The rise of China is the victory of a mentality of wisdom. Back to old principles that brilliantly worked. First China has an approach of discretion. According to Chateaubriand, it is necessary to have « strong characters, full of imagination and a mysterious and secret existence ». China brilliantly applied those approaches, and applied with perfection the theory of master and slave of Hegel. The master has the power, but the slave is powerful. The one who acquires secretly a great range of skills is winning at the end of the course. Kissinger told in the 70s that « China is potentially more dangerous than Russia ». As Russia i stalking about political and military power, the Chinese bet on the economical development and technological advance. Those two last concepts are at the heart of powerful countries. The extraodinary followed by China is giving us many lessons, and compels us to quit a certain state of mediocrity we live in.
Another subject concerns the difference between the rise of China and the rise of islamism. Again China show that a discreet behaviour is a lot more efficient in the long run than talking aloud. This approach can be linked to the vision of engagement by Albert Camus : for him discretion is a key of success to get a positive engagement. China successfully adopted this attitude : « silence is golden, and speech is silver ». Those words show to which extend this attitude has been efficient.
The brilliant chinese strategy stems in the know how accumulated during years. If we compare with the USSR, the Soviets wanted to compete first with the Americans to the military extend. The Chinese got a much more humble and efficient : first an economical development, an important accumulation of scientific know how, and then a military development. This long term approach has been far more efficient than something that was reliant on formal power. Again we can find the efficiency of the hegelian dialectics of master and slave : if political and military power reflects the « master » weapon, economical power reflects the one of the « slave ». At the end of the course, the Chinese revealed themselves far more dangerous than the Soviets never were of the United States and the Western world. As Napoleon said, « when China will awake, the world will shake ». The world has not finished to do that.
What lessons should we take ?
- Invest in the long run to build the future : it is a key ingredient of the chinese success, we need to find this mentality again
- Invest in education : China succeeded to build a very important middle class, while ours is falling apart. This investment takes 20 to 30 years to pay off, but without long term policies, we risk to lose the rank of great nation.
- Build step by step and consider the future : we need projets, a long term vision that China succeeded to implement.
The observer 