during which one would expect great works of music and visual art would have been made, and yet its actual output in these domains has been, and continues to be, distinctly third-rate. In the past, there were long periods where it was unquestionable strong enough to conquer much of the world, and yet it didn't. Today, it is—or will soon be—strong enough to expand far beyond it borders, but I expect it will again choose not to.
How do we resolve these apparent inconsistencies? Well, first I'd caution that the West is full of these too. We put men on the moon with the computing power of a graphing calculator, but we can't build a single high speed rail line in California. We descend from a culture that produced the most sublime art ever created by man, but we seem largely to have forgotten how to do this, or else lost the will to even try. With AI, we figured out how to make sand talk, but I expect we would be hopelessly incapable of maintaining a Chinese level of order in our society even if our very survival depended upon it.
What do we make of this? I think the obvious conclusion to draw is that human societies are spikey. (You may have heard this term from AI. In that context, it refers to the fact that AI can be at once astonishingly competent in one domain and incompetent in another that seems no more difficult, or perhaps even easier. A classic example was the ability of earlier generations of LLMs to get 90th percentile plus scores on the SAT math section but also to fail at counting the number of r's in strawberry.) China has a weird mix of strengths and weaknesses, and so does the West.
An interesting property of spikeyness is that it is harder to see in yourself. What is easy seems easy and what is hard seems hard, so without some external example to show that certain strengths don't necessarily imply others, and that same is true of certain weaknesses, it can be hard to imagine that these things can be unlinked. Sometimes, it is only when we look at another with a different combination of strengths and weaknesses that we start to more clearly see the spikeyness that exists in ourselves. Of course, the spikeyness of an entity with very different strengths and weaknesses is obvious.
And that is what China is: a different roll of the stats dice. It looks very weird to us, but then I'm sure we look very weird to them.
Did they get a better roll than us, overall? I don't think so, but I'm not completely sure. Are they at least our peers, civilizationally speaking? Certainly.
And the final question: are they good? Well, from my perspective they are not especially good, but also not especially bad either. One Chinese deficit—which is arguably not even a deficit except from a Western, Christianity-inflected moral standpoint—is that they just don't seem to have an interest in much of the rest of the world. The downside of this (and to be honest, I'm a little disturbed by it) is how generally indifferent they seem to suffering that exists beyond their borders. I hope this might change as they become wealthier, but the social science research I've looked at does not show this happening, at least so far. Of course, this disinterest also has an upside: to me it seems obvious the Chinese don't want to conquer the world. Maybe they are HBD pilled and recognize that Chinese style governance would only work for Chinese people (for what it is worth, this seems obviously true). Or maybe they are just such cultural chauvinists that can't imagine what good could come to them from involving themselves with others (mostly also probably true). And maybe it is just that they are temperamentally conservative and risk averse, and they feel more comfortable all crowded together on the territory they have lived on for thousands of years. It is probably a combination. But whatever it is, I just don't worry much about China going all Nazi Germany on us and trying to conquer lebensraum, and I worry even less about some sort of sino-colonialist future (maybe Africa the land could become Chinese, but Africans? Never).
This is very different than us. When the pilgrims came over to Massachusetts, the seal they created for the Massachusetts Bay Colony shows an Indian standing with a text flag coming out of his mouth that said, "Come over and help us". Yes, the universalist impulse runs deep here. That can be beautiful in my eyes, as when Kipling wrote earnestly of the White Man's Burden. And truthfully, I think it has done a lot of good for the rest of the world. But also, I can't say we have a flawless track record. What happened to those Indians? How often have we bungled the helping? How often has the helping just been a pretext to exploit, to enslave, to rape? Not always, but not never either.
As for which civilization is better for the rest of the world, the Chinese or the Western, I think the optimal solution might be a middle ground. I believe there is a White Man's Burden; I also believe there is a Chinaman's Burden. Ultimately, I'd like to see China be a little more humanitarian and universalist, even if that risks them maybe being a little more expansionist. But I also think the West could learn a lot from China. Obviously technologically and governmentally, but also culturally. The West should take a more pragmatic, more Chinese, less Marvel-universe view of its own motives and (especially) capabilities, and also a more Chinese (read: racist) view of those it aims to help, which is ironically what I think will be the key to actually helping them, rather than just pretending to. Indeed, in the long run, China and the West could have a very productive and fruitful relationship that could enrich the whole world enormously. I hope we get to see it happen.
Certainly one of the best and optimistic post about China from a non-Chinese perspective on this website for me. Thank you.
What irritates me most when people talk about China here is not the outright hostility but the lack of curiosity, so thank you for finding our society fascinating. Something I never get used to is how intelligent people who are active in political discussion show no interest in understanding China at all, despite pretending to care about it. Many rhetorical techniques were employed to never update on China, treating everything from the Chinese media as propaganda; treating all of our people, inside or outside or China, as nationalistic shills or payed propagandists; pretending all the changes and achievements inside the country as fake and unworthy of serious discussion. On some level I get it, after all that's my default opinion on anything too positive from my own country, and how can I expect better from the others. But on the other hand it's tiresome, especially since I feel some genuine urge to discuss with people and exchange opinions with people outside of my own as a mirror to allow some self reflection.
This has been one of the most important thing I learned from my experience in the United States. For Chinese people in China, it is difficult to see ourselves clearly, just as a person in the mountains cannot see its entirety. Everything feels natural and inevitable. It is hard to imagine living or thinking differently, and even harder to appreciate the benefits that alternative might offer.
Chinese and American societies are polar opposites in many respects, but also intriguingly similar in others. This is difficult to articulate. Broadly, the individualism-collectivism divide is obvious, as is the very different relationship between the people and the state. The “main character syndrome”, the intentional or unintentional domineering attitude toward other countries, and the industriousness of the people feels familiar. For me, American society has been a useful mirror and a nice calibrator, helping me to see what the optimum would be. As you said, for many things the “right way” likely lies somewhere between the two. It is fortunate that these two societies exist in the same historical moment. Unfortunately, instead of learning from one another there seems to be an irresistible pull toward conflict. I hope that this is not our fate.
You mentioned this above in a different post but I want to share my thoughts. I think that poverty, or the memory and cultural residue of extreme poverty, has a profound effect on people’s capacity for charity. Some personal anecdote. My mom grew up in the 1960s. Their generation lived through the devastation of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and unlike my generation they usually have more than three siblings in one family despite barely able to feed them all. When resources are scarce survival becomes paramount, like how a family of mice trapped in a small cage that cannibalize each other. People resort to whatever works: lying, violence, corruption. When abundance returns, the psychological mechanisms developed in scarcity do not simply disappear. In this sense her generation “inoculated” itself against charity, and they will pass that fear of scarcity on to my generation. I grew up without extreme poverty, without rampant pickpocketing, without scammers lurking at train stations hoping to lure me to their fake tourist attractions, without (too many) cab drivers driving in circles and charging more money for the ride. But still I remember how my mother carried a constant fear that someone would take advantage of us. She taught me to be perpetually defensive, hold your bag in front when you’re on a train, always double-lock the doors, never fully let your guard down even among close friends. As a child I was confused because her ways of living does not align with my experience. I remember asking her if thieves will wear a balaclava, and why I never saw them on the bus even though she seem confident that they’re out there somewhere. I remember yelling at her for her paranoia around my friend, as I couldn’t understand why helping others is anathema to her when I usually receive kindness in return, something I crave. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate kindness either. She often spoke warmly of strangers who helped her, like an elderly couple who fixed her tire, or how Americans in the suburb seem to always “forget” to lock the door, after her six month stay in the US as a visiting scholar. But she could not translate that appreciation into generosity toward others. It’s not just her, so are the other aunties and uncles I grew up with.
Thing do seem to be improving. Like many things this is the reason why I have my hope high for my country, despite how it is at the current moment. When I return home now I genuinely feel that more people are willing to help one another. After all I could easily see myself as someone who fixes other’s tire, and I do think people will be more likely to reciprocate now than it was before. We may be building a higher-trust society slowly, one in which people help others because they expect it to be reciprocated, and eventually because it becomes second nature. That path might be via harsh and draconian laws and immense social pressure, but I think it's worth it.
What I regret most about our low-trust society is how suboptimal it is. Helping others in our very homogeneous society would not harm you in most cases. On the contrary it should benefit you more as mutualism enriches everyone. Unfortunately we find ourselves stuck in a kind of social prisoner’s dilemma. The encouraging part is that we appear to be moving out of it, however slowly. Hope that trend continues before the society getting eaten by other societal illnesses which slowly start to manifest themselves.
Back to your point about the lack of moral responsibility to help the unfortunate. It may be true that the Chinese ordo amoris resembles a solar system, with most of its moral weight concentrated at the center, our own people, rather than the onion-like layers in a westerner’s mind. But I do not think this difference is immutable. Given a generation or two I believe we will converge.
From your mouth to God’s ears.
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The Western mode of directly or indirectly conquering the world because you experience moral outrage at the suffering of the poor and oppressed masses is not the only way to relate to other nations, and taking a different approach isn't by itself evidence of disinterest in global affairs. At this very moment, Chinese laborers are building ports, railroads, and highways across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America; Chinese immigrants are cooking meals in restaurants in nearly every country on Earth, from the frozen sub-arctic to the humid tropics; and Chinese astronauts are orbiting the Earth in their own space station. These are not the behaviors of an isolationist state or people. That this network exists primarily to further international trade, rather than as a tool in some great moral crusade, seems to me eminently reasonable and not a weakness.
Yes, the Chinese diaspora has spread all across the world, and that is great. And evidently they are quite adaptable and enjoy a wide variety of biomes!
Indeed, there is no denying that the Chinese people have contributed a ton to any society they have decided to join. I'm glad for the Chinese people we have in the United States, and I'd personally like more of them. Many more! But this is distinct from what I am talking about, which is again a general Chinese civilizational indifference to the welfare of others. I'd love to be wrong on this for what it's worth, and I as I said I look for signs of change, but I've yet to see much of anything. China has incredible biomedical abilities. Where is its version of pepfar? China is now full of billionaires. How many have signed the giving pledge? Where is the Chinese Bill Gates? Where is the Chinese Will MacAskill?
To be fair, I probably could have phrased things more clearly. Ultimately, my objection isn't that China isn't interested in Lithium deposits in Cameroon, or even that Chinese people aren't interested in running a electronics store in Yaoundé. My objection is that the Chinese don't seem to care about Cameroonians.
Is the Chinese approach of just doing business and not actually caring about anyone but yourself better for others than the Western schizo approach of caring so much you try to invade a country like Afghanistan to set up pride parades? I don't think so. Both approaches have serious issues, and as I said, I think both approaches could benefit from incorporating elements from the other. You don't need to convince me that the West has seriously screwed up at times: that is obvious. But I don't think you can convince me that the Chinese approach is morally better. In fact, I think it is pretty clearly morally worse. I find the good samaritan who accidentally botches an attempt to help a wounded child better, morally speaking, than the person who just doesn't give a shit about the wounded child because the child doesn't own the rights to any critical mineral mines. And I worry particularly that as we approach advanced AI and robotics capabilities, the Chinese attitude of indifference beyond the point where self-interest is in effect is potentially disastrous for our stupider human relations in the Third World. If China obtained post-scarcity abundance for itself, would it selflessly share it with the billions of not very useful brown people that occupy Africa and South America? Would it go through the trouble of making sure that abundance was equitably distributed in those societies, if that turned out to be necessary? I hope so, but I can't say I've yet seen anything that has put my mind at ease.
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This is applicable, if at all, only to late 19th century (mostly unprofitable) colonialism, justified, along national honor, by civilizing the natives. For the rest four centuries, the sales pitch was "Make Money Fast!".
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I'm not sure where this perception comes from or if it's a specifically western blind spot, maybe some wildly out of date leftover stereotype from after the Opium Wars?
But the Belt and Road Initiative did not come from a country totally disinterested in the rest of the world. China is keenly interested in the rest of the world and quite involved in foreign policy. All that foreign policy is blatantly towards China's own ends, not some abstract ideal like "democracy". But they have lots of it. And they will apply lots and lots of pressure across many many miles to make you do what they want.
See my response to Resolute Raven. The most important point:
As to your comment on the abstract ideal of "Democracy", I think you are missing the larger point, which is that this is not about caring about systems of government, but about caring about the people that live in them. I recognize many non-Westerners (and even many Westerners) find it hard to believe that the West genuinely cares about the welfare of non-Westerners, since we have such a... mixed record... when it comes to helping them. But I think the moral concern is genuine, and I think a great deal of meaningful help (more than most critics of the West would admit) has been delivered.
In the end, even our most rapacious acts have probably largely redounded to the benefit of our victims or their descendants (there are, as always, exceptions). Take the institution of slavery in America. It was undoubtedly surpassingly cruel, but also your average African American now earns a higher income than many white Europeans. When you compare this state of affairs to what they might be experiencing if they'd been left to fend for themselves in Africa, this seems vastly better.
Is it deranged to credit ourselves for seeing to the welfare of the descendants of people we kidnapped and enslaved? I don't actually think so. Yes, we were bad enough to enslave Africans. But we also were good enough, eventually, to free them, on our own initiative and at great cost to ourselves. And not only that, but to allow them to remain here, and to include them in our society, and to later give them equal rights, and after that to even make great sacrifices and endless efforts to try to promote their flourishing. The act of enslaving, and all the acts of kindness that came after it, both say something true about how the West is, and I think both of these things are very different than anything you could say about China. I doubt China would have ever taken African slaves at scale because I think it would have been obvious to them African slaves can't be good Chinese. And this is very good, because I also doubt, if China had a large population of the descendants of Africans it had enslaved, it would be nearly so indulgent as the West. I don't know what the Chinese solution would be to a population that committed 6-7 times as much murder as American whites on a per capita basis (I don't even want to know what the ratio would be relative to Han Chinese) but I can promise you it would not be Black Lives Matter. And as shitty as BLM was (both for us and for our black population—see the huge spike in murders with black victims) I think it is to our credit, morally, that we responded that way as opposed to in the way the CPC might have responded. Our kindness may yet be the death of us, but I can't bring myself to wish it away. My preferred solution is for us to become more practical and realistic, not less kind. In short, like the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, we need a brain.
Meanwhile, I think China needs a heart: my most ardent wish is that China develops a genuine feeling of moral responsibility for its less accomplished relations in the Global South, ideally while still retaining the pragmatism and effectiveness it possesses today. Maybe this will happen naturally as it gets richer—I have to remind myself that there is still a lot of serious poverty in China, for all the incredible progress they've made on that front. The good news is I don't think the Chinese are genetically incapable of changing: this isn't like asking Somalians to start winning more Fields medals. The issue is largely cultural.
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But China views the other entities the way physicists view black holes - all complexity is hidden and there is only two parameters - mass and spin. China cares only about resources, markets and shipping routes. They don't care about human rights, religion, ethnicity, who exactly is in power as long as it is stable, they are cavalier about things like pollution and whatnot. The only thing they are emotional about is Taiwan.
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