ees, and one-third of those are engineers. The Chinese buy 400 million smartphones a year and 25 million automobiles. Chinese commute to work in Shanghai on high-speed trains that reduce the distance from Wilmington to New York City to a 45-minute interval.
Gordon Chang, author of the 2001 book The Coming Collapse of China, is one of the experts ridiculed by Goldman. Chang reviews Goldman, also in Tablet today, and largely sticks to his guns. Yes, Goldman gets a lot right, but he ignores China's weaknesses:
He terrifies too much, however. China does not have infinite resources, and we could already be witnessing “Peak China.” The official Xinhua News Agency in January ran a piece titled, “Xi Stresses Racing Against Time to Reach Chinese Dream,” a clear indication Communist Party leaders are worried that time is running out for their regime. It’s not hard to see why they are worried. China’s demography is in the first stages of accelerated decline, China’s environment is exhausted—think scarcity of water despite the recent flooding—China’s people are increasingly restive, China’s leaders are losing support around the world, China’s economy is still having difficulty recovering from COVID-19.
And the United States, which for five decades supported Communist Party rule, has now ditched generous “engagement” policies and begun to challenge Beijing. Goldman, unfortunately, did not notice this momentous change. Moreover, he exaggerates Chinese capabilities. For instance, Goldman is in awe of Huawei Technologies, China’s “national champion” maker of telecom-networking equipment and smartphones, currently leading the world in both lines of business. “Huawei achieved self-sufficiency in chip production and continues to expand with Chinese and other Asian components,” the author warns. “Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich deplored this outcome as ‘the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.’”
Perhaps. But as fearsome as Huawei appears, the company is not yet self-sufficient in semiconductors. Huawei’s Habo Investments subsidiary has gone into the business of making semiconductors, but it will take years for it to be able to manufacture the sophisticated chipsets needed to make its products competitive. […]
The legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party depends on the continual delivery of prosperity and the aura of China’s success around the world, but Xi Jinping’s bold ambitions have pushed the regime to the limits—and perhaps beyond those limits—of what it can accomplish. Huawei’s predicament shows that Xi’s plan to take on the world is not guaranteed to be successful.
So let us heed Goldman’s warnings, but let us also recognize the areas of China’s fragility and its many weaknesses. The Chinese may want to assimilate, Sino-form, or dominate us, but we can make sure they do not have the means to accomplish any of that.
An interesting exchange.
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