China remains a mystery to most people in the West. Even those who lavish great praise on China are prone to talk about the mythology surrounding this nation not the essence of it. For me the essence of China is, and always was, its people. Hard working people. Loyal family members. And proud advocates of their national heritage.
China today is a system-based entity. In this system is the CCP make and implement the rules that maintain this entity. The Provinces are utility governments that implement the will of the CCP. At the base of the system is the family unit rather than an individual as is thought to be the case in the West. It is the family as an entity that enforces the rules of life in China. And these rules are enforced equally by family members and the local police. Thus the system is one of collaboration based on the rules of the family and those set out by the CCP.
A thirty thousand feet view of China gives one a picture with two focal points. The CCP at the centre and the family at the grassroots. The colour and movement comes because the CCP is charged with the responsibility of sustaining a greater than five percent increase in the GNP year on year. The energy required to achieve that target comes from the hard working people who are committed to the enterprise of business both day and night. To ensure that this growth engine works for the vast majority of the people there are strict rules that govern social behaviours. Thus dissidents are not a regular feature of this system. Indeed for deviants, rebels, and misfits to flourish within China the whole system would need to be redesigned, rebuilt, and reset to favour trust over rules. But this will not happen because this is a collaborative system that favours the collective over the individual. And the collective is always best controlled by the application of group-wide rules.
The current conflict between China and the West is most heated wherever a system based on rules clashes with a system based on trust. To sustain a system based on trust there must be a judicial process that is both accessible and reliably able to deliver blind justice. Inside such a system the individual is allowed the freedom to cooperate with others in a loose coalition. These coalitions of interest survive because the rules of the society ensure freedom of expression and lively commerce based on trust. However once the individual, and his or her rights, is scooped up into a collective we then we see trust fade and the imposition of rules become broadly accepted.
I grew up inside a trust-based system in my birth nation. In China children grow up in a rules-based system. To each his or her own I say. However this clash of systems is an issue that is likely to haunt the inhabitants of our planet for some time to come. China is thriving at present with a rules-based system which means that individuals can not, and will not, trust each other. I would find that life a personal torture; and yet, many people who live in trust-based system currently seek to reset it to one that is rules based. These folk seem convinced that a global government will eventually be created and that it will be based on a rules-based system.
Thus the question that remains unanswered is: "does China have a rules-based system that can work for all of us?"
I seek shelter from those folks who demand that we all live within collectives that rely upon a rules-based system To this end, around five years ago, I invented a my own unique version of minimalism. My core idea is that one can survive, and thrive, best inside all social types of social systems when he or she trusts himself or herself as an individual.
Richard.
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