The Yawning Gap of Understanding Leading to War

After spending two intensive weeks in Beijing, I now sense more than ever a yawning gap in understanding global affairs between China and the rest of the world. I am haunted by the images on Chinese TV of Zhao Leji, China’s number three top leader, visiting Pyongyang. Zhao and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hugged and held hands like best friends. Moreover, the Chinese delegation was seated at a table before Kim alone, almost as if they were reporting to him. Did Beijing want to tell its people that China and North Korea are indeed in the same boat, heading in the same direction? Does China want to learn from North Korea?

These are unsettling questions for Western businessmen who are now being wooed back to China after the long years of Covid. Yet, these questions cannot be easily dismissed, as they are much more significant than merely screening some bad footage on TV. The situation goes deeper, and perhaps an essential book on the early history of China can help: “The Confucian-Legalist State: A New Theory of Chinese History” by Dingxin Zhao.

Zhao and other historians puzzle over why no European state adopted the strict autocratic reforms that led to Qin’s unification of China in the 3rd century BC. This query is particularly poignant in the 17th century Europe when authoritarian theories proposed by Hobbes were available and popular. Zhao’s answer is multifaceted. He considers the legacy of the feudal civil society, the nobles, the leagues of craftsmen, and the church, fighting the concentration of power. He also notes that Europe had a much vaster war theater than early China. This inquiry is pressing because, although the Western world was once unified under the Roman Empire, such unification of the Mediterranean basin was never repeated. Conversely, after the 3rd-century unification by the Qin in China, the empire broke up but was reunified repeatedly. This pattern of unification after disintegration has been a constant in China, whereas the Mediterranean world has remained fragmented.

Zhao’s observations are certainly true but possibly not conclusive. Two other crucial elements could have contributed to the divergence from Hobbes’ theories of governance.

One is geographical. The Yellow River Basin, the cradle of Chinese civilization, was relatively isolated. Once Qin or another power unified the central plain, no other contender could challenge it from outside.

Conversely, the Mediterranean formed an open system among four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, and linking to the Atlantic Ocean. Here, the Romans, at the height of their power, were challenged by the mighty Persian Empire—descendants of Cyrus, who attempted to invade Greece in the early 5th century BC and rooted in the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia. Furthermore, in Africa, Rome contended with the powerful Aksum empire, modern Ethiopia, and faced restive steppe peoples in Eastern Europe. Thus, the Roman Empire arose at a crossroads of competing threats, in stark contrast to the geographic conditions faced by Qin and other Chinese empires, living among minimal external threats.

Furthermore, Hobbesian measures to concentrate power contrast starkly with the Western experience. A loosely organized league of Greek states, mainly Sparta and Athens, repeatedly defeated the much larger, strictly organized Persian empire. Even during Hobbes’s era, a few loosely organized Italian city-states, mainly Genoa and Venice, had managed to stop and defeat the well-organized Ottoman Empire. Historically, for thousands of years, Europeans observed that creativity and free association prevailed over despotism.

Additionally, liberal policies, evolved from medieval foundations, led to the discovery of the American continent and, later, the Industrial Revolution. The outcomes far surpassed any profits accrued from a Leviathan state.

Columbus, Magellan, and Cortez acted as modern private equity managers, acting on their own. They were financed by the crown, which received the majority of their profits, yet a significant portion, one-third, was retained by the adventurers.

This system was perfected by the French, the Dutch, and the British, who gathered public investment for daring ventures—a model reminiscent of the Roman armies, which raised venture money in the capital, then conquered and divided the spoils among victors.

The pertinent question now is: Can a state expand without private interests? If private interests are allowed, how can they be reconciled without tearing the country apart? Creating a res publica has been the Western solution for three thousand years.

Coming from a vastly different tradition, China struggles with this concept, and facing the imposing Western challenge, President Xi Jinping may be tempted to emulate Qin using some aspects of the North Korean model. It would be a potentially disastrous mistake. The world has changed and it is more similar to the Mediterranean universe than to the Yellow River space; the modern Chinese populace is different, and plans rarely unfold as expected.

A way to establish a “Chinese empire” in the modern world could have been through a new Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, it failed because it was poorly implemented, akin to an architect sketching a skyscraper on a napkin, which is then constructed by an inexperienced builder. Naturally, it was bound to collapse.

China also feels frustration because, in 1999 and 2001, after incidents like the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the EP-3 crashlanding, Beijing managed to pivot its relationship with America, joining the WTO and commencing fruitful cooperation with the US. Why isn’t this happening now? For this, people in Beijing are futilely attempting to bribe and woo businessmen as allies in America. In the US, a parallel argument holds that China should have been confronted then, in the late 1990s; it should not have joined the WTO, as the world would be better off now.

Having covered these events extensively from Beijing in 1999 and 2001, I perceive a deep misreading of the situation. At that time, China was still quite poor; the one-child policy had not fully taken effect, and so many impoverished Chinese could have been volunteered into the army to fight against America. This would have resulted in Beijing’s defeat and a scenario akin to what unfolded in Iraq—only China had 60 times Iraq’s population. A collapse of China could have submerged the Far East and perhaps half the world.

Moreover, it was just after the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Asians were wary of the US yet hopeful about China. These were strong arguments then, coupled with the hope that China would in time change for the best.

Now, the dynamics are different and need a fresh analysis.

Attempting to curry favor in Washington, DC, through bribes is naïve and counterproductive. It hasn’t altered the general American sentiment; if anything, it has exacerbated it.

There are no shortcuts for China out of its intricate situation, and Beijing should ponder long, hard, and creatively about its next steps.

Simultaneously, the US also needs new thinking. China’s missteps may have inadvertently gifted Asia to the US, but Chinese errors are not a substitute for American wisdom and foresight.

This all could lead to war, whether cold or hot. And additional tensions in Europe due to the war in Ukraine, and in the Middle East because of Gaza, will only make matters worse.