Why China Will Not Win

One thing we do routinely, here in the 21^st century, is underestimate the achievements of the 20^th.

Before the 20^th century America was a nation with a creed we did nothing to live up to. We treated women, blacks, gays, Jews, and many, many others as second class citizens. We failed to take advantage of their talents. Our economy suffered greatly for that. We also had no social safety net, none. When crops failed, when factories closed, people starved, women and children.

Barack Obama often says “my story would have been impossible any place else,” and that is one measure of the distance we have come. But it’s only one. There are millions of other examples, all around us. Immigrants like Elon Musk. Women like Janet Yellen. People with handicaps, both mental and physical. We recognize and reward talent, we import it an nurture it, in ways that we just didn’t 100 years ago.

What made all this possible happened in the 20^th century. Technological change, sure. But also changes in our economy, in our system of government, in the laws and attitudes governing our relations with one another. The growth of our university systems, our highway systems, our communication systems, and our business systems all contributed.  

The rule of law, equality before that law, the guarantee of rights to men and women, the ability of democratic majorities to change the law, and the economic system that rewards merit and innovation, all these things combine to make our system more flexible, more ready to adapt to change, than anything which has come before it. As change accelerates, which it does in the era of Moore’s Law, the connections between all this and economic growth become more-and-more obvious.

It was often painful, in the 20^th century, to create this more perfect union, marching from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall, and God knows we are far from perfect even now. But the tools for perfecting it further are in the hands of our children.

Our example, our power, and our struggle force the rest of the world to pay an economic price for refusing to respond. The Arab world will pay that price once technology brings renewable energy abundance. To the extent that Africa and South America are prospering and progressing – something we pretend not to see – has much more to do with our example than any aid we can give.

Which brings me to China. Just as a generation ago many assumed that Japan was about to overcome our advantages, because of their unity and organization, so it’s now assumed China is about to overtake us. Since China’s economy is now bigger than that of the U.S., this assumption has taken full hold. Never mind that China has four times our population, or that China has more desperately poor people than we have people.

China today is a great industrial state. It has immense physical and human resources. It has stability. But it remains caught in the early 20^th century, the age known in America as Ragtime, because it lacks the gifts America suffered through the 20^th century to gain.

China remains a top-down society, controlled by Xi Jinping and the Communist Party. There is no one who can tell Xi, or the party, that they are wrong about anything, and they are wrong about many things. They cannot be removed from office for corruption, or malfeasance. They can only be replaced and punished afterward. This makes holding on to power a matter of life-and-death.

China lacks a legal system that is respected and will deliver justice unto anyone. When high officials are brought low, it is politics and not law that gets the credit. Cynicism reigns. Minorities, anyone who is not Han Chinese, is a second-class citizen. If the Chinese Elon Musk is a Uigyur or Tibetan he’ll never be discovered. Social mobility in China is declining, not increasing, as a result of greater wealth.

Oh, and did I mention the demographic cliff? China is aging as fast as Japan is. America is aging, too, but not nearly as fast, because we continue to be attractive to immigrants. As in so many areas, what some people see as a problem is, in fact, a source of strength. It’s an American tradition – see the other as being better and try to emulate it, when what we should be doing is being even more like us. We did it early in the 19^th century with England, we did it in the 20^th century with Germany, we did it with the Soviet Union, and we’ve even done it with Arabia. Fools feel that what they fear is what we must become, and they are greater fools for thinking that.

What all this means is that China is not going to pass America, not in this century. The next Chinese Musk, if he exists, will go to Stanford and do his best work here. This isn’t because America is perfect, or because America has great natural resources and a big economy. It’s because of what we are, of what we have struggled through, the result of millions of acts of conscience, fought alone. That’s what makes America great.

Don’t forget that. And don’t put it all at risk because of your own bigotry, or your own fear, especially your fear of China. We are the model, no one else, we are what the world is moving toward, and the way to stay ahead is to keep moving forward.

It’s hard work. It’s complicated. It’s a game of two steps forward and one step back sometimes. It’s messy. It’s muddled. But it’s also very human, and it’s the human race we’re running here. Let’s keep winning it.