A common Chinese perspective is that China is simply regaining its rightful place in the world. From Hua Bin and Mike Whitney at unz.com:
Hua Bin explains “The China Phenomenon”
This essay is the second installment of my interview with Mike Whitney published on Unz Review. This is quite lengthy as I was trying to cover many grounds in Mike’s expansive question about the underlying forces for China’s resurgence.
Here’s the question:
Western pundits seem perversely fixated on the size of China’s economy, but what interests me is the China Phenomenon, that is, how the Chinese government managed to transform a poor, agrarian country into a technologically advanced, state-of-the-art civilization in which poverty has nearly been eradicated, standards of living continue to rise, and the masses of people seem to support the government’s vision of the future. How did China become the expression of 21st Century modernity it is today? (Or am I overstating the case?)
China’s Revival in the Context of its History
The west likes to talk about the rise of China. For the Chinese, it is not a rise. It is a return to normalcy – the place China occupied in the world for most of its existence.
Most educated people are aware China is the oldest continuous civilization in the world with a history extending back 5 millennia. For most of the 5000 years, China was one of the wealthiest and most advanced civilizations on earth.
There were 24 imperial dynasties during this time and China was one of the most powerful states in the world at least during 6 dynasties – Qin Dynasty (221 – 206 BCE), Han Dynasty (202 BCE- 220 CE ), Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 CE), Song Dynasty (960 – 1279 CE), Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644 CE), and first half of Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1912 CE).
In comparison, ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Ottoman, and more recently Spain, the Netherlands, France, Britain, Germany and Japan all experienced one great historical period as a powerful empire. But they are unlikely to rise to that position ever again.
Most westerners get their impression of China being poor and backward from its humiliating history in the last 150 years since the Opium War in 1839 and the early rules of PRC under Mao. China had a terrible 150 years – the very nadir of the civilization since its inception. But China is now back on its feet and is rising to the top of the world for the 7th time.
