Mark Steyn: Who can stop the rise and rise of China? The communists, of course

The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 06/12/05 | Mark Steyn

[expatpat]

He couldn't afford the trailer?

[sine_nomine]

Viagra won't sell well then. No one will need it. A grizzled old hag will draw wolf whistles in a few years.

Missing from this fantastic essay is the statistic of China suffering from 47 million or so bureaucrats. I doubt whether the country can survive that mass of inertia.

[The Iguana]

Another great one from Steyn.

[Strategerist]

why else would they so fear Falun Gong?

That tells you a lot about the hidden fragility of the state there; they're scared s***less of what is basically a yoga club.

[PetroniusMaximus]

***He couldn't afford the trailer?***

He couldn't afford the elevator!

[Gritty]

The 21st century will be an Anglosphere century, with America, India and Australia leading the way.

Very intesting take by Steyn. He is likely 100% correct, as he nearly always is.

Is there any way to hire this guy for our State Department or are we going to be stuck forever with warmed over Clintonites??

[swampmonster]

Expect to see the Chinese women scrambling for power in the up coming years. Who could stop them? Considering the culture just imagine the jolt to their collective psyches.

[grey_whiskers]

The 21st century will be an Anglosphere century, with America, India and Australia leading the way. Very intesting take by Steyn. He is likely 100% correct, as he nearly always is. Is there any way to hire this guy for our State Department or are we going to be stuck forever with warmed over Clintonites??

Good point. This piece was so spot-on geopolitically I first thought I was reading Victor Davis Hanson :-)

Cheers!

[machman]

India, by contrast, with much less ballyhoo, is advancing faster than China toward a fully-developed economy - one that creates its own ideas.

My opinion has always been that India is really the potential power of the east. Despite all the problems there, the biggest thing they have going for them is more freedom, and the basis of a western legal system given to them by the British that does respect property rights.India, by contrast, with much less ballyhoo, is advancing faster than China toward a fully-developed economy - one that creates its own ideas.

[Thebaddog]

The internal contradictions of Commie-capitalism will, in the end, scupper the present arrangements in Beijing. China manufactures the products for some of the biggest brands in the world, but it's also the biggest thief of copyrights and patents of those same brands. It makes almost all Disney's official merchandising, yet it's also the country that defrauds Disney and pirates its movies. !

Is that not another definition for Saudi Arabia. Steyn rules

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Your post is difficult to read much less make sense of. Are you saying Nixon deserves vilification for going to China? No one here...., People here loathe.... Where is here? Are you talking about FR, America, China, where? How did Armand Hammer get involved in this? What is the deal with appeasement and being a Democrat?

If you can restate what you are saying I will try to respond. If you are just a DU troll, don't bother as you won't be around long enough to discuss it.

[LibertarianInExile]

I was quite clear in my statement and maybe should have contemplated using smaller words and easier context for a Nixon fan like you. But to restate: Nixon was a fool for 'opening' China, and if he were not a Republican, no one here--on FR, where you are reading this post--would argue he was right in doing so.

[alwaysconservative]

Thanks for the ping, Pokey! Steyn is the pentultimate wordsmith of our time.

[COUNTrecount]

Thanks.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I was quite clear in my statement and maybe should have contemplated using smaller words and easier context for a Nixon fan like you.

I suppose I was so in awe with your brilliant use of the language that I was momentarily thrown off kilter. However, I think I have now recovered.

But to restate: Nixon was a fool for 'opening' China,....

Nixon's trip to China was not as successful as I would have liked but he did attempt to unlock China's isolation that had existed since before the building of the Great Wall, which exemplified it, and later when their mistrust of the outside was exacerbated by the Opium Wars, and finally when FDR, then Truman, abandoned Chiang Kai-shek to the Communists. Mao Tse Tung immediately clamped the lid on things and killed millions of his own people. Nixon made an effort to break that mindset and relieve tensions in the world. That move also drove a wedge, of sorts, between China and the USSR>

.... and if he were not a Republican, no one here--on FR, where you are reading this post--would argue he was right in doing so.

I suspect you are as wrong about that as you are the rest. What happened to that nonsense about Armond Hammer?

Our present situation with China was brought about by our good friends Bill and Hillary, not Nixon. Whether China sees the light of the advantages of freedom and free enterprisae, as envisioned by Nixon, or becomes and idiot Communist Superpower, as envisioned by the Clintons, has yet to be decided.

[Chu Gary]

I live in Vietnam part of each year. One day, I asked a taxi driver whether he had read one of the local commie run fishwrappers. He just chuckled and said that no one reads those things. The populace understands the hand they've been dealt, they all want out.

[PhilDragoo]

Johnson took the 100 meters today over the 6'2" China whiz.
China's "success" is on the backs of its working class.
Howard Dean, Howard Dean, pick up the white courtesy phone.

[tjg]

"They are only flirting with free enterprise to fund their soon-to-be-powerful military."

The only problem is that free enterprise creats an affluent middle class, and affluence is a path to political power. By the time the military is powerfull enough, so may be the middle class which will take a dim view of trading their x-boxes for military conquest.

Why kill people for stuff when you can just buy it?

[irv]

thanks Pokey. Steyn is a brilliant analyst even when he's not as funny as usual.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I agree with you and have made that point myself at times, maybe even on this thread. We need to keep exposing others to that fact.