The Typology of China Envy

Having proved naysayers wrong and lifted 800 million out of poverty, the Chinese economy juggernaut has become too big to ignore.

Everywhere you turn, it seems everybody is talking about the Second China Shock, including the guys that coined the first China Shock term originally. If the first China Shock was about the Chinese becoming utterly dominant in manufacturing, the second China shock is about the possibility of China becoming globally dominant in everything, including innovation. For America, the first China Shock affected guys who made furniture in High Point, NC. The second China Shock is liable to completely topple the international world order we all grew up with.

Almost every other day now on my twitter, I’ve dealt with rather accusatory statements regarding my shifting view on China. “Angelica, are you pro-CCP now”? “Angelica, do you no longer believe in freedom and democracy?” Noah Smith even accused me of being a CCP asset and then blocked me.

Look. I grew up taking the End of History for granted. I read the Coming Collapse of China by Gordon Chang in 2002 and The World is Flat in 2005. Since then, I’ve witnessed a parade of conventional economic explanations for why the United States is destined to come out on top and what China is doing would eventually end in disaster…unless they start reforming to be more like the United States. But in the end, it’s the opposite that happened, as the United States increasingly adopt protectionist policies in direct contravention of its free market ideology, with the explicit goal of kneecapping China rise.

I also got a little bit sick and tired of writing about Taiwan, and only approaching China from the angle of what it means for an island half the size of Tasmania with 23 million people. I quickly realized that it’s the rise China that is the biggest story of our time.

Don’t worry…I still live in Taiwan and love Taiwan. There will still be Taiwan content on Taipology. It’s just that I might not be spending my one wild and precious life giving you the blow-by-blow to the upcoming legislative recall elections. I’ve got bigger first to fry.

To quote economic historian Adam Tooze, “Development of China is the master key to understanding modernity. And without it, you just don't have a hope of grasping what's going on.”

RISING CHINA POLITICAL COMPASS

I felt like the whole cast of characters on my twitter timeline changed out as I started writing more and more about China with a special emphasis on its economic development. People who blocked me now follow me and vice versa. And boy are they a bunch of strange animal friends. I’ve divided them into four archetypes that fits neatly into a political compass:

BITTER ´MURICANS : Ex-neoliberals having a crisis. Could be any nationality. Secretly mad they listened to Larry Summers for 30 years. Still believes in the primacy of the free market but also wants subsidies NOW because the Chinese are cheating and so we have to cheat back! Wants to build battery factories in Wisconsin but won’t let the Chinese come in and bring their money and know-how.

MARKET PROPHETS: Still talking about ghost cities and debt bubbles. Too sophisticated for Peter Zeihan and have moved on to Michael Pettis. Used to believe that liberalization of the Chinese economy would lead to inevitable regime change through liberal democracy. Now believes Chinese economy is a mirage which will lead to regime change when it inevitably collapses. Talks a lot about “overproduction” these days and frequently urges the Chinese to do more fiscal stimulus before it’s too late.

CHINABOOS: Believes that China is special in an ineffable way. Maybe it’s the Confucius. Maybe it’s the DNA. But it definitely means China is pre-destined to take the lead in semiconductor technology any day now. Both thinks the century of humiliation as just a little blip in Chinese supremacy not worth worrying about and that the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the world was the burning of the Summer Palace.

FINALLY VINDICATED TANKIES: Thinks that it is very based and normal that True Socialism has finally been tried and it looks like Las Vegas. Gets upset when people don’t know what dialectical materialism means. Still hates capitalists, but they can be tolerated for now as long as the state has the whip hand and siccing them on each other to produce infinite EVs at zero profit margin. Love posting infrastructure porn, especially if there’s a train in there somewhere. Oblivious that it is blatantly stolen valor for socialism to take the credit for Shenzhen.

“But what about YOU, Angelica?”

Being Taiwanese AND American, I’ve been exposed pretty much my whole life to the worst anti-Chinese propaganda you can think of. As someone who literally identified as a neo-liberal, I’m also utterly clueless to economics to the left of Keynes. I am definitely Chinapilled, but I haven’t decided if China’s success is due to its unique composition, its system or both.

I classify myself as someone with a lot to learn. And boy I’ve learned a lot already! First of all, I’ve learned that there are plenty of Taiwanese people who aren’t Sinophobic at all, and indeed look upon China’s rise with a lot of pride. I’ve also learned that there are Chinese nationalists so fragile they have a conspiracy theory that all of Ancient Greek antiquity has been faked to give the gravitas to Western history. The world is a big place!

Funnily enough, there are a lot of people with strong views about China that DON’T show up on my timeline. The Abundance Libs, for instance, have pretty much accepted America needs its own version of what China did with industrial policy and deregulation. MAGA, on the other hand, saw China’s success through its own lens of preference for trade protectionism and cultural homogeneity.

But what about Taiwan? What about the China Threat?

There is a quote by Jung that I’ve always been very fond of that goes something like “all of life’s most important questions are never solved but transcended.” The Taiwan Question has been one that came up over and over again ever since I started Taipology. Four years ago, I wrote Crisis on Schrodinger’s Island. I think it’s a piece of analysis that stands up. I just don’t want to keep writing the same post over and over again.

Since four years ago, Taiwan’s position has become only more untenable. After the firm support of the Biden years, Trump has made it clear that he sees Taiwan as chips: chips on the negotiation table to Taiwan and a Chip Factory to put pressure on to relocate to the United State. To me any further analysis on how Taiwan can defend its democracy or how the rule-based international order is still on the side of plucky little Taiwan and against Big Bad China is in danger of becoming terminal cope.

Look…when it comes down to it, Lithuanian support for Taiwan is not going to make the difference in a Taiwanese contingency…just as Taiwanese support for Lithuania won’t make a whit of difference if the Russians ever get crazy enough to invade the Baltics.

Funnily enough, I’ve become more upbeat about a peaceful solution to the Taiwan question since I started learning more about China. Unlike Russia, it’s a country that has a lot to lose if the peaceful post-war international order goes down. In fact, as a country that thrives on trade, it’s highly invested in preserving not just peace but the order that you can argue the United States painstakingly crafted in the aftermath of World War II.

For my readers who has followed Taipology since the beginning and witnessed my political evolution from naive Tsai Ing-wen fangirl to bitterly disappointed with the DPP narrative, I hope that I’ve earned your trust enough to say this: Whatever change I’ve made I’ve done so through my authentic exploration of the world and through applying reason and logic.

The journey continues…