🧵Remember how, because of “globalization,” communist China was to become more open, more democratic, more like us-to quote a former U.S. official: “a responsible stakeholder in the international system”? This was nonsense, showing how little we understood culture and history.1/
Here is a small example of how off-base we were: EY China staff is being encouraged to wear Communist party badges on.ft.com/3Y4843K Rather than democratizing, the PRC has reasserted its commitment to the very ideology that, in CCP’s view, made China’s rise possible. 2/
Had we paused for a minute in 1991 and thought of what happens each time a country rapidly modernizes, three things hold: 1. The country becomes more geostrategically assertive and expansionist; 2. The leadership and political class become more self-confident; and finally, 3/
Rapid modernization strengthens the extant ideological and axiological underpinnings of the state and society. Simply put: It reaffirms and consolidates the institutions of the state and society that are being credited with the country’s modernization and economic success. 4/
Did we really believe that, once modernized, #PRC would follow a different path and not reaffirm the culture, ideology and its state model? The assumption that trade with and investment in China would democratize it was folly. Instead, it strengthened the PRC—our adversary. End/
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