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Originally Posted by Hicks
You see no evidence that the Chinese government has changed tact since the early 1970s ?
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It depends what he means. Internally (especially economically) obviously China has changed enormously, as have the general strategy engaged by China in international relations. But if you're talking core values (i.e. a broadly authoritarian form of Chinese nationalism) then arguably not a lot has changed.
I've read stuff from Chinese writers who condemn the Russian
perestroika on the grounds it was both a reversal of socialism and a massive defat to the Soviet peoples generally. They maintain it was undertaken almost entirely by opportunistic bureaucrats who were interested in looting national treasuries and boosting their own ethno-national tribes. All of which was cynically encouraged and aided by western interests.
The Chinese market transformation (or so the argument runs) is a bit different. There are still of course opportunists enriching themselves in frankly criminal ways, and even claims to socialism have long gone, but Chinese nationalism is still the dominant ideology of most of the elite. As such returning China to world power status and defending some nebulous concept of "a Chinese way" is still the overall goal. While Western companies are still very much involved, politically speaking the Americans are much busier than they were in the 80's and the Western European powers (such as they are) are focussed on internal squabbles, immigration and arresting economic stagnation to fully influence Chinese policy.
I'm not exactly convinced of the above argument, but I think it's fair to say that the Chinese elites are at least mindful of what happened to much of the ex-USSR (culturally, economically and politically). Chinese "socialism" was also much more heavily rooted in Chinese nationalism than Soviet "socialism" was in Russian nationalism (for fairly obvious reasons).
Of course, this is not to say that China is about to try and take over the world. China has for last couple of centuries been one of the least (if not the least) expansionist (or interventionist) of all the major powers (for various reasons). While the Europeans (and their descendents) have invaded a good proportion of the globe the Chinese have done what? Well, there's Tibet - arguably part of China anyway, the claim on Taiwan, and some minor territorial disputes. No matter how dimly we view these actions* they hardly compare in scale and scope to the European carve up of Africa or the more recent American adventures in Indochina. Of course, now they have the means it might be that they suddenly start colonising the rest of the world, but that's not exactly clear.
I'd also add that keeping a stable core of values is not a uniquely Chinese phenomenon. The United States has arguably had the same foriegn policy
values since WW2 (some of which come from as far back as the Monroe Doctrine).
* This is not to underplay the importance of these issues, or to say China has / is justified in it's actions, or to minimise the right-to-self-determination of these regions, etc, etc.