China has actually been rising, but unlikely to displace the western dominance - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14797530
The motivation of this post is I watched Martin Jacques's speech from Youtube about the future rule of China.



As a Chinese migrant who is spiritually fully westernized (I believe, that's why I left China, from a racist view however I should be identified a traitor as I "betrayed my race") and apparently pro-West, which made me pretty unique - most pro-West people know little about China, vice versa. I'd like to share some point of views as a person who was born and raised in mainland PRC China.

I do appreciate a lot what Jacques told us, because we need to be warned by people like him on the potential threat from China - obviously most westerners know far less and less interested in this topic while the undeniable fact is China is becoming stronger and trying to challenge the west. And frankly he knows very much about China and most of the points are accurate. Nonetheless I dare say that he needs further thinking and investigation regarding his conclusion "China will rule the world and displace the west in future".

First thing, Jacques emphasized too much about East Asian culture, as if the potential conflict between China and west stems from East Asian culture? Don't forget PRC China can not represent East Asia, conversely most Eastern Asia countries are west-friendly developed countries, while China and North Korea are exceptions. It's probably naive to attribute the issues of China to East Asian culture/traditions.

Secondly other than talking about the future dominance of China in the world, I haven't heard Jacques saying anything about the future of PRC China itself - how long the communist regime could sustain and what happens to the future China without it - say after the communist collapses? You can not simply assert the future of the world ruled by China without telling the future of China.

Lastly, Jacques seems to be happy or optimistic about the future world dominated by China culture or Chinese civilization - whatever you call it, Let's just assume it happens one day, but what that means to us? Do most of people across the world accept or enjoy that "culture" - say we may lose freedom of speech and embrace a corruption-prone atmosphere in the society, lack of rule of law. If we don't, should we resist that possible "future"?
Last edited by Sasa on 16 Apr 2017 21:31, edited 1 time in total.
#14797535
What's dangerous about the rise of China is that the country is still ruled by the Communist government and it's a close ally of North Korea. The future world dominated by China culture or Chinese civilization would never arrive but China could dominate East Asia militarily, thus displacing American influence in the region.

First thing, Jacques emphasized too much about East Asian culture, as if the potential conflict between China and west stems from East Asian culture?


China is challenging American hegemony in East Asia, which can only be understood from a military perspective. Martin Jacques was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and he may still dream about creating the one world government under Communism.

Whatever the meaning of China's assurances that it will not pursue hegemony or engage in military expansionism in future, we cannot be certain that it will not. There are grounds for optimism, especially with respect to China's use of military power. China's history includes examples of aggressive actions along its borders — especially in Korea and Vietnam. But overall China has been notable for its cautious, defensive, and inward-looking national security posture. The Great Wall stands as a symbol of this as does the scuttling of the Ming fleet in 1437. Despite a formidable history of innovation in military technology and warfare on a scale commensurate with its huge population and vast size, the Chinese strategic tradition stresses that weapons are inauspicious instruments to be used only when the use of force is unavoidable.

The People's Republic of China has used force when measures short of war have proven inadequate to secure its borders or strategic interests (as in Korea, India, and Vietnam), but, by marked contrast with India in Goa or Indonesia in Timor-Leste, it gave diplomacy the decades needed to resolve the Hong Kong and Macau issues without bloodshed. Beijing has shown a similar preference for negotiations rather than the use of force to settle the Taiwan issue. Cross-strait tensions are lessening. It should be encouraging that China has insisted on United Nations authorization for its military activities abroad, which are directed at peacekeeping and against piracy.

Still, China is modernizing its military at a peculiar moment of history. The United States inherited worldwide military superiority from the collapse of its Soviet rival. Without much discussion, it has embraced the neo-conservative agenda of sustaining this superiority at all costs. But rising Chinese defense capabilities erode American supremacy. China's new anti-carrier weapons endanger U.S. force projection capabilities in the Western Pacific; its anti-satellite programs imperil U.S. global surveillance and communication capabilities; its growing operations in cyberspace menace U.S. government operations and the economy of the American homeland alike. These are serious challenges not just to American hegemony but to core U.S. interests. They have begun to draw a response.

The result is a deeply troubled Sino-American military relationship despite the diminishing prospects for war in the Taiwan Strait. China will persevere in its efforts to build a credible counter to American coercion. The United States will not soon abandon its obsession with the retention of absolute military superiority everywhere. A less hegemonic objective would allow the U.S. to accommodate a more powerful China while retaining the ability to prevail in any conflict with it. As things are, increasingly overt military confrontation between China and the United States is likely.

http://www.mepc.org/articles-commentary ... n-hegemony
Last edited by ThirdTerm on 16 Apr 2017 22:16, edited 1 time in total.
#14797540
ThirdTerm wrote:What's dangerous about the rise of China is that the country is still ruled by the Communist government and it's a close ally of North Korea. The future world dominated by China culture or Chinese civilization would never arrive but China could dominate East Asia militarily, thus displacing American influence in the region.

Very true, that's what I want to remind Jacques about. The ethnic Chinese people from Taiwan who have the same ancestry, have a closer thinking to westerners rather than PRC Chinese, which proved it's not about East Asian culture at all.

One more thing I want to tell is, in recent years especially that after 911 event, the western world is more distracted by the threat from Islam terrorism, which is actually a good news to China - we are more cautious about the Muslim countries and inadvertently feel like China seems more friendly and less harmful. Is that really true? It's worth thinking. By the way I did find Chinese have much in common with Muslim people, compared to either westerners or other East Asian people.
#14797543
I've been banging on about this for years. China is a way off becoming a global superpower for a few reasons which are not about to disappear.

Firstly economics.

It's easy to turn in impressive GDP growth when you have subsistence farmers earning next to nothing and they go and get a job in a factory on $10 a day. However if the average westerner achieves 2% growth on an income of $50k he has gained more in absolute terms than a Chinaman on $10k who increases his income by 8%. China will never catch up at that rate.

It’s much harder to achieve growth in an already developed economy, because you need to invent stuff or improve things which are already efficient. China by and large doesn't invent stuff. They manufacturer stuff with cheap labour and relaxed environmental rules and labour standards.

There are two more rounds of growing pains to come for China. Firstly as people start to demand better environmental protection and labour standards and they must somehow balance this with remaining competitive. Even in a "communist" dictatorship like China wage competition will drive this. Secondly, it it succeeds in that it must move from mass production of cheap goods to high margin goods which people want to buy.

It’s also easy to impress foreign journalists and investors with shiny high rises and expansive industrial parks, but as they have found it isn't always easy to actually fill those buildings with paying tenants.

Then there's demographics. Most countries face an aging population after they have developed economies. China has the double whammy of an aging population and an economy which is in many ways still barely industrialised. They are now relaxing this policy but that will take years to show fruit and is no guarantee of getting the results they want.

Typically countries develop quickly when they have a young population with a low support ratio.

Lastly there's resources. If they do succeed in spurring population growth adding to the 1.3 billion people they need to feed, house, transport and supply with water and electricity then they will need even more oil, water, land, coal and so on. I'm no Malthusian but currently many Chinese cities are already groaning under the strain of their existing populations. Infrastructure is overloaded and services stretched. It’s no good building office blocks and factories in the Gobi desert.

There was some Victorian who said "China is the future, and it always will be." I can never find the quote on Google but it seems as true today as it was in the 19th century.
#14797548
AJS wrote:I've been banging on about this for years. China is a way off becoming a global superpower for a few reasons which are not about to disappear.

Firstly economics.

It's easy to turn in impressive GDP growth when you have subsistence farmers earning next to nothing and they go and get a job in a factory on $10 a day. However if the average westerner achieves 2% growth on an income of $50k he has gained more in absolute terms than a Chinaman on $10k who increases his income by 8%. China will never catch up at that rate.

It’s much harder to achieve growth in an already developed economy, because you need to invent stuff or improve things which are already efficient. China by and large doesn't invent stuff. They manufacturer stuff with cheap labour and relaxed environmental rules and labour standards.

There are two more rounds of growing pains to come for China. Firstly as people start to demand better environmental protection and labour standards and they must somehow balance this with remaining competitive. Even in a "communist" dictatorship like China wage competition will drive this. Secondly, it it succeeds in that it must move from mass production of cheap goods to high margin goods which people want to buy.

It’s also easy to impress foreign journalists and investors with shiny high rises and expansive industrial parks, but as they have found it isn't always easy to actually fill those buildings with paying tenants.

Then there's demographics. Most countries face an aging population after they have developed economies. China has the double whammy of an aging population and an economy which is in many ways still barely industrialised. They are now relaxing this policy but that will take years to show fruit and is no guarantee of getting the results they want.

Typically countries develop quickly when they have a young population with a low support ratio.

Lastly there's resources. If they do succeed in spurring population growth adding to the 1.3 billion people they need to feed, house, transport and supply with water and electricity then they will need even more oil, water, land, coal and so on. I'm no Malthusian but currently many Chinese cities are already groaning under the strain of their existing populations. Infrastructure is overloaded and services stretched. It’s no good building office blocks and factories in the Gobi desert.

There was some Victorian who said "China is the future, and it always will be." I can never find the quote on Google but it seems as true today as it was in the 19th century.


Thanks for your comments on which I generally concur. I found there are generally two attitudes towards how to deal with China that are commonly seen in the west: one is China is harmless, so get as close to them as possible if we can make money; Another is like what Victorian said: it's the end of the world, the west is over, wait for the world ruled by China, we should all learn Mandarin!

If you do have experience in mainland China, it's not hard to find that, which I've heard from many (including Westerners/Japanese/Taiwanese), very hard to communicate with Chinese. Their mentality seems very distinct and hard to understand and I can't imagine a world ruled by such kind of people, as a result I've been told having thoughts more like a Taiwanese.

I'd like to share a chat log I recently had with a peer in China:

Peer: Mainland Chinese are often discriminated against in overseas.
I: How can you assert that, I myself as a mainland Chinese never encountered discrimination as I work in western firms.
Peer: Your example can't represent all.
I: OK, my experience may not be typical enough, so can you give an example and also show us how you define "discrimination" so that we can analyze it.
Peer: There are tons of them you just google it, there's no need to give you here.
I: How can you convince others of your points? by saying "tons of them just google it"? Did you say that when a judge/officer requires evidence from you? Is that the way of debate?
Peer: Because there's no need to show you examples they are so many and so obvious.
I: OK, if you don't like to show an exact example, I show you one: say as a student I got the lowest score in my class, and one of my classmate says "Sasa is ranked last in class for this exam". Tell me did he/she discriminate against me in this case?
Peer:(Avoid answering it) You sound illogical and your level seems so low.
I: You just need to answer me yes or no, nothing else.
Peer: (Other arguments on me rather than the topic itself).
I: I don't understand why you like to give so many evaluations on me rather than answering a simple YES/No question, any difficulty in it?
....

I experienced numerous such kind of communication experience and never with a non-Mainland Chinese. I really can't communicate with them while they tend to be angry in that case. They seem to think based on established prejudice which needs no discussion (and you can't discuss it) and assume everyone else in the world should have the same prejudice otherwise you'd be considered "illogical" or "very low level". Apparently they won't demonstrate how they define "level" or "logic", but just assertions.

Is that a kind of "East Asian culture"? I doubt.
#14797750
Sasa
I have had so many conversations like the one you describe. Not just in China but Singapore, Thailand. Even Arab countries.

The sympathetic view is that they have a more nuanced, consensus driven approach. A more typical response from someone of a similar outlook who disagreed would be "Yes that's true. However also...."

That's how you end up with 6 hour meetings which never conclude anything or "solutions" that appear more like a school project to which everyone contributes rather than an actual response to a defined problem.

A more jaded take on it is that they are so obsessed with face, itself a sensitive codeword for childlike vanity and refusal to take responsibility, that the most basic decisions and most obvious problems go unresolved while the most obviously stupid ideas get the go ahead for the sake of avoiding direct challenges and difficult truths.

Throw in an obsession with projecting an image of wealth and power and working backwards from there to actually achieve it and it's easy to see why China appears to be rising much further and faster than is actually the case.
#14797762
Another is like what Victorian said: it's the end of the world, the west is over, wait for the world ruled by China, we should all learn Mandarin!

That's not quite what the Victorian meant. In fact, it implies the opposite. "China is the future, and it always will be" implies that China will never achieve its full potential, but will always be playing catch-up with the West. China will always be a 'promising' nation; it will always have 'potential'; it will always be the 'future', but that future will always keep receding away into, well, the future. It will never actually arrive. I think he was right. For various cultural and economic reasons, China will almost certainly never dominate the world in the way that the West has dominated it for the past 200 years, and still dominates it. They will become a major player on the world stage (again), but they will never dominate it or manage to subjugate the West or replace its cultural or economic hegemony.
#14797782
The reach of Western dominance is far and wide. I think that any country will have trouble trying to overcome that.

I think that China would face a lot of opposition if they did try to dominate the world. The Western world does not want to change and millions do not want to learn Mandarin. And there is the matter of the RMB vs. the US dollar. The US dollar is one of the standard currencies in the world and that is unlikely to be replaced.
#14797785
MistyTiger wrote:The reach of Western dominance is far and wide. I think that any country will have trouble trying to overcome that.

I think that China would face a lot of opposition if they did try to dominate the world. The Western world does not want to change and millions do not want to learn Mandarin. And there is the matter of the RMB vs. the US dollar. The US dollar is one of the standard currencies in the world and that is unlikely to be replaced.



People live in grass huts with dirt floors 10 miles out of any city in China, they have a long long way to go.
#14798078
No single culture is now going to dominate the world like Europe/NA has for past 200 years, its simply impossible now. So I don't get what "replacing west" means, there is no replacing west, China, India, Arab, South East Asia, Africa they all can have increased share of "pie" and become part of the pie making and distributing procedure which is already happening but they won't be the sole cook and distributor of pie like Europe has been for 200-300 years, that bus is missed now. Unless of course something like Europe nuking the shot out of itself happens.
#14798094
AJS wrote:Sasa
I have had so many conversations like the one you describe. Not just in China but Singapore, Thailand. Even Arab countries.

The sympathetic view is that they have a more nuanced, consensus driven approach. A more typical response from someone of a similar outlook who disagreed would be "Yes that's true. However also...."

That's how you end up with 6 hour meetings which never conclude anything or "solutions" that appear more like a school project to which everyone contributes rather than an actual response to a defined problem.

A more jaded take on it is that they are so obsessed with face, itself a sensitive codeword for childlike vanity and refusal to take responsibility, that the most basic decisions and most obvious problems go unresolved while the most obviously stupid ideas get the go ahead for the sake of avoiding direct challenges and difficult truths.

Throw in an obsession with projecting an image of wealth and power and working backwards from there to actually achieve it and it's easy to see why China appears to be rising much further and faster than is actually the case.


Interested to know such sort of mentality also exists among Singaporeans/Southeast Asians. I just had experience with Chinese/Taiwanese/Japanese, among which mainland Chinese appear most impressive.

A very similarity among those people is, they seem to have been infused a strong belief/ideology which is untouchable. As a result you would easily find the more difficult to communicate the more taboos they have, and if you disagree on some common-sense according to their "holy ideology", you'll be thought undoubtedly "low level person". Rationality appears so weak for them in favor of a predefined belief. And not surprisingly, their mentality are very little known by westerners though all of them physically live in a same country - thanks to the increasingly divided self-segregation with the name of "Multiculturalism" and "Integration". Many Chinese migrants although having lived in the west for decades and granted citizenship, still live and think like a native Chinese.

The main problem I care about here is not segregation or anything like that, but China seems to be colonizing the western nations through sending loyal migrants and economic intrusion. In the mean time they are not prepared to become mentally westernized anytime soon (their isolated communities are becoming larger and larger), what do you think about the long-term consequence?

Potemkin wrote:That's not quite what the Victorian meant. In fact, it implies the opposite. "China is the future, and it always will be" implies that China will never achieve its full potential, but will always be playing catch-up with the West. China will always be a 'promising' nation; it will always have 'potential'; it will always be the 'future', but that future will always keep receding away into, well, the future. It will never actually arrive. I think he was right. For various cultural and economic reasons, China will almost certainly never dominate the world in the way that the West has dominated it for the past 200 years, and still dominates it. They will become a major player on the world stage (again), but they will never dominate it or manage to subjugate the West or replace its cultural or economic hegemony.


I (as well as many scholars) fully concur on what you said, and I don't think the status of China today any different from that in late 19th century when Manchurian Qing ruled. Nonetheless many people like Martin Jacques like to persuade us, China will overtake the west for which we have to be prepared. I don't think that kind of sentiment has any positive impact. What we need is the cautiousness with such potential threat rather than surrender : "western dominance has been something in the past, no way to change that".

I recall in the company I previously worked in, during a weekend party I said I appreciated a lot the freedom and democracy here, my supervisor replied we shouldn't be complacent on what we've got, but treasure it and be careful that we may lose them one day who knows. With the existential threats from Islamic extremists/Russia/China/North Korea, he doesn't seem to be joking.

MistyTiger wrote:The reach of Western dominance is far and wide. I think that any country will have trouble trying to overcome that.

I think that China would face a lot of opposition if they did try to dominate the world. The Western world does not want to change and millions do not want to learn Mandarin. And there is the matter of the RMB vs. the US dollar. The US dollar is one of the standard currencies in the world and that is unlikely to be replaced.

The fundamental distinction between English-speaking-world impact and its Mandarin counterpart is, the former is based on the internal soft power that attracts people to approach it spontaneously. I myself as an engineer who likes science/technology started reading cutting-edge materials written in English simply because that's the most useful language, not mention other factors like American movies etc. By contrast, the Chinese communist is promoting Mandarin by funding schools (well, they can use whatever fund they like without restrictions) in overseas countries, what's the result? Whoever actually appropriate Mandarin/PRC culture from the bottom of their hearts, other than gaining profits with businesses such as setting up low cost & high pollution factories in China - you can't say those guys really like China, they just like the money from China.

Furthermore, the Chinese communist has no genuine intention to dominate the world - they just want to sustain their dictatorship in ruling China. Ideally they can be fully open and friendly to the western world and just gain what they want, however the reality is they fear the westernization would sooner or later lead to the democratic reform, that's why realistically they have to "fight the west" - not in order to defeat the west but to survive. Many western scholars typically like Martin Jacques haven't seen through this phenomenon, if they were not paid by China.
#14798143
@Sasa
I don't see at the moment any serious problems arising from Chinese migration and settlement into the west.

I don't see isolated ghettos where western laws are routinely ignored.

I don't see crime or violence from Chinese migrants to any greater extent than any other group. Possibly less.

I don't see reliance on welfare as a way of life.

I don't see any real effort to alter laws, introduce positive discrimination or otherwise gain political power to the exclusion of other groups.

I don't see an affinity to China on a cultural level as being at the expense of loyalty to the west on a political level.

It may be that i don't see those things because I am not exposed to them every day, and because I don't live in an area with a huge Chinese population. But at the moment I don't see them.

Ultimately I don't see a great appetite for political hegemony from Chinese migrants in the west or even from mainland China itself.
#14798149
sasa wrote:The main problem I care about here is not segregation or anything like that, but China seems to be colonizing the western nations through sending loyal migrants and economic intrusion. In the mean time they are not prepared to become mentally westernized anytime soon (their isolated communities are becoming larger and larger), what do you think about the long-term consequence?

I think it is similar to my experience with a lot of westernized liberals. Both sides are pretty darn stubborn and I never try to argue if they are not ready to listen. But to be frank I don't think the "universal progressive values" are any less flawed than Chinese ones.

Let me play the devil's advocate here - I think these kind of discussions mostly misses the point. China will change the global decision structure and challenge a lot of "universal values" dictated by progressive/liberals, but never, ever displace or replace western dominance, nor intend to. Anyone who tells you otherwise, including the patriotic Chinese mob, is delusional.

But to actually understand China, you will need to change your cultural lens, and stop trying to label China in good / evil, democratic / tyrannical dimensions. This is the whole reason why "experts" have been predicting the fall of China 50 years straight and kept failing. Some of the posters I see here just cannot resist insulting China, "expressing concerns about human rights", put China in the same group with N Korea/Iran for easy basket hatred... so on and so forth, and fail their predictions every time.

A fundamental source of conflict is that the social contract between the Government and the people is different. In a Westernized government, a government is supposed to just be a caretaker of public services, and the private sector ("The people") take the reins. A government's main focus should be balancing acts between different parties. In collective/authoritarian settings, government is the main planner of the development of the entire nation, and holds significant resources in the form of taxes, information and the SOE dominated economy. They play a game of "Simon says", where the private sector will try to understand and sometimes influence government objectives, then place bets on it.

A Westernized bureaucrat will look at the Chinese government and think "Wow, what a load of crazy slogans", and a Chinese bureaucrat will look back and think "So what do you guys even do at work?" They will never agree with each other on how to rule.

But the fact remains, authoritarianism works in large developing countries, when you need to consolidate great power to achieve great nation building projects. When you need to build a railway, you don't discuss and vote with each district you pass through, you build it. When you pursue environmental reforms, polluting factories cannot escape to another province with a different set of policy. Everything is planned and done on a great scale, and with the great scale there are often failed projects here and there, which is often used as basket dismissal for the entire system by liberals. It's not a perfect system, but if you dismiss its merits entirely, you will never understand China (Or any authoritarian country on that regard). Look no further to India, who had a much more advanced economy than China before the cultural revolution. Mao even gave them another 20 years head start - and look where we stand now. I believe it is because of a relatively lack of central power, their system often hit gridlocks and is unable to effectively execute many needed reforms. Sorry @fuser . :excited:

However, a system like that works only with society engineered to support it. Of my years spent in China, most Chinese are not people that I share similar values with. They worship authorities (Experts, experienced people, elders, organizations with a serious name... etc), they mostly believe that good governance includes the responsibility to provide moral guidance, including censorship to undesirable morals (Most westerners would have said "put your goddamn nose out of my business you government wankers"), they also criticize the government often but can be incredibly hostile to rival countries. In short, commoners are a bit similar to drones in a bee colony - but elites are a different story. Of all the nationalities I spoke to, it is often the small handful of Chinese elites that have deepest insights on any topic I want to talk about, and I continue to learn from them and manage to amaze people just by showing scraps of their wisdom - without telling them that's from mainland China. (Spoken from experience at work...) It had been like that for various industries I worked with.

Putting it together, is a highly collective system with incredibly smart, small handful of super elites up top and equally powerful and unquestioning execution below. It has been a similar system for thousands of years, when you look at historical teachings and their education system - the Chinese had not changed that much. Democracy, on the other hand, is a beautiful ideal that doesn't seem to fit anywhere in this grand picture.

(TL:DR) That finally brought me back on topic why China will never dominate. China is very much an inward looking nation that is able to execute on an amazing scale, because of its relatively homogeneous population. It's one of the hardest culture to integrate to, which is why they will never be able to win the hearts and minds of other countries, nor collaborate with them easily - both essential elements to dominate. But they will win on nation building initiatives within its own borders. I think notwithstanding any catastrophe, China will remain a strong regional power, but unlikely a global one for the foreseeable future.
#14798151
AJS wrote:@Sasa
I don't see at the moment any serious problems arising from Chinese migration and settlement into the west.

I don't see isolated ghettos where western laws are routinely ignored.

I don't see crime or violence from Chinese migrants to any greater extent than any other group. Possibly less.

I don't see reliance on welfare as a way of life.

I don't see any real effort to alter laws, introduce positive discrimination or otherwise gain political power to the exclusion of other groups.

I don't see an affinity to China on a cultural level as being at the expense of loyalty to the west on a political level.

It may be that i don't see those things because I am not exposed to them every day, and because I don't live in an area with a huge Chinese population. But at the moment I don't see them.

Ultimately I don't see a great appetite for political hegemony from Chinese migrants in the west or even from mainland China itself.


You are a typical western guy who knows little about China and hasn't realized the potential threat from China (on the opposite side of Martin Jacques who believes the world should surrender to China sooner or later) - saying from a guy who was born and raised in mainland China, I guess you live in the U.S., you can't think simply compare Chinese to African/Latino Americans - that is to say China plans to buy up the western countries in the end. I probably would give a few details later on if you are interested in this topic.
#14798153
@Sasa, I don't think bring born in mainland China gives you that much credibility. It's too big of a topic and I think everybody is at a 瞎子摸象 state depending on angles. I have met plenty of Chinese liberals that are hellbent on believing that everything CCP does is evil and US is a sacred country and everybody lives by his standard of holy Chinese moralistic ideals.
And the same time the patriotic mob who will swing a bat at anything not patriotic enough.
All of these people are born and raised in the mainland.
#14798154
I wasn't comparing China as a whole to those groups, just pointing out that some of the cultural norms In China are not unique to China but common in much of the world.

I would be interested to hear more about where you think the danger lies.

So far the Gulf states seem much more interested in using their wealth for political advantage, though it may be that the Chinese are just more subtle/better at it.

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