In an insightful note on American Compass, Oren Case points out that if China is becoming an economic superpower and the financial flows are beginning to match that, then it also means that Americans’ lives will be run from China. We in the Czech Republic know this very well. Our media, our politics, our lifestyle have been controlled from abroad for more than 20 years now, and we have very little opportunity to influence this. Decisions are made by people for whom we are nothing but a feeder. Very often the Americans make the decisions. Now they are beginning to experience it from the other side, and they are finding that running the world from a single center is not so great. It’s also new to them because up until now they’ve been used to responding to any threat or problem by firing missiles somewhere. But they can’t shoot at China.
Now the Americans are beginning to experience it from the other side, and they are finding that running the world from a single center is not so great.
But it’s quite possible that the Americans are lucky. Chinese investors will be no more arrogant and suspicious of American lives than the American upper class. Perhaps even the opposite. They won’t try to re-educate the working class or treat it as a rival. It might even prove to be an advantage that the Chinese have a greater sense of stability, so they would be better to live with than the crazy corporate executives and their constant desperate profit-boosting.
But the losers would be the American upper class, who cannot assume that Chinese investors would agree to continue outrageous executive compensation.
The biggest risk is not so much what it would do to the Chinese. It is usually the case that when someone gains too much power, it changes them for the worse.
