CHINA’S FOURTH TURNING

“If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

“In foreign affairs, America’s initial Fourth Turning instinct will be to look away from other countries and focus total energy on the domestic birth of a new order. Later, provoked by real or imagined outside provocations, the society will turn newly martial. America will become more isolationist than today in its unwillingness to coordinate its affairs with other countries but less isolationist in its insistence that vital national interests not be compromised. The Crisis mood will dim expectations that multilateral diplomacy and expanding global democracy can keep the world out of trouble. Even before any conflicts arise, people will feel less anxiety over the prospect of casualties. Old Unraveling-era strategies (flexibility, stealth, elite expertise, stand-off weaponry, and surgical goals) will be replaced by new Crisis-era strategies (mass, intimidation, universal conscription, frontal assault, and total victory) more suitable to a fight for civic survival. By then, people will will look back on the Unraveling as the time when America evolved from a postwar to a prewar era.”  –  The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

L.E. Moore provided a link to his article about China and their generational dynamics. The Strauss and Howe theory is based upon the life phases of populations. It is not just applicable to America. It can be analyzed across all countries and cultures. I had not seen a detailed analysis of the Strauss & Howe theory in relation to China. Moore does an excellent job detailing the Chinese thought process and providing a chart showing the Turnings in Chinese modern history versus the American turnings. Based on this research, both China and the US are in a Fourth Turning now. 

What I found interesting was his contention that the Han Chinese see themselves as the center of the universe and consider us as barbarians. They feel superior to America and consider themselves the patron to us being a client that owes them hundreds of billions. 

After further research, I found this link at Generational Dynamics regarding China’s Turnings:

  http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?s=pasJv5&d=ww2010.cs.ch

I found this passage about their Unraveling and future Crisis to be particularly interesting:

The era was launched by the Tiananmen Square massacre, triggering the huge movement, followers of the Falun Gong. Their leaders believe it to be the modern version of the God-Worshipper’s Society, a spiritual movement which launched the Taiping Rebellion, and was a form of Christianity combined with Buddhism. By 1999 the movement was so widespread that Beijing clamped down on it. It’s rumored that millions of adherents have been jailed.

One-child Generation (Heroes) – This generation bore the brunt of the one-child policy which has created an enormous surplus of young males, meaning that a large segment of this generation will never get married. This generation almost has nothing to lose by going to war — against Beijing, against Japan, or against the U.S. And they will be guided by the last Prophets – the Miserables — and supported by the last Nomads — the Tiananmens.

Today, China’s social structure is unraveling rapidly, as can be seen from from the tens of thousands of regional rebellions each year, over 100 million migrant workers, high food prices, high rust belt unemployment, addiction to a bubble economy, unraveling of Mao’s social structure and secessionist provinces.

What we have here is a dangerous mixture of dogmatic Prophet leaders and many young people in China and the US with nothing to lose. We have two countries with wealth being concentrated among the few. We have two countries with anger building among vast swaths of the population. We have politicians in both countries blustering about retaliation, blame and accusations. We have two countries with economic recoveries created by printing trillions of new currency units. We have two countries which import most of  their oil from other countries.

No matter how you cut it, we have a volatile concotion. Any missteps, overreaction, leadership failures, or accident could set in motion a dangerous domino effect. The Fourth Turning gets more interesting by the day. 

2012: Year of the Dragon

If you want some nostalgia for the American cultural high see here and scroll down to the videos.

I’ll try not to make this one too gloomy.  If such things bother you then skip this one.  Remember, I am working a sociological model to its conclusion.  The model can be wrong.

Previously I discussed American cultural eras (here, and here) and indicated where I think we are in the cultural cycle.  In this essay I compare the US cycle to the Chinese (PRC) one to see how they line up.  The patterns are fairly close.  We are both in secular crisis, with the PRC having started a little later than the US.  

Secular crises are identity crises.  The US has to decide of it will continue to be The Super Power that it has been.  For the PRC, the question is: do they become The New Super Power, or, maybe we could have two super powers. I don’t think other nations are viable challengers, unless they partner up.

When I look back at the large events of American history the episodes of total war within crises always stand out:  King Philips War during the Glorious Revolution, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and WWII.  History book series tend to be defined around those benchmarks. Since American Awakenings have been relatively nonviolent they haven’t gotten much attention.  You have to go back to the Puritan Awakening of the early 17th century and the rise of Cromwell to find a violent one. Awakenings are generally ignored in US history (this blog aims to change that).

In other countries Awakenings have been violent and have led to the overthrow of governments or monarchies, such as the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. Awakening rebellions tend to have grass roots leadership intent on correcting the abuses of those in formal power, although they may also have help from high level factions.  They can also lead to long term intermittent warlord like infighting.  Culture War eras start as extensions of the Awakenings and then escalate into the secular crisis.

Total wars with significant genocidal behavior are fought in secular crises; they are either state sponsored wars of complete destruction, or, they are civil wars.  While, in theory, secular crises don’t have to have episodes of genocidal warfare, I have yet to find one that does not (I also haven’t looked far and wide).

Chinese history is bench marked on both secular crises and awakenings.  Every 45 to 50 years they seem to have a significant outbreak of violence.  The Cultural Revolution began in 1966 and here we are 45 years later in secular crisis.  Also, since 1850, benchmark events have always centered on the influences of Western Civilization penetrating into Chinese culture, as if there is a need to resist or purge something Western out of Chinese culture.  It seems that a new purge could come at any time.  I offer some idea of what that might look like.

First and foremost the Chinese are 90% Han ethnicity.  They are a proud culture that believes they are the center of the world [1].  All things are defined in relation to them.  Han chauvinism is renowned.  They are the Middle Kingdom.  The further you go away from the center the greater a barbarian you are.  The ruler leads due to the Mandate of Heaven and all others kowtow and pay tribute to him. Three hundred years of Westerners meddling in Chinese politics and one hundred years of sustained Western influence since the collapse of the Qing Dynasty does not erase 2000 years of sino-centrism.  As Christ is central to the identity of a devout Christian so is Han chauvinism to the Han people.  And they have hidden it very well these last few decades under the blanket of “communism” [2].

In traditional China all non-family relations were of a patron-client form (the Asian version, not the European one).  One side always had the upper hand but also had to be protective of the other side because the relation would eventually fail if they did not. While both are dependent on each other the patron works to ensure that the client becomes asymmetrically more dependent.  Since 1978, when China began opening up again to outside influences and trade, it has worked hard to establish patron-client relationships.

Americans typically think of partnerships as being one of equals working toward a common goal. The Chinese do not. One side always gets the upper hand.

The US is now heavily in debt to the Chinese and we are dependent on their cheep goods.  To the Chinese, we are the client.  Obama has bowed to their ruler.  The next step is to kowtow.  (They will accept a symbolic kowtow; it doesn’t have to be a real prostration).

 
China is ripe for a re-expression of its core identity.  The great purge that is coming will be the abandonment of any pretext that they are communists. Communism is a Western idea. Purge it.

The Cultural Revolution gives great insight on this.  That Awakening was a conflict between communism and Han chauvinism as Mao had tried to stamp it out from the beginning (here) but failed. In 1966 Mao tried to make communism a heavier blanket over the culture, it backfires against him, starting a successful resistance. The communists destroyed artifacts and libraries of Chinese culture, they put intellectuals into communes, but they couldn’t change the core culture of the Han.  After Mao’s death in 1976 the Chinese, under Deng, made three decisions:  honor Mao for being the savior of the nation [3], ignore his failure in the Cultural Revolution, and allow communism to wane.  Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism all rebounded quickly.  Traditionally having been a trading culture, they slowly opened to the world and slowly gained economic power using the patron-client relationship.

Today, China is ripe to reveal itself as the Dragon it is and always has been.  And on the Chinese calendar, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, a time when dragons roam freely in the world and take what they want.  Taiwan and South Korea are emeralds worthy of their taking [4].

When the time comes Americans will have to stand tall, not kowtow, and say “the Mandate of Heaven is revoked.”

Game on.
Table 1:  Comparison of American and Chinese cultural eras. Some Chinese events will link to Wikipedia.

Cultural Era US China Others
Secular Crisis 2001- Crisis of Confidence 2007- Global Economic Crisis  
Culture Wars/Unraveling 1984-2007  Post Scientism 1989-2007 Opening of PRC to Western influences and trade; one child policy erodes demographics; SARS; human rights  
Awakening 1960-1990 4th; Consciousness Revolution 1966-1989 Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square; 1 to 20 million dead  
Cultural High 1946-1968  American High 1950-1976 PRC under Mao; PRC mostly closed to outside world; ROC  
Secular Crisis 1929-1946  Depression & WWII 1927-1950 Chinese Civil War, Second Sino-Japanese War; 20 million dead Spanish Civil War
Culture Wars/Unraveling 1911-1936  WWI & Prohibition 1911-1937 Republic of China; Second Revolution, Warlord Era, Chinese Civil War (first half)  
Awakening 1890-1920 3rd Awakening 1880s-1911 Western Imperialism ends Qing Dynasty: Boxer Rebellion, 1898-1901, a Chinese  nationalist revival against western ideas (many thousands dead); Xinhai Revolution 1911 Russian Revolution, Mexican Revolution, Philippine Insurrection
Cultural High 1866-1889  Gilded Age 1861-1895 Self-Strengthening Movement, Qing Dynasty builds against Western influences.  
Secular Crisis 1854-1876  No slavery Compromise 1850-1864 Taiping Rebellion; a Chinese Christian movement against the Qing Dynasty; 20 million dead; other rebellions  
Awakening 1800-1830 2nd Great Awakening 1796-1804 White Lotus Rebellion; 16 million dead French Revolution South American Revolutions
Secular crisis 1763-1794 American Revolution 1755-1757 Dzungars ethnic genocide   

 

Notes:

1.  I am aware that China is a diverse population, so don’t get hung up on generalizations here. I’ve known many Chinese nationals (from PRC and ROC) and yes they are all individuals.  However, you can’t get anywhere in a cultural study with useless generalizations such as “everyone is unique.”  In grad school I dated a gal from Taiwan.  I once ‘complemented’ her on a wave in her hair.  She slapped me so hard I had no idea what was wrong.  She said that “Chinese have straight hair.” So, I had actually insulted her.  And she had quite a slap.  That was Han chauvinism, and, it is very apparent in the PRC leadership.

 
2. An old saying in China is that every black-haired child of Han wears a Confucian hat, a Taoist robe, and Buddhist sandals.  To this, add a communist blanket. It’s still a Han underneath.

3. During the 1940s Chinese Civil War two strong Western influences were penetrating China. Communism under Mao and capitalism under Chiang Kai-shek.  Mao “saves” China from one western influence, by using another. Now, the remnants of the second one must go away.

4. The positive qualities of the symbolic Chinese Dragon don’t suggest that the Chinese leadership would do something rash.  However, the negative qualities do suggest that overreaching for something is possible.  The temptations of power may be too great to resist. China, from 1950-present–what do we call this new dynasty? The PRC Dynasty? 

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Kill Bill
Kill Bill

Gee who do we have to thank for commie China becoming a super power. Why those America loving multinationalists who sent all our jobs over there and invested billions and billions of dollars

Thanks Assholes!

TeresaE
TeresaE

KB, EXACTLY!

We gave them the knowledge, then the money, and, as the world works, the power.

The funniest (in a rather scary, terrifying way) thing is the SHOCK that the heads of the mega-nationals and politicians are going to be in when the dragon finally rears its ugly head(s).

Meanwhile, China is running around the world flooding our enemies with our dollars. I’m sure the recipients will be “loyal” to the good ole USA when their master (follow the dollar) starts to make waves.

I’m sure it will turn out ok, after all, we are AMERICA and god is on our side! (yes, that is sarcasm).

Thinker

You’ll probably find this summary of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) fifth plenary session in Beijing where the nation’s next five-year development plan was set.

Reverse Engineer

They can be as Han Chauvinistic as they like. With their aquifer problems, 1B Han Chinese are 900M DEAD Han Chinese.

The Chinese are TOAST.

RE

Reverse Engineer

Ambrose says “Appease the Dragon”

RE

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Appeasement is the proper policy towards Confucian China
We all learned at school how the status quo powers mismanaged the spectacular rise of Germany before World War I, a strategic revolution so like the rise of China today.

China?s leaders should be careful not to succumb to the Wilhelmine illusion that economic and strategic momentum is the same as actual power Photo: REUTERSBy Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor 6:07PM GMT 23 Jan 2011
213 Comments
And we all learned how the Kaiser overplayed his hand. That much was obvious.

Yet it is difficult to pin-point exactly when the normal pattern of great power jostling began to metamorphose into something more dangerous, leading to two rival, entrenched, and heavily armed alliance structures unable or unwilling to avert the drift towards conflict. The Long Peace died by a thousand cuts, a snub here, a Dreadnought there, the race for oil.

The German historian Fritz Fischer has in a sense muddied the waters with his seminal work, Griff nach der Weltmacht (Bid for World Power). He draws on imperial archives in Potsdam to claim that Germany’s general staff was angling for a pre-emptive war to smash France and dismember the Russian Empire before it emerged as an industrial colossus. Sarajevo provided the “propitious moment”.

Kaiser Wilhelm’s court allegedly made up its mind after the Social Democrats (then Marxists) won a Reichstag majority in 1912, seeing war as a way to contain radical dissent. This assessment was tragically correct. War split the Social Democrats irrevocably, allowing the Nazis to exploit a divided Left under Weimar.

The Fischer version of events is a little too reassuring, and not just because the Entente allies had already fed Germany’s self-fulfilling fears of encirclement and emboldened Tsarist Russia to push its luck in the Balkans. A deeper cause was at work.

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“The only condition which could lead to improvement of German-English relations would be if we bridled our economic development, and this is not possible,” said Deutsche Bank chief Karl Helfferich as early as 1897. German steel output jumped tenfold from 1880 to 1900, leaping past British production. Sound familiar?

Is China now where Germany was in 1900? Possibly. There are certainly hints of menace from some quarters in Beijing. Defence minister Liang Guanglie said over New Year that China’s armed forces are “pushing forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction”.

Professor Huang Jing from Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew School and a former adviser to China’s Army, said Beijing is losing its grip on the colonels.

“The young officers are taking control of strategy and it is like young officers in Japan in the 1930s. This is very dangerous. They are on a collision course with a US-dominated system,” he said.

Yet nothing is foreordained. Which is why it was so unsettling to learn that most of the leadership of the US Congress declined to attend the state banquet at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao, including the Speaker of House.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Mr Hu a “dictator”. Is this a remotely apposite term for a self-effacing man of Confucian leanings, whose father was a victim of the Cultural Revolution, who fights a daily struggle against his own hotheads at home, and who will hand over power in an orderly transition next year?

Or for premier Wen Jiabao, who visited students in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, narrowly surviving the “insubordination purge” that followed? These leaders may be wrong in their assessment of how much democracy China can handle without flying out of control, but despots they are not.

President Barack Obama has bent over backwards to draw China into the international system through the G20, the World Bank and the IMF, in practical terms recognizing Beijing as co-equal in global condominium.

You could say Mr Obaba has won little in return for reaching out, but as Napoleon put it, “a leader is a dealer in hope”. What, pray, would a policy of crude containment do to China’s psyche?

Heaven protect us from unreconstructed Neo-cons such as ex-UN ambassador John Bolton, who wants to send aircraft carrier battle groups into the Straits of Taiwan, as if we were still living in that lost world of American pre-eminence in 1996, when China was still too weak to respond, and did not have operational missiles able to sink US carriers far at sea. Yet variants of the Bolton view are gaining ground on Capitol Hill.

Yes, China’s leaders should be careful not to succumb to the Wilhelmine illusion that economic and strategic momentum is the same as actual power.

There is a new edge to Chinese naval policy in the South China Sea, causing Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines to cleave closer to the US alliance. Has Beijing studied how German naval ambitions upset the careful diplomatic legacy of Bismarck and pushed an ambivalent Britain towards the Entente, even to the point of accepting alliance with Tsarist autocracy?

Factions in Beijing appear to think that China will win a trade war if Washington ever imposes sanctions to counter Chinese mercantilism. That is a fatal misjudgement. The lesson of Smoot-Hawley and the 1930s is that surplus states suffer crippling depressions when the guillotine comes down on free trade; while deficit states can muddle through, reviving their industries behind barriers. Demand is the most precious commodity of all in a world of excess supply.

The political reality is that China’s export of manufacturing over-capacity is hollowing out the US industrial core, and a plethora of tricks to stop Western firms competing in the Chinese market rubs salt in the wound. It is preventing full recovery in the US, where half the population is falling out of the bottom of the Affluent Society. Some 43.2m people are now on food stamps. The US labour force participation rate has fallen to 64.3pc, worse than a year ago. Only the richer half is recovering.

The roots of this imbalance lie in the structure of globalisation and East-West capital flows – and no doubt the deficiencies of US school education – but China plays a central role, and this will not tolerated for much longer if Beijing is also perceived to be a strategic enemy. China’s economic and military goals are in conflict. One defeats the other.

The undervalued yuan is merely the visible tip of the mercantilist iceberg, and is a diminishing factor in any case as leaked dollar stimulus from the Fed’s QE drives up Chinese wage inflation. What matters is that China’s entire credit, tax, and regulatory system is geared towards subsidised capital for exporters.

Professor Michael Pettis from Beijing University argues that a key reason why Chinese consumption has collapsed from 48pc to 36pc of GDP over 12 years – and therefore why China cannot eliminate the trade surplus with the US – is that the banking system has been bailed out with an interest rate subsidy extracted from depositors, shifting income from the people to corporate debtors. Unfortunately, this is about to happen again.

A cocky China needs to watch its step, as does a rancorous America, before resentments feed on each other in a Wilhelmine spiral.

The Chinese have no recent history of sweeping territorial expansion (except Tibet). The one-child policy has left a dearth of young men, and implies a chronic aging crisis within a decade. This is not the demographic profile of a fundamentally bellicose nation.

The correct statecraft for the West is to treat Beijing politely but firmly as a member of global club, gambling that the Confucian ethic will over time incline China to a quest for global as well as national concord. Until we face irrefutable evidence that this Confucian bet has failed, ‘Boltonism’ must be crushed.

Appeasement, your hour has come.

Jiggerjuice
Jiggerjuice

The history of China is the rise and fall of dynasties. In just about all cases, the fall of these dynasties happened because of the Han Chinese themselves, and not because of foreign invasion – the Mongols being the notable exception. The Communist government spends most of its time worrying about rebellion/revolution. When the mountains of shit hit the various fans, the current government has exactly one tactic at its disposal – the distraction of war with foreigners. They will prefer this to revising their entire government for the umpteenth time in history. Should we be surprised? It is exactly what our country is doing right now as well…

Anyway, China is well aware of its limitations vs the US. They will wait us out, hoping our economy falls apart before theirs does.

StuckInNJ
StuckInNJ

Article; — “Taiwan and South Korea are emeralds worthy of their taking [4].”

OK, so take them. We already had about a million dead or wounded in the Korean and Vietnam fiasco. I hope we don’t shed another American life in Southeast Asian adventures — remember what our founding fathers said!! And don’t give me this fucking Domino Theory shit this time either.

Jiggerjuice
Jiggerjuice

China has a bunch of oil in Xinjiang, the Westernmost province of China. Xinjiang is mostly Muslim, and literally touches the border of Afghanistan. Xinjiang is a bubbling pot of angry Muslims whose resources are basically locked down by the Han Chinese. Back in the day, Xinjiang was its own little Muslim country. Mao invited the leaders of the then-government to come on a diplomatic trip to Beijing. Lo and behold, the plane crashed, along with it the primary leaders of the Xinjiang “government”. The Muslims from Xinjiang generally agree that it was a planeload of assassination. Then the Han Chinese showed up in Xinjiang, and nationalized the resources, declaring Xinjiang to be a part of China.

The Muslims are still pissed. Xinjiang is covered in oil, gold, gems… The Chinese government is careful not to extract ALL the resources… Local Xinjiang guys will complain that a Liter of gas costs $3 FRNs, when in fact, the oil comes from their land, which then subsidizes the Han government. Xinjiang is well pissed, and if the Han government extracts TOO much, the bubbling pot might explode.

Where does that oil go? Why, to North Korea, China’s puppet country… North Korea is a handy little dictatorship, giving them plausible deniability, but is in fact supported directly by the Chinese government. They basically give away oil at non-market, rock bottom prices, to the North Koreans.

South Korea isn’t a “jewel for the taking”. It is an American base. The reason the North and South haven’t united is that the Chinese government has stated openly that it won’t tolerate an American presence on its borders. The reunion of the two countries is impossible with China tugging at one side and the US tugging at the other. More than likely, the Chinese will use North Korea as a proxy to start a war, if and when it decides that the timing is right.

Dragline
Dragline

The recent book “Shock of Gray” discusses the aging issue. The book is about what is happening to various societies and countries due to the increased ages of many populations. It points out that in most aging societies like Japan, Spain, or the U.S., the decrease in procreation occurred gradually, so the societies have aged gradually. By contrast, in China there was a steep drop-off when the one child policy was implemented, so China will age very quickly in the next 30-40 years and will have about 483 million people over 60 by 2050.

Right now, China is different from other societies because it is mostly transferring wealth away from the old to the young. You don’t want old in China these days. U.S., Japan and most European countries are transferring it to the old from the young. This could change abruptly at some tipping point when the Chinese get old enough. If so, the “Chinese century” may only last a generation. In a sense, the One Child policy sealed their fate.

Not sure the author’s idea will play out, but it is a big issue for China.

ssgconway

Companies like GM and Apple that have a lot of intellectual property in China may be in for a nasty surprise someday soon. I would agree, as well, with previous comments on the ‘one-child policy’ making China’s current zenith short-lived. What is most worrisome, short-term, is their large population of ‘surplus’ males of military age. As they sense their power cresting and can see that the tide is about to go out, they may act while they still have the upper hand.

FBD
FBD

Goddamn!!

A StuckInNJ doppleganger.
The return of RE.
And an Admin comment.

Fucken’ A!! Anybody else got a woody??
.
.
(only thing missing is a Smokey appearance)

FBD
FBD

Awww fuckit.

I just now realized this thread was started in January. I just gotta quit doin the five knuckle shuffle.

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llpoh
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Janice

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