How China is Weaker Than it Looks
Image Credit: World Economic Forum

How China is Weaker Than it Looks


There’s an old Chinese fable that was the inspiration behind Andrew Nathan and Robert Ross’s 1990s book, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress.

Centuries ago, a king whose city was about to be attacked decided the only thing he could do to save it was to order the gates be flung open. He then told the attacking force that the city was empty and that they were welcome to enter. Suspicious that the king’s words were a trick to tempt them into an ambush, the enemy forces decided to move on and the king’s empty city was saved.

These days, many looking at China from the outside see its towering economic statistics and assume that this growing wealth isn’t just about money—that it’s about power as well. After all, a country with growth rates in excess of 10 percent per annum that’s now the world’s second-largest economy, the largest holder of foreign reserves, the largest exporter and largest consumer of energy—surely it’s also a geopolitical powerhouse?





The second indicator of trouble ahead is the way elite leaders themselves are speaking. Yes, it’s true that Politburo members and their local equivalents fill their public pronouncements with rosy statistics. Like their Maoist and Dengist forebears, they live in a world still infected with Utopianism—things will always get better, the harvests will get bigger, the heaven on earth promised under Marxism (albeit now called Socialism with Chinese characteristics) will be realised one day (even if that day has to be pushed further and further into the future).

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