The US has failed to understand China

Andrew Sheng, a former central banker and financial regulator, argues that the United States fundamentally misunderstands China, a critical issue given China's significant role in the global economy and the ongoing contest for international primacy.

Sheng notes that some Westerners, particularly in the U.S., feel threatened by China's rise, leading to protectionism and talk of global fragmentation. He references Kishore Mahbubani's book "Has China Won?" which highlighted deep-seated misunderstandings and structural tensions between the two nations. The U.S. appears to be engaged on multiple fronts simultaneously, facing challenges from China, adversaries in the Middle East, Russia, and its own fiscal dilemma of funding its pursuit of hegemony with borrowed money. Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf is quoted as saying that "on the eve of its 250th birthday, America and the world order it created are in crisis."

A core issue, according to Sheng, is America's "tragically shallow understanding of China's complexity and its civilisational mindset." This mindset has been honed over millennia of dealing with severe internal and external crises. China possesses one of the world's oldest surviving bureaucracies, which Sheng cautions against oversimplifying as purely Stalinist or Leninist. His experience working with Chinese agencies reveals their capacity to achieve tasks at a speed and scale often inconceivable for Western public services.

However, Sheng also points out that China faces its own bureaucratic challenges. Certain institutional reforms, common in Western bureaucracies like centralized pension systems, encounter delays in China. These delays stem from the division of power between central and local governments and deeply ingrained fiscal traditions that complicate execution.

“

on the eve of its 250th birthday, America and the world order it created are in crisis