The People's Republic of China (PRC) recently celebrated its 60th anniversary with plenty of fanfare and a superb show of military power. The cost while not spelt out was undeniably large. In the previous year, Beijing hosted the 2008 Olympics and put on a US $43 billion dollar spectacle to awe the world. So, it is no wonder that even with a billion people at poverty level or below, pundits are continuing to say this is China's Century, and expound on how the PRC as the World's factory is also a world power ready to challenge anyone. What else is there to say? One can of course choose to examine the formula behind this hoopla, but do we really want to face the axioms it depends on?
Axiom #1 "Doctors can bury their mistakes, architects must live with theirs." Therefore, the PRC must always take the role of healing doctor. Mao Tse-tung knew this and did it. Japan as the founder of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere unfortunately was never given that chance; it was branded as an architect and has had to live with its mistakes. China for one will never let Japan forget the devastation it caused in World War II (WWII). Mao on the other hand though he killed more Chinese than the Japan did is a classified doctor and not an architect. He not only is allowed to silently bury his dead but he is even honored as the Great Helmsman. At worst, he was a paltry 30 per cent wrong. The untold deaths, the family sufferings in what were in reality internal power struggles in the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution? They must remain buried in the subconscious.
Axiom #2. As E. L. Kersten in his work The Art of Demotivation cynically explains, "You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination and an endless supply of expendable labor." The vision and determination are easy, but the endless supply of expendable labor that is the difficult part for any nation. Germany or Japan never had such an expendable advantage during WWII and that is why they eventually lost. To apply this axiom one needs to control at least 1.3 billion people.
Axiom #3. "Transparency and a free press must be absolutely verboten." What the common people don't know won't hurt them yet, until they become part of the expendable pool. Thus the truths behind Axioms # 1 and 2 depend on a blackout of unfavorable media. Opposition deaths, Falun Gong organ transplants, AIDS villages, pollution deformations, laogwai work camps, dispossessed Tibetans and Uyghurs, these truths will only be known by the expendable and then only when they have become expendable.
Axiom #4. "Develop a two-faced philosophy." This philosophy must explain and defend the established order and lack of transparency. Ingrain in the people the belief that an unchanging hierarchy exists for their own good. If they question it, harmony will be lost and chaos will reign. "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others," to borrow from Orwell. The Politburo is benevolent and would never profit and/or exploit others. On the other hand, those same others would give in to their baser instincts if they were allowed choice.
Axiom #5. "Build all on a mythic paradigm that the expendable masses will always feel they are part of." This paradigm needs court historians (aka spin-doctors) to back it up. The role of the dynastic court historian has always been simple. Disparage the immediate past political power (dynasty) and glorify the current one. Make everyone feel they participate in rebuilding a distant glorious past. Destroy any conflicting histories of that past. Yet, in an age of globalization, internet etc. the glorious mythical Middle Kingdom of the Earth unfortunately comes across in reality as the Middle Kingdom of pollution, poison and propaganda. Still the court historian can find enough useful idiots at home and abroad to both romanticize the past and to glorify the present. If someone points out that 16 of the top twenty cities polluted cities of the world are in that Middle Kingdom, invoke Axiom 3.
Axiom #6. "Buy off those outside the belief system." Reward compliance and cooperators. The rulers of South Africa lost out because despite providing diamonds, they did not provide enough other usable benefits for the world. North Korea is a rogue state because it provides almost nothing in return. By being the factory of the world, the PRC on the other hand provides continuous benefit from its numerous cheaper goods and trade to almost everyone. Other nations will not closely examine the cost in human rights and suffering. They may frown on some of the PRC's methods but after all as Orwell expounds in Animal Farm, the farmers of the world eventually did sit down to dinner with the pigs.
Axiom #7. "Know that by ruling 1.3 billion people, the expendable pool will last for centuries, if not forever." Even if thousands of underlings are allowed to become millionaires, this will not drain the system. These elite will not push for democracy; instead they will support and defend the rulers who made them rich. Those at the top of such an industrial Ponzi scheme will never call for transparency and honesty. Further by allowing a portion of the people to be rich, this portion will always serve as inspiration for the expendable masses. Even if as many as .3 billion people (the total population of the USA) all became millionaires, there would still be a billion expendable people left to fuel the system. If they all become rich, then perhaps the rest of the world can be the expendable.
This is the secret of success and peaceful rising. A country does not need war; it only needs to be able to threaten it. If that country has expendable masses and observes these axioms, it will never fail. Everyone will be happy, well everyone, except those that became expendable. But even there, the doctors of the system and the court historians can teach them that they are in reality contributing mythic martyrs and not simple expendable masses. "All animals are equal but" . . . uh, forget about that last part.
Source: Jerome F. Keating's writings
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