An interesting article from the National Interest on China's views of the USSR
But here's my view.
Starting in the 1970s, the studies show that the Soviet economy became less productive and efficient as each year went on, so people were actually getting poorer each day. I attribute this to a combination of corruption and the lack of a competitive marketplace for most goods or services. It didn't help that the USSR was also a petrostate heavily dependent on oil, gas and other commodities.
At the same time, the Soviet economy was trying to match the arms expenditures of the US+Europe+China+Japan, who had a combined economy some 4 to 5 times larger than the USSR. This was a huge burden for the Soviets, and remember that even at its peak, the Soviet economy still faced a US economy that was twice the size.
Hence perestroika and glasnost, because the Soviet economy needed to become more productive and also needed better relations with the US+Europe+China+Japan so they could reduce that excessive arms spending.
But that also unleashed regional nationalism that had previously been suppressed in the individual SSRs (provinces/states) within the Soviet Union.
However, Moscow was unable to manage this, because non-Russians actually were a majority and outnumbered ethnic Russians in the Soviet Union.
Plus the structure of the SSRs was fundamentally unfair, because the ethnic Russian SSR had almost 50% of the population and therefore votes, which means all the much smaller non-Russians SSRs actually had very little influence within the USSR decision making process. This resulted in huge income differences between the richest and poorest SSRs, partly because of the lack of transport infrastructure which was compounded by ethnic/linguistic/cultural differences. Think of how this affects Quebec within Canada or the Flemish versus French in Belgium or the Yugoslavian experience.
So when the USSR couldn't subsidise Eastern Europe or the Russian SSR support the non-Russian SSRs, nor the Russians impose their will by force because they knew they were outnumbered, is it a surprise that the USSR and the Eastern Bloc disintegrated?
So what lessons does this hold for China?
China has the world's largest and most competitive markets for most categories of goods and services, and its economy is based on industry rather than natural resources. Furthermore China has exceptionally high levels of private R&D spending for a developing country. Indeed this is firmly at developed world spending levels, and note that this is still trending upwards.
And remember that Japan was previously noted for wasteful/excessive infrastructure spending along with an inefficient domestic economy. Yet Japan did move up the technology value chain because it did create world class companies in various industries, so Japan has become a wealthy hi-tech country.
However, this still leaves corruption as the biggest problem for China.
On balance, I think this still means that the Chinese economy is unlikely to follow the path of the USSR economy which actually became less efficient every year.
And over the past 20+ years, China has been and is devoting a far smaller share of its economy to military expenditure than does the USA, and is focused on internal economic development rather than affairs overseas.
So there is little chance of the Chinese economy being bankrupted by current levels of military spending.
In terms of governance, China deliberately splits up provinces which become too populous and therefore influential. See the examples of Sichuan and Guangdong which were divided into two after they reached 10% of the overall Chinese population/vote. So no province has undue influence in overall decision-making and therefore doesn't generate permanent resentment from the others.
In terms of ethnicity, over 91% of the population identifies as a single Han Chinese ethnicity which means China is intrinsically cohesive. It also means every ethnic minority person is outnumbered 11-to-1, which means the dominant majority can afford to indulge the minorities with privileges, but also impose their will by force if necessary.
Whilst China has had a single written language for millenia, in the past 60 years China has also imposed a single spoken form of the language. That builds cohesiveness and I would point to the European example of how a supra-national EU (successor to the Roman Empire?) has to contend with domestic arguments where all the parties are speaking past each other in different languages.
There are also very large wealth differences between the rich coast and the poor interior in China, but they're not as bad as what we saw with the USSR. Plus we've seen a huge infrastructure binge in the past years to build a comprehensive transport infrastructure across all of China - comprising roads, rails, inland ports, airports etc. That has helped solidify the creation of a unified single market and is already helping to equalise incomes inside China by connecting the rich coast with the poorer interior
So when I look at the situation, China is so much more cohesive than the USSR, but still suffers from the corruption issue. And historically, corruption and a lack of progress has been the downfall of previous Chinese dynasties. The lack of progress issue should be addressed by China's increasing expenditures on hi-technology R&D, but how does one solve the corruption issue, unless there is local accountability, presumably from an educated and middle-class citizenry?
It's the age old Chinese question of "the emperor is far and the mountains are high."
But here's my view.
Starting in the 1970s, the studies show that the Soviet economy became less productive and efficient as each year went on, so people were actually getting poorer each day. I attribute this to a combination of corruption and the lack of a competitive marketplace for most goods or services. It didn't help that the USSR was also a petrostate heavily dependent on oil, gas and other commodities.
At the same time, the Soviet economy was trying to match the arms expenditures of the US+Europe+China+Japan, who had a combined economy some 4 to 5 times larger than the USSR. This was a huge burden for the Soviets, and remember that even at its peak, the Soviet economy still faced a US economy that was twice the size.
Hence perestroika and glasnost, because the Soviet economy needed to become more productive and also needed better relations with the US+Europe+China+Japan so they could reduce that excessive arms spending.
But that also unleashed regional nationalism that had previously been suppressed in the individual SSRs (provinces/states) within the Soviet Union.
However, Moscow was unable to manage this, because non-Russians actually were a majority and outnumbered ethnic Russians in the Soviet Union.
Plus the structure of the SSRs was fundamentally unfair, because the ethnic Russian SSR had almost 50% of the population and therefore votes, which means all the much smaller non-Russians SSRs actually had very little influence within the USSR decision making process. This resulted in huge income differences between the richest and poorest SSRs, partly because of the lack of transport infrastructure which was compounded by ethnic/linguistic/cultural differences. Think of how this affects Quebec within Canada or the Flemish versus French in Belgium or the Yugoslavian experience.
So when the USSR couldn't subsidise Eastern Europe or the Russian SSR support the non-Russian SSRs, nor the Russians impose their will by force because they knew they were outnumbered, is it a surprise that the USSR and the Eastern Bloc disintegrated?
So what lessons does this hold for China?
China has the world's largest and most competitive markets for most categories of goods and services, and its economy is based on industry rather than natural resources. Furthermore China has exceptionally high levels of private R&D spending for a developing country. Indeed this is firmly at developed world spending levels, and note that this is still trending upwards.
And remember that Japan was previously noted for wasteful/excessive infrastructure spending along with an inefficient domestic economy. Yet Japan did move up the technology value chain because it did create world class companies in various industries, so Japan has become a wealthy hi-tech country.
However, this still leaves corruption as the biggest problem for China.
On balance, I think this still means that the Chinese economy is unlikely to follow the path of the USSR economy which actually became less efficient every year.
And over the past 20+ years, China has been and is devoting a far smaller share of its economy to military expenditure than does the USA, and is focused on internal economic development rather than affairs overseas.
So there is little chance of the Chinese economy being bankrupted by current levels of military spending.
In terms of governance, China deliberately splits up provinces which become too populous and therefore influential. See the examples of Sichuan and Guangdong which were divided into two after they reached 10% of the overall Chinese population/vote. So no province has undue influence in overall decision-making and therefore doesn't generate permanent resentment from the others.
In terms of ethnicity, over 91% of the population identifies as a single Han Chinese ethnicity which means China is intrinsically cohesive. It also means every ethnic minority person is outnumbered 11-to-1, which means the dominant majority can afford to indulge the minorities with privileges, but also impose their will by force if necessary.
Whilst China has had a single written language for millenia, in the past 60 years China has also imposed a single spoken form of the language. That builds cohesiveness and I would point to the European example of how a supra-national EU (successor to the Roman Empire?) has to contend with domestic arguments where all the parties are speaking past each other in different languages.
There are also very large wealth differences between the rich coast and the poor interior in China, but they're not as bad as what we saw with the USSR. Plus we've seen a huge infrastructure binge in the past years to build a comprehensive transport infrastructure across all of China - comprising roads, rails, inland ports, airports etc. That has helped solidify the creation of a unified single market and is already helping to equalise incomes inside China by connecting the rich coast with the poorer interior
So when I look at the situation, China is so much more cohesive than the USSR, but still suffers from the corruption issue. And historically, corruption and a lack of progress has been the downfall of previous Chinese dynasties. The lack of progress issue should be addressed by China's increasing expenditures on hi-technology R&D, but how does one solve the corruption issue, unless there is local accountability, presumably from an educated and middle-class citizenry?
It's the age old Chinese question of "the emperor is far and the mountains are high."