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Thank you!

Agreed that China exhibits a degree of serene unconcern with internal matters and developments in these countries. Given the possibility of widespread war in the Sudan and domestic turmoil in Zimbabwe and Burma, this lack of concern may yet to come back and haunt the Chinese by disrupting their resource extractions.
Granted, this will likely lead to some degree of China “shrinking the Gap” via a mix of Sys Admin & even Levithian-esque methods, but at what cost and will these work?
I remain convinced almost that China & the US will be on different sides in the coming Sudanese civil war and I am most interested in how far China and the US will go to defend their interests there.

Your analysis of China needing to fail to learn is spot-on, I just hope they learn the right lessons as well as in good time.

The book written last year about China’s soft power was strongest when examining China’s efforts in SE Asia, where I think it was more than just 1 aspect of its FDI strategy and went to the heart of learning mistakes from the mid-90’s when they were literally scaring their neighbors into America’s arms because of their hostile and overt actions regarding offshore resources, the safety of Chinese diasporas and respect for China’s role in the region.

Until this year, it all was quite sophisticated and quite effective in isolating foreign rivals like the US & EU out of Central Asia, SE Asia, etc.

The “charm offensive” line never made a great deal of sense. It was based on one aspect of China’s foreign direct investment strategy:

“We do not care about you or your people.”

This is a function of China being one of the most materialistic states in history.

To regimes are shuned precisely because the West does care, this was great. Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma, and others experience large-scale cash infusions, in exchange for raw materials, and even got some infrastructure development in the bargain.

The tails side of this benign neglect, which is of course just the heads again — “We do not care about you or your people” — is now being felt. When it comes to Darfur, Zimbabwe, and other states, China isn’t incompetent: it’s just serenely unconcerned.

This is combined with China suddenly being criticized from all sides for all actions. This is what big, important countries face regularly.

“No matter what China does, these students say, it cannot win in the arena of world opinion. ”

That’s probably true. Same is true for America. Same was true for Britain back in the day.

China needs the institutional knowledge for riding out these big-country problems, including avoiding stupid escalations. China’s in a good position to learn these lessons now.

And of course, it’s a really good thing if the CSCA (Chinse Students & Scholas Association)-sponsored counter-protests at American universities backfire. It’s very important the Party get the message that it is failing.

Because with failing comes learning.

Starting things off in the mess was a good idea too, its something Robert Kaplan was careful to do when he wrote about being on several ships and subs in his book “Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts”.

Thanks for commenting!