China (or People’s Republica of China) is a big country (approximately 9.6 million square kilometers) which is the most populous country in the world (over 1.35 billion). The country is formed by 22 provinces, and it’s governed by Communist Party and the capital city is Beijing.
In Tourism, China has expanded over the last few decades and China became the third most visited country in the world. China has a long History that goes back to its ancient civilization. China’s political system was based on hereditary monarchies, known as dynasties. The country has a very complex economic system with cycles of prosperity and decline.
In this year (2015), the National Geographic did a documentary that was produced and directed by Jesse and Jeremy Vever, which is called “CHINA: THE REBIRTH OF AN EMPIRE”. The objective of this article is to talk about my personal impressions of that documentary.
The documentary begins with the question: is China really an Empire? It shows that China is a very promising country in construction, transportation, fashion, gourmet (meal) and other areas, but even Chalmers Jonhson (autor of Blowback Trilogy) and Wei Jinsheng (exiled dissident former CPC Member) agree that to become an Empire is necessary more than just to be promising. Chalmers Jonhson said that “China is growing but not is qualified like an empire right now”. He argues that the decline of US (caused by crises that made Americans lost their Jobs) is a condition to China assume this role.
The video continues talking historically about when a country lives with conflicts, eventually, become an Empire and they show the follow cases:
- Rome after wars;
- Britain after wars and black death;
- Germany after Nazism;
- Japan and Russian after wars;
- USA after many wars (civil wars, wars with Indians and military operations in other countries, like Afghanistan).
The main part of the documentary is t
o show how the neighbor countries see China and there are many ways to do that because of the culture and economic interesting of each country. In Korea, they talked about the risks of nuclear weapons on North Korea. Moonchung-in (a political Science of Youngei University) said that “In the order to became a full-fledged nuclear weapons state that country should satisfy four conditions, witch are: i) the possession of nuclear warheads; ii) have delivery capability; iii) nuclear tests; iv) possess miniaturization technology”. The specialist defends that North Korea doesn’t have all the four conditions and China doesn’t stay against that country because she approves the political dictatorial regime.
Japan was a rival of China for centuries and despite attempts of union (like in 1998 Olimpic games), there are many protests about anti-democratic system in China. In Pakistan and India exist protests specially about freedom of Uyghur and Tibet peoples. However, China helps the development of Pakistan with trades, on the North and the construction of Gwadar Porto, on the South. In Afghanistan, China helps in many areas, because the country suffered with the occupation of USA. So, China helps to develop that country. Nepals deals with a civil war on the border with China.
In addition the relationship with the neighbor countries, the documentary talks about Hong Kong, which is one of the most developed cities in the world and lives with many adaption problems after the unification with China. The Chinese regime prohibits the practice of Falun gong (an spiritual practice) and there are many conflicts with “one country/two systems”, because the culture is very different. Taiwan (island managed by China) is showed like the first tentative to bring democracy to the region; like a transition approved by China.
The documentary is a good opportunity to know about this subject and think about the future. My opinion about this case is very similar to the opinion of the President of Alliance Fraçaise in Taiwan: “We need to accept that China will became a big power in the world, but the problem is what kind of China do we want in the future… an authoritarian China… I don’t think this is good for the world”.
Project LEP 