Sino-globalization: Politics Of The Ccp/tnc Symbiosis

Abstract

This article critiques the “Beijing Consensus” that Joshua Ramo proposes as the ideal model for the entire developing world. The political dynamics of Sino-globalization have been given too much of a free ride by neoliberals. For investors with the right guanxi, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been a guarantor of profitability in an almost mercantile sense. The fact that the CCP is also an instrument of monumental oppression is not just incidental to this arrangement. The specifically anti-democratic nature of CCP authority is in fact its strongest recommendation, since this power is on loan to transnational corporations (TNCs) for the right price. Not only has the CCP made the “trains run on time,” but, more to the point, it has given the TNCs an inside track. They in turn have become de facto lobbyists for Beijing in Washington. The TNC/CCP symbiosis that defines Sino-globalization has resulted in a worst-of-both amalgam that has taken China from one of the lowest income differentials in the world to one of the highest. The unrest this spawns will eventually erode one of the main sources of China's globalist appeal: its presumed political stability. By then, however, Sino-globalization will have migrated to other cheap labor reservoirs. It is the model itself, rather than the PRC, that poses the greatest threat to liberal democratization in coming decades.

Notes

¹ William H. Thornton, “The De-Globalization Question,” ZNet, January 31, 2007, < http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID = 13&ItemID = 12005>.

² What America lost, in Emmanuel Todd's opinion, was its historical raison d'être. From this vantage Madeleine Albright's insistence that the United States was the “indispensable nation” reveals precisely what it tries to hide: the functional obsolescence of the world's sole superpower. See Emmanuel Todd, After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order, trans. C. Jon Delogu (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 11–12.

³ Stalin, as John Lewis Gaddis observes, had expected capitalist fratricidal tensions to dissolve “free world” solidarity. What prevented this from happening, ironically, was the Soviet factor itself. China has so far avoided a similar geopolitical bonding effect by courting the major capitalist power brokers bilaterally. Regarding Stalin's blunder, see John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (London: Penguin Press, 2005), p. 31.

⁴ America had done much the same in World War II, when keeping the Soviets afloat was deemed vital to the war effort. See John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–47 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972 and 2000), p. 5.

⁵ Japan, trapped in what appeared to be an endless economic malaise (which in fact was only a relative slump), was conveniently declared out of the running. See Robert Locke, “Japan, Refutation of Neoliberalism,” Post-Autistic Economic Review 30 (March 21, 2005), < http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue23/Locke23.htm>. The irony is that without Japan's financing of the burgeoning US debt, America's presumed global supremacy would immediately be exposed as a hoax. See R. Taggart Murphy, “East Asia's Dollars,” New Left Review 40 (July/August 2006), < http://www.newleftreview.net/?page = article&view = 2625>.

⁶ On the initial co-existence but ultimate clash of these two economisms, “Asian values” and neoliberalism, see William H. Thornton, Fire on the Rim: The Cultural Dynamics of East/West Power Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

⁷ A rare voice in the wilderness was Paul Krugman. Even at the peak of the New Economy he recognized that in large part the 1990s boom was a product of sluggish wages and worker benefits. See Paul Krugman, “America, the Boastful,” Foreign Affairs 77:3 (1998), pp. 32–45, at p. 39. A New York Times study, covering the New York region and California, showed that the decade left the poor poorer, the middle classes slightly worse off, and only the rich much better off. See Janny Scott, “In ’90s Economy, Middle Class Stayed Put, Analysis Suggests,” The New York Times, August 31, 2001, < http://www. nytimes.com/2001/08/31/nyregion/31CENS.html>.

⁸ William Greider, “Shopping Till We Drop,” The Nation, April 10, 2000, < http://www.thenation.com/ issue/000410/0410greider.shtml>.

⁹ Southeast Asia was also smashed by another big investment change: before the crash, South Korea had been all but closed to foreign investment, but its FDI inflows rose from $2.3 billion in 1996 to $8.8 billion in 1999. The biggest impact, however, was from China, which in past years had attracted FDI mainly for light manufacturing, real estate, and consumer goods. With China set to join the WTO, TNCs were now equally bullish on Chinese high tech. See G. Pierre Goad, “Anaemic Asean,” The Far Eastern Economic Review, September 7, 2000, < http://www.feer.com./_0009_07/p65money.html>.

¹⁰ Martin Hart-Landsberg, “Neoliberalism: Myth and Reality,” Monthly Review 57:11 (2006), < http://www.monthlyreview.org/0406hart-landsberg.htm>.

¹¹ Kishore Mahbubani, “Understanding China,” Foreign Affairs 84:5 (2005), pp. 49–60, at p. 52. Lee Kuan Yew himself, in the same vein, holds that Deng Xiaoping was right to order the Tiananmen massacre: “You have to remember that this is China. When you attack the emperor, that's it.” See “Tiananmen Square Uprising: A Perspective,” Sinomania.com, < http://www.sinomania.com/CHINANEWS/Tiananmen_perspective.htm>.

¹² Leslie Sklair, The Transnational Capitalist Class (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), p. 256.

¹³ Tapping this resource is what divides the haves and have-nots in guanxi terms. Few foreign businessmen can even identify the right party personnel to contact for specific needs. See Susan V. Lawrence and David Murphy, “Appearances Can Deceive,” The Far Eastern Economic Review, December 13, 2001, < http://www.feer.com/articles/2001/0112_13/p032china.html>.

¹⁴ Joshua Cooper Ramo, Beijing Consensus: Notes on the New Physics of Chinese Power (London: Foreign Policy Center, 2004), pp. 6, 13. Note that Ramo's conception of the Beijing Consensus departs from miracle-era Asian exceptionalism in that he sees this new pattern as a prototype for the whole developing world, whereas the Asian exceptionalists saw their pattern as culturally unique.

¹⁵ See William H. Thornton, “Hu Goes There? Sino-globalism and the Ghost of Tiananmen,” ZNet, April 25, 2006, < http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID = 10153&sectionID = 103>.

¹⁶ Jim Yardley, “Bad Air and Water, and a Bully Pulpit in China,” The New York Times, September 25, 2004, < http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/25/international/asia/25fprofile.html>.

¹⁷ Richard Spencer, “China Rich-Poor Gap is World's Worst,” Telegraph, February 27, 2004, < http://www.telegraph.co.uk>.

¹⁸ Hannah Beech, “The Emperor is Far Away,” Time Asia, July 29, 2002, < http://www.time.com/time/magazine/asia>.

¹⁹ Richard Baum, “Where is China Going?” UCLA Asia Institute, December 13, 2002, < http://international.ucla.edu/asia/print.asp?parentid = 2799>.

²⁰ David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 149.

²¹ Joseph Kahn, “China's Corruption Inquiry Targets Beijing,” The New York Times, October 27, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/world/asia/27china.html>.

²² For example, the essays of Wang Hui. See Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, “Reading China,” Boston Review, Summer 2004, < http://bostonreview.net/BR29.3/wasserstrom.html>.

²³ There is a growing flow of civic information and a new class of legal advocates for the common citizen. The question is whether these tools will serve people power or prompt more intense repression, as happened in the late 1980s, even before Tiananmen. See Howard W. French, “Chinese Turn to Civic Power as a New Tool,” The New York Times, April 11, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/ 04/11/world/asia/11china.html>.

²⁴ Tian Jing and Wang Chu, “China Power Struggles: Resisting Reforms,” Asia Times, July 16, 2004, < http://www.atimes.com/atimes/printN.html>.

²⁵ Thornton, “Hu Goes There?” op. cit.

²⁶ Robert D. Kaplan, “Was Democracy Just a Moment?” The Atlantic Online, December 1997, < http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97dec/democ.html>.

²⁷ See Thomas G. Rawski, “What's Happening to China's GDP Statistics?” China Economic Review 12:4 (2001), < http://www.pitt.edu./~tgrawski/papers2001/gdp912f.pdf>.

²⁸ Arthur Waldron, “China's Economic Façade,” Washington Post, March 21, 2002, < http://www.taiwandc.org/wp-2002-01.htm>.

²⁹ Guy Ryder, “Whose Miracle in China?” New Perspectives Quarterly 23:1 (2006), < http://www.digitalnpq.org/archieve/2006_winter/ryder.html>.

³⁰ David Barboza, “Labor Shortage in China May Lead to Trade Shift,” The New York Times, April 3, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/03/business/031labor.html>.

³¹ Gerald Segal, “Does China Matter?” Foreign Affairs 78:5 (1999), pp. 24–36, at pp. 25–26.

³² C. T. Kurien, “Giants of the East,” Frontline 23:26, December 30, 2006–January 12, 2007, < http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2326/stories/20070112000507400.htm>.

³³ Larry Elliott, “China Will Soon be World's Biggest Exporter,” The Guardian, September 17, 2005, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5287985-108142,00.html>.

³⁴ Andrew Batson, “China's Trade Surplus Continues to Expand,” The Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2006.

³⁵ For example, Arthur Waldron, “After Deng the Deluge,” Foreign Affairs 74:5 (1995), < http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19950901fareviewessay5071/arthur-waldron/after-deng-the-deluge.html>.

³⁶ Joseph Kahn, “Painting the Peasants into the Portrait of China's Economic Boom,” The New York Times, August 7, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/books/07kahn.html>.

³⁷ Andreas Lorenz and Wieland Wagner, “Cheap, Cheerful and Chinese?” Spiegel Online, November 17, 2005, < http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,druck-385446,00.html>. While the official figure of the Three Gorges resettlement is 1.13 million, the World Bank puts it at 1.2 million or more, with 60% of the displaced locals living below the poverty line as of January 1998. On the Chinese estimate, see “Massive Resettlement out of Three Gorges Basically Ends,” People's Daily, September 6, 2001, < http://english.people.com.cn/english/200109/06/eng20010906_79488.html>; and on the Bank's data, see Martin Stein, “The Three Gorges: The Unexamined Toll of Development-induced Displacement,” FMR Review, January 1, 1998, < http://www.fmreview.org/text/FMR/01/02.htm>.

³⁸ “Three Gorges Madness: An Interview with Dai Qing,” Multinational Monitor 18:12 (1997), < http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/mm1297.06.html>.

³⁹ “Who Should Own the Good Earth of China,” The Christian Science Monitor, March 15, 2005, < http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0315/p08s01-comv.html>.

⁴⁰ “Three Gorges Madness,” op. cit.

⁴¹ See William J. Dobson, “Quiet Riots,” The New Republic, December 14, 2005, < http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i = w051212&s = dobson121405>.

⁴² Families that agree to sing the government's song on the events of that day are now being promised over $6,000. See Howard W. French, “Chinese Pressing to Keep Village Silent on Clash,” The New York Times, December 17, 2005, < http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/international/asia/17chima.html>.

⁴³ Many feel the actual number is far above the official “government figure.” See Audra Ang, “China Town Sealed after Protesters Slain,” Newsday.com, December 10, 2005, < http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ats-ap_intl12dec09,0,2082641,print.story>.

⁴⁴ Howard W. French, “Police in China Battle Villagers in Land Protest,” The New York Times, January 17, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/international/asia/17china.html>.

⁴⁵ Joseph Kahn, “A Sharp Debate Erupts in China Over Ideologies,” The New York Times, March 12, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/international/asia/12china.html>.

⁴⁶ Dobson, op. cit.

⁴⁷ In a recent essay Li attempts to pin the full blame on his mentor, Deng. See “China's Li Blames Deng Xiaoping for Tiananmen,” The Age, August 20, 2004, < http://www.theage.com.au/2004/08/19/ 1092889274495.html?from = storylhs>. Li's third major claim to fame was his decision to ignore opposition in Hong Kong to the country's biggest nuclear power plant at Daya Bay. See “Deng Ordered Tiananmen Crackdown, Li Peng Says,” Taipei Times, August 19, 2004, p. 5, < http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archieves/ 2004/08/19/2003199330>.

⁴⁸ Yingling Liu, “Missing Voices on the Nu River Dam Project,” Worldwatch Institute, November 29, 2005, < http://www.worldwatch.org/features/chinawatch/stories/20051129-2>.

⁴⁹ “China Dam Project Tests New Environmental Policy,” Planet Ark: World Environment News, October 25, 2005, < http://www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailnewsstory.cfm?newsid = 33139>.

⁵⁰ Jim Yardley, “Seeking a Public Voice on China's ‘Angry River,’” The New York Times, December 26, 2005, < http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/26/international/asia/26china.html?ei = 5094>.

⁵¹ Yingling Liu, op. cit.

⁵² Regarding Thaksinocracy, see William H. Thornton, “Another Thailand Was Possible: Thaksin and the Thai Response to Globalization,” Radical Society: Review of Culture and Politics 32:2 (2006), pp. 71–80.

⁵³ Joseph Kahn, “China's Leader, Ex-Rival at Side, Solidifies Power,” The New York Times, September 25, 2005, < http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/international/asia/25jintao.html>.

⁵⁴ Jim Yardley, “China Unveils Plan to Aid Farmers, but Avoids Land Issue,” The New York Times, February 23, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/international/23rural.html>.

⁵⁵ Robert Marquand, “Hu Sets Out Blueprint for China's Future,” The Christian Science Monitor, October 6, 2005, < http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1006/p06s02-woap.htm>.

⁵⁶ Minxin Pei, “The Chinese Communist Party,” Foreign Policy, September/October 2005, < http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story-id = 3174&print = 1>.

⁵⁷ “What Price Reform?” The Economist, September 23, 2004, < http://economist.com/world/asia/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID = 3222684>.

⁵⁸ “Hu Done It,” The Economist, September 23, 2004, < http://economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID = 3220315>.

⁵⁹ Willy Wo-Lap Lam, “The Chinese Leadership: Blazing New Trails in Reform,” World Economic Forum China Business Summit 2003 Report.

⁶⁰ See Robert Skidelsky, “The Chinese Shadow,” The New York Review of Books, November 17, 2005, < http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18437>.

⁶¹ Joshua Kurlantzick, “The China Syndrome,” The American Prospect, January 11, 2007, < http:www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section = root&name = ViewWebarticleId = 12372>.

⁶² Isabel Hilton, “Reaching Beyond the Myth of Mao,” The Guardian, June 4, 2005, < http://www.guardian.co. uk/print/0,3858,5208236-103677,00.html>.

⁶³ Joshua E. Abrams, “The Trouble with Uzbekistan,” Nth Position, January 2006, < http://www.nthposition.com/thetroublewithuzbekistan.php>.

⁶⁴ Will Hutton, “New China, New Crisis,” The Observer, January 7, 2007, < http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/ 0,329678151-102280,00.html>.

⁶⁵ “Caught in the Net: Zimbabwe,” Foreign Policy, January/February 2006, < http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id = 3344>.

⁶⁶ Kurlantzick, op. cit.

⁶⁷ Michael Klare, “The Geopolitics of Natural Gas,” The Nation, January 23, 2006, < http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060123/klare>. It is little wonder that China has resisted UN Security Council action against Iran's violations of “red line” provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968. See Nazila Fathi and John O'Neil, “Ignoring Protests, Iran Resumes Nuclear Program,” The New York Times, January 10, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/international/10cnd-iran.html>. However, in December 2006 China did join other UN Security Council members in imposing light sanctions on Iran's trade in nuclear and missile-related materials. Given its dependence on Middle Eastern oil, even China recognizes that stability in the region is in its interest. Another mollifying factor is its close trade relations with Israel in military weapons and materials. See “A Quintet, Anyone?” The Economist, January 11, 2007, < http://www.economist.com/world/asia/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id = 8521894>.

⁶⁸ “Mr. Hu and Mr. Zhao,” editorial in The New York Times, April 18, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/ 2006/04/18/opinion/18tue1.html?>.

⁶⁹ Martin Vander Weyer, “Just How Miraculous is China's Economic Miracle?” Telegraph, April 30, 2006, < http://www.telegraph.co.uk>.

⁷⁰ Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), p. 172.

⁷¹ Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), p. 172.

⁷² Joshua Kurlantzick, “Purple Haze,” The New Republic, August 30, 2004, < http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i = 2004830&s = kurlantzick083004>.

⁷³ Gross land mismanagement has accelerated desertification and resulting dust storms, such as those that blanketed Seoul in April 2002, forcing schools to close and airports to cancel flights. See Lester R. Brown, “China is Losing the War on Advancing Deserts,” The Herald Tribune, August 13, 2003, < http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template = articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId = 106062>.

⁷⁴ “ROK ‘Requires a Land Area Six Time its Size’ To Sustain its Growth,” Birds Korea, November 2003, < http://www.birdskorea.org/rokfootprint.asp>.

⁷⁵ Joseph Kahn, “A Sea of Sand Is Threatening China's Heart,” The New York Times, June 8, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/asia/08desert.html>.

⁷⁶ “China, India, and the ‘State of the World,’” in State of the World 2006 (Washington, DC: The Worldwatch Institute, 2006).

⁷⁷ Jeffrey Sachs, “War Climates,” TomPaine.com, October 23, 2006, < http://www.tompaine.com/print/War_climates.php>.

⁷⁸ Kathleen E. McLaughlin, “Chinese Villages, Poisoned by Toxins, Battle for Justice,” The Christian Science Monitor, June 23, 2006, < http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0623/p01s03-woap.htm>.

⁷⁹ Kurlantzick, “Purple Haze,” op. cit.

⁸⁰ “Coal, China, and India: A Deadly Combination for Air Pollution?” Worldwatch Institute, December 14, 2005, < http://www.worldwatch.org/features/vsow/2005/12/14>.

⁸¹ As of 2003, only a quarter of the country's sewage was treated, and dams such as the Three Gorges will undoubtedly trap pollutants, resulting in vast toxic reservoirs. See “Millions Face Water Shortage in North China, Officials Warn,” The New York Times, June 6, 2003, < http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/06/international/asia/06WATE.html>.

⁸² Der Spiegel Interview with Pan Yue, “The Chinese Miracle Will End Soon,” Der Spiegel, March 7, 2005, < http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/Spiegel/0,1518,druck-345694,00.html>.

⁸³ It likewise denies them a broad range of rights and government services, and in the judicial context it effectively treats the life of a legal resident as having several times the value of a migrant. See Jim Yardley, “3 Deaths in China Reveal Disparity in Price of Lives,” The New York Times, April 14, 2006, < http://www.thenytimes.com/2006/04/14/world/asia/14china.html>.

⁸⁴ Mark Barenberg, “The Condition of the Working Class in China,” Dissent, Summer 2004, < http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/su04/china.htm>.

⁸⁵ Land rights activists are coming under literal assault for the crime of telling the truth. One of the most prominent campaigners, Fu Xiancai, will never walk again. He ignored the warnings of police to stop talking to lawyers and foreign journalists. A police investigation concluded that he broke his own neck. See Jonathan Watts, “Chinese Police Decide Paralysed Campaigner Broke His Own Neck,” The Guardian, July 28, 2006, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,329540179-108142,00.html>.

⁸⁶ Jim Yardley, “Farmers Being Moved Aside by China's Real Estate Boom,” The New York Times, December 8, 2004, < http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/08/international/asia/08china.html>.

⁸⁷ Kahn, “Painting the Peasants,” op. cit.

⁸⁸ Pranab Bardhan, “Does Globalization Help or Hurt the World's Poor?” Scientific American.com, March 26, 2006, < http://www.sciam.com>.

⁸⁹ Howard W. French, “Wealth Grows, but Health Care Withers in China,” The New York Times, January 14, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/14/international/asia/14health.html>.

⁹⁰ Ryder, op. cit.

⁹¹ In the mid-1990s, against the neoliberal grain, Gordon White posited a causal linkage between China's non-democratic government and its remarkable growth record. He accepted such growth as “development,” whereas on Senian grounds I would call it an obstruction to development. See Gordon White, “Development and Democratization in China,” in Adrian Leftwich (ed.), Democracy and Development (Cambridge: Polity, 1996), pp. 209–229, at p. 209.

⁹² Yet those who escape this rural privatization may be even worse off, for factory workers—and especially illegal ones, fresh from the countryside—lack the most basic rudiments of human rights. In March 2004 the AFL-CIO filed a petition in Washington asking that US trade representatives take action on behalf of both Chinese workers and their American counterparts, who are hereby locked in unfair wage competition. The Bush administration summarily rejected the petition, calling it an exercise in “economic isolationism.” See Barenberg, op. cit.

⁹³ Jeffrey D. Sachs, “China Since the Late 1970s,” draft for a conference paper accessed on January 8, 2007 at UN Jobs, < http://unjobs.org/authors/jeffrey-d.-sachs>.

⁹⁴ See Pranab Bardhan, “China, India Superpower? Not So Fast!” Yale Global, October 25, 2005, < http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/article.print?id = 6407>.

⁹⁵ Matt Steinglass, “Whose Asian Values?” The Boston Globe, November 20, 2005, < http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/11/20/whose_asian_values/>; and “China's Take on Political Democracy,” The Globalist, November 14, 2005, < http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/printStoryId. aspx?StoryId = 4899>.

⁹⁶ Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett, “Introduction: China and Socialism,” Monthly Review 56:3 (2004), < http://www.monthlyreview.org/0704intro.htm>.

⁹⁷ Likewise this voids the democratic claims of Singapore, where the emphasis also falls on the state over the society, the group over the individual, and the leader over the law. See Hans Antlöv and Tak-Wing Ngo, “Politics, Culture, and Democracy in Asia,” in Hans Antlöv and Tak-Wing Ngo (eds.), The Cultural Construction of Politics in Asia (Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 2000), pp. 1–18, at p. 9.

⁹⁸ See Minxin Pei, “The Dark Side of China's Rise,” Foreign Policy, March/April 2006, < http://www. foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id = 3373&print = 1>. The CCP cannot budge, therefore, in the face of reformist demands, such as those of Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstration of December 4, 2005, when tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of this so-called special administrative region. Although this was a smaller crowd than had demonstrated in July 2003 and July 2004, it was unique in that it was expressly aimed at political rather than economic reform. See “Many People, Few Votes,” The Economist, December 8, 2005, < http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id = 5280837>.

⁹⁹ See Richard Lourie, “And Now to Toast a Happy Eighty-Eighth!” The Moscow Times, November 7, 2005, < http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/11/07/006-html>.

¹⁰⁰ Shiping Hua, “A Perfect World,” The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 2005, < http://www.wilsoncenter.org>.

¹⁰¹ Christopher Findlay and Andrew Watson, “Economic Growth and Trade Dependency in China,” in David S. G. Goodman and Gerald Segal (eds.), China Rising: Nationalism and Interdependence (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 107–133, at p. 107.

¹⁰² Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London: Fontana Press, 1989), pp. 581–582.

¹⁰³ Norimitsu Onishi, “Chill Grows as Japan Calls China a Military Threat,” The New York Times, December 22, 2005, < http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/international/asia/22cnd-japan.html>.

¹⁰⁴ Régis Arnaud, “La puissance militaire chinoise alarme Tokyo,” Le Figaro, December 23, 2005, < http://www.lefigaro.com/cgi/edition/genimprime?cle = 20051223.FIGO221>.

¹⁰⁵ Some, such as multinational corporation consultant Dan Steinbock, are dissatisfied even with present “engagement” policies. Nothing less than full economic “integration” will satisfy him. See Dan Steinbock, “The Chinese Multinationals are Coming!” The National Interest, Fall 2005, < http://www.inthenationalinterest.com>.

¹⁰⁶ “Nudging China Toward World Citizenship,” The Christian Science Monitor, November 16, 2005, < http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1116/p08s01-comv.htm>.

¹⁰⁷ Japan managed to get Australia, New Zealand, and India invited to the December 2005 East Asia Summit as a counterbalance to China, which in turn treated Japan with contempt. The cover story was that this diplomatic sneer was China's answer to Prime Minister Koizumi's recent visit to a Japanese war shrine. Clearly, the bigger reason was Japan's close US ties and its attempt to foil China's dominance of the ASEAN region. See Rich Bowden, “Battle Looms over Inaugural East Asia Summit,” Worldpress.org, December 11, 2005, < http://www.worldpress.org/print_article.cfm? article_id = 2312& don't = yes>. This growing rift had become apparent during Bush's 40-hour visit to China the previous month, punctuated as it was by a geopolitically pointed visit to Mongolia. See “Bush's Trip to China,” Worldpress.org, November 25, 2005, < http://www.worldpress.org/print_article.cfm?article_id = 2304& don't = yes>. That rift was further confirmed when the White House downgraded the upcoming state visit of President Hu to a mere “official visit.” It is not clear at this point how effective Washington's new containment strategy will be, given its simultaneous engagement policies. The new coolness toward China is not appreciated by some US allies. Australia has protested Washington's containment efforts, including its recent diplomatic embrace of India. See Peter Kwong, “Hu's ‘State Visit,’” The Nation, May 1, 2006, < http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060501/kwong>.

¹⁰⁸ Ashley J. Tellis, “A Grand Chessboard,” Foreign Policy, January/February 2005, < http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id = 2751&print = 1>.

¹⁰⁹ Steinbock, op. cit.

¹¹⁰ In February 2002 Dorn became the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Previously she had been Vice President Cheney's assistant for legislative affairs, before which she was a key lobbyist for corporate clients. In that capacity she became a foreign agent for firms with very close ties to PLA intelligence. See “Decision Brief,” The Center for Security Policy, No. 00-D67, July 17, 2000, < http://www.security-policy.org/papers/2000/00-D67.html>.

¹¹¹ A 1996 report by the US ambassador to China, James Sasser, ties Li closely to the PLA's developing communications networks—ties that are confirmed by Rand Corporation reports. See Charles R. Smith, “Global Double Crossing,” Newsmax.com, February 27, 2003, < http://www.newsmax.com/archieves/articles/2003/2/26/182009.shtml>.

¹¹² Another of Dorn's crowning lobbying achievements was to get the Republicans to back away from criticizing the Clinton administration for its failure to fulfill legally required sanctions against China's arms client, Pakistan, for its blatant cooperation in the proliferation of nuclear weapons and long-range missile technology. See “Decision Brief,” op. cit.

¹¹³ Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, “Save Our Canal,” The New American 15:16 (1999), < http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1999/08-02-99/vo15no16_canal.htm>.

¹¹⁴ Jim Lobe, “Perle: ‘Prince of Darkness’ in the Spotlight,” Asia Times, March 25, 2003, < http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EC25Ad04.html>. Global Crossing was the fourth-largest company to file for bankruptcy in history. It was slated to be sold in September 2003 to a joint venture of Singapore Technologies Telemedia and Hutchison Whampoa. Although Hutchison pulled out of the deal, its relationship with the Singapore company is such that security concerns are still rife. At the time he was brokering this deal, Perle chaired an important civilian advisory group to the Pentagon. He resigned the chairmanship but remained as a member of the board. Like Enron, Global had duped its investors into believing it was solvent nearly to the end. There was the added problem of its anti-trust status, as it held a virtual monopoly in many areas of high-tech communications. To circumvent this obstacle, Anne Bingaman (former head of the anti-trust division of the Justice Department and wife of Senator Jeff Bingaman) was hired by Global, which paid her $2.5 million for six months of lobbying.

¹¹⁵ Hamish McDonald, “Hail to the Chief,” I, from The Sydney Morning Herald, September 13, 2005, < http:/yaleglobal.yale.edu/article.print?id = 6259>.

¹¹⁶ “China Fetes Capitalists, but the Air is Tense,” The New York Times, September 29, 1999, < http:// www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/092999china-fortune-500.html>.

¹¹⁷ Eagleburger was secretary of state under George Bush, Sr. Scowcroft, founder of the Scowcroft Group, was the national security advisor to both presidents Ford and Bush, and from 1982 to 1989 was vice chairman of Kissinger and Associates. Bremer, the managing director of Kissinger Associates from 1989 to 2000, replaced General Jay Garner as Washington's chief administrator in Iraq.

¹¹⁸ “Kissinger Associates, Inc.,” Source Watch, August 2005, Center for Media & Democracy, < http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title = Kissinger_Associates%2C_Inc>.

¹¹⁹ Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflict with China (New York: Knopf, 1997), p. 121.

¹²⁰ Ibid., p. 107.

¹²¹ See Mike Schelstrate, “Henry Kissinger: Shadow Government Secretary of State,” Globalresearch.ca, March 22, 2003, Center for Research on Globalization, < http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ SHE303A.html>.

¹²² Thornton, Fire on the Rim, op. cit., p. 36.

¹²³ Yilu Zhao, “Class Division Takes on a New Form,” The International Herald Tribune, March 2, 2004, < http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template = articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId = 132043>.

¹²⁴ Peter Hitchens, “The Danger of China,” Spectator, January 21, 2006, < http://www.spectator.co.uk/printer-friendly/14772/the-danger-of-china-thtml>.

¹²⁵ Jim Yardley, “China is Paying a Price of Modernization: More Beggars,” The New York Times, April 7, 2004, < http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/international/asia/07beggars.html>.

¹²⁶ Kurien, op. cit.

¹²⁷ Zijun Li, “Luxury Spending: China's Affluent Entering ‘Enjoy Now’ Phase of Consumption,” Worldwatch Institute, December 16, 2005, < http://www.worldwatch.org/features/chinawatch/stories/20051216-1>.

¹²⁸ Minxin Pei, “Dangerous Denials,” Foreign Policy, January/February 2005, < http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id = 2753&print = 1>.

¹²⁹ R. Taggart Murphy, “East Asia's Dollars,” New Left Review 40 (July/August 2006), pp. 39–64, at p. 60.

¹³⁰ James Kynge, China Shakes the World (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006).

¹³¹ See Zheng Bijian, interviewed by Jehangir S. Pocha, “Unlike Previous Powers, China's Rise Will Be Peaceful; Democracy Will Come—in 25 Years: An Interview with Zhang Bijian, Chairman of the China Reform Forum,” NPQ: New Perspectives Quarterly, November 7, 2005, < http://www.digitalnpq.org/articles/global/32/11-07/05/jehangir_s._pocha>.

¹³² Robert B. Reich, “The China Path,” American Prospect Online, January 9, 2006, < http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id = 10804>.

¹³³ Keith Bradsher, “Chinese Economy Grows to 4th Largest in the World,” The New York Times, January 25, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/business/worldbusiness/25cnd-yuan.htm>. However, in per capita terms China remains a low-income country, ranking 100th in the world. See Zheng Bijian, “China's ‘Peaceful Rise’ to Great-Power Status,” Foreign Affairs 84:5 (2005), pp. 18–24, at p. 19.

¹³⁴ See Thornton, Fire on the Rim, op. cit., ch. 6.

¹³⁵ In fact, as Orville Schell stresses, China has its own indigenous democratic movement reaching from the final years of the Qing dynasty up through the Tiananmen demonstrations of 1989. See Orville Schell, “China's Hidden Democratic Legacy,” Foreign Affairs 83:4 (2004), pp. 116–124, at p. 117.

¹³⁶ It may be that every mighty oak began life as an acorn, but it should also be noted that not every acorn becomes a mighty oak. On the SGZ projection, see Shang-Jin Wei and Heather Mikiewicz, “A Global Crossing for ‘Enronities’: How Opaque Self-Dealing Damages Financial Markets around the World,” The Brookings Review 21:2 (2003), pp. 28–31.

¹³⁷ Howard W. French, “Visit to Chinese Anytown Shows a Dark Side of Progress,” The New York Times, January 19, 2006, < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/international/asia/19china.html>.