Beijing is trying to rethink the whole process of modernization, which we traditionally view as a highly complex historical process, as a rational formula that can be applied to present-day China. It copies some easy American and Western theories that ‘democracy’ can be standardized, reproduced, and exported worldwide, regardless of the local history and environment. The theories easily justify present results and are oblivious to historical processes.

In many ways, they are mirror images, possibly equally deceiving. From the American point of view, it answers the necessity to model the whole world according to its political and cultural standards. From China’s viewpoint, it wants to answer the fundamental question: how can China’s model fit into a modern system? The question is different from Russia, which offers a neo-czarist answer against modernity; China has something different.

Both models are simplifications that can be useful, but only as long as they are used with great caution. The historical evolution and background weigh immensely on whatever political model is used. What is necessary, politically and culturally, is an effort at mutual understanding. Here is a collection of essays written in the past months, an attempt at it.

Here is the list of the seven essays used here, as seven chapters of this excursion.

1. West against West
2. First Notes on Geo-Philosophy
3. Empires Strike Back
4. Algorithmical Theology
5. China’s Communist Party Subconscious
6. American Zhongguo
7. New Cold Outlines

West against West

16 July 2025

There are two Wests: one is dead, though pretending to be alive, and the other is thriving, though pretending to have troubles. They are different and must not be confused, lest great mistakes be made.

For centuries, the West has struggled with the recurring idea of its own decline and looming disaster.  While other nations refrain from discussing their decline or possible fall as if it were a taboo, as if mentioning it would hasten it, Western countries have long wallowed in this narrative. And yet here they are—stronger than ever and far from declining.

US President Donald Trump, with his “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) slogan, is the latest incarnation of this idea. America, the paragon of the West, is faltering, yet it must rise again, say the slogans.

It is not merely a shared human obsession, a fear of the end or death. Perhaps there is a genuine historical element rooted in a confusion between two “Wests”: one Mediterranean and grounded in an old imperial order (West 1), and the other global, born with the discovery of America (West 2). These are interconnected but also widely separated. The definitive end of the first—post-World War I—paved the way for the second to bloom fully.

The comprehensive narrative of the First World War’s crisis—its fall—relates to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the end of World War I, with its horrors—a vast, senseless bloodbath. At that moment, not one but three key pillars of the Western order crumbled. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire—mainstay of Europe for over a thousand years—the Russian Empire, the Third Rome, heir to Constantinople; and finally the Ottoman Empire, with its capital in the old Constantinople, now Istanbul.

Three Roman Empires, Three Religions

All three were legacies of the Roman Empire, relying on a close relationship between religious and imperial authority—the German Emperor had a dialectical relationship with the Pope; the Czar had the Patriarch at his beck and call; and the Caliph was both spiritual leader and supreme civil authority.

At that time, Oswald Spengler, a Bavarian thinker, crystallized the idea of the West’s crisis in his 1922 book. The West, centered around the Mediterranean, was indeed finished, and it would never return—and that is right.

Simultaneously, in the same region, thinkers like Hayek, Schumpeter, and Weber, faced with the explosion of socialist internationalist uprisings (close to Moscow) and nationalist movements (like those in Rome and Berlin), patiently explained that something new had been born from the ashes: the unparalleled value of the free market.

Over the last three to four centuries, there has been an explosion of the market economy— a product of Western thought and experience, shaped by influences from China and the history of global exploration. This idea evolved slowly, in opposition to the old empires, such as the Habsburgs, blessed by the Pope.

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century paved the way for the transformation, followed by the French Revolution in the 18^th century, and ultimately the end of World War I in 1918. Through these stages, capitalism and Western ideas became globally dominant. Even the Soviet Union is a product of Western thought—Marx was born in Germany and spent most of his life in London, the very heart of the capitalist West. Kemal Atatürk in Turkey radically rejected the Ottoman heritage, including its religion and script.

That world is gone; it is not merely declining but buried—despite temptations in Russia, Turkey, or even within Europe—to revive it.

At the same time, a century after WWI, there is no crisis of capitalism or its worldview. There is no crisis in the West 2. There may be a crisis of individual Western states, but not of the Western model itself, born of the capitalist revolution.

The idea of the market—phase after phase of the industrial revolution—has established itself, reaching now its latest frontier: artificial intelligence. Here, China is catching up, but the breakthrough came from Western America. It demonstrates the ongoing strength and validity of the Western experience. Radical opponents of free markets—those who rallied behind fascist or communist authoritarian regimes—have all been defeated over the past century.

Singular Problems

If the system works, that doesn’t mean every country adopting it has no troubles. Various nations face specific problems. The United States, for example, grapples with enormous budget and trade deficits, as well as a national debt—problems that are neither new nor unique.

Another example is China, which over nearly fifty years has adopted only parts of the Western experience, resulting in a skewed, lopsided situation today. While Chinese production is exceptional—the best in the world in terms of both cost and quality—there are issues with overproduction and deflation. The domestic market isn’t driving growth, and nobody really knows how to unlock it organically and without pain. These problems are increasingly weakening China. They can be resolved, perhaps, but they are tough to fix without systemic reforms.

What we have witnessed over the past few centuries is not the crisis of the Western capitalist model, but rather its remarkable resilience. It transcends the countries that adopted it. Over the last hundred years, while talk of crisis persisted, the West shifted from Britain and France’s dominance to a period in which the United States now appears unshaken—possibly even stronger.

This has clear consequences. Presently, the West is winning because the primary challengers over the past few years have suffered significant setbacks. Russia is tearing itself apart over Ukraine, Iran has proven to be a paper tiger, Hamas has been dismantled, and Iranian allies in the region have been decapitated. The Assad regime in Syria has fallen.

The Western setbacks in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2005 have not led to a viable alternative or emerging rival, as during the Cold War. The threat of global radical Islamism has largely faded—shown to be a matter of domestic law and order rather than a strategic, existential threat.

Communication

Yet, within the West, the narrative seems to diverge. It often appears as if Russia is winning in Ukraine and Hamas is triumphing elsewhere. This may stem from a weakness—the inability to analyze and fully grasp reality—blinded by the sparks of the moment, reflected in social media’s distorted mirror. Instead of clarity, we get a nightmare gallery of mutual reflections where every image is warped and surreal.

It is vital to regain a historical perspective to see the truth clearly. Social media helps access information more quickly, but it also floods us with deafening noise—mountains of clutter that obscure understanding.

These distorted reflections serve as tools of manipulation—part of a new psychological warfare. Iran, despite being brutally defeated in recent conflicts, claims victory. The same goes for Russia, which continually asserts it is winning, even though the front has not moved in three years—in fact, it has lost ground from its initial advances.

NATO remains stronger than ever: military spending in Europe has increased, and the United States has made a significant return to the continent.

China is a complex proposition. It’s the real challenge. Yet, it faces a different set of problems. Its main issue is the lack of full convertibility of its currency, the RMB. Initially, China aimed to convert the RMB by the year 2000. But the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis shifted this goal, and the 2008 American financial crisis pushed it further back, indefinitely postponing the idea of complete RMB convertibility.

Full convertibility of the RMB is crucial because it would mean China’s complete integration into the global economy. Beyond convertibility, the internal Chinese market must also open to foreign competition, which would create genuine positive domestic rivalry—something China has yet to implement fully.

Today, the overproduction crisis arises because hundreds, perhaps thousands, of companies should have gone bankrupt long ago—they have no market, neither domestically nor internationally. It’s unrealistic to think that the world — comprising the West, Europe, the United States, and Japan, with approximately 900 million people — could sustain China, a market of 1.4 billion, solely through imports. That situation should be precisely the opposite, and if China had opened its markets over the past 25 years, importing more and enabling its companies to compete internationally without excessive state aid, it could be the new global economic—and perhaps political—power.

Instead, China remains a giant with feet of clay. It has debts with an unknown total amount, and it is unclear how they can be resolved; their long-term sustainability is also uncertain.

All these are significant questions that unsettle the world—and also China itself. If China had fully adopted Western reforms—embracing a liberal, democratic political system capable of responding flexibly to social and economic changes—it would be in very different conditions today, and the world would look very different too.

But since China has not embraced these reforms, both China and the rest of the world find themselves in a state of profound unease. That could be pushing everybody toward an aggressive military race—daring confrontations that bode poorly for its future and ours.

Why did China make such mistakes? There are surely many explanations, but possibly one gnoseological reason is that it confused the two Wests: the one that was killed in the WWI trenches and the one that thrived through somersaults and revolutions. The confusion was not originally Chinese, but peddled by confused Western preachers.

The Vatican and Western Religion

The end of the Mediterranean Empires also marked the end of their traditional connection to their respective religions. The Russian Orthodox were persecuted and then revived almost as if nothing had happened, as Russian President Vladimir Putin groomed his new czarist dreams.

In Turkey, Islam was cast aside for decades until President Recep Erdogan also tried to follow a similar pattern, casting himself as a modern sultan and reviving the role of Islam—though not to Putin’s degree. Neither Russian Orthodoxy nor Turkish Islam had lost its social and political foothold in its respective society. Turkey and Russia modernized, but their religious traditions came back with a vengeance.

The Pope was different. In 1870, it lost its Pontiff Estate, which had guaranteed its independence for over a millennium, and its defender, the Holy Roman Emperor, was abolished as well. Plus, the Holy See was for many decades under the triple siege of atheist communism, deist freemasonry (holding massive influence in capitalist countries), and militant Protestantism. Communism arrived in Russia, but not to the same extent in the Muslim world. Freemasonry and Protestantism never really penetrated Turkey or Russia.

The shock for Rome had been enormous, but slowly the Holy See assumed a different global role—one that neither Russian Orthodoxy nor Islam managed to achieve. It built bridges with all three previous mortal challenges. The Holy See modernized Catholicism in a way that the others did not, and yet it preserved a thread of continuity with the past that does not hinder modernity.

The Vatican experience should serve as a model for Islam and Russian Orthodoxy. The key is to be in sync with modernity, not in opposition to it. Indeed, the Pope beckoning to all religions is a beacon of innovation, though rooted in continuity. Here, China could learn something, too.

First Notes on Geo-Philosophy

12 September 2025

Ancient Roman and Ancient Chinese Foundations. “We think in relation to our geographical and historical contexts. Philosophy allows us to address the historical issues before us clearly and thoroughly.”

(Speech at the First World History Frontiers Forum, organized by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, September 12, Beijing)

The differences between the ancient Chinese and Roman states, as observed by Feng Youlan a century ago, begin with the geographical environments in which the two civilizations developed. The Roman Empire was established around the Mediterranean, building upon the foundations laid by the Greeks and Phoenicians. These earlier peoples had already mastered the sea; they were skilled navigators, and Rome first had to wrest control of the Italian peninsula from them to ultimately rule the Mediterranean. Two parallel lines of rowers operated their original ships—all equals—who had to work in perfect unison. The captain was simply the one with the heaviest oar: the rudder. He had to keep the rhythm and the harmony of the rowing, it was easy and immediate to see when he made a mistake. The rhythm was an abstract rule, independent of his will. He could do it faster or slower but had to consider all conditions.

The phalanx —the model army of the Greeks and the foundation of the Roman legion —was also a group of equals. The king held the main line of the phalanx; the spear was used somewhat like an oar. Whether in a boat or a battle formation, the key was cohesion. If one person made a mistake, the entire ship could sink, and the same was true for the phalanx, whose break could lead to defeat. Therefore, the main goal was to maintain equal effectiveness, governed by the simple rule coordinating the rowers or the steps of the phalanx.

Moreover, the Mediterranean is a treacherous sea where winds and currents can change at any time. Mistakes are inevitable because the sea and wind are unpredictable. The goal, then, is not to execute a single plan consistently over a long period, but to cultivate the ability to correct sudden errors and adapt to surprises.

The political structure of Sparta, or its equivalent in the Roman Republic, was designed to correct mistakes. Sparta had two kings who ruled in succession; similarly, Rome had two consuls who also served in succession. This system aimed to correct potential errors made by the previous leader. It proved highly effective, enabling the Greek League to defeat the mighty Persian Empire. Later, under the leadership of Alexander of Macedon, the phalanx conquered half the known world, demonstrating its unstoppable force.

The Greeks and Romans were both merchants and pirates. The legion was organized almost like a private equity firm; everyone was entitled to a share of the loot based on their rank. As an organization of equals, its members had rights that matched their duties—two sides of the same coin. One had to stay in formation in the legion, holding the shield, and would receive payment based on performance.

The Mediterranean was a vast, open area bordered by three continents and six other seas, a geography that for centuries prevented its political unification. It was unified only once, by the Romans—a feat never achieved again. Although the sea remains a fiercely contested battlefield to this day, its unity was never pursued after Rome.

The Chinese Space

The Chinese space was profoundly different. First, it was enclosed. To the north lay the steppes, to the west the desert and mountains, and to the south more mountains and dense jungle. To the east was an archipelago and a peninsula, and beyond that, a vast, endless ocean. This limited space was challenging to access. Initially, it was also a dense jungle inhabited by elephants and other wild animals, with formidable mountains and rivers.

These geographic features could only be controlled by organized groups of people executing a long-term plan—burning forests, hunting elephants, managing river courses, and leveling mountains. Here, nature was harsh but not unpredictable; it was a stable environment over months and years. Surprises were rare and usually caused by exceptional events, such as earthquakes or locust plagues.

To address these challenges, a highly organized hierarchy was necessary, and for that hierarchy, authority was essential to validate it. Those with more efficient organization, greater manpower, and more resources succeeded in building more river embankments, clearing more forests, and hunting more elephants, thereby expanding the land under cultivation and increasing food production. This led to a larger population, a stronger army, and better weaponry. The core issue was the entire organization.

This river region differed from the other three ancient river civilizations. The rivers of Egypt and Mesopotamia flowed through deserts and were close to each other and to the sea—the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. They were also near the Indus civilization, which was situated not in a desert but amidst forests. These were not isolated but connected, open, and contiguous areas. From the start, these three civilizations had mutual relations and influences. Inspiration from Egypt and Mesopotamia shaped Greek society, and Alexander later conquered parts of India.

China and its civilization, on the other hand, remained separate from this sphere. Social organization in China also became a way of waging war. But while governing the boat leads to the phalanx, which in turn leads to the res publica and democracy, hierarchical organization leads to a different kind of political structure and a different kind of warfare. In Rome or Greece, the emperor was a warrior who fought alongside his soldiers.

In China, the emperor was a semi-religious authority who guaranteed social peace—that is, the hierarchical order. At the start of any major waterworks project, you cannot know if the chief designer is right; you must trust him, have faith in him, and you need a clear social order to carry out the work. This is very different from a boat, whose fate—whether it is sinking or crashing under the waves—can be determined in minutes. Therefore, in China, there was a distinct social distance: the sovereign, the general-bureaucrat, and the soldier. Because the organization is only as good as its leader, the ruler is the key. Everything belongs to him. There are no rights or duties, only loyalty or disloyalty, and he distributes rewards and punishments based on his undisputable judgment. If he seriously fails, the world and the dynasty collapse. Consequently, no one wants him to fail. His person was more important than the rules he used to govern.

An ancient debate

It is interesting to observe the philosophical debate in China during the fourth and fifth centuries BC. The philosopher Mozi was the first to provide an account of the intense intellectual and political discussions of that era, with three sets of chapters all titled Fei 非 (Against), aimed at presenting arguments against opposing schools of thought.

Fei Ru 非儒 (Against the Ru) clearly opposes Confucius and the Confucians. Fei Gong 非攻 (Against Offensive Warfare) argues against those who advocate for wars of attack, where large states target smaller ones to eliminate them. Sunzi supported the idea that large states should continue to grow stronger and larger, with more people and greater resources, enabling them to conquer more territory and support a bigger population with a more efficient organization. Fei Gong seems to oppose Sunzi. Possibly, the chapter Fei Yue 非樂 (Against Music) (or perhaps it should be read as Fei Le, Against Fun-Enjoyment, as A.C. Graham suggested) targets Zhuangzi and his followers, who preferred to spend time in the forests singing and dancing rather than working hard for the state.

Mozi agrees with the principle of efficient organization and supports its logic, but he opposes large states expanding further at the expense of smaller ones. Instead, he believes that a return to an inter-state religious-political authority should ensure a balance of power. An overreaching Son of Heaven (tianzi 天子) arbitrating between independent state lords (guojun 國君).

Therefore, he suggests a series of measures to strengthen the defenses of cities and smaller states. However, he never proposes an army of equals, like the Greek phalanx or the Roman legion, which would have been more effective for a small state facing a larger one, as Greek history against Persia showed. A few, equal, highly motivated individuals can defeat larger, poorly motivated crowds who may dislike their own generals more than they dislike the enemy.

Greek warriors were bound by a special love for each other called agape. There was a kind of love also in the Chinese social organization that the Mohists called ai 愛, etymologically “a heart between a claw and a beating stick.” But even that was to be directed hierarchically, above one’s superiors, not below. The sentiment among low-class members was referred to with the derogatory term dang 黨, etymologically “mouths under a roof in the dark.”

The Mohists were unique in ancient China. They were the most organized school of thought, with highly loyal disciples serving as “military advisers” to various warring states. However, even they failed to see beyond the limits of a bureaucratic army.

The army of equals was clearly outside China’s cultural horizon at the time, as well as beyond its geographical and political boundaries. The army consisted of noble warriors trained for years in archery and chariotry, or of growing numbers of farmer-soldiers commanded by a Strategist-general.

There was no united group of comrades who fought and died together, as in Rome or Sparta. There was supposed to be no love for comrades. In Rome, beneath the heroic band of soldiers privileged to fight and thus be immortalized in their deeds, there was a crowd of nameless slaves who could only live as long as they remained useful: they were tools, animals raised to pull plows or be killed for entertainment in the Colosseum. Dying as a hero was a privilege; the great foundational poem of Western culture, the Iliad, is centered on this—the drama and suffering of Achilles, a man who chooses to die young in exchange for eternal fame.

In China, this concept does not exist. Since ancient times, when numerous large and small states fought among themselves, the idea of Yang sheng (nourishing life) has persisted—maintaining one’s own life even at the expense of sacrificing a state, aiming to extend life indefinitely. In Greece and Rome, however, people sought a heroic death by the sword, to be celebrated in triumph on shields as a fallen hero. There is also the idea of the immortality of the name — almost a personal soul — that holds more significance than earthly salvation.

There were not many fighting heroes in China, but there were not many slaves either. In Rome, the economy relied on agriculture, war, conquest, and plunder—raids brought in material wealth and slaves. In China, wealth was generated mainly through agriculture and industry. War was either a waste of resources or aimed at increasing territory and manpower to gain more arable land, a larger workforce, and thus more resources for further expansion or consolidation, as Mozi’s Fei Gong chapters vividly described.

Furthermore, although the unity of the Mediterranean was achieved only once, the unity of the Central Chinese plain became a recurring theme in the history of Chinese civilization after the second unification by the Sui and Tang. Unification was not only geographical but also historical. All dynasties emphasized a linear continuity and succession of cycles, glossing over historical differences.

In the Mediterranean, although the Romans admired ancient Egypt, as shown by the obelisks they plundered and brought to Rome, they never claimed a historical continuity with Egypt.

In this parallel story, there is no right or wrong, better or worse. There are only two historical paths that led to different outcomes, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The challenge today is reconciling these two histories peacefully.

What emerges from this brief examination is that we think in relation to our geographical and historical contexts. Philosophy allows us to address the historical issues before us clearly and thoroughly.

Empires Strike Back

29 September 2025

The old Western Empires fell to a new Western order – modern liberalism. Now, they are rising from the ashes, threatening liberalism. The US may be tempted to become an empire too, but can it win when its adversaries are better at it? And can modernity survive without liberalism?

In 1918, three empires—the Holy Roman, Russian, and Ottoman—spanning centuries of Mediterranean history and all claiming the legacy of the ancient Roman Empire, came to an end. They all asserted a special link with the divine. In Russia and Turkey, the czar and the sultan were also the heads of their faiths; in Austria, the emperor had a special tie with the Pope in Rome.
With their fall, Mediterranean politics definitively shattered an old, worn-out link with God —a system in which political power and the clergy were distinct entities. Still, they had found a convergence in the imperial person. That strong link had marked Mediterranean history for centuries. In fact, the long process from Republic to Empire started in Rome over 2,000 years ago.

The Western Imperial Rise

The drive for empire started with the end of the Punic Wars (264 BC – 146 BC). Then the Republic was without peer challengers in the region, but its territory was far too extensive, and it needed a professional standing army. Marius (157 BC – 13 January 86 BC) was the first to push for it. However, an experienced army carried the seed of the Republic’s destruction.

Professional soldiers became loyal to their generals rather than to the Roman res publica. This, in time, ushered in mighty generals who came to be the supreme military commanders of the Roman world—i.e., emperors. Following the defeat of the Carthaginians, the vast and diverse Roman organization required long-term planning, a complex organizational structure, and extensive standing armies that could be easily deployed. This implied the development of complex logistics, armories, and food supplies. They needed plans whose success or failure could be judged over the years. This, in turn, demanded trust and faith in a long-term leader – hence the emperor.

It was a massive philosophical move from the organization of a rowing boat or the legion, where each man was responsible for his oar or his shield within a unit of equals (see here). Yet the legion continued to exist; in fact, it remained the core of Roman victories. Boats in the treacherous Mediterranean Sea, with sudden changes of winds or a lack of wind altogether, were still reliant on coordinated rowing. Here, mistakes remained immediately visible and had to be corrected immediately.

These opposed elements may have also contributed to historical sedimentation in the imperial transformation of Rome. It promoted a new emperor but maintained the separation of powers, with the old republican trappings and a religious entity distinct from the political one—a relatively separate religious entity, well suited to a structure of split yet equal and balanced duties and rights. In a phalanx or in a boat and rowers are all equal, but each has distinct requirements to fulfil.

Trust in long-term imperial planning transcended the single emperor; it was generational or multi-generational. Its outcome could only be seen in the afterlife, whether one was in hell or paradise.

Yet daily mistakes and surprises had to be addressed and corrected immediately. There was a double time: one of daily ‘chaos’ to be managed daily (with the ancient republican trappings) and the imperial time, eternal, like the gods, and to be judged not in this life.

The distinction might have been weaker in Byzantium, Moscow, or Istanbul. Still, the Czar or the Sultan had to confront the periodic challenges of a clergy that sometimes called out actual or alleged imperial errors.

The clergy could have been used to run the empire. Still, bureaucratic structures were never as developed as in China, and the loyalty of the clergy to the emperor or the religious faith was totally overlapping. Physics and metaphysics were distinct realms in the Abrahamitic religions that conquered the world, and, by principle, they didn’t coincide; thus, the emperor’s actions could become questionable and, by extension, be challenged by the clergy.

This was the backbone of the Mediterranean empires that lasted until 1918.

China

The picture in China was very different. The emperor was the son of Heaven in a public religion where public peace and stability were practical proof of heavenly favor. One didn’t have to die to see if he was in hell or paradise, as was the case with Christians or Muslims. The daily order and the food abundance in the markets were clear evidence of the emperor’s good work. There was no official religion beyond this, and thus no real clergy; only bureaucrats serving the state religion and the emperor.

It was a practical time, between daily chaos and eternity. The rise or fall of a dynasty proved, in practice, whether the empire was right or wrong. Daily troubles could be fixed or not, provided they didn’t exceed a certain threshold of general instability. Then they had to be crushed, lest the empire’s stability be threatened.

Any dynasty also had a specific ideological/religious drive that gave its rule a distinct shape. It was their own particular philosophical content, unlike in the West, where all sovereigns drew from Christianity or Islam, albeit with different shades. Again, it was a time frame shorter than God’s eternity and longer than the daily mess.

Rebellions broke out when people felt stability and well-being were not guaranteed—when there had been a major famine or flood that the state hadn’t managed to cope with. Rebellions began when the emperor and his officials/clergy failed to provide stability and food. People would then feel they could no longer rely on arrangements from above and had to take things into their own hands.

Ancient China, before the Qin unification, had a specific term for it, dang黨 (mainly as explained in Mozi; people are encouraged to conform above shangtong 尚同 and not clique below xiadang 下黨), which meant something like plotting in local villages without consulting superiors. This plotting led to banditry. Farmers, impoverished and deprived of their land, took to the forest and mountains, robbing people. This led to growing penury in a vicious circle that imperial forces had to quell; if they failed, it would ultimately end in the empire’s toppling. When banditry grew in scale, it often took on religious/ideological colors.

Liu Bang, founder of the Han dynasty in the second century BC, came from this tradition. He was a little petty criminal who joined a group of escaping criminals. Zhu Yuanzhang, founder of the Ming, was a penniless Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in the 14th century.

The Turbans were yellow when they toppled the Han dynasty in the 3rd century AD, although they failed to establish a new dynasty. The rebels, known as the Taiping, were pseudo-Christian when they almost overthrew the Qing dynasty in the mid-19th century. That is, religion and politics were one, both in the rule and the challenge of the empire. The proof of their faith was in the pudding of their revolution. The revolution succeeded because its ideology/religion was effective. If it failed, the religion/ideology could well disappear—very much unlike the millennial Mediterranean religions.

Below the dynastic faith, Buddhism has had a lasting impact, mixed with Taoist beliefs. But they were private, personal events. They didn’t require weekly assemblies (Sundays, Saturdays, or Fridays) where the preacher would collectively direct both ordinary and influential people in one direction or another, as seen in the Abrahamitic faiths. Faith was not a social affair. Social faith was only about the state.

Mediterranean Incursion into Asia

In the 7th century AD, the expansion of Islam weakened the Roman Empire. Still, Constantinople resisted the onslaught. On the other hand, the Arabs broke the Persian Empire, which had, for centuries, blocked direct contact between the Mediterranean and the Indian world. The feat had been achieved only once before by Alexander the Great. The realms of the Muslim world subsequently failed to maintain a unified faith and a unitary state.

Still, Islam continued to spread and attract converts throughout Indonesia, the Philippines, and southern China. It created the first trade/religious network spanning from East Asia to the Mediterranean shores.

The eastern expansion of Muslim culture after the fall and conquest of the Persian empire reached India, where Greek culture, which undergirded Muslim philosophy, had already had an impact since the time of Alexander; i.e., Western culture wasn’t wholly new. Besides, Islam originated in the cradle of ancient Greek philosophy, Christianity, and the Jewish faith, which also influenced northern European culture.

Christianity sought to break the Islamic hold on contacts with Asia, possibly by exploiting the extensive network created by the Mongol conquests in the 13th century. It dreamed of a Christian king of the east—the mythical Prester John—but it never really pierced the Islamic monopoly. The European traders who thrived in the Mediterranean did so by compromising and dealing with Islamic and Jewish traders.

Ottoman wealth and power originated in Central Asia and the Islamic network —an empire of trade that stretched across Asia, including China. Islam had established a stable connection between the Far East and the Mediterranean basin. The 15th-century voyages of Ming admiral Zheng He may have been a Chinese response to this Muslim power. Zheng was a Muslim loyal to the emperor of China, not to other sultans. Zheng proved a significant religious point: one could be personally Muslim, as different Chinese were personally Buddhist, but it was a purely personal belief, not social, and it didn’t interfere with the “social faith” in the sacred imperial order of the Son of Heaven.

When the Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch (all initially loyal to the Holy Emperor of the Habsburg dynasty) first arrived in East Asia in the 16th century, they had to fight and expel Muslim traders. The European merchants brought to Asia an unparalleled advantage compared to their Muslim competitors – the goods and silver of the Americas, which they had monopolized.

Over the following centuries, the Muslim trade empire and political empire slowly came to an end. It was brought about by military defeats (the Spanish stopped the Muslim advance in the Mediterranean with Lepanto in 1571, and in the east, they conquered Manila) and economic advantages (the westerners had more and better goods to trade thanks to their control of the Americas). Still, it was not the end of their religious footprint on the Asian continent.

To try to win over these new areas, the Catholic Church, then far more organized than its Protestant competitors, sent missionaries to the east. They brought back a trove of untapped Chinese culture that influenced the Western world in the 17th and 18th centuries. It contributed to the labor of modernity.

This culture contributed to the transformation of Europe and the emergence of modern society.
There were three sets of contributions that gave rise to modernity in the West:

1. From ocean voyages came: a sense of a limitless world, the discovery of discovery, the new as a positive element, and no longer as a threat to an established order.
2. From China came: the concept of revolution, the bureaucracy and backbone of an abstract yet personal state, wu wei (no proactive action), a concept similar to the capitalist economic theory of the invisible hand of the free market, and an ethic independent of religion.
3. From the European tradition, there were the ideas of a Res Publica, the division of powers, and the role of religion in society and the state. The concept of a personal god led to the recognition of the sanctity of each person.

The End of Emperors

At the time when Western Christianity was winning, it broke down. The Protestant Reformation, which occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries, significantly disrupted the pact between the Pope and the Holy Emperor, which had been the gravitational pull of Europe since Charlemagne.
The long reign of emperors, spanning some 18 centuries, was now waning. The Dutch claimed independence from the Habsburgs and established a Republic.

In the 17th century, the English beheaded their king and gave power to parliament before remitting it to a dictator, Oliver Cromwell. When the monarchy was re-established, the king was provided by the Dutch Republic.

The century following American independence (proclaimed in 1776) was marked by the country’s efforts to play the French against the English and establish its republic. In France in 1789, a republic beheaded the king but then proclaimed Napoleon a dictator and made him an emperor, whom the Pope crowned, as Charlemagne had been a millennium earlier. The reign of Emperor Napoleon was short-lived, and the movement against imperial power that accompanied the wealth and power created by modernity and capitalism carried on in the 19th century, engulfing the whole world in its wake.

Dictatorships, from Cromwell to Napoleon, seemed like a nostalgia, a muscle memory of the King’s old hieratic power. In the 19th century, the old European order crumbled, culminating in 1918 with the fall of the three ancient empires: the Holy Roman, the Russian, and the Ottoman. The rest of the world’s empires fell to their knees or shortly thereafter. Empires were no more; democracy, whether liberal or popular, was the keyword.

It was the end of a world. However, the collapse occurred with the sudden replacement by an emerging power —the US, also a Roman offspring—the death of the old West and the birth of the new one. It happened over two centuries, starting with the French Revolution, which spread the revolutionary idea that societies could be reshaped and re-engineered. Later, in the 20th century, this idea of rebuilding societies and states continued.

With the French Revolution, Leninism, some democratic Western movements, and fascism came the idea of a society that can and should be re-engineered.

Indeed, the idea of engineering the state and society was not unknown in traditional times. The whole ancient pre-Qin debate over unification (3rd century BC) was about engineering state structures. The goal was to create the most efficient state and social structure to boost production, thereby increasing the population and equipment necessary for the army to win wars and expand territory and population. The goal was the power and survival of one’s state against competing states.
In Europe, the Soviet revolution aimed to boost social justice over personal riches, and, consequently, the happiness of the people. The liberals, conversely, primarily aimed to increase wealth growth, which, in the end, boosted their nations’ wealth and, by extension, their power.

The social project began with the people, not the state, but ultimately the state would be more prosperous and more powerful, with happy, driven people.

The French and Soviet revolutions also adopted different senses of geography. Every person in the world (not just within one state) should have the same rights and enjoy the same opportunities, governed by the same rules that would collectively govern the whole world. The abstraction of a unified world, not a singular state, was the general political horizon.

China, whether consciously or unconsciously, may have recognized elements of its own cultural DNA when it came to believe in the bankruptcy of its cultural order and introduced Western concepts wholesale in the 20th century. The Communist Party introduced and spread the idea of equality among people, a concept previously unheard of in a highly hierarchical society. It brought the idea of democracy as the rule of the people. Then, with Deng’s reform, the concept of abstract market rules was also introduced.

In a nutshell, the massive transformation brought about by the party is threefold:

1. The party utilizes the concept of equality, which did not previously exist, and continues to face challenges in gaining cultural acceptance within a hierarchical mindset.
2. There is no emperor; some veteran comrades select leaders and decide policies.
3. Geographically, China is no longer isolated; it maintains trade and diplomatic relations with many countries. Because they control Tibet and Xinjiang, formerly buffer areas, they have no buffer state; moreover, their economy depends on international trade, unlike any other time in Chinese history. Therefore, the party needs to follow global developments and cannot simply concentrate on its own territory as it did in the imperial past.

How to reconcile these elements? There is still the tradition of isolation, a semi-conscious belief in an emperor, a sense of hierarchy; how can these be reconciled?

The Communist Party has already altered the fundamental concepts of Ancient China by uniting formerly separated elements: ownership (which was under the emperor’s control) and management, which was in the hands of ministers appointed by the emperor. Now, without an emperor, interpreter of the will of Heaven, or without a people that can elect its leaders according to its wishes, everything is confused. Who knows what the right direction is for the country and its people?

At the same time, there is a growing impatience in China and around the world with the liberal order and the division of power that have characterized the cultural debate of the past three centuries.
Social media has enabled people’s general wishes (lumping together all the singular postings) to connect directly with top leaders, eliminating the need for physical contact and personal debates. Moreover, by providing a platform for everyone to reflect on their own postings, each individual has developed a sense of self-satisfaction and egotism, even though their postings become just a tiny part of a broader statistical analysis.

Old rights to privacy and freedom are de facto restricted by vast mechanisms that generate trends driven by the unfettered surge of personal liberty and private exposure. Then, the needs of large companies feed on personal delusions of freedom. Only “outdated” laws on privacy and liberty stand between the mass-control led by companies and genuine personal freedoms. The industrial and developmental trend is toward mass control.

In this situation, a country like China, already well-structured and unshackled by the ideas of the old necessity of privacy and personal freedom, and driven by the accepted notion of public need, could be ahead compared to a country like the US, still fettered by democratic trappings.

… and their rebirth

Understandably, empires fell only a little over a century ago, and their memory is still with us, fostering a nostalgia for the good old days. Moreover, the new liberal order is proving tiring, largely incomprehensible, and confusing to most people called upon to take on their own responsibilities. Many have grown impatient with the complexities of the liberal order in the new West (see here), forgetting that the Western transformation into modernity has tripled average human life expectancy, increased the human population tenfold in about a century, and improved the quality of life to an unprecedented level.

This was due to the complex and contradictory nature of the Western capitalist revolution. Still, it is so confusing that many would prefer to trust a messianic leader.

However, here’s a twist and a question mark. Ancient empires included a religious element to justify the rule of one over millions. Consciously and unconsciously, people believed the gods had touched the emperor, enabling him to foresee events and steer the nation’s future. The Chinese emperor was the Son of Heaven; the Sultan was also the Commander of the Faithful, as was the Russian Czar; the emperors and kings of Europe needed the Pope’s blessings. Leadership was viewed as a divine gift, akin to the gift of a prophet.

Today, some leaders seem to seek a similar sense of divine authority. Russian President Vladimir Putin turns to the Orthodox Church. Former US President Donald Trump had a group of evangelicals bless him at the White House. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has inscribed his divine right to rule in the constitution, and propaganda venerates his father and grandfather as if they never died—in a neo-shamanistic cult.

This leaves Beijing as the major entity rejecting a special relationship with the divine. In theory, it should either renounce the communist legacy and return to the times of the Son of Heaven, or reject imperial tendencies and embrace a more liberal society. If it chose the second path, it would become the champion of liberalism; otherwise, in an apparent retreat, it would further push the pro-imperial current in the global cultural debate, rejecting all that the cultural transformation brought about by the party in its history. A middle ground, the first Chinese temptation, would be difficult to achieve.

The root cause of the triumphant march of imperial mode is the breakdown of a social covenant that held together old societies. This covenant is felt to be broken because societies are split on how to cope with rules about new immigration.

Liberal democracy, and thus a fair market, is based on a social covenant. If the covenant is broken, democracy falls apart.

This leaves an enormous new space for the Catholic Church: what role can the Catholics have—and want to have? They were traditionally always in a dialectical dialogue with power, but unlike other faiths, never a simple tool of government.

Pope Leo spoke about the rule for the Church. He said (see here): “I think that synodality is a way of describing how we can come together and be a community and seek communion as a church, so that it’s a church whose primary focus is not on an institutional hierarchy, but rather on a sense of ‘we together’, ‘our church’.”

According to Pope Leo, this is an attitude that can “teach a lot to the world today.” He says it is not about trying to transform the Church into some kind of democratic government, which, if we look at many countries around the world today, is not necessarily a perfect solution to everything.

The Pope, of course, doesn’t have to choose a specific form of government and has historically spoken with everyone. But the question is more urgent than it has been in centuries: if governments seek religious approval for their rule, will the Church support a modern version of the Constantine imperial pact? It could become increasingly complicated, as many aspiring empires are competing, and the Church would need to choose one.

Alternatively, the Church could try to balance among them and find a new role, like its position in medieval Europe. It won’t be easy. Moreover, a new imperial order could hinder the rapid pace of change and innovation that has driven societies over the past two centuries. Slowing it down could be a possibility; the pace of change is too quick and unbearable for many people.

But is a slowdown even possible? Those dominating scientific breakthroughs have an overwhelming military advantage. However, breakthroughs have historically come from liberal societies like the US. Thus, shutting down liberalism could weaken American competition vis-à-vis China.

The vast, unprecedented scale of the new e-businesses is also an issue. New capitalists will hit the market with an edge—innovation, something new, better quality, a better price. This will give them a legitimate competitive edge. They will try to turn that edge into a tool to corner the market and eliminate competition. An edge and winning over competition are necessary, but cornering the market can kill capitalism and hinder future innovation. A democratic state is required to avoid it, through anti-trust laws and taxation.

Against Neo Medievalism

Without it, you have Russia. Still, Russia is better at being Russia than the USA is at trying to copy Russia. Moreover, Russia or China never truly experienced a liberal society, and thus the global imperial slide fits well with their memories and cultural genes. In the West, and in America, without any real tradition of imperial rule and three uninterrupted centuries of the Republic, it is very different. But it is unclear to what degree.

On the other hand, international competition between states, which utilizes companies for their goals and in turn uses them, complicates matters. China has openly put all its e-businesses at the service of the state; can the US do the same? If it doesn’t, its general national competition with China could fail. But how can liberal capitalist rules survive a national call to arms? An empire could more easily manage it. Historically, nimble republics, such as the Venetians or the Dutch, have prevailed over monolithic empires.

It’s unclear whether empires will prevail now. However, if they do, modernity as we have known it so far could undergo a dramatic change. The liberal world is, conversely, culturally mute, speechless before the imperial cultural assault.

The massive voice of empires grows stronger all over. However, the voices for liberalism are growing quieter.
It’s not just a matter of freedom; it’s about innovation, progress, and a better life. Liberty drove these results; imperial powers have so far managed to follow and improve, but not to generate breakthroughs. Therefore, will innovation continue to prevail among empires, or will it slow down and come to a halt? Perhaps we can’t stand the fast-paced change.

The global population is aging, especially in the Western world, and older individuals often resist change. Stability could be the real pattern. Still, much will be decided by the United States. If the US, for whatever reasons, chooses to become an imperial power, shedding its republican and liberal robes, things will be pretty much settled.

+++

In the 20th century, when liberalism was under attack from the converging forces of fascism and communism, liberal society produced a massive library of authoritative arguments countering the totalitarian trends. However, now in the middle of the comprehensive cultural offensive of traditional neo-imperialism against liberalism, it is almost mute. Still, it should have a lot to say.

Last century, the response was with economic theory and the theory of scientific research to counter arguments that sought to make the free market a service to the State. Capitalist societies were branded “plutocracies” by both challengers.  Today, with the imperialist challenge, no one openly questions the free market, and the challenge is more subtle and indirect.

Now, perhaps, the response should be historical—focused on modernity and historical development. Two recent books could help reveal something that shifts the current cultural landscape.

In Crack-up Capitalism (2023), Quinn Slobodian writes that modern capitalism, as exemplified by giant American entrepreneurs, seeks a world in pieces, where states have little power, allowing them instead to exercise their discretionary power, and it can’t stand democracy. But this vision may not hold up in a very concrete clash between imperial powers.

On Liberalism (2025), Cass Sunstein views this liberalism as an almost romantic quest for freedom. But it’s not just a love of abstract freedom. Liberalism has been an essential component of modern development. But liberalism is more than that. Altering liberalism alters the chemistry of modernity, halting or slowing the rate of progress and development, and sends everyone back to a static, neo-medieval world.

Neither tackles the new mix of domestic political strains on democracy and the bitter international competition with China.

Like in old empires, there seems to be a naive and possibly unholy alliance between tech billionaires and ‘kings’, which at the beginning may look mutually beneficial. The kings grant privileged ‘patents’ and waivers (protection against antitrust, tax loopholes, and lucrative state contracts) to tech billionaires, and the tech companies give autocrats mass support, funds, and votes through their platforms. The pact is special, already outside the traditional realm of a res publica, it is without duties and rights, but with only a political contract between the king and his ‘best men’.

However, as the history of pirates and the stories of Jack Ma, Elon Musk, and all the “suicided” Russian plutocrats prove, in the end, the king calls the shots. If you want a king to have a privileged patent, you are a privateer only as long as the king gives you a patent; otherwise, you are a pirate. To be truly free, you have to take responsibility, stop being naïve, and acknowledge your duties in a res publica, which will entitle you to your rights.

Some billionaires may want the privileges of special contracts and special waivers, and for that, they may wish to grant special powers to a man who can deliver those privileges, forgetting that these are pacts with the devil. 

America today seems to think that the world is too complicated and diverse; it’s better to focus on what one knows, one’s own horizon, which is broad anyway.

America competes with two or three imperial systems: China, Russia, and Iran. For this reason, it wants to become more monocratic. Perhaps it is right, but it’s not the only issue.

Yesterday, the threat was class conflict, the proletarians against the owners. But they were all together, they spoke the same language, they had known each other since they were kids, they had almost the same tastes and habits.

Today, the challenge is immigrants, who speak different languages, are other, unknown. It’s easier to discriminate against and hate them. These foreigners are found both within and outside the Western world. This is like the past century’s challenges, when fascists and communists were abroad and at home. From this, some lessons might be learned.

A limited and selected bibliography was used for this work.

Fung, Yu-Lan. A History of Chinese Philosophy. (1948) A seminal work on Chinese philosophical ideas, including wu wei and their influence on Chinese political and ethical thought.

Graham, Angus C. The Disputers of the Tao (1999) is an innovative and comprehensive account of early Chinese philosophy and its lasting impact on China.

Wootton, David. The invention of Science (2016) explains how the transoceanic voyages created a sense of discovery that was transferred to science.

Yu, Li. The Ethical Foundations of Chinese Economic Philosophy. (2015) Examines the relationship between Chinese ethics and economic thought, including notions like the “invisible hand.”

Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848. (1962) On the lasting impact of the French Revolution

Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man (1992) discusses the 20th-century ideologies that envisioned rebuilding societies after World War II, including liberal democracy and state modernization.

Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution (1963) reflects on revolutionary ideals, including the potential to create anew and reconfigure political and social structures. It  would have a lot to say.

Algorithmical Theology

20 October 2025

There is more to the US-China TikTok dispute than meets the eye. It’s the future role of IPR and modernity.

The agreement reached by the US and China for the sale of the Chinese platform TikTok is a landmark. The Chinese will retain a 20% share ownership, and with that, the algorithm, which is foundational to the platform’s success. The new American shareholders will control the proper use of the algorithm, but not the algorithm itself.

For China, it is a blow, but through that 20%, the country continues to maintain a presence in America that would otherwise have been completely denied to it. It is an ideological, more than a commercial, compromise, centered on a quasi-theological principle of new digital technologies: the sacrality and, thus, intangibility of the algorithm, which China doesn’t trust it will be protected by the old IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) regulations. TikTok is the most recent example of this “techno-theological” dispute, and the first to be resolved through this compromise.

Around 2009, the United States and China had a similar dispute concerning Google. The Chinese demanded that Google open its ideal-technological vault and bring the source codes to China. Google refused, fearing the Chinese would steal the technology. The newly elected President Barack Obama tried to intervene and mediate, but failed to resolve the issue. With great fanfare, Google left China. For essentially the same reasons, other similar platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter, also failed to enter the country. China always demanded the “Sinicization” of the ideological sources. The Americans would not grant it.

Today, America could have similarly shut down TikTok because the technology and the platform are considered dangerous from many perspectives. However, by now TikTok has assumed an essential role in the American electoral process; President Trump appears to have over 170 million followers on TikTok. Shutting it down would have hurt Trump and the entire electoral process.

It’s a significant concession to China. A similar compromise was possibly offered to Beijing for the US platform seeking to enter China, but Beijing rejected it. Beijing sought access to the technological holy grail and was willing to forgo the platforms altogether. The US, already hooked on TikTok, seems unable to wean itself of it and thus accepted the deal.

The TikTok compromise seems like the one the Holy See struck with China regarding the appointment of bishops. The Pope retains control over the mother code—the core technology—but China is responsible for managing this code within its territory. China could simply block Chinese access to the Catholic and Christian source code. Still, with millions of Catholics and hundreds of millions of Chinese interested in religion and Christianity, there would be an ideological void that could perhaps be filled by other faiths more insidious and uncontrollable than Christianity. China was already hooked on religion, and Catholicism, almost like the US is on TikTok.

Therefore, similarly, for the Church of Rome, limited access to the Chinese market is better than no access at all. This comes with a modern idea of Christianity, one no longer hinged on a supreme imperial-papal relationship, but one that believes in reaching out to every person who chooses their faith freely and unites with the Pope in a spontaneous and liberal synodality.

Religious authority

With the rise of modernity came a decline in religious authority. With the 16^th-century Reformation, the Pope and imperial power lost their grip on it, which was devolved to the northern European princes and eventually to the pastors and laymen who could read the Bible without seeking authoritative interpretations. Eventually, with the late 18^th-century French Revolution, religion was dispensed altogether, and materialism and atheism triumphed worldwide. The pope, the bishops, and the priests all lost prestige and power. Faith in science, and in its practical application, technology took over.

With that came also something unprecedented: the rise of patents. Inventions had a trademark, a value. They could be bought, sold, and rented like any other good, such as real estate. IPR protection became the key to everything, the deep secret holding all power over the good.

On the occasion of the Reformation, the 1474 Venetian Patent Statute is typically regarded as the earliest codified patent system in the world. It states that patents might be granted for “any new and ingenious device, not previously made”, provided it was useful. Generally, these principles remain the fundamental principles of current patent laws.

Two centuries later, in the middle of the 30 years’ War, pitting papal and anti-papal forces in Europe, and just before Cromwell’s Protestant Revolution, Britain approved the Statute of Monopolies (1624). In 1710, the British Statute of Anne was enacted, which laid the groundwork for the current patent law and copyright, thereby firmly establishing the concept of intellectual property.

Before this time, guilds, trade associations, states, religious authorities, and abbeys held secrets, granted or denied access to books, and dispensed them as they saw fit. The unpatented Greek Fire, which had commanded Byzantine maritime power for centuries, famously died with the fall of Constantinople. Similarly, a myriad of secretive techniques were employed by various medieval crafts, ranging from steel making to textiles and masonry. Above them all, it was the authority of God that kept the social and political order; the pope and the emperor were the ultimate authorities of the secrets and over the secrets. They were the sancta sanctorum.

Then, kings, religious authorities, and sanctioned guilds controlled secrets that had no open trade value, as they could not be freely exchanged in return for money. With trademarks, private individuals owned inventions and could trade them in an open market. People could buy them and build new patents in an increasing “capitalism” of inventions. Just as money well invested rewards money, so inventions well developed reward new inventions in a never-ending pyramid of development.

It all worked well and fine until some 20-30 years ago, when inventor capitalists started feeling that patents were no longer enough because they could not be really protected. It’s very different from the previous Cold War. Then, the USSR had its inventions, but they were not put on the market. American inventions, although available for civil use, were stolen only for their military applications, which stifled the development potential of those patents.

With the US-China struggle, a new playing field emerges. Inventions have dual use, both civil and military, that foster new, distinct technologies. Patenting them is not enough. Companies and states have restarted keeping secrets. The heart of these secrets is now algorithms, the key stones of all the latest technology — social platforms and AI.

Practical Gods

They are the practical God, the foundation that gives rise to development and economic growth. Algorithms are controlled by states or special companies serving the state, such as the sanctioned guilds of the past, which served the imperial power. Algorithms, the heart of the new power, like the gods of the past, have to be controlled by the emperor.

For the return to the IPR, every state should commit to IPR protection, but there’s no similar horizon. Here is the heart of modernity: the accumulation and investment in developmental inventions and technologies. Here, more practically than ever, the future is at stake.

China offers a neo-imperial mode grounded on the state control of technologies. Because they are dual-use, and crucial to developing a strong, independent army, the ultimate guarantor of the state’s political independence, this is based on deep-seated mistrust of the United States. This shakes the foundation of the Western civilizational model.

If the US civilizational model collapses, China’s imperial model will remain the sole and unchallenged alternative. China means Asia, unless Asia finds a new special unity against China, which might well be the case. Asia, with 60% of the world’s population and over 50% of the global economic growth, is the world’s largest region.

However, IPRed-inventions are not simple technologies; they are the ultimate culmination of a complex chain reaction that began half a millennium ago.

China apparently understands what is at stake, and it is now seeking a new developmental model. A recent essay in the Party Theoretical journal, “Seek the Truth,” attempts to rethink the entire process of modernization. In the West, it is traditionally viewed as a highly complex historical process, but China now seeks to encapsulate it in a rational formula that justifies its present evolution.

It aims to answer the fundamental question: how can China’s model fit into a modern system without significant changes and without compromising its political system. It is captured in the idea of the need “to explore the role of the state in guiding capital, regulating monopolies, preventing risks, and promoting innovation—thus establishing a more efficient and rational system of economic governance.”

The question differs from Russia, which offers a neo-czarist response to modernity. It is deeper, holding more weight as it challenges the Western system more profoundly. If it works for China, it changes all global balances and also the modern space of religion. Religion in each state, as per the IPR, will depend on the state’s consent.

Then, if the West, including the US, abandons its foundational role in liberal ideology and its IPR-based technology, China’s efficiency will be much higher than America’s. That is, President Donald Trump’s acceptance of the Sinicization of America’s TikTok could have much longer and heavier consequences than the Vatican’s agreement with China.

(thanks to discussions with Pansak Vinyaratn)

Does China need a Grand Strategy? – 2 October 2024

China might need a new Grand Strategy for the first time since the 3^rd century BC unification, but it is quite elusive. Italy has parallel issues, and there could be lessons to be learned there.

“Here begins our tale. The Empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been. In the closing years of the Zhou dynasty seven kingdoms warred among themselves until the kingdom of Qin prevailed and absorbed the other six. But Qin soon fell, and on its ruins two opposing kingdoms, Chu and Han, fought for mastery until the kingdom of Han prevailed and absorbed its rival, as Qin had done before. The Han court’s rise to power began when the Supreme Ancestor slew a white serpent, inspiring an uprising that ended with Han’s ruling a unified empire. Two hundred years later, after Wang Mang’s usurpation, Emperor Guang Wu restored the dynasty, and Han emperors ruled for another two hundred years down to the reign of Xian, after whom the realm split into three kingdoms. The cause of Han’s fall may be traced to the reigns of Xian’s two predecessors, Huan and Ling. Huan drove from office and persecuted officials of integrity and ability, giving all his trust to his eunuchs. After Ling succeeded Huan as emperor, Regent-Marshal Dou Wu and Imperial Guardian Chen Fan, joint sustainers of the throne, planned to execute the power-abusing eunuch Cao Jie and his cohorts. But the plot came to light, and Dou Wu and Chen Fan were themselves put to death. From then on, the Minions of the Palace knew no restraint.” (Luo, Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms translated by Moss Roberts, University of California Press).

The passage is the cornerstone of Chinese culture and way of thinking. “The writings of the Warring Kingdoms period and the culminating unification of 221 BC may be considered the foundation of the institutions and philosophical traditions that created the China still known today. Confucius, who died in 479 BC, predicted the continuity of Chinese traditions and institutions -argues Professor Roberts in his preface to the novel – All the works of statecraft, social morality, and cosmological speculation covering ca. 500–200 BC, the Warring Kingdoms period, build toward and lead into the unification of the kingdoms under a single dynasty, the Qin, followed in fifteen years by the Han, which lasted for more than four hundred years, until AD 220. Three Kingdoms offers a reverse perspective, from the fall rather than the rise of the Han, revealing the factors and forces that can cause a dynasty to break down and lead to a period of disunity… Three Kingdoms largely depends on Mencius’s theories of leadership and also has Daoist components. The team of Liu Xuande (also known as Liu Bei) and his main adviser, Kongming (also known as Zhuge Liang), operate within a synthesis of Confucian and Daoist-Legalist ideas.”

Masters of jigsaw puzzles or artists?

The novel’s beginning introduces a pretentious character, Liu Bei, who claims he wants to become the emperor of China because he asserts that he’s a distant descendant of the imperial family and that his heart is not corrupt. He meets two not-so-brilliant but tough individuals who swear allegiance to this pretentious claimant. This follows the pattern of many traditional bandit novels. What sets “Three Kingdoms” apart is the presence of Zhuge Liang. He is the clever strategist who truly puts Liu Bei on the political map and is celebrated in China as a master strategist. But who is he really? Is he truly a “strategist”?

In Western tradition, a grand strategist is someone like Cyrus, the first Persian emperor who envisioned and achieved a new empire that won the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. It’s Alexander, who marched from Greece and conquered everything in his path until reaching India and Central Asia. It’s Caesar, who vanquished Gaul and laid the foundations of a new political reality, transforming the Roman Republic into the Empire. It would be Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, who imagined, pursued, and achieved the unprecedented unification of the Yellow River Basin.

Zhuge Liang did not devise a new political plan for his master. He tried to obtain the unification of China as it was established under the Han dynasty. His goal was to achieve stability in the Yellow River Basin; after that, all problems would be solved.

There’s a difference between designing a new game and being very skilled at playing an existing one. These are two distinct sets of skills. Zhuge Liang resolves problems like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle or winning a chess game. He is a grand master, for sure, but within the scope of “dividing and uniting” the Empire.

In the 7^th century, the Turkic Tang and, in the 12^th century, the Mongolic Yuan, facing similar challenges, accepted the mantra about the centrality of stability in the Yellow River Basin.

But what if the game is entirely different?

Perhaps the “Three Kingdoms” strategy worked until 1571 when the Spanish expelled the Chinese traders from Manila and turned the city into their main trading hub between Mexico and Asia. The sport then completely changed for China, yet 450 years later, China still struggles to grasp this shift.

The Ming dynasty, entirely caught up in its “divide and unite” mentality in 1571, did not support the Chinese merchants in Manila because it had little to no control over them, and their relative independence undermined the emperor’s absolute power. Thus, the Ming allowed the Spaniards to be at their doorstep rather than dealing with unruly Chinese. The crux of the matter was that the Ming failed to perceive the new reality. The world was no longer a jigsaw puzzle; it required a creation anew, fueled by imagination.

The flow of Chinese merchants throughout Asia mirrored the pattern followed by the Spanish and Portuguese at the time: dispatching people with some authority and loosely overseeing them. It was the well-trodden path of the Italian republics like Venice, Genoa, or Amalfi. This pattern entailed a different relationship between the ruler and the subject, necessitating negotiation over their respective shares of the spoils.

However, there is no negotiation in China’s “divide and unite” strategy. Once Zhuge Liang commits to serving Liu Bei, he ceases to negotiate for himself and solely assists his master. Conversely, the 16th-century Chinese traders did not want to be mere serfs of the emperor; they asserted their Chinese roots. Yet, instead of negotiating a new agreement with them to expand imperial influence and confront the world as it had evolved, the emperor chose to disregard them, leaving them to the Spaniards, if he didn’t eliminate them himself.

Perhaps this vision of absolute imperial power is what makes it difficult for China to imagine a grand strategy — something that isn’t yet present but can address existing challenges.

European difference

Since the discovery of the American continent in 1492, the West has consistently pursued new developments and dismantled existing structures and ways of thinking. Luther published his 95 theses in 1517, just 25 years after the discovery of America. The theses broke the unity of the Catholic Church and began to undermine the Holy Roman Empire, a political cornerstone of Europe since the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 AD.

Following that, there was a continuous effort against the Holy Roman Empire and the Church, leading to brand-new practices and ideologies (such as liberal capitalism and communism) that have transformed the world. These were not jigsaw puzzles to solve but entirely new games to be played.

The real question now is: Does China want to adopt a new development model better suited to present and future realities, or does it intend to promote its traditional “divide and unite” strategy on a regional or global scale?

This is not only a Chinese problem; it’s a European issue, too. Before the discovery of America, the world was segmented, with each region being self-centered and politically self-contained. After America was discovered, Europe rapidly became the world’s undisputed center. In the last century, three world wars (the First, the Second, and the Cold War) were centered in Europe.

Yet, since Obama’s pivot to Asia, America has shifted its attention away from Europe for good reasons. In the Asia-Pacific region, 60% of the global population resides, and most global growth occurs there. Europe, including Russia, is marginal for the first time in history. Even the current war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East are just sideshows compared to the main event — dealing with China.

The war in Ukraine may have deterred a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and some believe that ending the war in Ukraine without a definitive resolution might encourage China’s bold moves in the region. Ukraine in 2022 is akin to Korea in 1950 in terms of deterrence. Repelling the North Korean invasion halted Soviet attacks on Western Europe.

Now, stopping the Russians in Ukraine restricts China’s ambitions in Asia. It’s classical deterrence. Caving into Vladimir Putin could embolden China. The connection is apparent in Asia; indeed, Japan’s new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, advocates for an Asian NATO, like how the Korean War promoted NATO in Europe 70 years ago.

It’s unclear how Europe will confront this global challenge. Some countries, like Poland and Northern Europe, are embracing the new reality, have joined NATO, and are opposing Russia. Other Western European nations are hesitant, believing life will return to normal after peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. However, there is no “normal” to return to.

Israel is considering redrawing the Middle East map pushing back on Iran’s clout in the region. It will have immense consequences, especially since China has distanced itself from Israel over the past year. If Israel succeeds, China’s influence in the Middle East will shrink and it’d be a new snag for its global projection.

Italian Troubles for China

Israel’s success would also impact Turkey, Ukraine, and the rest of Europe. Italy’s case could offer an insightful lesson for Europe and China in this context. The Italian monarchy and republic were established amid specific European geopolitical strategies. The monarchic project was framed by a continental attempt to dismantle the Holy Roman Empire, particularly the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The German-led but multi-ethnic Empire, deeply entrenched in the Italian peninsula, along with the Papal States, was the anchor of the European power balance since 800 AD. Its fall at the end of World War I in 1919 closed the chapter on 11 centuries of history and ushered in a period of significant political volatility, culminating in World War II.

For about a decade between 1933 and 1945, the alliance between Germany and Italy seemed to be a renewed version of the old Empire, with Hitler being Austrian and Mussolini originating from Romagna, a former papal estate. The Europe that emerged after World War II was divided for the first time into two camps by powers that were previously only marginally involved in European disputes: Russia and the United States.

Italian unification was reconstructed within this ideological and geopolitical division: it remained united not to dismantle the Holy Roman Empire but to serve as a bulwark against Soviet expansion. Greater Germany was divided into three parts: the West aligned with America, the East aligned with Russia, and Austria remained neutral. Hungary, a former imperial component, was Russian but remained historically rebellious.

In this post-1945 European division, Italy, historically monarchical and anticlerical, reconciled with the Holy See. It restricted the Pope’s power to the Vatican but was governed by a Catholic and clerical party. Furthermore, the Church, once an enemy of the liberal and Masonic forces that dominated the continent, was enlisted by those forces against communism. It participated effectively by weaving intricate plans with Christians beyond the Iron Curtain from all denominations: Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox.

Disunited Italy

In the 1990s, with the Cold War over and the collapse of the wall, the role of Italy’s political unity was not guaranteed. Its purpose was ending, and it was unclear why it should remain united. Centrifugal forces pushing for a gradual division of the country quickly gained momentum. However, political horizons have expanded over these 30 years with the rise of Asia, home to states far larger than the whole of the old continent. Thus, European states will struggle if they act individually.

Today, Russia wants Europe to fragment on this new horizon, thinking it can dominate the region. The US desires unity and alliance in facing new challenges. Italy’s decision — where Russia has strong influences with parties in both governing and opposition coalitions — may prove crucial as it was a century and a half ago.

For the Holy See, the consequences are equally dramatic. Today, the Catholic Church leans toward Asia, where it is a small minority except in the Philippines. If the unity of the peninsula is shaken, the Pope might be forced to scale back the Asian projection and focus on Italy, which could have monumental consequences for the Church’s future.

In this complex scenario, what will China do? There is no “Three Kingdoms” playbook. Yet, its cumbersome past feels heavy and unshakeable, almost binding the nation to a crumbling old structure. It’s vital to salvage as much as possible from the old edifice, but it would be madness to perish under its ruins.

Mao, helped by the USSR, tried it but perhaps destroyed both too much and too little. Deng, backed by the USA, tried to rebuild, but maybe he also rebuilt too much and too little. Will President Xi Jinping find the right balance? His challenge is bigger than that of his predecessors; he has both to tear down and reconstruct, and he has no great power to support him.

China’s Communist Party Subconscious

5 July 2025

The subconscious of countries and institutions shapes their choices. How to speak to the CPC on a deeper, more soulful level and get it to see the broader, global reasons behind the market?

Do states or institutions have a subconscious, a character? Some psychiatrists, like Italian Narciso Mostarda,  (see here) believe they do. If so, a state’s subconscious, its deep unspoken logic, is formed by its history—and mainly by the history their schools teach their people.

China’s deep instinct seems conditioned by a relentless drive for survival and expansion—until it reaches outright annihilation or subjugation of all possible rivals or challenges, and achieves total control over everything. It was initially shaped around the 4^th-5^th century BC, when states in the Central Plain (the cradle of Chinese civilization) were rapidly conquered and destroyed (mie). Out of hundreds of small states in the central plain in the 8^th-7^th century BC, only a few survived and ultimately emerged as the final unifiers. Eventually, only one survived, the Qin state.

A similar pattern emerged after the fall of the Han dynasty in the 3^rd century AD until the Tang dynasty’s unification in the 7^th century. This process was also made possible by relative geographic isolation—oceans and a small archipelago in the east (Japan) that was mostly harmless until recently, mountains in the south and west, deserts and steppes in the north.

So the periodic threat historically came from hungry, warring northern peoples who raided, invaded, and at times toppled the pacified populations of the Central Plains.

Unlike any other empires with undefined and often unstable natural and political borders, China, for two millennia, defined its rule according to some obvious limits that were difficult to overcome.

Survival and expansion have been the mantra of every dynasty. The Chinese Communist Party (CPC) is, in many ways, just a new dynasty, inheriting this subconscious, just like a grown man is shaped by his childhood experiences.

However, each dynasty had its own ideology to justify its rule—much like individuals justify their job and place in life at each phase of their life and career.

A first ideological element was based on the concept of the Mandate of Heaven, which posits that one’s right to rule is proven by their own rule. If you no longer govern effectively, you lose that Mandate, because you’ve lost Heaven’s approval. In other words, it’s a tautology: if you are successful, you are successful; if you lose, you deserve to lose.

It’s like living until your natural death because your lifespan ran out. Of course, doctors can then explain the cause of death—smoking, drinking, over-eating, etc. Similarly, a dynasty ends because the signs are there, and the new dynasty, with hindsight, can warn the current rulers to avoid the same mistakes.

Communist Adoption

That first ideology, borrowed and adapted by subsequent dynasties, was shaped by the Han at the turn of the first millennium. They combined a core of legalism, a veneer of Confucianism, and a bit of Taoist soul.

The mix produced what in modern times could be called “radical realpolitik”. This sentiment existed in the West as well but for millennia was tempered and at times thwarted by several factors – a Christian missionary spirit trying to save all people; the domestic division of powers between the ruler, the Church and the aristocracy; an external balance of powers that prevented any single state from gaining total control. This produced an ideology with many counterbalances and contradictions. In China, none of these factors existed. Domestic and external power followed a rigid hierarchy, and even ideology had a hierarchy: legalism was first, followed by Confucianism, and then Taoism, with some overlap and confusion, but a clear order.

In many ways, the communists adopted the same pattern. Still, they developed their own party logic—possibly more complex and deviating from the past—because this time, it was officially Marxist and therefore non-religious, i.e., without the mystical trappings of the Mandate of Heaven.

The communists also came to power after a long century of gradual foreign encroachment and disruption of the old order and dynasty (the Qing), without ever entirely replacing them. The Qing dynasty fought a war (17^th century) and replaced the Ming dynasty. The Ming fought a war and replaced the Mongols (14^th century), and so on, leading back to the pre-Tang chaos and the pre-Qin-Han independent states (pre-3^rd century BC).

Meanwhile, the Qing Dynasty was challenged from 1840 onward by Western powers and the massive Taiping Rebellion. The post-1840 impact was more profound, as it involved smashing China’s millennia-old geopolitical boundaries. China was no longer the center of a mighty region that could ignore the rest of the world, but found itself overwhelmed by a much larger world it didn’t know how to cope with.

The Qing crushed the Taiping rebellion with foreign help, which didn’t result in immediate replacement—the way the Ming fell to the Qing, or the Tang taking over the Sui in the 7^th century.

On the one hand, Western support for the Qing against a rebellion looked like the past, when the Manchu-Qing helped the Ming crush the Li Zicheng rebellion; this time, Western powers helped the Qing crush the Taiping.

However, Westerners didn’t take over and topple the Qing; actually, to some extent, they helped sustain the wobbling dynasty. Moreover, with their new interventions from regions that had never intervened in China, the past political geography was gone forever, and China, in this new Western world, had to think differently; yet, the Chinese struggled greatly in adapting to it.

Western powers maintained some control over the order that emerged in China, protecting their interests and pushing the Chinese rulers to adhere to Western norms. Still, they never outright took control of China. Instead, they spread their culture and worldview on a massive scale.

In the 17^th century, the Manchu were called in by Ming loyalists to crush the Li Zicheng rebellion, eventually overthrowing the Ming. A similar pattern occurred when the Tang took over the Sui in the 7^th century.

The Western pattern of behavior was at odds with Chinese tradition, and this may have contributed to the emergence of a new Chinese consciousness since the early 20^th century. The imperial past came to be seen as the root of national humiliation.

Buddhism, meanwhile, changed China. It spread during the decline of the Han and through the long, turbulent five centuries before the Tang restored imperial order. But it was not driven by foreign pressure—no Indian kingdom pushed or forced China’s war-torn states to adopt Buddhist philosophy between the 3^rd and 8^th centuries.

The Western powers, by contrast, promoted their own culture, and although they didn’t take over the empire, they limited China’s influence and introduced new worldviews. In the 2^nd-3^rd century AD, Buddhism came to China and gradually radically changed the Chinese worldview, but it was not propped up by a foreign military threat. No Indian state sent troops to Xi’an.

Western values were conversely supported by Western military might. Western or Westernized (like Japan) powers explicitly aimed to set China on a new path without directly controlling the country. They promoted their culture and ideas. So, there were two unprecedented shocking events – the Westerners didn’t take over China (like the Qing had done) and promoted their own new worldview, which was changing China (unlike the soft penetration of Buddhism)

“Go to the place you know.”

The Party’s strategy has been to tap into Chinese tradition, as they are familiar with it, while maintaining a core of Marxist and Western ideology. Marxism legitimized their takeover—opposing the traditional failing imperial ideology—and responded to global demands from Western powers, whether allied (such as the USSR) or adversarial (like the United States and Europe).

The USSR managed to dominate China culturally and forcefully for over a decade—probably more than the Americans ever would. The Japanese, steeped in Chinese history and westernized themselves, tried (and failed) to revive a Qing-style takeover, similar to what the Mongols or Manchu had done before.

The US opposed Japanese ambitions because it saw a Japanese-controlled China as a major threat.

Since the groundbreaking bilateral rapprochement in the 1970s, the US has shown respect for China’s local order—even though it views communism as inimical—something again unprecedented in Chinese history. It promoted cooperation without the threat of force, but through peaceful discussion of the mutual benefits of the collaboration.

Perhaps, the deeply ingrained Chinese “realpolitik”/survival subconscious has never fully grasped how to process this US approach. Many Chinese might interpret this as hidden evil—believing the US secretly wants to control China through other means. Or it is proof of American weakness; the US can be easily pushed around and manipulated. Or a mix of the two.

Many works trying to explain China tend to interpret it through a Western lens—analyzing China for a Western audience based on Western values and viewpoints. While these are important, they are written for Western readers and reflect Western subconscious assumptions. They often fail to resonate with the Chinese themselves.

A real challenge is to frame the argument about what the US wants, and democracy based on China’s core survival subconscious, without the use of force. Can there be arguments that China could more readily relate to and accept based on its survival instincts?

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Reasons for Democracy

There are three objective reasons why democracy is vital for China:

1. For China’s economic survival, it must boost internal consumption—meaning more disposable income, a stronger welfare system, and consequently higher taxes. Therefore, it requires a popular vote, because nobody likes to pay taxes without knowing what they are for. This is also crucial to address the giant internal debt bubble.
2. China needs to balance its trade—otherwise, its surplus becomes unsustainable on a global scale. A fully convertible currency is thus necessary. However, a convertible currency opens the gates to a possible financial crisis, which can spill over into a political crisis. Political turmoil can be peacefully managed with a democratic system. An authoritarian system can conversely break down during an economic crisis.
3. Yes, a democracy that spills into chaos can lead to national collapse. But a well-balanced democracy can generate unparalleled consensus, which translates into enormous strategic strength.

The latest example is Israel’s 12-day victory over Iran. Many reasons for victory, but one key factor—Iran’s deep internal dissent and unrest—helped a vast Israeli spy network, supported locally, to identify targets and decapitate Iran’s system in hours.

Israel is tiny compared to Iran—about a tenth of its population. Yet, its democracy gave it a crucial weapon: internal and external consensus, which helped win the war. Hamas, its opponent in Gaza, claims a righteous cause—national liberation. But Hamas is fundamentally flawed: it is not liberal, oppresses its people, and preaches totalitarian, cruel theories. Therefore, its support is limited despite massive cash flows from friendly governments.

Western history and the Western ‘cultural occupation’ of the world exemplify the effectiveness of liberalism and open systems. Tiny Athens, with its democracy, stopped the Persian Empire. Republican Rome, organized like a private equity fund for war, defeated the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Italian city-states beat the Germanic Empire and halted the Turkish expansion. The more liberal English kingdom and the Dutch Republic defeated the Habsburgs, who ruled over half of Europe, as well as all the Americas, stretching to the borders of China and India. Eventually, a mix of liberal systems and private enterprise expanded worldwide.

Fragile China

Without democracy, China is weaker and more fragile.

Democracy wouldn’t eliminate all troubles, but it would smooth many of the rough edges—and give China a crucial modern international tool: a free press. Without it, honest reforms and real persuasion are much harder, because you have limited power to influence others domestically and internationally.

The current world order isn’t a zero-sum game; it’s based on a positive-sum system of theoretically fair, regulated trade. While it’s not perfect—there are moments of extreme realism—there’s also a balanced power system where hegemonies can happen to succeed each other peacefully. Consider how the US succeeded Britain.

Otherwise, if a new power tries to impose a new dominance forcibly, the system will react sooner or later. The incumbent hegemon will perceive a threat and could attempt to weaken or wipe out the rival—the Thucydides’ trap —even without directly trying to control it.

A practical problem is that China doesn’t truly know how to govern democratically. The experience of the past half-century was to introduce economic reforms, assuming politics would naturally follow.

But that entire package—political and economic liberalism—should have been offered as a take-it-or-leave-it choice. It wasn’t. As a result, China didn’t evolve into a full democracy, and the market economy without democratic politics has ultimately caused the current problems—bankrupt companies, irresponsible capital allocation, overcapacity, wage squeezes, and so on.

Since the late 1990s, the system was balanced only by rampant corruption, which redistributed pressures and income but was also slowly destroying the country.

Today, the concentration of power in Xi Jinping’s hands might actually present an opportunity. Excessive power held tightly and unchecked tends to become inefficient—that’s history. Power naturally tends to devolve, either spontaneously from the center or, once tensions mount, to break the system. Louis XIV centralized authority, and about a century later, the French Revolution broke out.

Can China release power in an orderly fashion? How? It would require a plan that aligns with China’s deep psychology—its subconscious, the core of its collective identity and history.

American Zhongguo

 1 October 2021

Different cultures see and represent reality differently. The West was keen on strict realism: reproduction of the naked anatomy of a body and of realistic visual perspective.

China was more interested in representing the emptiness and symbolism of the mind. Different forms of representation entail different approaches to dealing with reality.

Cultures of strategies, and dealing with war

Anatomy and perspective led to confidence in the ability of men to control, reproduce and perfect their own personal reality, which once free would fall in place in natural order, as with market forces.

The shadow of emptiness required just the opposite. It demonstrated that reality was out of human control and that some external force—the power of the painter or that of a forceful state—had to set boundaries to make it possible to live in it.

Perhaps, strategies are similarly derived from a way of looking at reality. Strategies are possibly not determined by preexisting natural laws that can lead somebody to victory but are grounded on reality’s cultural, geographic perception. They start from the cultural perception of one’s position and then develop from there.

For example, the concept of Thucydides’ trap, now highly fashionable to use when thinking of the confrontation between the US and China, is grounded in the cultural perception of Athens vis-à-vis Sparta in the Greek peninsula. It has the background thinking of a balance of power that can be tipped one way or another.

Conversely, China’s perception of strategy is based on a different premise. The premise is that of a Chinese unity that can be acquired, gained. Once this unity is attained, all other challenges can be managed and overcome. The Chinese perception is born out of the experience of two millennia, founded on the idea that, overall, the Chinese empire was more prominent, with a larger population and greater wealth than all of its neighboring countries put together. Therefore no one country could endanger, the center, China, if the center held its order firmly.

The same is not valid in the West, where neighboring countries didn’t challenge a unitary solid empire. The Roman Empire itself had extended borders that were extremely fragile and, except the one adjoining the Sahara Desert, no natural defense.

The Roman Empire held back for centuries the threat of the Persian Empire, knowing full well that this hazard had to be contained but could not be eliminated because it would stretch the empire over new borders, putting it into direct contact with another perilous realm based in the Indian peninsula. The experience of Alexander the Great who was de facto defeated by its own never-ending successes in an even greater, never-ending world, loomed large in the Roman mind. At Alexander’s death, his vast empire simply shattered into a dozen larger or smaller kingdoms. The world was too large to conquer and hold it whole.

This mental realization led to the policy of Roman and Byzantine containment and balance with the Persian Empire. It became the compass of the strategy on the Eastern Roman border.

The containment of the Germanic tribes from the north was also of paramount importance. They could not be conquered and vanquished because new tribes were coming from Eastern Europe anyway. They had to be checked, somehow tamed and managed, but there was no possibility of having a very stable peace because they could imperil at any time a highly vulnerable and weak northeastern border.

The centrality of the empire was a sea, the Mediterranean. It was linked to a system of sea transportation that included the Red Sea and the Black Sea, which were dominated by Romans at a certain point, and also extended to the Caspian Sea over the Caucasus.

Then it was not a defined space; its borders, the limes, described the land around this space, but it was held together by a highly efficient system of transportation and roads that still hold together the standard for transportation nowadays. The standard train gauge has been de facto fixed by the space occupied on a road by a car driven by two horses side by side.

The Roman Empire, in other words, although it was an empire, had to manage the borders, and any given challenge could threaten the unity of the kingdom: the Persians or the new Barbarians coming from the edges, be they the Germans, the Slavs, the Huns, or the Arabs.

In this way, the idea of balance of power was also inherited by the Roman Empire, and the imperial system in the West has a premise unstated of complete reason.

China’s fissures

The underlying Chinese assumption was somehow different. The steppes were too vast and too sparsely populated to gain full control of them and of their population. These were to be held in check by a system of tributes in which, in theory, these tribes recognized the suzerainty of the son of heaven by offering gifts and gained back more than they gave.

Actually, the emperor paid off the border thugs with some kind of protection money and held them back with the threat of ruinous retaliation. The empire said actually, take this money and be happy or we shall attack you. In reality the empire knew that the “protection money” was cheaper than mounting a full-scale attack.

Then China had not a mental block, but a very physical block. It was surrounded by borders that were all similar to the Sahara Desert for Rome. The borders had to be managed but rarely constituted existential threat. Or they were existential only if the imperial unity was in jeopardy to start with. Then the unstated assumption for China was conversely holding the center, keeping the country together; if that was achieved, nothing else could be challenged.

The reality of Chinese geography has changed presently. As China gained complete control of Tibet and ended the independent existence of the territory as a buffer state/zone between the Chinese and the Indian empires, and with the encroachment of the West after the conquest of the American continent by the Spanish and the English, Beijing’s land perception and defense demands changed completely.

Now China is part of a larger world where it is just a tiny minority compared to the rest. It is about 20% of the population, and 15% of the global GDP. Furthermore, it is also a minority in its neighboring areas. All the next-door countries put together—India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia—are larger economically and as a population than China.

This creates a different reality for China, while the cultural perception in China remains the same. China still believes that if it manages to control its neighborhood, home to 60% of the global population and 70% of global economic growth, it will eventually dominate the world.

China, consciously or unconsciously, doesn’t see its grand strategy as one of keeping a balance of power, managing the rising or waning powers at its rims. It sees it as one of gaining a significant foothold in a substantial part of the world, and from there repeating and extending its 2,000-year model of ruling. That is, putting the Chinese empire at the center, and keeping more or less at bay the rest of the world, which will not be a challenge if the center holds strong.

This theory is critical in understanding what China is doing and what it is doing wrong for its own good. To achieve this dominating power, China should have done two simple things: win over the two more considerable economic and demographic forces at the borders (Japan and India), and prepare for some kind of political reform that would have made the Chinese political system more palatable to its neighbors and the rest of the world, which is used to a more liberal structure of rule.

That is, China should have tried to expand its political footprint peacefully, and it should have tried to assuage global political fears about the harshness of its political system. It didn’t do either for whatever reason that we shall ignore now.

China, on the contrary, managed to antagonize both India and Japan and didn’t make its political system more palatable; it made it more indigestible. Its economic system didn’t become more integrated into the world, which could have turned it into the hub of economic and global trade. It made itself more closed. It did that by constantly refusing to have the RMB fully convertible or thoroughly reforming its financial system. In this situation, China defeated itself and made its strategic victory eventually more difficult.

Still things are far from decided in the present predicament.

China in imperial times was held together by a system of roads and canals that made internal communication easy and convenient. The Chinese strategy of the new Silk Road was basically to extend its traditional road system to the Eurasian landmass and reach out to Europe as Europe had reached out to China before the discovery of America.

With the outline of the Silk Road, China de facto marginalized, or at least attempted to, the American continent and tried to regain the centrality of Asia, Eurasia, and therefore of Beijing. The system and the strategy are failing because it ignored the central part of the continent, the Indian subcontinent, and the Japanese technological powerhouse. Therefore, the agreement of Europe and the new approach to the weak Central Asian and Middle Eastern countries could in no way outweigh the opposition of so many mighty countries.

But the idea of One Belt, One Road took in a European concept of power that China may have entertained in the early 15th century but abandoned soon after: that of becoming a maritime power. China realized that in the present world, it needed a sea outreach to counter the current American ocean presence and thus it had to follow in the steps of the European powers such as Spain, Portugal, the Dutch, the English, the French, and the Americans.

The attempts to gain maritime footholds were based mainly on surrounding India. Sri Lanka was lured, and Pakistan was also brought in. Both were promised port facilities for Chinese naval ambitions, and so was Myanmar. In this way, India was surrounded on all fronts; in the north, there was China itself; in the west, there was Pakistan; in the east, Myanmar; and in the south, Sri Lanka.

Roman roads for America

Therefore, India could be subjugated and forced to give in. If India were to surrender, China would gain political-military clout in Asia and from there everything would be downhill.

However, a strategy like the famous game of Go must be followed by looking at the bigger picture. In this case, while China was trying to surround and besiege India, India moved out of its predicament by striving to develop ties with other countries and then encircle China itself.

India contacted Japan, Vietnam, Australia, and the United States to present its situation as proof of Chinese global ambitions and global threat. Therefore, it contributed to the push against China.

In this game of reciprocal siege, there are many elements to consider carefully. The game is not over; India is not a strongly unitary country. It is ridden by factional infighting, differences of castes, religions, and ethnicities. There is an active guerrilla movement and riots kill people by the dozen every other week. It confronts many dangers and challenges in pursuing confrontational politics with China and an alliance with these countries. Moreover, premier Modi’s attempt to mold a new unitary Hindu identity may worsen underlying clashes.

Still, as China had tried to learn from America to build up a maritime power, America is presently thinking of taking a page from China’s Silk Road strategy to build an infrastructure network to bolster its global political footprint.

President Joe Biden named it B3W, Build Back Better World. As the Roman Empire managed its sea control also thanks to a network of roads, America is considering the possibility of sponsoring a network of railroads throughout the world, avoiding China and its allies.

The global oceans are apparently for America what the great Mediterranean was for Rome. This would extend its financial and cultural soft power worldwide, bringing new sources of development and growth. Furthermore, America may support this newly established anti-Chinese alliance and transportation network with its technology, arguably still the most advanced.

Here there is a difference with China. As China tried to extend its maritime power while there was an existing active maritime power and therefore contrast directly with it, America’s new railway network would just fill a void. China’s ideas of a new Silk Road barely took off, and presently there is no alternative to an American-sponsored global network of railway systems.

This concept, however, could help deeply alter the American way of thinking about its strategy. The United States may start gradually thinking of strategy no longer as part of a design of balance of power to be managed through a system of contacts, networking, and friendship.

America could de facto start thinking of controlling its power base at home, the American continent, and from there mark its political footprint on an American “Tianxia” (All Under Heaven). That is, America would be the central state, the “Zhongguo,” and the rest of the world, its periphery.

America would be better off than China in doing this because it is an incumbent power. It has a more palatable political system and a multiethnic social system to absorb people and ideas from different ethnicities. Therefore, it could marginalize and eventually end the historical strategy of China.

There are different perceptions here at work and different strategies stemming from these different perceptions, and America has objectively many difficulties as China. It is difficult to think about being a central power and the rest of the world as All Under Heaven, and it’s challenging to balance it with the traditional Western theory of balance of power.

Here we may find another twist. Chinese and Western strategists are fond of studying Sunzi as a paramount military theoretician. However, Chinese traditional strategy is possibly better represented in Mozi, who was the first to introduce technical operational methods for warcraft; defense preparations against sallies, inundation, tunneling, or attack with ladders; and organization for commands signaling.

Mozi put that together with a comprehensive system of statecraft to effectively withstand enemy attack and the first comprehensive study of logic and physics in ancient China. Mozi’s contributions are often neglected in China but seeped through the pores, and its tradition has possibly provided a logical well to think of a statecraft system to oppose an attack.

China may want to think about what could be learned from Mozi today.

New Cold Outlines

 5 November 2025

The attrition around China is not entirely unprecedented. Now if the USA stops believing in its system, it may lose it all.

On November 5, just hours before Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York, the most important and iconic American city, Dick Cheney, the heart and mind of traditional, centrist conservative America, passed away. Perhaps a new America is born with the virtual competition between two rare specimens of US politics, one moving to the right, the other to the left, leaving the center empty: President Donald Trump and Mamdani.

Is Mamdani the face of a new America, winning the hearts and minds of the nation and the world, or is he just a bellwether of a civil conflict that will rip the US apart and take it out of the international scene, leaving China in the limelight?

Will Mamdani move to the center and reach out to the many Americans unhappy with the current trends, or will he mirror MAGA’s drive to crush his opponents? Some feel America needs someone to confront President Donald Trump because it’s useless to try to find a middle ground with him. On the right, some share a parallel view. Will his divisive policy create more and broader fissures? Is the US on the brink of implosion or rebirth?

It matters a lot because the US is facing unprecedented challenges with China.

China’s challenge

Using the term “Cold War” can help highlight the seriousness of the situation between the United States and China. The attrition is very intense, but it differs from the first Cold War. The initial Cold War began before World War II through a period of purely political disputes that didn’t involve state-to-state controversies. Even before World War II, there were already early tensions between the liberal capitalist world and the Communist world. It was a struggle between communism and capitalism, rooted deeply in Western culture. Communism originated in the 19^th century, a century before the first Cold War.

When the Cold War started, there was already a clear division: you on one side, me on the other; you support the market, I oppose it; I believe in a thoroughly planned system where a group or a single person makes all the decisions; on the other side, you are for a democratic, liberal system.

Today, the situation has changed. The two economic systems—one centered on China and the other on America—are interconnected. It’s clear in recent trade negotiations. On one side, America imposed tariffs not only on China but also on other countries it believed were exploiting the American market. On the other side, China imposed export restrictions on rare earth elements (REE), impacting not just America but the global economy.

This economic integration, which has lasted for the past 40 years, is about to unravel. However, the appeal of that integration led many to believe that, once this dispute—after all, a commercial one—was resolved, everything could return to the way things were before.

In reality, the dispute is not simply commercial. There is a commercial issue—European or Japanese surpluses compared to the United States. This is mainly something that can be solved with trade tools: remove this subsidy here, open this market sector there, import more of this and less of that.

The Chinese issue is more complex. Around the late 1990s—about 25 years ago—then-Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji aimed to reform the Chinese economy and achieve full convertibility of the RMB. He reformed the financial system and sought to liberalize the Chinese currency, the RMB, fully. However, for many reasons, this never materialized. The Chinese market and its financial system have remained largely separate from the broader commercial economy, not only in the United States but also worldwide, where countries operate in markets with freely floating currencies, thereby subjecting them to exchange-rate fluctuations.

Moreover, over the past 20 years, China has built a highly complex and unwieldy economic system that is neither solely market-based nor purely administrative, but a mix of both. It’s not the centralized planning system of the old Soviet economy. Still, it isn’t like the economies with a strong presence of state-controlled enterprises that dominate the market, such as Japan, Korea, Germany, or Italy. 

In China, it is not the companies but the local governments—cities, provinces, and sometimes districts—that play a dominant and shaping role in both the market and finance. Lizzie Lee provides a very accurate description and analysis of the environment (see here). These government entities then interact with each other, with businesses, and with the central government. 

A chaotic plan

Initially, this system may appear more organized than the chaos and constant threat of market instability in capitalist countries. It is also more efficient than the endemic inefficiency of a planned economy. But ultimately, over time, it proved more chaotic than the apparent disorder of a free market and perhaps even more inefficient (with different kinds of inefficiencies) than a planned economy.

It’s a mixed bag, not simply one thing. In theory, China should be able to address this challenge. But that would mean dealing with structural and institutional problems it doesn’t seem willing to confront. Adding to this—here it becomes a dangerous stew—are ideological controversies (that the Chinese are communists); geopolitical disputes (Chinese ambitions regarding Taiwan, the South China Sea, or parts of the Himalayas); mutual suspicions (the Chinese fear that America’s ultimate goal is to establish a kind of total, global dominance to eliminate China).

As a result, a new nationalism emerges, and these factors reinforce one another. On the one hand, they isolate China not only from America but also from the rest of the world; on the other hand, they the new confrontation rose amid elements of potential cooperation. 

Then it’s not easy to determine how to handle it.

Trump, during his first term, tried to address the issue by breaking it down: focus on the trade dispute and see if it can be resolved at least partially. Simplify the challenge. The idea was reasonable in principle, but for many reasons, it didn’t succeed. Then came the complication of the war between Russia and Ukraine, followed by the war in Gaza—real, intense conflicts like those during the first Cold War. In these two hot conflicts, the leading players took opposing sides: the US supported Ukraine, while China backed Russia; China also interacted with Hamas and obviously supports Iran, whereas America stood on the opposite side.

With all these elements, we face a situation that is very new and hard to explain or understand. What is happening now, also thanks to Trump’s disorderly and perhaps unavoidable efforts, is an attempt to clarify. Maybe we are reaching a clarification, but not a short-term solution. Instead, it is for a long-term clash/friction.

Therefore, we may have to prepare for a progressive increase in tension, but hopefully, a controlled one. Here, there are many complications between long-term goals and short-term deadlines.

The first issue concerns REE. Optimistic Americans believe it may be possible to produce REEs within a few years, thereby breaking free from the Chinese yoke. Others think it could take 10, 15, or even 20 years. The yoke remains until this global strategic dependence on Chinese rare earths is broken. 

On the other hand, the West is in the middle of a crisis, and the Chinese are energized by it. It’s like what happened to the Communists in the 1950s, who saw the crisis in Western countries and thought, “Here is proof capitalism is collapsing.” It turned out differently.

Two Wests

The issue is what is in crisis and what is not.

The crisis of the West? There are two Wests that we often confuse but should not. One is a West directly descended from the legacy of the Roman Empire, which split into three great empires: the Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire (see here).

These three empires continued to dominate the Western world and the Mediterranean basin, expanding in all directions—east, west, south, and north—until 1919, the end of World War I. At that point, all three empires collapsed simultaneously. Conversely, over the centuries from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, and then more rapidly in the 19^th century, a second “West” emerged outside the physical West of the Mediterranean.

It expanded naturally. The first region of expansion was the American continent. Then Asia followed, with countries like Japan, Korea, and India. Today, we do categorize them as “Western,” even though they are neither geographically Western nor part of the Western-originated “civilization”—because they have a different history. However, they embraced the capitalist and liberal world—the new set f market-oriented rules originating in the West—without being constrained by Western physical provenance.

This second wave of Western expansion worldwide was so widespread that even China eventually adopted some Western elements, including communism (a Western concept) and Deng’s market reforms.

This second West should not fear itself or its history because 1) the old West is gone, and 2) this second West may have caused great disasters but has also achieved unprecedented results. For the first time in human history, in a century and a half, average human lifespans have tripled. The planet’s population has increased tenfold; quality of life has risen exponentially.

Unlike other contemporary socialists, even Marx, the most famous critic of capitalism, didn’t criticize capitalism on ‘moral grounds’ but for economic reasons—unequal distribution of income. Smith and Ricardo explained the mechanics of the market and the structure of cost and price; Marx argued that there was another element, labor cost, that was not adequately explained and thus not adequately compensated, but called the buildup of wealth leading to capitalism ‘primitive accumulation’.

There were no phones, telecommunications, heating, or artificial light. For thousands of years, we essentially kept warm by putting our hands near the fire. Today we fly—something that never happened before—go to space and are relatively independent from the forces of nature. These are unprecedented developments; moreover, despite some claims that technological progress is slowing down, as philosopher-billionaire Peter Thiel argued (see here), the benefits of this progress are spreading worldwide. They are no longer limited to a few privileged countries.

For the first time, the world is globalized, but the center is no longer Europe and the Atlantic route; it’s Asia and the Pacific route. This shift began in the 1980s, when Thiel said there was no change left. The fact that the lives of some Americans don’t change doesn’t mean the world isn’t changing.

Then, what is there to be ashamed of for having improved the lives of so many people? Many who complain today probably would have died at birth just a century ago.

Given these undeniable results of Western tradition, culture can act as a foundation for exchange and confrontation with China, which has gained from this substantial push toward Westernization.

Therefore, it could be a way to speak to China and to see if there can be a real space for dialogue.

The China Turn

Perhaps there’s a historical cultural oversight on China’s part. Between 2004 and 2009, Beijing became disillusioned with democracy and the free market. In 2004–2005, the American intervention in Iraq fell apart, and America failed to export democracy to Iraq successfully; in 2008–2009, the financial crisis revealed the fragility and massive flaws of the American financial system. These two huge failures convinced China that it was better to keep everything under control and no longer try to follow the American example. It was about both the political system (where some considered moving toward democratization, which was a possibility at the time) and market liberalization. 

The Chinese logic makes sense. It’s practical: it doesn’t work, I don’t use it. But maybe the Chinese overlooked a longer-term perspective. Sure, America was wrong in its intervention in Iraq and in how it handled the financial crisis. However, there is a long-term aspect: the lasting value and resilience of liberal systems. It is true that if a liberal system loses focus on the long run, it can act as if it is intoxicated. But historically, liberal systems have consistently managed to control and steer both the short- and long-term, even despite many short-term mistakes. 

Take the Napoleonic Wars, for example. Napoleon had conquered all of Europe; he had a mighty military and political force, yet England, although smaller but with a more flexible financial system, managed to defeat him. The same happened with Venice, which, for centuries, was a small power that controlled trade through a clever financial system and a republic of merchant-warriors who gathered to discuss the future of the Republic. Similarly, Genoa managed to hold onto control and even push back the Ottoman advance. 

Liberal systems have significant strength because they rely on voluntary consent through elections and free funding, which can motivate individuals to contribute in ways that autocratic systems led by an emperor or an extremely intelligent, enlightened sovereign may not. An autocratic sovereign usually cannot count on the voluntary contributions of all citizens who do not see themselves as stakeholders in their government, nor do they feel like stakeholders. No matter how loyal subjects are, they are different from stakeholders.

Today, America faces a similar challenge: confronted with those who doubt the value of democracy, it has a wide range of tools — both long- and short-term — to combat all authoritarian systems. If America stops believing in its own system and democracy and instead tries to become something else—a fully authoritarian system—then a fundamental obstacle arises. If a newly autocratic United States were to confront another authoritarian system, such as China, with over 2,000 years of experience of authoritarian rule, then the US, with less experience, could also be less efficient. 

But if America does not stop believing in itself, then China could face difficulties. Alternatively, if America loses focus, China might succeed. Perhaps the most essential part of Michael Pillsbury’s book on China, The Hundred-Year Marathon, is the final chapter. Pillsbury offers a series of policy recommendations for the US to counter China. His recommendations, ten years after the book’s initial publication, have yet to be fully implemented.

Moreover, if China sees that America does not stop believing in itself, if America renews itself through democracy, and if the liberal system revitalizes and expands its influence and power, then, since the Chinese are very pragmatic, perhaps they would start to reconsider how to confront America. 

The main issue for China right now is its inability to boost domestic consumption. Beijing is unable to do this because the ordinary Chinese are cautious and apprehensive about their uncertain future. They are not panicked because they see chaos and confusion elsewhere in the world, so they follow the government, that provides them security. At the same time, they are less optimistic about the future, which leads to less spending and investment, and they are much less proactive than they were over the past forty years. 

This lack of activity and optimism among Chinese consumers and entrepreneurs is what is holding the entire country back, and perhaps it can only change if China revises its political and social system. It does not do so because it fears that importing the American system after the failures in Iraq and other democracy-exporting efforts would unravel its whole system. 

There are very delicate elements, but it might begin with a renewed American confidence. If America doesn’t believe in itself, how can others believe it can ever win?

A coda: Population and trends

The graph shows that for 6 to 7,000 years after the start of the agricultural revolution and the end of the ice age, the population remained stable. It began to grow from the 4th millennium BC, with the dawn of civilizations, increasing from 7 to 60 million people by 750 BC. It experienced its first ‘surge’ at that time, coinciding with the beginning of the Axial Age and the spread of the world’s first cities. Over the next 2500 years, growth was slow, reaching 600 million by 1600, the start of the liberal revolution. 

It added 200 million over the next two centuries, and then, in the last 150 years, with the surge of modernization, the population grew tenfold. It now shows signs of stabilizing globally and declining in the most developed countries. The main reason is that children are no longer a driver of economic success, as they have been throughout history, but are now simply a ‘hobby’—a pleasure rooted in ancestral instincts. 

Children no longer need to care for their parents, and workers are no longer necessary to produce goods. AI and robots take their place, and better medical care enables people to live longer, more active lives. As a result, a larger population isn’t needed, except to increase consumption.

Or if war breaks out. The massacres in Ukraine remind us that conflicts still involve massive waste of steel and blood. Therefore, countries still need surplus populations, an excess of mad young people willing to go to kill or be killed. But short of an earth-shattering nuclear war, the global population likely won’t face a shock. Instead, it could first stabilize and then decline worldwide, delegating more tasks to machines, as Marx first predicted in his third book of Capital. But the key question is: how will this transformation be governed? Through a process of increasing liberal modernization or through authoritarian regimes?

Here, Thiel could be vindicated. It’s not true that innovation has slowed down; it’s spreading globally (no longer limited to a few wealthy places) and taking a new direction (telecom, AI, space). However, it could be different if autocracies come out on top. They focus on stability, not racing toward a different future.

Unless different autocracies start competing with each other, it would be a new era of warring states, as four Chinese thinkers — Li Xiaoning, Qiao Liang, Wang Jian, and Wang Xiangsui — predicted 25 years ago. The book Xin Zhanguo Shidai (the new period of the Warring States) refers to the 7^th-3^rd centuries BC age, when a few states emerged from the previous chaotic era, fought each other, and were eventually unified by the First Emperor. The book was first presented in 2004 at the Italian Cultural Center in Beijing, where I was director at the time.

(The article is born out of a conversation with Giuseppe Rippa, whom I thank)