Can Denmark Hold on to Greenland in the Wake of Trump’s Demand?

 

Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro has already been abducted by the US. The megalomaniac buffoon Donald Trump is boasting that the US now owns Venezuela. Given the extent to which Maduro’s security has been compromised, I would not bet on Delcy Rodríguez and her brother’s resolve to hold the country together; there is plenty of evidence to suggest that their hands were not clean.

I have always believed in physiognomy. Maduro’s eyes and moustache do reveal certain traits about the man: introversion, paranoia, lack of intelligence, and a largely self-serving nature. No wonder his security detail chose to look elsewhere when his hideout was invaded.

Trump has been shouting his intention to possess Greenland and to make Canada the US’s 51st State.

Despite all the bravado, I suspect Denmark will capitulate to his demand.

Geographically, the distance between Denmark and Greenland’s east coast is about 3,000 km, whereas the east–west width of Denmark itself is only about 450 km!

History says it all…
Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany on 9 April 1940 and capitulated the same day, within about six hours of the invasion beginning. Fortunately, it was allowed to retain its government, parliament, and king, and control over much of its internal administration.

(Danish resistance did grow later in the war, especially after 1943, including an effective resistance movement and the famous rescue of Danish Jews.)

Greenland, with an area of approximately 2.16 million km², is the largest island in the world. However, about 80% of it is covered by ice. It has a population of about 60,000, of which the capital, Nuuk, accounts for roughly 20,000. There is no road network linking towns; travel is by air or sea.

Greenland’s population is remarkably homogeneous, with Kalaallit/Inuit (including mixed Inuit–Danish) accounting for about 88–90%, and Danes (and other Europeans) about 10–12%. The Inuit have strong fishing and hunting traditions.

Mineral Wealth
Greenland is said to host some of the world’s largest known rare-earth deposits, hence Trump’s salivation. However, these elements are associated with uranium, making mining politically and environmentally contentious in Greenland. (The government banned uranium mining in 2021.) Northeast Greenland is also believed to contain one of the largest and highest-grade undeveloped zinc–lead deposits in the world. However, the location is extremely remote. Some large iron ore and graphite deposits have also been identified.

But do you believe the Americans can economically mine these minerals?

Greenland Politically…
Greenland is not a colony of Denmark. It is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, with extensive autonomy. The relationship is constitutional, not administrative in the colonial sense. It is not part of the EU (Greenland withdrew in 1985). Denmark’s constitution formally applies, but most governing powers are devolved to Greenland.

Greenlanders are recognised as a distinct people under international law. Greenland controls most domestic policy areas. It has the right to declare independence if approved by a referendum and negotiated with Denmark. Denmark retains responsibility for foreign policy, defence and security, citizenship, monetary policy, and the Supreme Court. However, Greenland is consulted on foreign and security issues that directly affect it and may negotiate and sign international agreements in areas under its competence (e.g. fisheries and the environment).

Financial Relationship
Denmark provides an annual block grant of about USD 560–580 million. This accounts for around one-third of Greenland’s public budget.

The US operates Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base) under agreements with Denmark, with Greenland being consulted.

Militarily…
Greenland does not have its own army; Denmark is responsible for its defence under NATO and existing arrangements. The day-to-day military footprint is small, with periodic rotations of units rather than a large permanent garrison – often with 100–550+ troops, including NATO partners for training exercises.

The only significant foreign military presence in Greenland is US personnel at Pituffik Space Base – with about 100 US military personnel and support staff in 2025.

The Reality…
Greenlanders are not politically hostile to the United States, but Trump’s acquisition proposal does appear to cause some political outcry in Greenland, but not loud.

Most Greenlanders understand that the US has been present since WWII, and that the US presence predates Trump by decades. The US is seen as essential for Arctic security and as a counterweight to overdependence on Denmark.

But to the outside world, Trump’s covetousness – or lust – is a blatant display of hegemonism in its crudest form.

That said, I suspect the natives may succumb to the lure of good money; after all, what difference does it make if Greenland comes under the US? Trump has offered USD 100,000 per person; that amounts only to USD 6 billion.

There is no need for the US to stage any invasion. All it has to do is declare to the world that Greenland is theirs. Period.

Some Anthropological Facts…
Around 985 AD, Erik the Red, a Norseman from Iceland (then under Norwegian influence), founded settlements in Greenland. These Scandinavian settlers were culturally and politically tied to Norway, not Denmark. Greenland became part of the Norwegian realm in 1261, when the Norse Greenlanders pledged allegiance to the King of Norway. Between 1397 and 1523, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were united under one monarch. Greenland, as part of Norway, thus came under a Danish-led union, but legally remained Norwegian.

After Sweden left the union, Denmark and Norway remained united (1536–1814), and Greenland continued to be considered a Norwegian possession, even though Copenhagen administered it.

In 1814, Denmark lost Norway to Sweden after the Napoleonic Wars, but Denmark retained Norway’s overseas possessions (Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands). This was the legal moment when Greenland became formally Danish, despite its Norwegian origins.

The Inuit are Asiatic in ultimate origin, and their language clearly reflects this. Their ancestors originated in northeastern Siberia. During the last Ice Age, they crossed the Bering Land Bridge (Beringia) into the Americas. This migration occurred in multiple waves over thousands of years. The direct ancestors of Greenlandic Inuit (the Thule people) migrated eastward from Alaska across Arctic Canada to Greenland around c. 1200 AD. They do not identify themselves as “Asian” in any modern sense.

Conclusion
With this mad buffoon around, anything is possible. But he is also a TACO. He will chicken out if Denmark is smart enough to make the above picture happen!

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Some Thoughts on Surnames and Family Names

 

I recently had dinner with Abu Bakar Sulaiman, whom I first met about four years ago at a friend’s dinner, where I had been invited to speak about a book I had just self-published. That evening, he kindly handed me copies of the three books he himself had written. I found them strikingly progressive, particularly in their cultural and religious arguments.

We have since become great friends!

Bakar is several years my senior. He was once a senior figure in the now-defunct Bank Bumiputra. One of my brothers-in-law had worked there as an engineer; his own brother, who also worked at the bank, Bakar told me, had been Bakar’s immediate superior.

In his books, Bakar identified himself as “AB Sulaiman”, which initially struck me as odd, since Sulaiman was clearly his father’s given name rather than a family name. I later realised—after reading his works more carefully—that this was deliberate. He was advocating the adoption of a family name or surname culture among Malays, with the father’s given name serving as the family’s surname going forward. This mirrors what several distinguished Muslim families have already done: Merican, Albar, Alatas, Jamalullail, Barakbah, and others.

During dinner, he lamented that few Malays know much about their family history. Typically, one can trace lineage only as far as one’s paternal or maternal grandparents, rarely beyond. By contrast, he noted, many Chinese can trace their ancestry back hundreds of years.

We both share a love of history, and we agreed that family names or surnames form an indispensable foundation for historical consciousness.

Indeed, I mentioned to him that there are still living descendants of Confucius today. The currently recognised head of the Confucian lineage is Kung Tsui-Chang (孔垂長), the 79th-generation direct descendant of the great sage.

Even a far less mortal like myself knows that my Lim lineage originated in Henan during the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) and, through centuries of civil war and upheaval, migrated south before eventually settling in Fujian.

Because of this continuity, most ethnic Chinese possess a strong sense of history. We are familiar with the virtues and flaws of our historical figures, their great achievements and disastrous failures, and – perhaps most vividly – the humiliations China suffered at the hands of the West and Japan after 1840. Along clan or surname lines, we also know the notable figures among our own ancestral forebears. The culture fosters collective memory – both pride and prejudice.

Surnames and Family Names
“Surnames” and “family names” are usually used interchangeably. Strictly speaking, however, they are not quite the same. Family names are more “clannish”: they imply relational ties, even across many generations. People who share the same surname, by contrast, may not be related at all.

When Did China Adopt Surnames?
China adopted hereditary surnames well over 3,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence – oracle bones and bronze inscriptions – already shows stable surnames during the Shang–Zhou period (c. 1600–256 BCE). These names were hereditary and deeply embedded in social structure.

Europe, by contrast, only began using fixed surnames in the late Middle Ages, roughly 800 to 1,500 years ago, depending on the region.

Early Chinese naming consisted of two forms: 姓 (xing) and 氏 (shi). Xing were originally matrilineal, tied to ancestral clans, and largely restricted to the aristocracy. Many contain the 女 (“woman”) radical, such as 姜 and 姬. Shi were branch names derived from fiefs, offices, or places, and were more flexible, often changing over time.

Eventually, xing and shi merged into a single hereditary surname system that still exists today.

Universal adoption began during the Qin–Han era (221 BCE–220 CE), when bureaucratic governance, taxation, and household registration required fixed surnames. By the Han dynasty, virtually all Chinese families possessed hereditary surnames.

The European Experience
European adoption of surnames – and with them, continuity of family identity – came much later and far less uniformly. Ancient Romans used multiple names - praenomen (personal name), nomen (clan name), and cognomen (branch or family nickname) – as in Gaius Julius Caesar. However, these were not fixed surnames in the modern sense. Naming conventions collapsed after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century.

In the early Middle Ages (c. 500–1000), most Europeans had only a single given name; small communities made surnames unnecessary. From the High to Late Middle Ages (c. 1000–1500), family names gradually emerged, driven by urbanisation, taxation, and legal record-keeping. Common sources included:

• Patronymic: Johnson (“son of John”), Ivanov
• Occupation: Smith, Miller
• Location: Hill, Atwood, York
• Nickname or trait: Short, Brown

Regional timelines varied:

• Italy and southern France: c. 1000–1200
• England: mostly fixed by c. 1300–1400
• Germany and Scandinavia: later and inconsistent
• Iceland: still uses patronymics today

In much of Europe, hereditary identities are only 600–900 years old. Outside immediate families, most bearers of these surnames are not related at all. Exceptions exist among the nobility and aristocracy, where family names are more distinctive and exclusive.

This difference is not merely one of naming practice; it reflects a fundamental civilisational divergence.

Korea, Vietnam, and Japan
All three societies adopted surnames under strong Chinese influence, though timing and social reach differed.

Korea followed Confucian bureaucracy and Chinese-style census systems.

• Three Kingdoms period (1st–7th centuries): surnames among elites
• Goryeo dynasty (918–1392): broader adoption
• Joseon dynasty (1392–1897): near-universal use

Many commoners acquired surnames very late, sometimes as recently as the 18th–19th centuries, often adopting elite clan names. This explains why a small pool of surnames—Kim, Lee (Yi), Park—dominates the population.

Vietnam began adopting surnames under Chinese rule (111 BCE–939 CE). The practice spread through administration and Confucian education, becoming universal by the Lý–Trần period (11th–14th centuries). Today, Nguyễn accounts for roughly 38–40% of the population, largely due to dynastic prestige.

Japan developed aristocratic clan names (uji) by the Kofun period (3rd–6th centuries), heavily influenced by Chinese models. Commoners, however, were historically forbidden to use surnames; only samurai families did so consistently. Universal adoption occurred abruptly during the Meiji Restoration, when surnames were made compulsory in 1875. Japanese surnames are thus largely a top-down modern imposition rather than the product of gradual medieval evolution.

Why Are Chinese Surnames So Few?
Despite its vast population, China has remarkably few surnames: about 100 cover roughly 85% of the population. Europe, by contrast, has hundreds of thousands.
China fixed surnames early, before massive population growth, large-scale migration, and linguistic fragmentation. Surnames therefore replicated rather than diversified. Europe experienced the opposite: surnames formed late, locally, and independently.

Early Chinese states also assigned surnames, enforced standard forms, and discouraged unofficial variants. Europe had no comparable central authority.

Chinese society further emphasised:

• Lineage continuity
• Ancestral halls
• Genealogies (zupu)

Creating new surnames was discouraged; joining an existing lineage was socially preferable.

The Chinese writing system reinforced this stability. Characters preserve surname identity across dialects, preventing phonetic drift. While Schmidt, Smyth, and Smit diverge, 王 remains 王 regardless of pronunciation.

Even today, surname-based clan temples and shrines can be found not only in China and Taiwan, but also wherever large Chinese communities exist. The Khoo kongsi in Penang, for example, is a gathering place where members of the 邱 clan (Qiū in pinyin) from across the region congregate to ritually honour their ancestry.

Recently, a former schoolmate of mine, Lau Thiam Soon, travelled to Yongchun in Fujian to attend a similar gathering. There, he was pleasantly surprised to encounter a senior from our school: former Court of Appeal Justice Datuk Wira Low Hop Bing. Lau and Low share the same surname when written in Chinese: 刘. They are, in fact, related, sharing common ancestry in a village in China. How remarkable!

For Thiam Soon and Datuk Wira Low, 刘 is more than a surname; it is their family name, albeit separated by many generations.

Avoidance of Close-Kin Marriage
In China and Korea, surnames served not merely as identity markers but also as tools for regulating marriage.

From at least the Zhou dynasty, China observed the principle 同姓不婚 (“people of the same surname must not marry”). This rule predates Confucianism and was enforced socially—and at times legally. It applied even when genealogical links were unknown or distant. The logic was preventive rather than precise: shared surname itself implied shared ancestry.

In a pre-modern, population-level risk-management sense, the rule was directionally correct. Early societies lacked genetic knowledge and reliable multi-generation records, yet faced high infant mortality. They therefore relied on simple, scalable heuristics.

By the Han dynasty, the rule softened: same-surname marriage became permissible if lineage origins were clearly different. Nonetheless, the taboo persisted, especially among elites, and remains culturally sensitive in many regions today.

Korea enforced an even stricter rule. Under Goryeo and Joseon, individuals sharing both surname and ancestral origin (bon-gwan) were forbidden to marry. In practice, this prohibition often extended across separations of thousands of years. Remarkably, the rule remained law until 1997.

European surnames, by contrast, were never designed to regulate exogamy. Church law governed marriage based on degrees of consanguinity, not names. Two people named “Smith” could marry freely, while cousins with different surnames could not.

In China and Korea, surname systems thus served three interlinked functions: incest prevention, lineage organisation, and state administration.

Were These Rules Medically Sound?
Modern genetics shows that risk arises from close consanguinity. Everyone carries harmful recessive mutations; close relatives are more likely to share them. Repeated consanguinity concentrates these risks.

Approximate population averages are as follows:

• Unrelated parents: 2–3% risk of serious congenital disorder
• First cousins: 4–6%
• Uncle–niece: 8–12%
• Siblings or parent–child: 20–40% or higher

Repeated cousin marriage across generations dramatically increases risk, as seen in isolated villages, royal houses, and highly endogamous communities. European aristocracies famously suffered such outcomes, including conditions like the Habsburg jaw and haemophilia. Maybe this is the concern Bakar is harbouring.

By late imperial and modern times, population mobility diluted the biological meaning of surnames, rendering 同姓不婚 medically obsolete. Yet as an early empirical rule, it worked.

The bottom line is this: close-kin marriage does not doom individual children, but statistically it concentrates genetic disease. Pre-modern societies recognised the pattern even without understanding the science. Their rules were not superstition, but pragmatic risk control—an early form of population genetics, achieved without genetics.

End

Credit: Much of the above was taken from ChatGPT

The Gap is Closing, Many Thanks to People like Auntie Bessent and Cowboy Hegseth

Recently, one of SCMP’s Science headlines screamed: Second reusable rocket recovery failure in a month puts China 10 years behind US.

The Long March 12A, said to be China’s first state-owned reusable rocket, made its debut launch on Tuesday, but the recovery of the first stage was a failure. (The second stage of the rocket, however, performed as designed.)

Does this mean China is 10 years behind the US??? Look at the names of the authors (Victoria Bela and Holly Chik) and I am sure you can understand why such scream can appear! They are all Gordan Changs; always praying for China to fail!

But I bet you, just give them another trial or two, they will surpass Elon Musk’s.

Delusional Donald Trump also unveiled a 'Trump' class battle ships on December 22. He said “We make the greatest equipment in the world, by far, nobody’s even close. But we don’t produce them fast enough.” A US Navy fact sheet released that day says the Trump class will be “the most lethal warship to ever be built.”

 With a length of up to 880 feet and a displacement of 30,000 to 40,000 tons, they’ll also be the biggest surface combatants the US Navy has constructed since World War II.

Yes, but on paper! Actual delivery may take another eight to ten years!

Remember, some months ago, Trump also unveiled the US’s 6^th generation fighter, the F-47? He calls it the NGAD, or the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter – the usual American tall talk. And you know F-47 stand for, right?  (Trump’s present term is US’s 47^th presidency.)

Again, this is not even a mock-up. He is trying to show off at a time when China’s J-36 and J-50 advanced prototypes are already flying openly in Chengdu and Shenyang’s skies.

The US is feeling extremely vulnerable following China’s display of their military gears in its September 3 military parade, not forgetting that Pakistan’s China-made J10-C also shot down a couple of India’s Rafales in May.

Let’s see how China has progressed militarily…

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is among the largest military forces in the world. China is not preparing to conquer the globe. Its core strategic objective has long been the peaceful reunification of Taiwan with the mainland. This, however, runs directly against the interests of the incumbent global hegemon – the US. From Beijing’s perspective, comprehensive military preparedness is therefore essential to deter US intervention.

 

To achieve credible deterrence, China must be unassailable on two critical fronts.

First, it must maintain effective nuclear deterrence against the US. This requires a survivable land- and sea-based nuclear force capable of striking targets anywhere on the US mainland, thereby ensuring mutual vulnerability and discouraging escalation, hence its formidable ballistic missile developments.

 

Second, China must be able to deny US military access within the Second Island Chain to the east and southeast, and to the choke point at the Straits of Malacca. This entails possessing sufficient air and naval capabilities to neutralise US aircraft, surface combatants, and supporting assets operating in forward areas. Control of this maritime and aerial space is central to preventing US forces from intervening decisively in a Taiwan contingency.

 

China’s accelerated military procurement and modernisation efforts are therefore anchored in these two fundamental strategic requirements.

Hence the emphasis on the state-of-the-art warships, stealth fighters with air-to-air missiles superior to others in terms of range, and short-to-medium range missiles to kill enemy battleships, all with unmatched radar capabilities.

 

Organisationally, the PLA is structured around a highly centralised joint command system. This system is designed to ensure firm political control by the top leadership while enabling theatre-level joint operations in wartime. Supreme authority rests with the Central Military Commission (CMC), chaired by President Xi Jinping. The CMC answers directly to the Communist Party of China (CPC), reflecting the long-standing principle that “the Party commands the gun.”

 

Operational command is divided among five Theatre Commands—Eastern, Southern, Western, Northern, and Central. Each command integrates the various service branches – Army, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force and support units under a single joint headquarters. This structure is explicitly designed for joint operations rather than single-service warfare. The individual service branches are responsible for training, equipping, and force development, but they do not command wars independently.

 

Political control is embedded at every level of the PLA. Commanders share authority with political officers, ensuring continued alignment with party directives. Overall, China’s command system is optimised for regional, high-intensity conflicts, not global expeditionary warfare. It reflects Beijing’s assessment that future wars are likely to be short, intense, and dominated by information, electronic warfare, and precision strikes, rather than prolonged mass-mobilisation campaigns.

 

Xi has placed particular emphasis on eliminating corruption, a process that remains ongoing. It is widely believed that of the roughly thirty full generals at the beginning of the year, only a handful survived. Casualties include He Weidong, former vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, Maio Hua, who was the PLA’s ideological and personnel chief, and two former defence ministers who were purged in 2023: Wei Fenghe and his successor, Li Shangfu. (Nine were axed in a single day in October alone. Two have recently promoted to the rank – to head the mission-critical Eastern and Southern Commands.)

The Rocket Force
The US has some 3,700 deployable nuclear warheads. China is said to have around 600. No one can survive a full nuclear war today. Though smaller in number, China’s arsenal is designed to deter. Its delivery capability has now surpassed the US’s – its new DF-51 has a range of between 16-18,000 km and the older DF-41 has a range of 12-15,000 km range, with a top speed of 25 Mach. Both are believed to be the most advanced surface-to-surface multiple warhead ICBM. Its road mobile DF-31 is also an ICBM, with a range of some 11,000 km. It is also capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads. Apart from these, its DF-5C is too an ICBM of 13,000 km range, capable of delivering MIRV warheads.

Its shorter-range DF-17 (1,800-2,500 km), DF-21 (1,500-2,500 km, dubbed “carrier killer”) and DF-27 (5,000-8,000 km) are also nuclear-capable.

DF-17 is a road-mobile, medium-range ballistic missile system that carries the DF-ZF Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV), making it China's first operational hypersonic weapon, designed to evade existing missile defences with its manoeuvrable, Mach 5+ glide vehicle for striking high-value targets in the Indo-Pacific. Unveiled in 2019, it uses a solid-fuelled missile to launch the DF-ZF into near-space, which then glides at extreme speeds, making interception difficult for systems like THAAD and Patriot. 

DF-21 is also a road-mobile ballistic missile, most famous for the D variant. It is the world's first operational anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), designed to hit moving aircraft carriers and naval groups with its manoeuvrable warhead (MIRV). Its sophisticated guidance system is the gravest threat to U.S. naval power in the Western Pacific. 

DF-27 is a new, road-mobile hypersonic ballistic missile system featuring a manoeuvrable hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), with a significant range of 5,000-8,000 km, allowing it to threaten targets across the Pacific, including Guam and parts of the U.S. mainland. Classified as an intermediate-range missile (IRBM), it serves dual roles for both land attack and as an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) capable of targeting moving vessels, posing a major challenge to existing missile defences with its extreme speed and manoeuvrability. 

DF-21D and DF-27 are carrier-killers!

China also possesses submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). JL-3 is its latest. Its range is estimated to be 10,000-12,000 km. Its launch platforms are Type 096 (Tang-class) and 094A (Jin-class) submarines.

Aircraft and Their Missiles:
China’s J-20 and J-35 are already being produced en-mass. Their much older sibling J-11 is also a fighter to be reckoned with, not to mention the newer J-16, with its 4,300 km range and 2,100 km/h speed.  

They are equipped with the PL series of air-to-air missiles. PL-15 (Mach 5 itself) was the one used by Pakistan’s J-10C to shoot down India’s Rafales. The PL series out-ranges most of its Western peer’s BVR (beyond visual range) missiles. Its more modern ones are PL-17 and PL-21, the latter with a range of up to 400+ km. They are designed to kill without having to do a dogfight!

Its AWAC KJ-3000 AWAC has a range of some 2,000km.

Many are also wondering why China has yet to replace its aged old H-6 bombers. It is actually the result of a deliberate strategic, technological, and doctrinal choice, not so much in terms of neglect or incapacity. There is no need to depend on bombers to fly great distances to drop bombs; China’s primary conflict scenarios are regional, and missiles can serve much of the purpose.

There are a number of military aircraft manufacturers in China – Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, Chengdu Aircraft Industrial Corporation, Xi’an Aircraft Industrial Corporation, China Aerospace Science & Industrial Corporation, and Shaanxi Aircraft Industrial Corporation.

Drones
China is well ahead of others in this field.

Its Wing Loong-2 (WL-2) showcases the reach of Chinese drone technology across multiple conflict zones. It is a medium-altitude, long-endurance reconnaissance and strike unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Besides, it has drones such as GJ-11 – the world’s first ship-based stealth combat drone.

PLAN - People’s Liberation Army Navy - has also been testing extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicles (XLUUVs), which essentially are large underwater drones that can operate autonomously beneath the surface. Some of these craft are very large (over 40 m long) – comparable in size to conventional submarines – and are part of a broader effort to expand China’s undersea unmanned fleet. These underwater drones may be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, mine-laying and potentially other naval missions such as mapping seabed or covert operations. China has also been reported to develop other uncrewed underwater systems like UUV-300 or similar designs which might be armed or configured for missions such as torpedo launching.  Its HSU-001 class of unmanned underwater vehicle (roughly 5 m long) intended for seabed operations, indicating a longer trend in this field.

Battleships and Ship-based Missiles

We already heard much about China’s Type 001, 002 and 003 aircraft carriers, especially the Type 003’s electromagnetic catapults and its ability to launch J-15, J-35 and KJ-600. And we also know that China is building its Type 004 aircraft carrier, likely to be nuclear-powered and with a displacement of about 120,000 tonnes, which will dwarf everything the US has.

Its Type 094 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine is a 11,000-tonne displacement beast. It carries up to 12 JL-2 and JL-3 MIRV nuclear warheads - the former with 7,2000 km range and the latter, >10,000 km range.

Its Type 055 guided missile destroyers are cruisers to the west. They have a displacement of 12-13,000 tonnes and a range of 9,300 km.

It has also recently launched a Type 076 Amphibious Assault Ship of some 50,000 tonnes of displacement. It carries drones.

Its 6,000-tonne Type 815A Electronic Surveillance Ship is another vessel most western battleship will do everything to avoid. It can identify radar signals from platform over 700-1,200 km away. It can jam these vessels making them going blind in high seas.

We all have heard that China’s shipbuilding capacity is hundreds of times bigger than the US’s. They are so many world class naval shipyards - Jiangnan Shipyard, Dalian Shipyard, Bohai Shipyard and Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard, just to mention a few.

The Army  

The People’s Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF) is among the largest in the world. It has about 960,000 active personnel, accounting for roughly half of the PLA’s total active force of around 2 million.

Why so many soldiers?

It is for geostrategic reasons! History has taught Chinese that you can never take your neighbours for granted!

The PLAGF is equipped with a large arsenal of land systems, including several thousand tanks (Its Type 99A main battle tanks boast of an operating range of 600 km.), armoured vehicles, artillery, and rocket systems, positioning it as one of the most formidable ground forces globally.

Recent reforms and modernization efforts have streamlined the force to emphasize mobility and technology over sheer size.

 All Anchors on Electronic Warfare…

China’s near- and medium-term concerns, especially in the Eastern and Southern Theatre Commands, are unlikely to involve wars that require large ground troops. Electronic warfare is therefore central to PLA doctrine. Since the 2000s, the PLA has framed modern war as “informationized” (and more recently “intelligentized”) warfare. In that framework:

 

China’s advantages include:

·       * Large-scale electronics manufacturing

·       * Rapid iteration in sensors, processors, and software

·       * Civil–military fusion in telecom and AI

·       * Winning the electromagnetic and information domains is a prerequisite to kinetic success.

·       * EW, cyber, ISR, space, and command-and-control are treated as integrated combat functions, not separate enablers.

 

China’s recent military platforms are increasingly designed to operate within—and capitalize on—an electronic-warfare-intensive battlespace, reflecting PLA doctrine that prioritizes information and electromagnetic dominance. However, these systems generally hedge against EW uncertainty rather than relying on uncontested superiority.

 

China is believed to have made huge strides in the department. Warships and planes of the US and its allies are most fearful of being locked by the radar of Chinese fighters and warships.

How good is the US’s military might in the wake of China’s leaps and bounds in military gears in recent years?

China’s defence budget has consistently remained below 2 % of GDP for many years and typically around 1.3 %–1.5 %. The US, on the other hand, spends between 3.2-3.4% of GDP on its military. Notwithstanding, it appears to be more solid than the US militarily. How ironical.

 

The US maintains 750-800 installations in roughly 80 countries and territories worldwide. This includes major bases, long-term facilities, cooperative security locations, airfields, and other sites used for logistics, training, and force projection. It also has hundreds of military bases and installations inside the United States itself, including Army forts, Air Force bases, Navy facilities, Marine Corps stations, Coast Guard units, and Space Force installations.

 

These basses and assets contained therein are in fact vulnerable to China’s medium- and long-range missiles.

 

Ditto its supposedly most formidable aircraft carrier groups – in the light of China’s carrier killer missiles.

 

China may not have a nationwide, fully integrated “Golden Dome”–style missile defence system comparable to what the US aspires to or what Israel fields on a smaller scale. However, it does have all the elements of missile defence.

 

On the detection and tracking front, it has large over-the-horizon (OTH) radars and phased-array radars and a growing constellation of early-warning satellites.

 

On missile interception, its HQ-9/HQ-22/HQ-19 systems has capability against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. These systems protect specific regions or assets but have yet to be integrated into a country-side shield. This is said to be a strategic choice, not a technological inability. (A true national missile defence system costs hundreds of billions; it is never lead-proof and is vulnerable to saturation, decoys, hypersonics.)

 

In short, China relies on deterrence, second-strike survivability, regional air/missile defence, and offensive counter-intervention capabilities.

 

With Hegseth in-charge of US’s War Department, you can see deteriorating morale, poor equipment maintenance, lethargy in military research and development all round, these coupled with its thuggery behaviours towards friends and foes alike – seizing of Venezuela, Syria and Iran oil, and salivating for Greenland and Canada, etc – are sure symptoms that a hegemon is about to fall. Good for the world!  

 

If a war were to break out in the South China Sea, numerous simulations have shown that the sea will be the graveyard for US and its allies’ warships and planes.

 

How old are the US Aircraft Carriers?

The U.S. Navy operates 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, all under Carrier Strike Groups.

 

They fall into two classes:

·       * Nimitz class (10 ships – Nimitz, Dwight D Eisenhower, Carl Vinson, Theordore Roosevelt, Abrahim Lincolh, George Washington, John C Stennis, Harry S Truman, Ronald Reagaon, and George H W Bush; average age 34 years.)

 

·       * Gerald R. Ford class (1 active, – first one commissioned in 2017; under construction: John F Kennedy, Enterprise and Doris Miller.)

 

China’s Fujian aircraft carrier (Type 003) features a domestically developed electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), placing it among the most advanced carriers in the world. It is believed that the system is superior to the U.S. Navy’s EMALS on Ford-class carriers. The Chinese Navy has publicly demonstrated launches and recoveries of various aircraft types — including J-15T, J-35, and KJ-600 — during sea trials and deck operations, showing the system works across multiple airframes. However, Fujian is still conventionally powered. China has to wait for the inauguration of Type 004 – believed to be nuclear-powered and largest in terms of displacement in the world) to firmly establish China’s naval superiority. Top of Form

 

How adequate or inadequate is US's naval shipbuilding capability today?

Although U.S. shipyards are said to be able to continue to build high-quality, advanced warships and Congress has approved major investment of about US$29 billion to revitalise shipbuilding infrastructure and workforce, the Navy hasn’t grown its total ship count in decades; in some years it has even declined.

 

U.S. shipyards face serious labour shortages (skilled welders, fitters, naval architects) and aging infrastructure, which slow production and raise costs.

The US Navy’s long-term plans aim to grow the Navy to ~390 ships by the 2050s. But in the short term, numbers may drop (e.g., 295 → ~283 ships by 2027) as older vessels retire faster than new ones join.

 

China’s shipbuilding industry dwarfs the U.S. in scale. China accounts for ~50% of global commercial shipbuilding and has far greater capacity than U.S. yards.  Some estimates suggest China’s shipbuilding capacity is hundreds of times larger in commercial tonnage terms.

For the U.S., most major naval shipbuilding happens in only a few yards (HII/NNS, Bath Iron Works, Marinette Marine, Electric Boat) — which limits how fast production can scale.

 

The U.S. says it builds technologically advanced, capable warships, and retains expertise in nuclear propulsion, complex combat systems, and large warship construction; however, this is hardly enough. A large, high-quality navy isn’t just about having big ships, it’s about able to build enough of them fast enough while maintaining readiness.

 

US Ship Maintenance Capabilities in Bad Shape

There are real and significant maintenance problems in the US Navy’s ship maintenance and readiness system today – backlogs, workforce shortages, and systemic stress. Backlogs and delays are so pronounced that some carriers and other vessels can’t leave port as scheduled because maintenance isn’t complete. Many ships are spending years in repair yards. This isn’t minor shipyard “bumps”; it impacts fleet readiness and global presence timelines, especially with rising strategic competition.

 

The Navy doesn’t have enough trained personnel aboard ships to perform needed maintenance while underway, slowing even basic upkeep. Both public and private yards struggle with limited dry dock space and insufficient skilled shipyard trades, meaning maintenance slots fill up and ships wait longer. Poor tracking systems for parts and personnel – and older IT systems – make scheduling and managing maintenance harder, slowing repairs.

 

It is now looking to Japan for help.

What are the most advanced fighter jets US possesses?
The F-22 and F-35 are the top U.S. fighter jets. F-22 Raptor is widely considered the most capable air-to-air fighter currently in service thanks to its stealth, agility, and sensor suite.

F-35 Lightning II is not quite as stealthy or agile as the F-22, but it is believed that it’s far more versatile and networked, making it the backbone of U.S. modern airpower.

How do they compare with China’s J-20 and J-35? The jury is still out.

Scientifically and Technologically…
China’s push to new frontiers is totally relentless and multi- and cross-dimensional – private, public, military and non-military.

A case in point is its research in Maglev technology. SCMP has just reported that researchers at China’s National University of Defence Technology have successfully accelerated a tonne-class vehicle to a record speed of 700 km/h with just two seconds on a 400-metre magnetic levitation test line and brought it safety to a stop! This test speed has set a new global benchmark, making it the world’s fastest superconducting electric maglev to date. This comes from a defence university!!!

China is advancing in every field of science and technology. There are simply too many to cover; I will just speak on a few.

Semi-Conductors and AI
China’s own EUV lithography machine has finally taken shape!

Reuters has just published an article titled: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips”. It says that a Shenzhen team completed a working prototype of a EUV machine in early 2025. The lithography machine was built by former ASML engineers and is now undergoing testing and has not produced working chips. The government is targeting 2028 for working chips.

As recent as April, ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said that China would need "many, many years" to develop such technology. But the existence of this prototype suggest China may be years closer to achieving semiconductor independence than most conventional analysts anticipated. (But he failed to mention that many of the experts in ASML were in fact Chinese!)

Apparently, Huawei is playing a key role in coordinating a web of companies and state research institutes across the country involving thousands of engineers.

It may take another year or two for China to bring out the commercial version. But

China has certainly arrived.

By then, China can be more of less self-reliant on the production of 5nm or below chips.

Realizing that it is futile for him to deny China of advanced chips, Trump has recently allowed NVIDIA to sell its H200 chips to China – contingent on US export licensing and a 25% revenue share/fee on such sales. (NVIDIA’s has more later generations (like Blackwell or Rubin)). No actual shipments have happened yet, due to China regulators’ reluctance to rely on US supplies.

While it is true that Huawei’s Ascend 910C AI accelerator has yet to match the Nvidia H200 in raw performance, it is only a matter of time that Huawei will catch up. Even Jensen Huang says that. However, rather than matching NVIDIA chip for chip, Huawei often competes by building clusters or rack systems that combine many of its own accelerators. This makes Huawei’s CloudMatrix 384 system — built from many Ascend chips – able to rival or even exceed certain NVIDIA rack-level systems in aggregate peak compute for some workloads, though it tends to use more power and has efficiency trade-offs. (Remember DeepSeek!)

In quantum computing, Chinese researchers have taken a major step in the global race to build practical quantum computers. The Chinese approach could offer a more efficient route than Google’s to building large, fault-tolerant quantum computer.

Who will excel? My hunch: It will be China by 2030!

Why? The CEOs of top four semiconductor giants in the US – NVIDIA, Broadcom, AMD and Intel – are all Chinese ethnically. (Jensen Huang, Tan Hock Eng, Lisa Su and Tan Lip-Su, respectively. Hock Eng and Lip-Su are ex-Malaysians.) TSMC is Taiwanese. So are many of their top brains. Even ASML has a big cohort of Chinese experts working there. And from the winners of the Olympiads, you could see much of the time it was China’s Chinese versus Yellow Bananas! It is believed 50% of the people in AI are Chinese ethnically.

The trajectory is obvious.

Space Missions
Much has been reported on China’s space missions. I do not propose to bore readers by repeating them, save to talk about the more recent ones and its way forward.

Chang’e-6 (2024) is its most scientifically significant one. It successfully touched down on the far side of the Moon, collected samples and returned them to Earth. The Queqiao-2 relay satellite, placed in lunar orbit before the mission, enabled communications with the far side – a key technology for such missions.

China is now busy developing hardware and technology aimed at crewed Moon landings by 2030. China is partnering with Russia and other international collaborators to establish a lunar research station near the Moon’s south pole by the 2030s.

China’s lead in the race to bring rocks back from Mars is said to have grown by a big margin – by as much as four years ahead of the US.

In a notable display of reconnaissance capabilities, a Chinese satellite has also demonstrated capabilities of spying of American spy satellites!

It has also launched the first batch of satellites for its space computing constellation, a system that could rival the most powerful ground-based supercomputers once fully deployed. 

There have been reports from satellite companies on the docking of two Chinese satellites that are believed to have carried out an in-orbit refuelling some 36,000 km above Earth.

Obviously, we know who is winning the space race.

 

Bio-Medical
China’s bio-medical sector is strong and growing rapidly, with deep historical roots in medicine and a rapidly modernizing biomedical and biotech research ecosystem.

Traditional Chinese medicine has thousands of years of herbal, acupuncture, and holistic medical practice. It provides a unique pharmacological knowledge base for modern drug discovery.

China has a long tradition of Western-style medicine, dating back to early 20th century reforms. There are over 150 universities offering strong biomedical programmes; top tiers include Tsinghua, Peking, Fudan, Zhejiang, Shanghai Jiao Tong, plus Hong Kong universities. China produces more than 100,000 biomedical PhDs annually, making it the largest biomedical workforce globally in some categories.

Its pharmaceutical and biotech industry is also making waves – Sinopharm, Fosun Pharma, Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine, WuXi AppTec lead in drug development, manufacturing and clinical research.

China is a global leader in population genomics, cancer genomics, and prenatal screening.

Notwithstanding, it continues to build world-class translational medicine infrastructure, regulatory sophistication, and original drug discovery.

 Human Capital

China has more than 3,000 universities and colleges, both public and private institutions, across all disciplines. There are plenty of the broader science/engineering-focused universities. Many research universities (e.g., Tsinghua, Beijing Institute of Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, ShanghaiTech, Southern University of Science and Technology) are major science/technology producers. Examples of the more renowned names explicitly labelled “科技大学 / Science and Technology University” are University of Science and Technology of China, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Shaanxi University of Science & Technology, Liaoning University of Science and Technology, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, just to name some. According to the THE World University Rankings 2026, 5 mainland Chinese universities are in the global top 100 – Tsinghua, Peking, Fudan, Zhejiang and Shanghai Jiao Tong. Hong Kong has five – the University of Hong Kong (HKU), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU).

 

According to a recent analysis, China produces roughly 3.5 million STEM graduates per year across bachelor’s and other degree levels. A study by the Georgetown University Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) projects that by 2025, Chinese universities will produce around 77,000 STEM PhD graduates per year. For comparison, U.S. universities are projected to produce roughly 40,000 STEM PhDs annually by 2025 — about half of China’s projected output, not to mention many of them are ethnically Chinese.

 

STEM fields make up a majority (≈57 %) of all doctoral graduates in China, underscoring how focused doctoral education has become on science and technology areas.

 

On top of that, thanks to anti-Asian policies and sentiments, American and European Chinese are also returning. Many are most renowned in their respective fields; just to name a few: Wang Zhonglin (from Georgia Tech) in nanotechnology and materials physics, Liu Chang (from Princeton) in nuclear physics, Yu Guolin (from Cambridge) and Gao Huajian (from Brown) in physics, and Chen Hudong (from Dassault) in computational physics (from Dassault). Other notable returnees include mathematicians like Lin Huaxin and Liu Kefeng,, number theorist like Sun Song, and other academics like Chen Huayi, Ruan Yongbin (geometer/mathematics), Liu Yifei (number theory) Zhang Yitang (mathematics), Sun Shao-Cong (cancer immunology), Zhang Xiaoming (anatomy & biomedical education), Wang Yijuan (mathematical biology/interdisciplinary research), Yang Dan (Neuroscience), computational and AI experts like Song-Chun Zhu, Quan Guocong, Fu Tianfan and Guo-Jun Qi, science and engineering luminaries like Xie Yimin, and twin researchers Donghan and Ma Dongxin and Liu Jun. The list is by means exhaustive; ming-boggling indeed! Many thanks to Trump!

 

In recent years, several well-known Western and Japanese scientists and medical/technical experts have moved to China to take up research, academic, of leadership roles at Chinese universities and research centres. This trend has accelerated as Chinese institutions expand funding, facilities and opportunities as some Western research environments become more constrained.

 

Belgian neurologist Steven Laureys, French physicist and Nobel laureate Gérard Mourou, former chair of Harvard’s Chemistry Department Charles M Lieber, Japanese expert in geometry Kenji Fukaya and Cambridge’s biotech professor Nigel Slater are some headline-making examples.

Economically…
I have already argued in my earlier article China is not the world’s second largest economy as the Western-biased would want us to believe. Its true size is well beyond the commonly quoted $40 trillion figure in PPP terms.

Yes, China is not without problems. Chinese business by nature is a dog-eat-dog theatre. Real estate lapses are a big drag on its economy. Me-too forays are a norm. The country is littered with thousands and thousands of abandoned apartments, thanks to its no-tomorrow, debt-ridden developers. Xi foresaw the danger, but it was too late when the state began to intervene. It might take a decade to clean up these developers’ messes. Many EV manufacturers, likewise, will go under during the next couple of years.

The government is determined to transform – to high-value products and services. Given its absolute power in supply chains in virtually everything, including rare earths and other critical minerals, infrastructure, especially in electricity generation, and most importantly, human capital, its economy remains resilient and will persevere, come what may.

The Global South accounts for roughly 40 %–50 % of total global trade volume. The South-South merchandise trade, that is trade among developing and emerging economies, accounted for about 23 %–24 % of global goods trade in (2023 estimate).

China’s export market share (goods) was about 14.2 % of global exports and its import market share (goods) was about 10.6 % of global imports (2023). They are significantly bigger today, despite US and its allies’ tariffs.

Following US and its allies’ sanctions and denial of SWIFT facilities to Russia and several other countries, China and the BRICS grouping (minus India, in some) have been developing de-dollarisation and non-SWIFT alternative payment architectures over the last couple of years. Some are already in service.

a.    China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS)

It is a renminbi-centric settlement system that processes cross-border payments and clears transactions in RMB. It’s designed to facilitate international trade and investment in yuan and reduce reliance on dollar-based messaging and clearing routes.

Participation has expanded significantly: by mid-2025, direct participants exceeded 170 institutions and indirect participants over 1,500, with coverage in around 186 countries.

However, CIPS still typically uses SWIFT messaging for information flow in tandem with its own settlement layer – so it’s not yet a stand-alone replacement for SWIFT globally, but rather a parallel option especially for RMB transactions.

 

b.    BRICS Pay (BRICS Payment System)

BRICS Pay is a multilateral initiative among Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (plus expanding membership) to create a joint cross-border digital payments infrastructure. Its aim is to simplify payments among member states and promote local currency use, reducing settlement in US dollars.

 

The system is intended to support multiple currencies – potentially including RMB, rupee, rand, real, and ruble — for direct settlement, improving efficiency and lowering costs of transaction chains involving third-party dollar-denominated clearing.

 

There is discussion of integrating digital technologies (e.g., blockchain or CBDC interfaces) to enhance transparency and security, but full deployment is still in progress and not yet at global scale.

 

c.    SPFS (Russia’s Financial Messaging System)

Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) was developed after 2014 sanctions pressures aimed at reducing dependence on SWIFT. It functions as a domestic messaging network for financial transactions and has been offered to foreign partners to expand its reach.

SPFS has been brought into discussions of alternative infrastructures alongside CIPS and BRICS Pay, though it remains comparatively small and largely regional.

 

d.    Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Platforms & mBridge

The mBridge project, led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and participating central banks – incluing the People’s Bank of China – is a multilateral CBDC settlement network to support cross-border payments in multiple digital currencies.

 

mBridge has piloted cross-border transactions that demonstrate the feasibility of settlement without traditional correspondent banking and potentially without intermediating in dollars.

 

Saudi Arabia, Thailand, UAE, and other partners have joined test or participation phases, reflecting broader interest beyond BRICS.

There are also other bilateral and regional currency settlement agreements in place, especially between China and trading partners to settle trade directly in local currencies (e.g., RMB vs Rupee, Yuan vs Ruble), bypassing the need for settlement through the US dollar.

These initiatives respond to concerns about the use of SWIFT as a geopolitical tool and the dominance of the US dollar in global finance. They now have the clout to de-dollarise.

US Sanctions and Tariffs

US sanctions on China did not start with Trump, but Trump marked the first systemic, economy-wide escalation, and Biden largely continued and institutionalised it, especially in technology.

 

After Tiananmen, EU and US imposed limits on arms sales. Chinese firms had been sanctioned for dealings with Iran, North Korea and Pakistan. But there were no broad tariffs, no tech sector decoupling and no attempt to cripple China’s industrial upgrading. Trump era (2017–2021): sanctions become systemic. He fundamentally changed US policy, shifting sanctions from behaviour-based punishment to strategic competition and containment. In his Trade War 1.0, he imposed 25% tariffs on about $370 billion of Chinese imports, citing IP theft, forced technology transfer and trade imbalance as excuses. This was the first time the US used tariffs as a geopolitical weapon against China. He also cut off advanced chips, software, etc to Huawei and ZTE. He banned US investments in PLA-linked firms. He even imposed visa restrictions on Chinese researcher and students, albeit selectively.

 

Under the pretext of bank fraud and violation of US sanctions against Iran, the US caused Canada to detain Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou while she was transiting at the Vancouver airport on 1 December 2018. Trump gloated that “If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made… I would certainly intervene.”

 

China retaliated by detaining two Canadians. Relations between China and Canada collapsed.

 

Fortunately, in 2021, then under Joe Biden’s administration, US dropped extradition request and Meng returned to China.

Top of Form

 

Biden took office in 2021, but he did not reverse Trump’s sanctions. Instead, he expanded the policy. With his hoodlums, he intensified technology controls, trying to freeze China at a certain level of technological capability.

 

In a nutshell, Tump fired the opening shot and Biden built the siege.

 

Trump’s second terms bring havoc to the world – in the form of tariff threats. But now China was well prepared.

 

In early 2025, the US introduced a special tariff related to fentanyl-precursor concerns, initially 10%, later raised to 20% on all Chinese goods. Soon after, the Trump administration announced “reciprocal tariffs” on imports from many countries, including a 34% tariff on Chinese goods, on top of existing duties. Under this package, peak effective rates were reported as high as the 100%-plus range on some categories, though diplomatic negotiations later scaled many back.

Following talks between Chinese and US officials, both sides agreed to lower reciprocal tariffs to around 10% for 90 days (extended through late 2026).

 

Meanwhile, some earlier tariff suspensions were agreed as part of limited “truce” agreements to contain escalation.

 

But the threat is still looking, especially on chips and technology. It has announced plans for new tariffs on Chinese semiconductors and technology goods, but enforcement has been delayed until mid-2027, as part of ongoing negotiations.

Tariffs are taxes; sanctions and export controls are restrictions on financial and technology flows for security or foreign-policy reasons.

 

The US continues to use export controls to limit China’s access to advanced technologies (especially semiconductors, AI, quantum computing, and military-relevant dual-use items). These controls are part of a broader effort to slow Chinese development of high-performance computing, semiconductor fabrication tools, and other sensitive technologies. Under the Global Magnitsky Act, the US also sanctions Chinese officials and entities over make-belief human rights violations in Xinjiang,

China counters with an “Unreliable Entity List” on US defence and arms companies.

US actions have heightened China’s push for self-reliance and de-dollarisation efforts. It now invests heavily in semiconductors, aerospace and military-civil fusion activities. In Beijing’s view, US sanctions and tariff threats are no longer about behaviour; they are about preventing China from reaching peer-status.

 

But the US leadership is a thoughtless lot. China’s one action alone – the restriction of rare earths and critical minerals – makes them run for cover. It is also disposing of the US Treasuries, albeit gradually, which has prompted Treasury Secretary Auntie Bessent to lose sleepless nights over its ability to run the country, given its huge national debt and the consequences of high tariffs Americans have to face. All so very ironical!

Political Social and Cultural Strength

As Kishore Mahbubani has repeatedly pointed out, to Western media China is always Communist China. Obviously, their intent is to add a Stalinist flavour to the country. That China is a totalitarian state to the core is engraved in their brains. They don’t bother to learn that it is in fact a meritocracy of the highest order. (Of course, there are many corrupted officials, but corruption is also rampant in all the so-called democracies. And the form of Liberal Capitalism that is being practised in the West is actually exploitation of the naïve minds. Selfish individualism is always packaged as “human rights”. It is corruption and hypocrisy of the worst kind!

 

Many scholars, including hitherto China critic John Meashermer, have already conceded that there is much strength in China’s political system and societal/cultural norms and practices.

 

China’s is socialism has got a certain characteristic that can hardly be transplanted to other economies or cultures. China fully understands this and they had never attempted to do this after Mao Zedong.

 

China has undergone some three millennia of ups-and-downs. The years of humiliation by the West and Japan are etched in their bones, not to mention the pigtail they had to wear under the Qing rule. Chinese have developed a unique form of collective memory which make them think long-term in everything they do.

 

I used to dread the form of pseudo-capitalism and the level corruption that was rampant after Mao and before the Xi years.

 

Xi has transformed China. He has helped bring some 800 million out of poverty. He deserves Nobel Prize many times over, if it truly champions what it believes.

 

His continuous purge of the corrupt has given rise to a great deal of negative reports in the West, which is most ironical. Xi knows Chineseness; corruption is tolerated throughout China’s history – as long as one delivered much more than what he received privately. But the scale of pre-Xi corruption is humongous – billions in many cases. Xi knows this if left unchecked will destroy China. Hence his uncompromising attitude, even if they involve his close associates.

 

He is bent on building a bureaucracy that can outlive his tenure! Top of Form

End

 

Credit: Written with facts and figures obtained or plagiarised from ChatGPT and SCMP.