It has become in vogue due to the efforts of the U.S. “decadents”, a group of journalists and academics who earn their lives predicting the fall of their nation, committing countless errors. We remember the book by Paul Kennedy, a history professor at Yale, published in 1987, in which he asserted that the U.S was in clear decline, precisely two years before the Soviet empire came crumbling down and Washington went on to win the cold war!

The giant that will soon dominate the world, according to the “decadents”, is China. This idea is based in the growth figures of China during the last 25 years but it does not take into account its enormous weaknesses and the social tensions generated by its combination of savage capitalism and political authoritarianism.

Due to the aperture of a controlled market China has grown significantly. Still, its economy is one third that of Japan and seven times smaller than the U.S. economy. On a per capita basis, the Chinese economy belongs to the group of a developing country with low income, ranked around number 100 in the world and possessing a limited global impact.

Chinese scarce natural resources pose a challenge of the highest importance. Per capita water supplies are one fourth of the world’s average and per capita arable land is only 40% of the global average. The same applies to petroleum (8.3%), natural gas (4.1%) copper (25.5%) and aluminum (9.7%). According to the Chinese Strategic Plan made by the Chinese elites the country will require 45 years to become a modern society of medium level. In order to meet its energy requirements, and besides exploring for petroleum in other regions of the planet, China strives to become the main producer of nuclear energy by 2050, even if this means environmental problems. The Chinese share of world exports is 6% and its share of aggregate manufacturing value is 9%, less than half of the U.S. or Japan’s shares. 50% of labor is engaged in agriculture, as compared to 2.5% in the U.S.

The totalitarian bureaucracy exacts its price. In China 48 days a re required to set up a business (6 days in Singapore) and it takes 241 days to collect a debt (68 days in Singapore). China has 103 million web surfers (7.9% of the population) and Internet is censored. The U.S. has 203 million web surfers (68% of the population). Chinese progress has been remarkable but still remains a poor country and progress has been at a price. China works on the basis of an agreement between the ruling elites and a consuming middle class of some 200 million persons. The elites guarantee this middle class a growth of 8% per year in exchange for political passivity. If a limited market economy can co-exist with an authoritarian scheme of political control, this is a fragile equilibrium while the pressures for democratization are intense.

In China the political and social dissatisfaction is widespread, based on the inequality between the prosperous population of the coastal cities and the immense majorities of the hinterland, progressively lagging behind. According to the World Bank the majority of the population earns less than $2 a day. Chinese statistics indicate that the average per capita income in the rural areas was U.S. $200 in 2004, less than one third that of the urban areas. The CIA estimates that between 80 and 120 million surplus rural workers are in permanent movement between their rural locations and the cities, earning minimum salaries in temporary jobs. The increase in the protests is affects significantly the Chinese leadership, together with the serious situation of State-owned banks, drowning in bad loans and sick with corruption.

The western world has exaggerated Chinese progress. There is progress, no doubt, but China is far from being comparable to the U.S. in the crucial aspects of international power, including the military sector, where China spends $60 billion per year, as compared to U.S. expenditures of $380 billion per year. The “Chinese model” is not a good example to other countries and its tensions will explode sooner or later. Communist totalitarianism and the market economy will eventually divorce each other amid great conflict.

* Anibal Romero is a political science professor at Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela.

Translated by Gustavo Coronel

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