9 hours Ago By SunStar Cebu
By Peter Trankner The standard literature of the Chinese ruling elite includes a book titled “America vs. America.” This work by the Communist Party’s chief ideologist Wang Huning exposed the United States’ central weaknesses as early as 1988.
Is this swan song about to come true? Already at the beginning of his first term as president, in the summer of 2013, China’s ruler Xi Jinping shared with his inner circle his view that the West, especially the United States, was on a decline. In a memo bearing the unadorned title “Document No. 9,” he shortly thereafter declared the Western democratic constitutional state, universal human rights, and independent free media to be the enemies of the China he leads.
Xi Jinping is not the father of this ideological concept, which he brought into political life. Rather, he refers here to Wang Huning, the chief ideologist of the Communist Party, who had previously served Hu Jintao, Jiang Zeming, and Deng Xiaoping. Wang visited the USA for six months in 1988 and subsequently wrote “America vs.
America,” a book that became standard literature for the Communist Party nomenklatura. In this work, he articulated what would become state doctrine under Xi 25 years later. What did Wang Huning see that formed his belief that the USA was past its prime? Two key components likely led Wang to his conclusion, both of which still hold true today, in the era of Donald Trump.
Their impact is further intensified by the current developments to lead to the dismantling of globalization -- and possibly will damage America further as a global power: The first component is the successful medical measure initiated by the Chinese Communist Party immediately after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Thanks to these measures, life expectancy in China increased in the second half of the 20th century at a rate that dwarfed that of all industrialized nations: From 1950 to 2000, it rose from 30 to 70 years; England, France, and the USA took twice as long to achieve this. This rapid medical development also resulted in lower infant mortality.
And ultimately, widespread vaccinations and traveling doctors in rural areas, who were intended to provide free basic healthcare to the population, enabled the Chinese to live healthier lives than their ancestors. The second component: Shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic, the new leadership began to teach the population alphabetically. To achieve this, the writing of Chinese characters was simplified, among other things.
Of the cohorts that started school after 1949, around 85 percent men and over 50 percent of women could read and write. The gap compared to previous cohorts is substantial: around 60 percent of men could not read or write, and all women remained illiterate. Access to higher education remained free until the end of the 20th century, and the number of university graduates rose substantially until today.
The reforms of the early decades, which have been continually built upon over time, ultimately resulted in China today having a healthy and well-educated population that can offer its skills competitively on the global market. The Chinese economy is not successful today simply because workers there are cheap. Quite the opposite is true, as corporate executives like Apple’s Tim Cook have stated: “China’s skilled workers are excellent”.
Whether it’s smartphones or electric cars, only highly skilled workers can deliver results that guarantee high standards and quality. Cheap textile production, on the other hand, has already shifted on a large scale to countries like Cambodia and Vietnam. And the future could already be seen at the latest Shanghai Auto Show: Technological developments are unfolding at a rapid pace in China.
In many areas, democracies are proving to slow. The car of the future will speak, drive itself, and be able to fly. And not just at the world’s largest auto show, which has taken place in Shanghai, but also on the streets in Shanghai.
Self-driving cars in the city center are becoming standard there. Voice commands, by the artificial intelligence DeepSeek, have long been commonplace. The next step will be batteries that can be charged as quickly as a tank of gas used to be, i.
e., about five minutes. No doubt, China has become a high tech superpower.
The long time auto executive and Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares warned the West: “If your industry dies, then you will only serve coffee to tourists.” One consequence of this became clear in recent days when Donald Trump, with his punitive tariffs, sought to force companies to leave China and relocate their production back to the USA. The opposite appears to be happening, reports the New York Times: More and more companies are trying to expand their production in China because the USA doesn’t have the well-qualified workers it needs.
The contrast between China and the United States couldn’t be greater: America has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the free world, and healthcare is 10 times more expensive than in Europe. There is no universal health insurance, as it is the norm in Europe. The cost of education in the USA is astronomical: One year in good (private) high school costs up to $50,000, four years of college costs around $ 250,000.
The debt that families or young adults have to take on remains a heavy burden for decades. Wang Huning could already see this development when he traveled through the USA in the late 1980s. But what does all this have to do with the democracy that Wang and Xi despise? The answer can be found in any students’ introduction to democratic theory: A country without excellent affordable education and affordable access to healthcare cannot produce the citizens needed for a successful democracy.
After all, what good is the right to vote if you are hungry? And what good is freedom of speech if you can’t pay the doctor when you are sick? Xi Jinping’s view of America is anything but unfounded. But even if he is right with his vision of the People’s Republic “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” is living in a world without freedom and human rights the better alternative?.
