Beginning in 1945 and continuing for almost 45 years, the world lived on either edge of a balanced sword, one end held by the U.S., the other the Soviet Union. With that too, relatively speaking, came disciplined world order. The U.S. had its global allies. The Soviet Union led the rest, including China, albeit the two had their differences much like a father may have with a son. Interestingly though, that shy reserved family heir carefully watched his father and truly learned. Not to be like him in all ways, but by learning from the father’s mistakes, to become much better.
That world order, driven by a dual superpower check and balance, does not (yet) exist today, evidence the plethora of regional military conflicts around the world. Exploding terrorism too can in large part be attributed to that loss of order, with no other counter balance as the Soviets provided, weighing on terrorist harboring nations. China observed this power vacuum developing and is now poised to execute its integrated strategy to fill it as the “other” superpower.
It’s worth noting China’s ascent as being nothing short of stunning, yet the U.S. and its allies seem either oblivious or choose not to accept the fundamental fact that the downfall of the Soviet Union was not the end of the dual superpower period but rather a brief respite before the next. Evolving from a backward, agrarian nation 50 or even 25 years ago to now knocking on the superpower door is a truly astounding transformation for China, one however pre-meditated with planning, cunning and intent to dominate the world.
To put that in proper perspective, it’s important to weave in the specific genesis of this incredible transformation. In doing so, one must begin by looking post World War II. With the expulsion of Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist followers to the island of Formosa, now Taiwan, the Chinese turned to Mao Zedong (Tse-Tung) and inward. Embracing Communism and its façade Cultural Revolution, which was anything but good, the country then withdrew and disappeared from the world scene for many decades, albeit beginning to finally reverse that descent into the global abyss with new direction following the death of Mao in 1976. With his death, emerged an anticipated power struggle between the left and right. The Gang of Four (Mao’s widow and three associates) on the left ultimately lost to the right and were arrested. The right was led by two factions – one being the restorationists, bent on a return to the pro-Soviet model. The other being the reformists, led by Deng Xiaoping, who ultimately won control and set China on its current path. Deng wanted to see a move toward market-oriented policies and to de-emphasize the role of Maoist ideology in determining economic and political policy. Thus he can be credited with at least recognizing that some change was necessary in economic direction. This would certainly not be easy however.
To the contrary, post World War II, the Soviets under Stalin, turned aggressively outward politically and militarily, driven by both a geographical based paranoid fear of the West, coupled with some manifest destiny like need to secure as much of the globe either by physical presence or influence. The Cold War really then was a war between two distinct political and economic ideology combinations. On the one hand, Communism and Marxist command driven economic policies. On the other, Democracy and Capitalism.
The near simultaneous Soviet Union economic collapse, coupled with the Tiananmen Square debacle in 1989 then provided a watershed crossroad if not sea change in Chinese leadership thinking. On one hand, the Soviet meltdown proved that Marxist economic policies are doomed to fail, while on the other Tiananmen demonstrated that basic, no make that bare, if not “minimal” human rights for a country’s citizenry are necessary to prevent wide scale rebellion.
The Soviet Union was a “dysfunctional” superpower in that it was superpower in military terms only. As respects being an economic superpower, it was anything but. In fact, it was more akin to a third world nation in that regard. The assessment, conclusion and intent of the Chinese then became for them to be a “functional” superpower, measuring up “both” militarily “and” economically. To achieve that new and differentiated status however required movement away from pure communism to some middle ground; an essential adjustment if it were to not only survive but thrive. The Chinese challenge then became how to really embrace and transition to capitalism without sacrificing its communist ideology. Effectively, really now do what Deng Xiaoping had ideally wanted a decade earlier but met with resistance and limited progress. Cleverly, the Chinese quickly found the right balance, and aggressively and substantively embraced market driven economic principles.
Ironically and intriguingly this meteoric rise and balancing act is being fueled not by communist practices or overt military threat, but rather Western investment, technology and economic ideology. In other words, capitalism. Sounds strange that a staunch communist political leadership would embrace that which the Soviets publicly found so abhorrent, but that becomes precisely the point. In fact they are and with a gusto rivaling and arguably exceeding any major western economic power.
Therefore, in terms of how today’s situation came to be, it is fair to say that while the Chinese were deceptively quiet and remained under the global radar screen during this U.S./Soviet showdown, they were however extremely astute observers. What they learned and are now aggressively putting into practice, augurs the U.S. (and it’s “WEst and eAST allies” – hereinafter WEAST) to fear China more than it ever did the Soviets. Simply stated, unlike the Soviets, the Chinese evolved approach to Communism and global superpowerdom is sustainably threatening given it factors in not just raw military might, but more importantly a robust and functional economic engine to fuel, propel and the really scary aspect, to lead it. In fact, the Chinese global reach and power will be primarily reliant upon economic rather than military might, enhanced even more through expert opportunistic leveraging of globalization. It is thus poised for total domination.
See Section E in coming series Part (Strategic Partnerships/Polarity) on past, current and future perspectives on the related and changing global “polarity” (i.e. unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar) issue.
Analyst Note on Russia: A resurgent Russia under Czar minded Vladimir Putin mirrors China’s Commulism approach. While it has not advanced economically to the degree China has, it clearly is rising fast and pursuing a similar path in its efforts to reconstitute the Soviet Union, this time in a sustainable framework. The two powers are building towards something which if they join together may be unstoppable. The difference between the emerging Cold War II and Cold War I being China will be the de facto Cold War II “Commulist” world leader, whereas the Soviet Union was the Cold War I “Communist” world leader.
All vis-a-vis employing the fundamental lessons learned from both from the Soviets and themselves to now embrace Commulism; leveraging capitalism as the underpinning or foundation from which to build the integrated “5 Pillar Superpower Sustainability Framework” to support its core ideology - Communism:
Economic/Military/Social/Technology/Partnerships
Note: For the visual, see the illustrative Commulism 5 Pillar Structure Chart below. The columned look was chosen to denote the insidious nature of Commulism, by capturing the underlying Communist ideology intent to displace Democracy.
Coming Next: “Commulism Series” - Part 2
Note: Parts 2 and 3 will provide an analysis and assessment of the first of the 5 Commulism pillars – “Economic” - Sustainability (and Leverage).
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