29-Sep-10 News -- The eclipsing of China's Hu Jintao and Wen Jiaboa - 29-Sep-2010 - Generational Dynamics

My report yesterday described the increasingly belligerent actions of China in the recent confrontation with Japan indicates an astonishing change from a generally conciliatory foreign policy to a much more nationalistic and less compromising foreign population.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics this indicates a generational change: Decisions are made less often by the conciliatory generation of survivors of the bloody Communist Revolution crisis civil war, and increasingly are made by the younger and much more confrontational younger generations, corresponding to America's Boomers and Generation-X.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has "scheduled" a generational change, in a way. The 18th CCP Congress will be held in 2012. At that time, the generation of war survivors, led by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, are expected to step down and give way to the next generation, born after the war.

The incident with Japan gives us a first glimpse of what things will be like after that generational change, and makes us wonder whether the younger generations will even wait until 2012 to take power.

Although nationalism has always been a big part of China's policies, as is true of any country, it's in the past couple of years that we've been seeing the signs of really aggressive Chinese nationalism.

The world financial crisis has been a big motivator, as most Chinese people, especially young people, blame America for the crisis, and for any suffering that it's caused in China. Furthermore, the Chinese people felt enormously humiliated by the worldwide condemnation of their actions in Tibet. (See "Chinese embarrassment and anger grows over Tibet and Olympics.")

In that report, I quoted one summary of the book as saying: "The authors ... denounce Western influences and specifically deride the United States for being “irresponsible, lazy, and greedy, and engaged in robbery and cheating.” They blame the United States for causing the current global recession. The authors urge the Chinese people to “conduct business with a sword in hand.” They call for the emergence of a group of heroes to “lead our people to successfully control and use more resources, ridding [the world of] of bullies and bringing peace to good people.”"

In March, 2009, those were loudly stated opinions of the authors, and widely adopted by many Chinese in their thinking. What we're seeing now, with the Japan incident, is that those opinions and thoughts are becoming national policy. The "bullies" are countries like Japan and the U.S., and China's retaliation, and threats of further retaliation, for the boat captain jailing were just the first step in ridding the world of bullies and bring peace to good people. The implication is that no one should ever compromise with or give concessions to bullies.

Is China afraid of its own people?

A new article from Foreign Policy magazine examines the change in policy from a different angle. The title of the article is, "Is China afraid of its own people?" This caught my attention because it's a subject that I've written about many times for a totally different reason.

China's history is full of major rebellions -- the White Lotus rebellion around 1800, the Taiping Rebellion of the 1860s, and Mao's Communist Revolution, that began with the Long March in 1934 and climaxed with his victory in 1949, are the most recent examples. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, China is due for a new one, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders are well aware that rebellion is in the air.

According to the article, China conducts its foreign policy in fear of a widespread nationalistic backlash:

"Apart from the party leadership's well-known tradition of undemocratic governance, the main reason behind "black-box diplomacy" is to avoid taking responsibility for failing to stand up to foreign powers such as the United States or Japan. Despite the relative efficacy of the Great Firewall of China, fast-growing numbers of nationalists have frequently been able to use the Internet to express their views, including negative ones about Beijing's foreign and security policies. These increasingly vocal nationalists generally believe that rising China has become a mature power and deserves a place in world affairs to match its burgeoning economic clout.

It is out of fear of a nationalist backlash that China's negotiations with the United States and other countries regarding its accession to the World Trade Organization for instance, were wrapped in secrecy. Beijing apparently worried that should ordinary Chinese learn about the considerable concessions that it had made in areas including tariff reductions, senior cadres including former Premier Zhu Rongji would be labeled "traitors" by WTO opponents. ...

President Hu Jintao and then Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda reached a theoretical accord in mid-2008 to settle sovereignty disputes over the East China Sea. The agreement was largely based on the principle of "seeking joint development while shelving sovereignty.

Again, Beijing made no efforts to explain to its citizens the rationale behind the potentially win-win solution. When the East China Sea accord was announced a couple of weeks after Hu left Tokyo, Chinese netizens expressed massive disapproval, even on official websites. Since then, Chinese diplomats have dragged their feet in negotiations on transforming the Hu-Fukuda theoretical agreement into a formal treaty."

It's out of fear of a backlash spinning out of control that the CCP has discouraged anti-Japanese protests in the current incident -- the opposite of what happened after an incident in 2005.

I would restate the last sentence in the quoted paragraph much less optimistically: With the generational changes in China in recent years, the opportunity of signing a formal agreement is lost for good. It will not be possible to resolve sovereignty of the islands except by war.

Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara in New York and said that the United States would be obligated to intervene militarily against China if China moved to take control of the Senkaku Islands, the islands under dispute.

Hillary Clinton referred to a 1960 treaty between the U.S. and Japan that obliged the U.S. to defend Japan against any attack on a territory under Tokyo's administration, according to AFP. Clinton spokesman Philip Crowley later confirmed what she said: "We do believe that, because the Senkaku islands are under Japanese jurisdiction, that it is covered by the US-Japan security treaty. That said, we also stressed that we don't take a position on the sovereignty of the Senkaku islands."

And so the Senkaku Islands (called the Diaoyu Islands by the Chinese) now have the same status as Taiwan. China claims both as their sovereign territory, and we're obligated to go to war with China to defend either of them.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, war with China is inevitable and unavoidable. The eclipsing of conciliators like the people in Hu Jintao's and Wen Jiaboa's generation, and their replacement by aggressively nationalistic people in their children's generation, means that war will approach more quickly.

Additional links

Earlier this month, China's president Hu Jintao met with a White House delegation and said, "China looks positively on the fresh progress made in China-US relations, and we are willing to work together with the United States in promoting the advance of healthy and stable China-US relations." These kinds of conciliatory remarks from Chinese leaders are increasingly in the past. AFP

By contrast, an article in state-run Xinhua says that Japan is "sinisterly harboring two ulterior motives," by adopting an "Ostrich Policy" domestically, and by hyping a "China Threat Theory" in foreign policy. People's Daily

China and Japan have been in a kind of competition to find historical documents to prove that their side has sovereignty over the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands. The Japanese claim to have found an article in the People's Daily of January 8, 1953, that says that the Senkaku Islands are part of Japan's territory. Japan Times

China is increasingly being accused of being the "new colonizer" of Africa, and is looking for ways to counter that impression. One effort is by archeologists who are searching for a 15th century shipwreck off the coast of Kenya, to show that China beat white explorers in discovering Africa, and to demonstrate a long history of African-Chinese trade. Asia Times

China's foreign policies may be changing, but domestic politics are changing as well. Strikes and labor unrest are still rare, but are more frequent, and are being dealt with sympathetically by the state-controlled press and the security forces which formerly arrested strike leaders. Current incidents of labor unrest have increased because of a wave of suicides among young workers of Foxconn International Holdings Ltd., which manufactures electronic computers and gadgets sold by western companies. South Asia Analysis Group

The first congress of the Workers' Party of [North] Korea in 30 years has, as previously speculated, elevate president Kim Jong-il's third son, Kim Jong-un, to an official status and positioned to succeed his father as president. He was made a general, and was named vice chairman of the party's military commission. CS Monitor

Anti-austerity protests and strikes are sweeping across Europe on Wednesday, with major demonstrations in Greece, Spain, Ireland and Brussels. Associated Press

Pakistan is reeling in the wake of a devastating flood, rampant militancy, bad governance and a crisis between the executive and the judiciary. All it might take to trigger military intervention is one incendiary incident, possibly a clash between the judiciary and the government. Asia Times

Pakistan's military is pushing for a change of government, because they're angered by the governments inept handling of the country's devastating floods, and alarmed by the collapse of the economy. NY Times

While Americans blame the bankers for the economic crisis, and the Chinese blame the Americans, the many Europeans are blaming immigrants, leading to xenophobic responses. Europe's boom years were kept going by cheap migrant labor, but now foreign workers are being accused of petty crimes and of driving wages down. The Age (Australia)

Germany will make its last reparations payment for World War I on Oct. 3, settling its outstanding debt from the 1919 Versailles Treaty. That date is also the 20th anniversary of German reunification. Der Spiegel

The disadvantaged Russian minority in Estonia is panic-buying buckwheat, because of Russia's ban on export of buckwheat, even though Estonia does not really face a shortfall. AFP

I've often joked that young American college students know so little geography that they couldn't find China on a map. Apparently the same kind of thing is true in Israel, where young students don't know what continent Israel is on, and some think that Napoleon Bonaparte is Israel's chief of staff. Palestine Chronicle

A female Toronto judge has struck down all of Canada's prostitution laws, saying that they "force prostitutes to choose between their liberty interest and their right to security of the person as protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms." Government lawyers will have 30 days to appeal, before all prostitution laws are invalidated. Toronto Star

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 29-Sep-2010
29-Sep-10 News -- The eclipsing of China's Hu Jintao and Wen Jiaboa

The eclipsing of China's Hu Jintao and Wen Jiaboa

Is China afraid of its own people?

Additional links

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 29-Sep-2010 29-Sep-10 News -- The eclipsing of China's Hu Jintao and Wen Jiaboa

The eclipsing of China's Hu Jintao and Wen Jiaboa

Is China afraid of its own people?

Additional links

Web Log Pages

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 29-Sep-2010
29-Sep-10 News -- The eclipsing of China's Hu Jintao and Wen Jiaboa