Some thoughts regarding China...
I recently finished reading "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations".
It details the ebbs and flows of national powers across the globe over the course of centuries, with a focus on trade, resources and technology. -It wasn't making, as far as I could tell, a deliberate statement; it was more an info-dump history lesson, however...
A big pattern which stood out was that human behavior remains fairly consistent across time and geography; greed, corruption, trade and often the use of military strength all actively follow the silent bidding of wealth and resources. Power invariably sits with the nations with the most advanced technology and the cultural ability to most efficiently mobilize it.
Backs are always stabbed, resources are always funneled away, secrets are always stolen, and sabotage is always perpetrated against competitors. -Basically, the path of least resistive exploitation is always followed. And, of course, psychopaths are ever at the top. -If somebody has something of value, it is simply a matter of efficient economic sense, (on both the individual and national basis), to exploit it; if money is laying around, if you don't scoop it up, somebody else will, and who gets it first? Why, the party with the most easy power at hand and the ability to exercise it effectively. It doesn't even have to be outwardly offensive or mean-spirited, though it may look and feel that way to observers in the moment, (and actually, often is, psychopaths being what they are), but really it's more like water seeking its own level.
Consequently, China can naturally be expected to exercise these human capacities to their logical, most efficient extent in its efforts to advance power, because that's just how the human machine works. So yes, of course China has agents of every type, political, industrial and financial, operating where there is gain to be made. I've met them. Operating legally or illegally; if it's easy and you can get away with it, who cares? I don't doubt for an instant that segments of the Chinese power base would try to leverage political advantage in America by manipulating its politics, up to and including whole elections. Why not? What is there to lose? A motivated operative can make personal millions, and when it comes down to it, that's all that matters. Individuals operating according to selfish ends, in aggregate, determine national outcomes. The rest is just fanfare.
I lived in a house where a guy from China came to stay for a year. What a strange dude! He was a middle-aged man, arrived with barely any English, and was comically excited about finding business deals, buying local products cheap and unique to our region and selling them at a high profit back home. He was here to make his fortune! The streets were paved with gold, you see. That was his personal and cultural imperative. It has been observed, "What does a Chinese child want to be when he grows up? To be the owner of a successful company! What does an American child want? To be a social media star." Multiply that pattern by millions, and the result is a shift in global power.
According to the pattern, it can also be expected that a rising nation will lose momentum after a few generations, focus will slip, corruption overtakes and it becomes too costly to update or maintain infrastructure to meet the demands of new technologies, will flail around in its decline to be finally replaced by another power which is starting fresh (for whatever reason). Predictable as dominoes.
Right now, America feels its power fading, and it sees whose power is rising and naturally labels them, "Enemy!" -By way of previous example, Japan, when it found itself on the bum end of the equation during the age of emperors, attempted radical fixes, slaughtering entire swaths of society aligned with European and Christian powers, blockading their island nation. It worked for a few decades but changes came anyway; power and trade leaked through willing cracks. Eventually they buckled down and created their own world-shaping force through intense hard work, invention and cagey business practice.
I recently finished reading "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations".
It details the ebbs and flows of national powers across the globe over the course of centuries, with a focus on trade, resources and technology. -It wasn't making, as far as I could tell, a deliberate statement; it was more an info-dump history lesson, however...
A big pattern which stood out was that human behavior remains fairly consistent across time and geography; greed, corruption, trade and often the use of military strength all actively follow the silent bidding of wealth and resources. Power invariably sits with the nations with the most advanced technology and the cultural ability to most efficiently mobilize it.
Backs are always stabbed, resources are always funneled away, secrets are always stolen, and sabotage is always perpetrated against competitors. -Basically, the path of least resistive exploitation is always followed. And, of course, psychopaths are ever at the top. -If somebody has something of value, it is simply a matter of efficient economic sense, (on both the individual and national basis), to exploit it; if money is laying around, if you don't scoop it up, somebody else will, and who gets it first? Why, the party with the most easy power at hand and the ability to exercise it effectively. It doesn't even have to be outwardly offensive or mean-spirited, though it may look and feel that way to observers in the moment, (and actually, often is, psychopaths being what they are), but really it's more like water seeking its own level.
Consequently, China can naturally be expected to exercise these human capacities to their logical, most efficient extent in its efforts to advance power, because that's just how the human machine works. So yes, of course China has agents of every type, political, industrial and financial, operating where there is gain to be made. I've met them. Operating legally or illegally; if it's easy and you can get away with it, who cares? I don't doubt for an instant that segments of the Chinese power base would try to leverage political advantage in America by manipulating its politics, up to and including whole elections. Why not? What is there to lose? A motivated operative can make personal millions, and when it comes down to it, that's all that matters. Individuals operating according to selfish ends, in aggregate, determine national outcomes. The rest is just fanfare.
I lived in a house where a guy from China came to stay for a year. What a strange dude! He was a middle-aged man, arrived with barely any English, and was comically excited about finding business deals, buying local products cheap and unique to our region and selling them at a high profit back home. He was here to make his fortune! The streets were paved with gold, you see. That was his personal and cultural imperative. It has been observed, "What does a Chinese child want to be when he grows up? To be the owner of a successful company! What does an American child want? To be a social media star." Multiply that pattern by millions, and the result is a shift in global power.
According to the pattern, it can also be expected that a rising nation will lose momentum after a few generations, focus will slip, corruption overtakes and it becomes too costly to update or maintain infrastructure to meet the demands of new technologies, will flail around in its decline to be finally replaced by another power which is starting fresh (for whatever reason). Predictable as dominoes.
Right now, America feels its power fading, and it sees whose power is rising and naturally labels them, "Enemy!" -By way of previous example, Japan, when it found itself on the bum end of the equation during the age of emperors, attempted radical fixes, slaughtering entire swaths of society aligned with European and Christian powers, blockading their island nation. It worked for a few decades but changes came anyway; power and trade leaked through willing cracks. Eventually they buckled down and created their own world-shaping force through intense hard work, invention and cagey business practice.
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That's after they throw a temper tantrum and try to burn the place down.
