P*K
发帖数: 74 | 1 Rise of the Hans
Why a dominant China could spark tribal warfare.
BY JOEL KOTKIN | JANUARY 17, 2011
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/17/rise_of_the_ha
page=0,0
When Chinese President Hu Jintao comes to Washington this week, there
aren't likely to be many surprises: Hu and Barack Obama will probably
keep their conversation to a fairly regulated script, focusing on trade
and North Korea and offering the expected viewpoints on both. But seen
from a different angle, everything in that conversation could be
predicted, not from current events but from longstanding tribal
patterns.
With China's new prominence in global affairs, the Han race, which
constitutes 90 percent of the Chinese population, is suddenly the most
dominant cohesive ethnic group in the world -- and it is seeking to
remain that way through strategic alliances, aggressive trade policy,
and attacks on racial minorities within the country's boundaries. The
less tribally cohesive, more fragmented West is, meanwhile, losing out.
Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a book called Tribes that sought to trace
the role of ethnicity, race, and religion in economic and geopolitical
affairs. At the time, there was some skepticism about the continuing
influence of ethnicity; some considered the work, frankly, regressive
and racist. Now, however, my thesis from 1992 has really come to
fruition. We are living in the age of tribes -- and China is just the
start.
Such primitive racial instincts were supposed to be long ago passé:
We're supposed to be living in Thomas Friedman's "flat" world or Kenichi
Ohmae's "borderless world." By now, supposedly, everyone is increasingly
interconnected and undifferentiated. Affairs should be managed neatly by
deracinated professionals, working on their iPads from Brussels,
Washington, or any of the other "global" capitals.
But most people do not really see themselves as members of a large
multinational unit, global citizens, or "mass consumers." Instead the
drivers of history remain the essentials: the desire to feed one's
family, support the health of the tribe, and shape the immediate
community. The particularistic continues to trump the universalistic.
This has only become more evident as our world becomes more multipolar.
During the 19th and much of the 20th century, the world was dominated by
a European capitalist mindset that glossed over many of the ethnic and
racial differences simmering under the surface in the regions under its
rule. Particular groups, including Chinese, Muslims, or Hindu Indians,
might have harbored a sense of unique identity but, for the most part,
either melded into the Euro-American mold, or, after the Russian
Revolution of 1917, into the alternative Soviet one.
Today this has changed dramatically, as once suppressed racial and
ethnic groups express their power on a global level. The rise of Chinese
national identity, increasingly stripped of its socialist clothing, must
be seen as the driving force behind the new tribalism. The country's re-
emergence as a great world power expresses the cultural ascendency not
so much of Marxism or Maoism but of the Han race, which in only a few
decades could control the world's largest economy.
This represents a major shift in the identity of the Chinese tribe, a
combination of political and economic power with a very homogeneous
worldview. The best way to explain China's economic and foreign policy
is most accurately seen as a tribal expression of what Friedrich
Nietzsche called a "will to power." Essentially, the Han has become a
tribal superpower that treats other groups -- from China's non-Han
minority to much of the rest of the world -- as a vast semi-colonial
periphery. And with its growing economic and military might, Han China
may soon be able to impose its will on some of these "lesser" cultures,
should it desire.
China may be setting the underlying tone of our new world, but many
other groups have responded in similarly tribal fashion. Like China,
Russia has abandoned internationalist communism for a kind of Leninist
state-capitalism with racial overtones, as evident both in the
increasingly rough treatments of darker-skinned ethnic minorities such
as Chechens and an aggressive ethnic Russian retro-imperialism -- once
disguised in socialist trappings -- toward "near abroad" countries like
Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
The state-sponsored restoration of everything from the Orthodox Church
to Stalin -- as well as the consolidation of state ownership over the
lucrative energy sector -- reflects the deeply nationalist core of the
modern Russian state, which, for historical, geographical, and cultural
reasons, has, with few exceptions, always bent toward authoritarianism.
The end of the Soviet Union, it turns out, did not usher in a wider
embrace of universal capitalism so much as engender various forms of
ethnicity-based irredentism and, in Russia itself, a renewed Slavic
nationalism.
As they have modernized and globalized, other races -- Persians, Arabs,
Brazilians, for just a few examples -- have turned out to be far less
cosmopolitan and more tribal. These nationalisms, or tribalisms vary
widely. Some, like China and Russia, are specifically racial in
character. Others, such as Brazil, are remarkably multi-racial. In some
cases historic resentments are at the base. But all are less interested
in adopting globalized norms of free markets or capitalism than using
state power (through sovereign wealth funds and state-controlled
corporations) to increase their influence and wealth.
The new tribalism is also increasingly evident in Europe. Just a few
years ago Europhiles like French eminence grise Jacques Attali or left-
wing author Jeremy Rifkin could project a utopian future European Union
that would stand both as a global role model and one of the world's
great powers. Today, Rifkin's ideal of a universalistic "European dream"
is collapsing -- a process accelerated by the financial crisis -- as the
continent is torn apart by deep-seated historical and cultural rifts.
Europe today can best be seen as divided between three cultural tribes:
Nordic-Germanic, Latin, and Slavonic. In the north, there is a vast
region of prosperity, a zone of Nordic dynamism. Characterized by
economies based on specialized exports, a still powerful Protestant
ethic, and a culture that embraces authority, these countries --
including Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Germany, and, arguably, the
Baltic states -- are becoming ever more aware of the cultural, fiscal,
and attitudinal gulf between them and the southern countries.
At the same time, the attempt to build a new European identity fused
with immigrants appears to be failing. As Chancellor Angela Merkel
noted, Germany has failed at "multi-culturalism." Such sentiments may be
reviled by the media, academics, and even business leaders in Northern
Europe, but they are clearly popular at the grassroots. Once considered
paragons of liberalism, countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands
have incubated potent anti-immigration movements.
In a world dominated increasingly by Asia, northern Europe cannot be
anything more than a peripheral global power, which may explain its new
introversion. Instead these resilient cultures more accurately represent
a revival of the old Hanseatic League, a network of opportunistic and
prosperous trading states that ringed the North and Baltic seas during
the 13th century. This new league increasingly battles over issues of
trade and fiscal policy, often with ill-disguised contempt, with the
southern European countries I call "the Olive Republics": a region
typified by dire straits, with rapidly aging populations, enormous
budget deficits, and declining industrial might. Southern Europe now
constitutes a zone of lassitude that extends from Portugal and Spain
through the south of France, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Greece, and
Bulgaria.
The last European tribe includes the Slavic countries, centered by
Russia but extending to parts of the Balkans as well, places like
Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, and Moldova that historically have looked east
as well as west and are currently defined by shrinking populations and
weak democratic institutions. A historic pattern of Russian domination
is evident here, based in large part on a revived Slavic identity that
embraces similarities in religion, culture, history, and language with
countries living under Russia's shield. In this sense the czars are
back, not a great development for the rest of the world or for the
fading chimera of a "common European home."
What does this resurgence of tribalism mean to the foreign policy
community? Clearly more attention needs to be played to such issues as
cultural vibrancy, birthrates, and economic "animal spirits." In some
sense, we need to return to the perspectives of ancient writers like
Herodotus and Ibn Khaldun, who attributed the rise and fall of nations
to the vitality of what the latter called "group feeling."
Tribalism will also threaten the efficacy of international
organizations, which tend to assume common interests between groups.
Instead we have to think of future international cooperation in more
traditional terms, balancing distinct sets of tribal interest. As tribes
continue to pursue their own interests ever more zealously, the
idealistic rhetoric of multinational organizations will become ever more
risible. The way China and other developing countries snarled up the
Copenhagen climate conference reflects this shift.
Similarly, the problems with controlling trade to Iran have to do with
long-standing economic relationships that are closely linked to cultural
ties. Sanctions imposed from the West cannot compete with far more long-
standing trade relations between Iran and places like Dubai. In the
future, the best hope may lie in more temporary, ad hoc alliances based
on the self-interest of individual tribes, such as how the U.S. and
Russia may cooperate in space exploration as a means to preserve their
hegemony in that field against newcomers such as China.
In essence, we need to shift from seeking labored, politically correct
commonalities among cultures and work more on learning to reconcile and
co-exist with people who always, inevitably, will remain strangers. This
means, for example, throwing out the idea that any international model -
- say, the Anglo-American version -- can be imposed or grafted onto
other cultures.
"What about us?" Anglo-Americans may ask. In a globalized world that
speaks and writes in English, the Anglosphere retains some natural
advantages. This is where the most elite colleges and universities are
located, and where the top financial firms are concentrated. Equally
important, the Anglosphere also controls much of what the developing
countries will most need in the future -- food -- through the
unsurpassed fecundity of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand.
Demographics and a unique ability to absorb a wide range of immigrants
make the Anglosphere economically and demographically vibrant -- a point
often missed by political scientists like the late Samuel Huntington and
some elements on the political right. By 2050, the Anglosphere will be
home to upwards of 550 million people, the largest population grouping
outside China and India. English-speakers may not straddle the world
like the 19th century empire-makers, but they are likely to remain first
among equals well into the current century.
Ultimately, this will depend on how the English-speaking world evolves
and learns to embrace its multiracial population without losing its
sense of a common identity. Ideally, the Anglosphere can offer an
alternative that embraces not merely a language but a set of
historically achieved values such as democracy and freedom of speech,
religion, and markets. Already many of the English-speaking world's
exemplary writers, artists, industrialists, and entrepreneurs hail from
a vast and ever expanding array of backgrounds. It is in the melding of
many into one dynamic culture that the Anglosphere may retain a powerful
influence over our emerging world of tribes. | E*V
发帖数: 17544 | 2 阴谋
【在 P*K 的大作中提到】
: Rise of the Hans
: Why a dominant China could spark tribal warfare.
: BY JOEL KOTKIN | JANUARY 17, 2011
: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/17/rise_of_the_ha
: page=0,0
: When Chinese President Hu Jintao comes to Washington this week, there
: aren't likely to be many surprises: Hu and Barack Obama will probably
: keep their conversation to a fairly regulated script, focusing on trade
: and North Korea and offering the expected viewpoints on both. But seen
: from a different angle, everything in that conversation could be
| P*K
发帖数: 74 | 3 Please read before commenting.
【在 E*V 的大作中提到】
: 阴谋
| J**n
发帖数: 1224 | 4 不就是打个幌子说美国这样的多民族超强才优越么？
有什么稀奇，中国的目标是整个欧亚非大陆融合，气死美国佬，看你三亿人混还是我们
四十亿人混更牛逼。
【在 P*K 的大作中提到】
: Rise of the Hans
: Why a dominant China could spark tribal warfare.
: BY JOEL KOTKIN | JANUARY 17, 2011
: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/17/rise_of_the_ha
: page=0,0
: When Chinese President Hu Jintao comes to Washington this week, there
: aren't likely to be many surprises: Hu and Barack Obama will probably
: keep their conversation to a fairly regulated script, focusing on trade
: and North Korea and offering the expected viewpoints on both. But seen
: from a different angle, everything in that conversation could be
| w**********k
发帖数: 6250 | 5 楼主给个abstract
【在 P*K 的大作中提到】
: Rise of the Hans
: Why a dominant China could spark tribal warfare.
: BY JOEL KOTKIN | JANUARY 17, 2011
: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/17/rise_of_the_ha
: page=0,0
: When Chinese President Hu Jintao comes to Washington this week, there
: aren't likely to be many surprises: Hu and Barack Obama will probably
: keep their conversation to a fairly regulated script, focusing on trade
: and North Korea and offering the expected viewpoints on both. But seen
: from a different angle, everything in that conversation could be
| g****a
发帖数: 1959 | 6 写得不错
摘要就是现在世界发展趋势又回归种族主义了, 以中国首当其冲
当然目的是分析美国的对策, 作者说美国要通过民主自由加强吸收各个种族精英的能力 |
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