Misunderstandings and Predictions about China gone wrong

Everything you’ve ever read about China in western mainstream media is wrong — everything.

So many experts get so many things wrong about China that it would be impossible in one video or article to do justice to so much misunderstanding. Instead, here are just a few of the more commonly heard predictions, accusations and allegations about China, first the big one:

China is collapsing — but it isn’t. Covid slowed China’s growth but there has been constant and positive growth, it’s still forecast to grow even stronger as it goes through the current Covid issues where many people have caught the virus. What the reports will scream at you is “China’s economic growth slumps.” But, when you read the report you find that, despite the wording showing horror stories of slumps, there was still, unlike the USA, UK and most European countries — positive growth. In America the government redefined what a recession is to prove they aren’t in one. They don’t show growth, they report losses but they redefine them as “negative growth”.

Which country is more likely to experience an economic collapse? The one that’s constantly growing, but growing a little slower than previously, or the one that needs to invent new terms to hoodwink their public by creating new terms to describe old failures?

Second one is: China opened too soon — but it didn’t. Experts complained loud and long that China needed to open as it was affecting the economy and people’s livelihoods. China waited until the right time to open and they opened. Remember when they didn’t open there was criticism, now they have opened, there’s criticism — they could never have won that particular debate.

Here’s another wrong prediction: China is authoritarian — but it isn’t. We saw a lot of protests and there were international media crews present at many of them. Look how many people you saw shot, or shot at or tear gassed, that would be none. How many rubber bullets were expended in those recent protests? Again, that would be none. BBC and CNN among others are still, a month later, scouring the streets attempting to find people who will complain about the government but struggling to do so. Assuming they are real journalists, they would have sent people to the hospitals to see how many protesters needed treatment for injuries ,the injuries received from police beatings and, again, that would be none — if there were, you can guarantee they would have hit headlines around the world.

Yet another misinterpretation is that China is undemocratic — but it isn’t. The Chinese people, when asked are very happy about the state of their democracy, the only problem is, no one asks them. The experts like to say their country has the best form of democracy so, a Chinese person’s opinion on democracy isn’t valid to them. China’s leaders go through a process of education, qualification, election and selection and further election to get to higher posts, it’s incredibly democratic, just not the same as being able to vote for the person with the largest budget who gets the most advertising space.

Some experts also think China is poor — but it isn’t. China has the world’s largest middle class, it isn’t the richest country by a long way and even though it has the second highest GDP in the world, it has such a large population that the per capita GDP is still relatively small. However, that isn’t a good measure of how rich a country is. What Chinese people earn is enough, for most of them to buy what they need and that’s the important thing, not how much money you get, but how far does that money go in giving you the lifestyle you want. Parts of the USA are so bad that they’ve created another new term to describe one lifestyle: vehicle residency, wow, that describes the number of people who can’t afford to buy or rent a home, so they live in their car. China isn’t that poor.

Other experts think China is rich — but it isn’t. it’s impossible to say a country that has so recently lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty is rich, rural China is still extremely poor, what we don’t see is anyone homeless, everyone gets to go to school even medical care isn’t going to send you to the bankruptcy courts and contrary to western media and some “expert opinions”, almost everyone is covered by at least some form of medical insurance and Universal coverage. And, where it’s needed to be paid for, the costs of treatments are considerably lower than the west.

So, then experts move to suggesting that China is expanding militarily — but it isn’t. There are a couple of bases in the South China Seas, that much is true, but where exactly is the South China Sea? Just off the coast of South China, so it’s hardly an expansion. There are some disputes but even China’s neighbours aren’t really angry with China, certainly not as angry as western media would have you believe, the President of the Philippines was in China just a few days ago talking about this. His comment: “the maritime issues don’t define the totality of our relationship.” The President of Vietnam had two very cordial meetings with Xi Jinping in October and November last year, there were no serious issues about the South China Sea islands only that they would “consolidate the traditional friendship… and properly manage differences”.

The only other military expansion is where the People’s Liberation Army and Navy are working with US French and Japanese forces in Djibouti, the Horn of Africa. A Reuters report in 2017 claimed there had been speculation that China would build more of these in places like Pakistan — to this date, 5 years later, they still haven’t nor have they released any plans that they might.

Every other allegation of military expansion is nothing of the sort, for example, the Security Agreement recently signed with the Solomon Islands precludes a military presence while the US and Australia suggest there could be one, both China and the Solomon Islands say there won’t be one.

So, they go on to suggest that China is a threat — but it isn’t. It’s fair to say China has built up the largest army in the world, they’re in the process of building the largest navy too. But it’s equally as fair to note that since Barak Obama decided to “Pivot to Asia” there’s been an incredible amount of posturing, threatening and even placement of American forces in the region. Australia has 2,500 US Marines and the US will also place nuclear capable B52 Bombers there. US military has 55,000 troops in Okinawa, 28,500 in Korea, more in Guam and Palau as well as many other places all pointing and designed in their own words to “counter China”. Even worse, whilst agreeing to the One-China Policy, the US has also, by its own, and the admission of Tsai Ling Wen, placed US troops in the province of Taiwan.

Who is the threat here. The country with a history of invasions, interdictions and military operations, as well as boots and equipment on the ground, or the country that, within and around its own borders does what it can to keep them out?

Then they will tell you that China is corrupt and inefficient — but it isn’t. China’s infrastructure, the government and administration have changed very much over the years and particularly since Xi Jinping came to power. Where there was once rife corruption and inefficiencies apparent everywhere, they no longer exist. It’s not to say there aren’t still some inefficiencies or even some corruption but the fact is, there is a lot less and it’s still, as mentioned in Xi’s October address to the Communist Party Congress, a lot of work to do, but it’s getting done. The world’s longest bridges, the worlds largest high-speed train system, a space station and exploration of the Moon and Mars, the handling of a pandemic where very few people died and many lives were saved, the greatest increases in renewable energy sources at the same time as the biggest reductions in urban pollution have all occurred in the last 10 years in China. None of those could have happened in a corrupt or inefficient system.

Things change in China fast, very fast. Experts who were here 10 years ago are already so far out of touch that they have no knowledge of the China are supposed to be expert on. Those so-called experts who have never set foot in China have even less of a chance to get things right. Yet for some strange reason, those are the people we see on global media, those are the people mainstream media contacts for opinions and, despite them being so wrong so often, we still keep seeing them.

It honestly appears that there are some things western governments just don’t want to get right about China; they really are asking the wrong people the wrong questions and getting the wrong answers. Or, perhaps they are asking the right people the right questions and getting the right answers to keep their people misinformed about the only real threat that China actually poses.

And this is a real threat; countries with rising crime, rising poverty, increasing substance abuse, higher government spending with decreases in government support and less official accountability as well as reductions job security, declining health and educational outcomes they’re all at risk of finding out something very dangerous to stability of their country: The threat is that people will discover they’ve been lied to and demand better of their own governments.