The Failure of the Chinese Model

The ongoing collapse of the Chinese national economy should not be surprising.  Although their unfounded economic success has become a cause-célèbre among those who cheer any sign of American decline, the secret, hidden in plain sight, is that their model of totalitarian capitalism is an oxymoron.  The time-tested history of centralized economic planning has been disastrous everywhere it has been tried.  Idealized political and economic central planning, coupled with the coerced motivation of the working masses, is not a desirable formula for any society; it will never outcompete the situational ingenuity and self-interest-driven energy of free societies.

Totalitarian political systems, whether coupled with socialist economic systems in the communist model or artificially married to a pseudo-free enterprise economy, are intrinsically evil; they force their citizens to live in Godless societies with repressed personal ambition.  China has played the wolf in sheep's clothing long enough.  Together with Russia, what President Reagan described as the "evil empire" is very much alive.  Not so long ago, China dispatched an army tank to machine gun down a peaceful demonstrator in their capital city of Beijing's central square of Tiananmen.  Today, China has been using the bonanza of its Wal-Mart market to anesthetize its angry masses, as well as to bully its neighbors.  Their society is a simmering volcano because their people, like humans everywhere, yearn to be free.

Their house of cards is coming down, and they will probably latch out to "wag the dog," but it's already clear that the emperor has no clothes. If they expect to have continued access to our bountiful market, it is high time for America to demand from China fair trade practices and an end to their territorial overreach.