One major difference between the West and China is that although in the West we see different epochs as the rise and fall of different civilizations, in China, the idea is that the same Chinese civilization has been rising and falling rhythmically with periods of prosperity and others of decline.
It can be argued that this is an illusion as in Europe the Roman civilization never completely disappear. Today we still live mostly with Roman law, as for the Vatican, it is still at the center of the christian "world" and very much a Roman entity. In the end, the main difference is that in China, the Chinese language remained over the centuries whereas in Europe, Latin was slowly replace by local vernacular languages and cultures so that over time the older "Greco-Roman" culture faded in the background, although it never truly disappeared.
Ask the French about their origin and they will proudly tell you a story concocted in the 19th Century of local "Gaulois" conquered by Jules Cesar in the 1st Century BCE to become Gallo-romans and later invaded by the Germans and other tribes. Mostly the Franks whence the name of the country, the famous "barbarians". This is a myth. The local populations had already been replaced by the Celts in the 7th Century BCE before the Roman conquest and what the Latins called "Gaul" was two distinct areas, Gaul Cisalpine, the North of Italy and Gaul Transalpine, the South of France which had been trading heavily with Rome long before Jules Cesar and were consequently peacefully annexed unlike the North of France and the South of Belgium which were indeed conquered and mostly destroyed. Let's not mention the Vikings who were later given "Normandy" (from their original name: The "Nord-man".)
If you look at China's history closely, you will find similar patterns, with an older "core" and later Mongol invaders who over time became "Chinese", just as Clovis became a christian and Charlemagne considered himself a Roman Emperor in 800 CE. So the interesting question is: Why such a fundamental difference of perception for similar realities?
My personal interpretation after traveling all over Europe and China is that this is mostly due to the unification power of the rivers! China has always been centered on the Yangtze, The giant river at the core of the country whereas Europe is locally centered on much smaller rivers like the Rhine, the Danube, the Seine, the Loire, the Rhone, the Po and the Guadalquivir. Historically, the power of the Yangtze and the culture it gave rise to was overwhelming, when China was strong, the culture shined over East Asia, when it was weaker, the empire fell and broke up to be reunified later. The other rivers, mainly the Huang Ho and the Mekong were never important enough to resist the centrifugal pull of the center. (中国, China, means Central country!)
And this brings us to modern China and modern Europe and their amazing similarities. In both case, you have a bureaucracy which challenge is to unify to increase its control over the largest possible territory and population for self aggrandizement and sheer power without realizing that in doing so you actually weaken the system as fewer ideas are tested and implemented.
The best example of this principle is multi-polar Renaissance Europe vs centralized Ming China. China already had the printing press, paper money, trade and complex organization when Europe remained relatively backward. But within a couple of centuries, the same elements tested diversely in Europe created the potent mix of the industrial revolution whereas in more centralized China, nothing much happened.
What does this tell us about the future? Likely that neither China nor unified Europe will lead the next revolution towards the future. Not because these countries will lack the ability to innovate, but because the central authorities will make choices, sometimes the right ones, often the wrong ones and whenever a bad choice is made, moving back will mostly be impossible due to the weight of the central bureaucracy.
The article below fits perfectly in this framework. Deng Xiaoping understood that China needed to be modernized and launched the process. But it is Zhu Rongji after him who developed the ideas and helped China diversify away from the tyrannical Mao Zedong principles. To finally fall back with the current leadership of Xi Jinping who believe that centralization is more important than diversification. (Which as we demonstrated above is historically incorrect.)
Of course, a country like China is an exceptionally complex entity so the brief sketch above can only present some elements. It can be argued that the current real estate bubble in China from which the country is finding no exit for the time being, just like Japan earlier, is partly due to local governments over-speculating on land and investment. (Although I believe this valid argument can be countered by the fact that other investment vehicles were not available and that consequently the Chinese chose the best option left which was to put all their eggs in the same real estate basket.)
But these centralized systems both in Europe and in China show the same failure mode: The inability to reverse course as discussed earlier. In Europe, it is the suicidal Green Agenda, well intentioned but wrong headed which will kill the European economy long before it saves the planet. In China, it is the impossibility to discuss the Communist Party's diktat which was recently displayed during the Covid Crisis when the over-reaction of the authorities ended up damaging Chinese society even deeper than in Europe with extreme and completely unnecessary measures like barricading whole cities and worse, damaging trust in the system and long term growth to this day.
Finally, this lesson from China can be generalized to all empires. While they strive to unify, they prosper and as soon as the unification has succeeded, the seeds of the decline are planted by a rigid system which ultimately bankrupts itself trying to sustain a paradigm less and less adapted to the new circumstances. Japan over the last 30 years. Europe today, China tomorrow?
by Heng He via The Epoch Times,
Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, the hard-edged reformer who engineered China's rise from planned-economy backwater to global manufacturing giant, died this month at the age of 97.
His legacy-tax centralization, mass layoffs, China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and a brief, forgotten moment of tolerance toward Falun Gong-now stands as both the foundation of modern China's wealth and a stark reminder of how easily that progress can be reversed.
Zhu's Legacy of Economic Reform
After the decade-long Cultural Revolution pushed the regime to the brink, then-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Deng Xiaoping pivoted China toward market reforms. He relied on pragmatic trial and error rather than a rigid master plan, describing his step-by-step approach as "crossing the river by feeling the stones."
Zhu executed that vision. As vice premier and premier from 1991 to 2003, China's "economic tsar" used iron-fisted reforms to engineer the country's rise, including restructuring fiscal policy, dismantling inefficient state-owned enterprises, and securing China's entry into the WTO.
Zhu was officially credited with advancing China's landmark tax-sharing reform in the 1990s, which centralized much of the country's tax revenue in Beijing. That reform undeniably strengthened the central government.
However, it stripped local governments of steady tax income, forcing them to rely on selling land to fund local budgets. Paired with state ownership of land, this shift created a "land-finance" model that drove housing prices sky-high and triggered today's ongoing property crisis.
It isn't the tax reform alone that is to blame. China's system of state and collective land ownership is what enabled large-scale land sales in the first place.
The obituary also praises Zhu for safeguarding Hong Kong's status as a global financial center. Ironically, Hong Kong's diminished standing today stems largely from policies adopted under CCP leader Xi Jinping-making praise for Zhu an implicit rebuke of China's current leadership.
WTO Entry-and Its Costs
One of Zhu's most consequential achievements was leading China to join the WTO in 2001.
To prepare the country for global trade, Zhu aggressively restructured inefficient state-owned enterprises. While this boosted efficiency, it triggered mass layoffs, displacing tens of millions of workers.
Unlike post-Cold War America, China's nascent private sector was too weak to absorb the surge of unemployed labor.
The aggressive restructuring stripped millions of workers of their livelihoods, leaving them with virtually no safety net. While the reforms eventually sparked massive economic growth, the workers who bore the cost were largely left behind without fair compensation.
The Premier Who Called Out Shoddy Construction
When the Yangtze River dikes failed during the 1998 summer floods, Zhu inspected the breach in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, and discovered that the construction had cut corners and used shoddy materials. Furious, he publicly denounced the dam as a "bastard project" and dubbed it a "tofu-dregs project"-comparing the crumbling concrete to the brittle, worthless pulp residue left over from making soy curd.
As long as corruption remains a recurring public concern in China, the term "tofu-dreg project" will likely remain part of the country's political vocabulary and a defining mark of Zhu's legacy.
The Premier Who Listened-Meeting With Falun Gong
One episode stands apart from Zhu's economic legacy. In the late 1990s, Zhu and the entire Politburo Standing Committee opposed then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin's decision to suppress Falun Gong, according to insider accounts.
On April 25, 1999, roughly 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered peacefully near Zhongnanhai, the CCP's headquarters, in Beijing to petition the authorities for freedom of belief. Earlier in the month, dozens of practitioners in Tianjin had been detained by local police for their faith.
In a bold move for an official, Zhu met directly with representatives, listened to their grievances, and ordered the release of the detained practitioners, along with an assurance that practitioners would have a lawful environment in which to pursue their practice.
The spiritual discipline was introduced to the Chinese public in 1992 and gained widespread popularity, attracting at least 70 million practitioners by the late 1990s.
At an internal leadership meeting the following day, according to insider accounts, Zhu suggested that suppression would harm the country's image and that the regime should leave Falun Gong practitioners alone. Jiang, afraid of the practice's growing popularity, responded that doing so would bring down the Party.
Months later, Jiang launched a sweeping, nationwide campaign against Falun Gong-initiating a persecution that continues today.
Reform Can Be Reversed Overnight
Zhu's death cast an unexpected shadow over Xi's plans to commemorate Jiang with unusually high political honors, an effort intended to elevate Jiang alongside the CCP's founding generation. Instead of highlighting Jiang's legacy, Zhu's passing reminded the public that the reforms of China's most prosperous era owed far more to Zhu.
It was Zhu who was behind Deng and the CCP in launching the Shanghai Stock Exchange in December 1990-now a global financial powerhouse that hosts major state-owned enterprise listings.
Although Zhu was the official most responsible for driving China's reform era, Xi's policies have now largely dismantled that work. That contrast reveals the ultimate lesson of Zhu's legacy: under totalitarian rule, no amount of reform is secure-it can all be undone overnight.
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