Well, I have to help restore karmic balance some way.

1 The G20 in 2050. Another data point adding to the emerging consenus that China will be the world’s largest economy in just over twenty years, barring political developments which the authors say they can’t predict.

I will try one prediction: there won’t have been a G20 for a long time by 2050.

2 This is supposed to be about India’s economic position in 2109, but it says more about China’s underrated position today: “The Chinese haircut industry alone might be larger than the economies of many small countries.” And so on.

Incidentally, both links show how very difficult it is to measure economies using GDP and the variations thereupon.

Flickr/bazril

Willy Lam, in a piece headlined ‘Equals at Last, for Better or Worse’:

For the first time, the leaders of the United States and China talked as equals. And the rough parity between an apparently declining superpower and a fast-rising quasi-superpower has major global implications for issues including regional security, nuclear proliferation, trade, climate change and human rights.

Chinese GDP, 2008: $4.33 trillion. US GDP, 2008: $14.2 trillion. Military spending as % of GDP, China: 1.96%; US: 4.28%.

Conversely, of course, the United States and China have talked as veto-bearing equals on the United Nations Security Council since 1971. Not 2009.

I give up.

The Cultural Revolution seems to have produced among the Chinese the same sort of manic drive that the pioneer and immigrant experiences produced among the Americans. The people who endured Mao’s horror have seen the worst life has to offer and are now driven to build some secure footing. At the same time, they and their children seem inflamed by the experience of living through so much progress so quickly.

“Do you understand?” one party official in Shanxi Province told James Fallows of The Atlantic, “If it had not been for Deng Xiaoping, I would be behind an ox in a field right now. … Do you understand how different this is? My mother has bound feet!”

1. It is estimated by at least two Western scholars that the Cultural Revolution killed between 750,000 and 1.5 million people in China. As many people again survived permanently scarred both physically and psychologically. Unlike David Brooks, I am not comfortable making sweeping generalisations about a billion-odd human beings in one go, but I believe that many Chinese people see the Cultural Revolution as an unmitigated disaster for their country. So much for “manic drive”. Nor would I go around alluding to the Revolution as “progress”.

2. Becoming “driven to build some secure footing” after witnessing “the worst life has to offer” (incidental note to editors: murderous ideological zealots are not natural occupational hazards of life) is not evidence for faith in the future. Surely the opposite – it is a pragmatic hedge against continued uncertainty, and the product of a frightening recent past. In any case, Chinese consumer spending has been rising at a rate of 8 or 9 per cent per annum in recent years, two and a half times the American rate. Surely this is true evidence for ‘futurity’, and indeed China’s continued strong economic growth. You don’t spend unless you have faith in a higher income in the future to make up for it.

3. Since Deng Xiaoping was purged not once but twice during the Cultural Revolution, and began the reforms of 1978 in order to repair the vast economic damage left by the Gang of Four, I very much doubt that he would have appreciated the New York Times’ apparent amalgamation of the two events.

4. I am not very impressed by David Brooks’ grasp of either economics or Chinese history. Particularly when this history is mangled into a mere accessory to another country’s self-regard.

A new gap will develop. Respect for Western ideas will remain, but respect for Western practices will diminish, unless Western performance in governance improves again.

…Here, too, as the 21st century unfolds, we will see the exact opposite outcome. The return of Asia will be accompanied by an astonishing Asian renaissance in which many diverse Asian cultures will rediscover their lost heritage of art and philosophy.

There is no question that Asians will celebrate the return of history. The only question is: Will the West join them in these celebrations, or will they keep waiting for the end to come?

Reality:

‘Tension grows between India and China as Asia slips into cold war‘
- The Times, 12/11/09

‘Chinese petitioners held in illicit ‘black jails’, report claims‘
- The Guardian, 12/11/09

‘Cambodia’s embrace of ex-Thai leader stirs tensions‘
- The International Herald Tribune, 12/11/09

‘Protesters clash with police in Nepal‘
- The International Herald Tribune, 12/11/09

‘Clinton appelle à la libération “inconditionnelle” de Suu Kyi‘
– Le Monde, 12/11/09

Nice try, Mr Mahbubani.

(Not that strong economic growth and democratisation throughout Asia are all doom and gloom, obviously. I am just making a point).

NB

The brain damage joke isn’t funny, by the way. I can only presume that humour receives criminal sanction in Singapore. Much else does, after all.