Foolish planning and the inevitable wildfires What could have been learned from John Steinbeck about California's true climate

The smoke obscures our vision of reality when it comes to wildfires. This week while reading California's Climate Emergency in Rolling Stone I was confronted with this statement:

In the hills above the Pacific Ocean, the world crossed a terrifying tipping point this week.
[...]
As the largest of this week's fires skipped across California's famed coastal highway 101 toward the beach, rare snowflakes were falling in Houston, all made possible by a truly extreme weather pattern that's locked the jet stream into a highly amplified state. It's difficult to find the words to adequately describe how weird this is. It's rare that the dissonance of climate change is this visceral.
[...]
For years, climate scientists have warned us that California was entering a year-round fire regime. For years, climate campaigners have been wondering what it would take to get people to wake up to the urgency of cutting fossil fuel emissions. For years, we've been tip-toeing as a civilization towards a point of no return.

That time is now.

Well, yes and no. As John Steinbeck said "...God save me from amateurs. [...] They have the authority of ignorance, something you simply cannot combat."

California has a climate history clearly described in the writings of that California native Steinbeck, most significantly in his second novel To A God Unknown published in 1933 which tells an allegorical tale of the California experience.

The protagonist, Joseph, comes to California to create his future. He discovers a place of apparent wealth and promise. And indeed he appears to be achieving all that he dreams. But over time, tragedies strike and drought undoes his life work.

The story is about the arrogance of Californians who hold the belief that their efforts as humans, individually and collectively, create orderly wealth in a place where natural wealth has always existed in its own order of things.

Steinbeck later acknowledged that To A God Unknown was the hardest for him to write, taking him more years than his better known works. Part of the problem is that he initially tried to adapt a play written by a friend but kept adding context based upon facts as he understood them. And what he understood from the generations of Californians who preceded him was the truth about the land and the water, a truth we need to face.

    About every thirty years there have come periods of rainlessness to Central and Southern California. These desolating years seem to come creeping up out of the white desert to warn the west that it will one day die as the desert has died. They are like the Reminders of Death at an Egyptian feast ....
    And now the periodic drought had settled on the land. Little by little, year on year the water was sucked from the ground. The hills looked gaunt and hungry and pale. The bones of many thousands of starved cattle were whitening on the ground. Two families of Waynes packed up their possessions and drove away. Joe watched his dying land with terror and with loathing. - From an early draft of To A God Unknown by John Steinbeck

Sadly Joe's "terror" derived from a normal California weather cycle. Twenty years ago in 1993, Scott Stine, Ph.D, of the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at California State University, Hayward, completed a research study entitled "Extreme and Persistent Drought in California and Patagonia During Mediaeval Time" which was subsequently published in June 1994 in the academic journal Nature. In it he offers the evidence, now supported by others, that indeed before and after the year 1000 AD California had two droughts that lasted well over 100 years.

In May 2001 the website Sierra Nature Notes: The Online Journal of Natural History News in the Sierra Nevada published a followup article by Stine "The Great Droughts of Y1K" in which he explained what he believed to be the weather pattern associated with the 100+ years droughts:

    One may reasonably ask why these droughts occurred. The simple answer lies in the wintertime configuration of the "storm track" (a.k.a. the "jet stream" and the "polar front") over the northeastern Pacific. When the storm track persists over California for much of the winter (as it did, say, in 1982, ‘83, 86, and ‘96), many Pacific cyclones are steered over the state, and we accumulate much precipitation. When the track lies to the north of California, the fronts are steered away, and the region remains dry. This latter case prevailed during the 1976-77—the one period of our instrumental record dry enough to provide an analog to the Medieval droughts....
    Evidence is now emerging that the "dry-winter-in-California, wet-winter-in-Alaska" model holds true not only for 1976-77, but for much of upper Medieval time as well....
    ...Persistent droughts, moderate by Medieval standards but strident relative to our "normal" conditions of the past 150 years, drew lakes and rivers well below their modern levels on numerous occasions during the past two millennia, most recently during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Indeed, increasing evidence indicates that there is little that is climatically "normal" about the past century - and- a-half; it appears, in fact, to be California’s third- or fourth-wettest century-scale period of the past four or more millennia.
    Since statehood, Californians have been living in the best of climatic times. And we’ve taken advantage of these best of times by building the most colossal urban and agricultural infrastructure in the entire world, all dependent on huge amounts of water, and all based on the assumption [it] will continue as it has during the past 150 years. Yet even in these best of times we have run out of surplus water, and we fight over allocation.

So yes, Climate Change may very well be speeding up the return to an "upper Medieval time" dry weather period measured in centuries. We could, of course, have simply read Steinbeck's story which  begins as California migration stories begin and ends with an expression of regret:

   After a time of wandering, Joseph came to the long valley called Nuestra Señora, and there he recorded his homestead. Nuestra Señora, the long valley of Our Lady in central California, was green and gold and yellow and blue when Joseph came into it. The level floor was deep in wild oats and canary mustard flowers.
[...]
   Joseph leaned back against his saddle again, and suddenly he chuckled. "I will go," he said. "I will take every means. Look, Juanita. You know this place, and your ancestors knew this place. Why did none of your people come here when the drought started. This was the place to come."
   "The old ones are dead," Juanita said soberly. "The young ones may have forgotten."
   And time passed and Joseph grew grey too.... "I should have known," he whispered.... "I am the land," he said, "and I am the rain." - from To A God Unknown by John Steinbeck

Indeed, the young ones do "forget" in the sense that from generation-to-generation people start over by leaping at opportunities without studying to learn the lessons of all times before them. And so in California there was this:

When the dust came up, people were starving; they had no place to go. Naturally, they went in a direction where they would not suffer from cold: they went toward California. They came in the thousands to California. - John Steinbeck in an interview on British radio

Life's struggles brought millions of migrants from states east of the Rocky Mountains to California as recognized in the above John Steinbeck quote. It also brought millions of migrants (which the other migrants called immigrants) from other nations. And because from 1950 through 1988, the California economy was rich by all comparative historical standards, they kept coming.

Ignoring history and Steinbeck, Californians bought land and built buildings and were and are homeowners and businesses owners. Now they have to live with what always was the normal California climate. And they need to quit calling it a "drought" when history and science tell us most of the 20th Century was a very extended wet cyclonic period, an abnormal time.

What we cannot do honestly is blame it on Global Warming which at worst only accelerated an inevitable timeline.

And we are not going to "fix it" because we are the environmentally aware California.

In fact, as explained in the San Francisco Chronicle despite our environmental activism California is the source of more harm than ever and it is just possible that human population growth and related governmental planning for real estate development based on historical scientific studies going back as long as ...oh... a couple of decades is a cause:

Over the course of just a few weeks, a major fire can pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than California’s many climate change programs can save in 12 months. Scientists debate whether California’s vast forests are emitting more carbon dioxide through fires than they absorb through plant growth.

"Clear waters and green mountains are mountains of gold and silver." Seeking a Beautiful China and California together in harmony for our grandchildren

    Pollution has become a scourge in China, the debilitating consequences of rapid industrial development. Chinese people are exceedingly displeased to see their air, water and soil so polluted, and the government has responded by elevating "Green Development", the third development concept, to highest national importance. One of the pioneers has been East China's Zhejiang province, where in 2005 Xi Jinping, then Zhejiang Party secretary, famously said: "Clear waters and green mountains are mountains of gold and silver." Putting the theory into practice, Zhejiang has pioneered an "eco-compensation" system, which enables regions to both preserve the environment and develop eco-friendly industries. - from "The five major development concepts" by Robert Lawrence Kuhn

This post is the last of four on the 21st Century political and cultural objectives that have been set by China.

Xi Jinping, of course, has been President of China since March 14, 2013. And if you haven't read the above posts, you can click on the images above where you might learn about the most important government policy developments of the 21st Century to date which will impact on your grandchildren's generation. You will also learn about Xi, the fellow human overseeing the implementation of those policies.

Of course, these government policy developments have nothing to do with Donald Trump. And of course, they are too complex for social media. And of course, because their goals are targeted for 2049 China they have no real impact on the day-to-day lives of Americans today. So of course, Americans generally have no awareness of them.

In 2005 Xi Jinping, then Zhejiang Province Communist Party Secretary, was not even on any pundits radar though in 2002 Xi was elected a full member of the 16th Central Committee. His environmental statement quoted above "Clear waters and green mountains are mountains of gold and silver" was far from pandering to the popular thinking.

In the first decade of this century, climate change skepticism in China was worse than in the U.S. as discussed in The Convenient Disappearance of Climate Change Denial in China: From Western plot to party line, how China embraced climate science to become a green-energy powerhouse. Fortunately, as the article notes: "By the time China adopted its 12th Five-Year Plan in 2011, a green strategy had begun to crystalize."

Keep that 2011 year in mind as you read this posted two weeks ago in the South China News:

    Ten years ago [October 2007], as early autumn set in and the Communist Party of China prepared to convene its 17th National Congress in Beijing, the names of two Lis – Liaoning party chief Li Keqiang and Jiangsu party chief Li Yuanchao – were making the rounds as odds-on favourites to emerge from the scrum of candidates to be anointed supreme leader-in-waiting of the party’s Fifth Generation.
    Newly appointed party chief of Shanghai, Xi Jinping, was not expected to contend for the post. He had just been elevated to his position in spring 2007, was expected to continue serving as Shanghai party chief, and there was no prior precedent of a regionally based leader serving concurrently on the party’s Politburo Standing Committee – the party’s highest decision-making organ.
    By mid-autumn, the script had been re-written.
    In the ‘open audition’ selection process at the party congress for the 25-member Politburo, which for the first time allowed all Central Committee members to vote from a wider pool of candidates drawn from provincial and ministerial-level cadres, Xi won the most support.
    The day after the National Congress, at the First Plenum of the party’s 17th Central Committee, Xi was selected as the sixth-ranking member of the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee and executive secretary of the party’s Secretariat. Later that December, he was appointed president of the Central Party School – mirroring the path that Hu Jintao had taken during his elevation to the supreme leader-in-waiting position in the late-1990s.
    That Xi was neither a protégé of Jiang [Jiang Zemin, President from 1993 to 2003] nor belonged to Hu-linked groupings [Hu Jintao, President from 2003 to 2013] – and therefore his elevation was beholden to neither factional politics nor to the reigning supreme leader’s dictates, was also instrumental in his meteoric rise to the top.

Five months later, at the 11th National People's Congress in March 2008, Xi was elected as Vice-President of the People's Republic of China. By the time of that 2011 Five Year Plan, Xi's vision of "clear waters and green mountains" had become the basis for policy.

On 15 November 2012, Xi Jinping was elected to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party and Chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission by the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and on 14 March 2013 was elected President of the People's Republic of China by the 12th National People's Congress.

China is the largest country in the world in terms of population, second only to Russia in terms of land area, and the second only to the United States in terms of GDP (though China is firstcwhen measured by purchasing power parity). As noted in the May 23 post linked above, California and Californians need strong ties to China for economic growth and measures to reduce climate change impacts.

In the pictures at the top of this post, Governor Jerry Brown is shown during his June 2017 trip to China with Chinese  Science and Technology Minister Wan Gang (left) and with Chinese President Xi Jinping (right).

Shortly before meeting with President Xi, Brown, one of the co-chairs of a bipartisan group of U.S. Governors called the Climate Alliance,  signed an agreement providing that China and the Golden State will work together on cutting their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over time.

From renewable energy technologies to zero-emission vehicles, from low carbon infrastructures to electricity efficiency savings, a working group of top-level officials from both sides will continually plot ways to cooperate on climate measures and to zero in on initiatives that will help both countries cut their carbon footprints.

The agreement builds on subnational pacts Brown signed with officials in Sichuan and Jiangsu provinces earlier this week.

“California is the leading economic state in America and we are also the pioneering state on clean technology, cap and trade, electric vehicles and batteries, but we can’t do it alone,” Brown said before a Chinese delegation.

"I have proposed that California will cut its greenhouse gases 40 per cent below 1990 levels and that we'll have 50 per cent of our electricity from renewables," Brown told President Xi Jinping in a 45-minute meeting.

"To keep that goal, we need a very close partnership with China - with your businesses, with your provinces, with your universities," Brown said. 

"Nobody can stay on the sidelines. We can't afford any dropouts in the tremendous human challenge to make the transition to a sustainable future," Brown said during a green energy conference in Beijing. "Disaster still looms and we've got to make the turn."

Chinese President Xi expressed support for California to play a bigger role in promoting exchange and cooperation between China and the United States. He said he hoped California could continue to promote bilateral exchanges between localities and contribute more to China-U.S. cooperation in areas including technology, innovation and green development.  He welcomed California to join the Belt and Road Initiative.

Voicing appreciation of Xi's speech at the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos in January, Brown said California was willing to join the construction of the Belt and Road and was looking forward to a stronger cooperative relationship with China in trade, investment, clean technology and environmental protection.

Which brings us to the point of these posts. Climate change and economic issues in California are intricately tied to China. And going even further, understanding Chinese history, problems, and politics can help to understand the continuing political evolution of the United States and particularly of California. For example, consider the issue of multiculturalism.

China has about 7000 years of history, 1.4 billion people, and 56± ethnic groups. About 92% are considered Han Chinese while 8% are:

Ethnic Group	Major Areas of Distribution
Achang	Yunnan
Bai	Yunnan, Guizhou
Bao'an	Gansu
Bouyei	Guizhou
Bulang	Yunnan
Dai	Yunnan
Daur	Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang
De'ang	Yunnan
Dong	Guizhou, Hunan, Guangxi
Dongxiang	Gansu, Xinjiang
Drung	Yunnan
Ewenki	Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang
Hani	Yunnan
Hezhen	Heilongjiang
Hui	Ningxia, Gansu, Henan, Hebei, Qinghai, Shandong, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Anhui, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Shaanxi, Beijing, Tianjin
Gaoshan	Taiwan (population not counted), Fujian
Gelo	Guizhou, Guangxi
Jing	Guangxi
Jingpo	Yunnan
Jino	Yunnan
Kazak	Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai
Kirgiz	Xinjiang, Heilongjiang
Korean	Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang
Lahu	Yunnan
Li	Hainan
Lisu	Yunnan, Sichuan
Loba	Tibet
Manchu	Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Hebei, Beijing, Inner Mongolia
Maonan	Guangxi
Miao	Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hainan, Hubei
Mongba	Tibet
Mongolian	Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Qinghai
Mulam	Guangxi
Naxi	Yannan, Sichuan
Nu	Yunnan
Oroqen	Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang
Ozbek	Xinjiang
Pumi	Yunnan
Qiang	Sichuan
Russian	Xinjiang
Salar	Qinghai, Gansu
She	Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong
Shui	Guizhou, Guangxi
Tajik	Xinjiang
Tartar	Xinjiang
Tibetan	Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Yunan
Tu	Qinghai, Gansu
Tujia	Hunnan, Hubei
Uygur	Xinjiang
Va	Yunnan
Xibo	Xinjiang, Liaoning, Jilin
Yao	Guangxi, Hunan, Ynnan, Guangdong, Guizhou
Yi	Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi
Yugu	Gansu
Zhuang	Guangxi, Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou

If one wants to talk about a "melting pot" and assimilation or multicultural diversity, China is the place to go, not the United States. DNA sampling indicates that the Han Chinese have about the same kind of historical experience as white European Americans - practically everybody is mixed because that is the result of constant human migration.

Language, however, does represent a clearer picture of multicultural diversity. Let's begin with this from the Microsoft Technet Citizenship Asia Pacific site Celebrating Linguistic Diversity on International Mother Language Day:

On 21 February, we celebrate International Mother Language Day, aimed at promoting linguistic and cultural diversity and multi- lingualism. A world map denoting the native languages spoken in different countries. Image courtesy of Daniel Dalet on d-maps.com.

2,200—that is the estimated number of languages spoken in Asia Pacific, more than any other region in the world. Check out some interesting facts about Asian languages that you might have missed out learning in school:

• Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers of any language, with an estimated 12.5 percent of the world's population speaking it as their first language. If you are planning to pick up Mandarin, don’t be daunted by the fact that it has 50,000 characters—practice always makes perfect!
• There are 830 listed languages in the island state of Papua New Guinea (PNG), accounting for the greatest concentration of linguistic diversity on Earth today. Sitting in what is known as a language hot-spot—an area where many languages face the threat of extinction—linguists from National Geographic’s Enduring Voices programme are surveying many in PNG to better understand the world’s languages and the forces that drive language extinction.
• Asia is home to some of the world’s most endangered languages, including the Ainu in Japan, Dumi in Nepal and Manchu from China. The youngest speakers of these languages are often grandparents themselves, who are only able to speak them partially and infrequently.

While this rich variety of languages continues to shape and preserve the unique cultural identities of many Asian communities, language barriers can be a significant concern.

Within China there is a diversity of languages and cultures many as 292 living language identified though most are very small populations. The map below gives a sense of the areas where larger populations speak a language other than Mandarin which is spoken by 70% of the population:

This gives China problems as reflected in this 2016 story China aims to ease ethnic tensions with integration policy which is an indication that 7000 years of history still offers no solution to the "melting pot" versus "multicultural diversity" debate.

Pictures do appear in the press like the one on the right of police patroling the streets of the Muslim Uighur quarter in Urumqi after a series of violent incidents hit the Xinjiang region in the summer of 2013. China’s state-run media blamed around 100 people it branded as “terrorists” for sparking “riots” in the ethnically-divided region of western China.

On December 31, 2013, President Xi Jinping appeared on CCTV and extended his “New Year’s wishes to Chinese of all ethnic groups.”

The history is complicated as it is in the United States. As one commenter noted in Are Ethnic Tensions on the Rise in China? the answer is time frame dependent. From month to month the answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no. Since the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 regarding the Tibetans and Uighurs, China saw major armed rebellions during the mid 1950s, the imposition of martial law in 1989, and the 1990s were particularly volatile with many clashes, bombings, and assassinations. So right now, ethnic tensions are not quite so tense.

But just like us, they will see pictures appear like the one above and in this modern age occasional disturbing videos. Because just like us, they find it complicated to bring humans together. It is what makes politics and governing difficult.

Xi clearly stated that he wants a "country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful." His Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road plan covering 65 nations, about 60 per cent of the world’s population and a third of global GDP, involves the integration of a large region into a cohesive economic area through building infrastructure, increasing cultural exchanges, and broadening trade (see more details in the May 23 post here). He invited California to participate when meeting with Governor Brown.

We in California need to understand China and its politics. And we need to understand it without a bias that derives from a mid-20th Century view of communism. As explained in the last post, the folks in charge over there are the ones who were shipped off to rural farms to work after their parents were arrested, imprisoned, humiliated, tortured, and in some cases killed. It's safe to assume that they want far better for the next generations.

We need to be seeking together in harmony a beautiful China and California with clear waters and green mountains for our grandchildren. Xi and Brown are making the effort. So should all of us.

Xi Jinping's strategy for a 21st Century China With thoughtful Chinese characteristics a President tends his plan for 1.4 billion people for 2020 ...and 2035 ...and 2049

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was began last week, a once-every-five-years gathering.

Speaking for three hours and 23 minutes, China's President and Party General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered the opening report to the nearly 2,300 party delegates who represent China's

• 22 provinces; 
• five autonomous regions, each with a designated minority group; 
• four municipalities; 
• two Special Administrative Regions;
• plus the central financial system, state-run institutions, the military and the police.

The People's Republic of China is the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion, and at 9.3 million square kilometres (3.6 million square miles), is the world's second-largest state by land area. For comparison, the United States of America has 23% of the population at 0.324 billion people, but at 9.1 million square kilometres (3.5 million square miles) is almost as big geographically.

As usual, the American press struggled with its coverage of the 19th National Congress (however limited it was, which means very limited). Of course many American "journalists" couldn't even tell you how the government works that is responsible for the contents of their own toilet after its flushed, much less explain how government really works in China. And many bring to the subject of China's government a nationalistic bias of their own heavily colored by mid-20th Century views on communism and socialism.

Yes, the Communist Party of China provides the leadership of the state. However, to understand government in China one must understand this explanation from Wikipedia:

Due to China's large population and area, the administrative divisions of China have consisted of several levels since ancient times. The constitution of China provides for three de jure levels of government. Currently, however, there are five practical (de facto) levels of local government: the provincial (province, autonomous region, municipality, and special administrative region), prefecture, county, township, and village.

Since the 17th century, provincial boundaries in China have remained largely static. Major changes since then have been the reorganization of provinces in the northeast after the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the formation of autonomous regions, based on Soviet ethnic policies. The provinces serve an important cultural role in China, as people tend to identify with their native province.

As with President Donald Trump, China's President Xi has no direct role overseeing local sewage systems. But unlike an American President, Xi is the General Secretary of the Communist Party in a de facto one-party state and holds ultimate, albeit indirect, authority over almost all government officials through the Communist Party.

Nonetheless, it is important to note that the governmental electoral system is pyramidal. Local People's Congresses are directly elected, and higher levels of People's Congresses up to the National People's Congress (NPC) are indirectly elected by the People's Congress of the level immediately below. The political system is decentralized, and provincial and sub-provincial leaders have a significant amount of autonomy.

The most recent post here in this blog - in May - was about President Xi, the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, and the California-China Business Summit during ChinaWeek.

The Belt and Road Forum was President Xi's opportunity to lay out a broad foreign policy with an emphasis on creating a 21st Century China that could replace the United States as the world's preeminent economic power - much like the United States replaced a floundering Europe in the 20th Century.

This past week's 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China sets the agenda for the future of China beginning with that all-important three-hour “work report” speech by Xi.

To provide insight into President Xi's zeal to assure a strong future for his country, it is important to remember that on February 11, 2009, while visiting Mexico, then Vice-President Xi spoke in front of a group of overseas Chinese noting that China's task was to keep "its 1.3 billion people from hunger."

And regarding the 2008 financial crisis affecting the Atlantic oriented world filled with complaints about Chinese foreign trade: "There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us. First, China doesn't export revolution; second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches. What more is there to be said?"

This week President Xi Jinping reaffirmed that Beijing will never seek hegemony or engage in expansion "no matter what stage of development it reaches" and that "China will never pursue development at the expense of others' interests and its development does not pose a threat to any other country."

Since the 18th CPC Congress in 2012, in which Xi assumed his current position, China's "two centenary goals" were to

1. build a moderately prosperous society by 2020, one year before the Party's 100th anniversary in 2021, and 
2. develop China into a "fully modernized, socialist nation" by the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic of China in 2049.

To accomplish the goals, the "Four Comprehensives" came into being:

1. comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society (put forward at the November 2012 18th Party Congress),
2. comprehensively deepen reform (put forward at the November 2013 3rd Central Committee Plenum),
3. comprehensively and strictly govern the Party (put forward at the early October 2014 summary meeting of the Mass Line Campaign), and
4. comprehensively advance the rule of law (put forward during the late October 2014 4th Central Committee Plenum).

Additionally,  the "Five Development Concepts" from the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020) of innovation, coordination, green, openness and shared development were to be implemented.

This week Xi offered in his report a plan to "build on the foundation created by the moderately prosperous society" by implementing "a further 15 years of hard work to see that socialist modernization is basically realized" from 2020 to 2035, and then from 2035 to the middle of the 21st century "work hard for a further 15 years and develop China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful."

But Xi warned that it would be "no walk in the park. It will take more than drum beating and gong clanging to get there." He noted how China had "taken a driving seat in international cooperation to respond to climate change," additionally noting: "Only by observing the laws of nature can mankind avoid costly blunders in its exploitation. Any harm we inflict on nature will eventually return to haunt us. This is a reality we have to face!"

And thus in three hours and 23 minutes President Xi Jinping under the title Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era laid out his vision for the Chinese people. “The Chinese nation … has stood up, grown rich, and become strong – and it now embraces the brilliant prospects of rejuvenation … It will be an era that sees China moving closer to centre stage and making greater contributions to mankind.”

Fortunately, the Xinhua News Agency, the official press agency of the People's Republic of China, a ministry-level institution subordinate to the Chinese central government, provided this post-speech summary infographic:

It would be interesting to compare the Chinese President's hopes for his country for the next 30 years, plus the plans for his country to be implemented over the next five years, to those of the U.S. President.

It would be interesting if it weren't for the fact that the U.S. President's thinking is limited to 140 character tweets. It would be interesting if it weren't for the fact that the Trump Administration thinks in those deplorable American time frames described in the last post as "much of our business activity is controlled by a 5 to 10 week time frame and generally Americans struggle with a planning attention span of 5 to 10 days."

Even more troubling is the fact that key members of the Trump Administration are simply uninformed or misinformed about China.

Which brings us again to author and Forbes Contributor Wade Shepard. As noted in the previous post, Shepard is one of those rare American's who, in addition to being able to read and write well above a 6th grade level, is a China expert based upon his travels and study in China. In a post this past Thursday, Shepard wrote:

    On October 3rd, US Defense Secretary James Mattis proclaimed at a congressional hearing, "In a globalized world, there are many belts and many roads, and no one nation should put itself into a position of dictating 'One Belt, One Road.'"
     While the defense secretary was ultimately correct -- there are many different countries who are driving trans-Eurasian integration and China’s international infrastructural, economic, and political engagements do often overlap with other initiatives -- the style, scope, financial backing, strategy, and underlaying purpose behind China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) puts it in a category all its own, and should not be underestimated. We have perhaps never seen a program of geo-economic positioning quite like this before, and skeptically framing it in with known practices or established models is a mistake that political analysts, government officials, and even investors have been making -- even as they are encircled by the very initiative they write off or deny.
     If you’re looking for an official, correct map of where China’s Belt and Road actually goes, good luck. If you’re looking for an official explanation of what it really is, a list of approved projects, the amount of actual funding, where this funding is really coming from, what entities have the authority to engage projects under its name (and what entities don't), or even a run down of what countries are officially a part of it, you’ve just jumped down into a very deep hole of misinformation, no information, and all out propaganda.
     This is an initiative for which there are no publicly-stated KPI [Key Performance Indicator], no overarching institutionalization, no formal membership protocols, no founding charters, and a timeline for development that is not measured in mere years, but decades.

In a post the previous week The Real Reason Behind What's Driving China's Ambitions For A New Silk Road Shepard which describes a natural gas pipeline constructed at a cost of cost $7.5 billion under a 2007 contract negotiated by Xi's predecessor President Hu Jintao which this month will begin shipping natural gas to China.

    ...China’s appetite for this energy source is growing at an impressive clip, and is expected to rise 8.1% annually until 2030, which is far above the 2.1% global annual growth rate.
    If we looked at the entire BRI in terms of China increasing, bolstering, and securing their energy supply lines alone — without any of the rhetoric about global prosperity and “win-win” partnerships — it would still make sense. The economic powerhouse that is China requires energy to run, and this is something the country has not been able to handle on its own since at least 1993.
    Diversifying the sources of foreign oil and gas has been of tantamount importance to Beijing for well over a decade. In 2006, the Brookings Institute pointed this out in no uncertain terms:

    "The Chinese government recognizes that the diversification of China’s oil suppliers and import routes can enhance the security of the country’s oil supply. In terms of oil suppliers, China has sought not only to expand the number of countries and regions from which it imports oil but also to limit its dependence on the Persian Gulf, which in 2005 provided China with almost half of its crude oil imports… In terms of import routes, China wants to reduce its dependence on the sea lines of communication through which almost 90% of the country’s crude oil imports travel because of their vulnerability to disruption on the high seas by various modern navies."

    At this time, the focus of this diversification was mainly on the array of new China-bound oil and gas pipelines that were being dug across Russia and Central Asia. What could not be foreseen then was the attempt to create no less than three multimodal transport corridors that China would spearhead under the premise of the BRI to enable energy shipments from the Middle East and to enter the country while bypassing the heavily US Navy-fortified Straight of Malacca. These three prospective corridors extend overland from the ports of Bandar Abbas in Iran, Gwadar in Pakistan, and Kyauk Pyu in Myanmar up to China, enabling energy shipments to go partway by sea and then the rest of the way by pipeline or potentially even rail.

It is obvious that Xi sincerely hopes for a moderately prosperous China by 2020, a fully modernized China by 2035, and a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful China by 2049. It is also obvious that he is proud of what China is achieving in the 21st Century.

Orville Schell, head of the Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations and a veteran China expert who has been studying Chinese politics since the late 1950s, noted that Xi's "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is a viable counter-model to the presumption of western liberal democracy and capitalism. In a sense, what Xi is setting up here is not only a clash of civilization and values, but one of political and economic systems."

Xi could comfortably note how China had "taken a driving seat in international cooperation to respond to climate change." He added: "Only by observing the laws of nature can mankind avoid costly blunders in its exploitation. Any harm we inflict on nature will eventually return to haunt us. This is a reality we have to face!"

Xi could also note: “No one political system should be regarded as the only choice and we should not just mechanically copy the political systems of other countries. The political system of socialism with Chinese characteristics is a great creation.”

He could say this because he and those in his administration know that with the election of Donald Trump the United States has...

• a Republican President who by a large margin lost the popular vote (for the second time since the year 2000);
• a Senate in which 60 of the 100 Senators with 60% of the vote in the Senate represent less than 25% of the population, while 18 of the 100 Senators with only 18% of the vote in the Senate represent the majority of Americans, and despite the fact that more votes were cast for Democratic candidates than Republican candidates in the last three Senate elections, Republicans control the Senate;
• a House of Representatives in which Democratic candidates received a nationwide plurality but the Republican candidates won a majority of the House seats; and
• a nationwide justice system that randomly injures, kills, or imprisons large numbers of non-white American citizens without a trial, creating the highest incarceration rate in the world with about 22 percent of the world's prisoners in a nation that has about 4.4 percent of the world's population.

...leaving Americans with no ability at all to respond to Xi's "political system" challenge by claiming their government is a democracy - assuming democracy in any sense means majority rule based on the popular vote.

China is facing challenges which if covered by balanced reporting in the U.S. would seem familiar to Americans. Today, nearing the end of the 19th Congress, the Minister of Education Chen Baosheng, Minister of Civil Affairs Huang Shuxian, Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yin Weimin, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Wang Menghui, and Minister of National Health and Family Planning Commission Li Bin held a joint news briefing.

Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yin Weimin noted that despite the 3.95% registered unemployment rate in China's urban areas at the end of September "raising the capacity to employ workers overall still faces large pressures."

"We need to create 15 million jobs per year," Yin said, singling out China’s more than 8 million new university graduates that enter the job market each year as one group in need of additional employment.

Yin also said the low unemployment rate in the face of an overall slowdown in the economy was largely due to the new internet economy and entrepreneurship, adding that the ministry would actively support startups to help them “thrive”.

He reported "We've helped 8.8 million people in strained circumstances find jobs," adding that the total number of rural migrant workers increased from 263 million in 2012 to 282 million in 2016.

At the two-hour briefing held partly to address what President Xi called China’s “principle contradiction” between the country’s unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing need for a better life, the ministers outlined some of what they consider to be the biggest achievements of the last five years. Among those achievements is the expansion of basic medical insurance to cover 1.3 billion people and educational opportunities for 90 percent of disabled children.

With 230 million people over the age of 60, making up nearly 1/5 of the population, the challenges grow. Minister Huang Shuxian said they are making progress in providing better facilities for those senior citizens noting “28,000 elderly care homes with nearly seven million beds have been registered across the country. Elderly care service facilities are available in all urban communities and in over half of China’s rural communities.”

Minister Chen Baosheng noted the continuing unbalance of educational resources between urban and rural areas, and even among different districts of individual cities. “The basic focus of our policies is to provide benefits to rural areas, to poor performing schools, to less privileged areas, and to people with economic difficulties,” Chen Baosheng said laying out goals for 2020: an 85 percent gross enrollment rate in three-year kindergarten, and 90 percent in high-schools.

While this was a press briefing, not a new conference, the following CGTN America coverage on YouTube provides a video context though it does have to be pointed out that CGTN is the collection of international language news channels run by the China's government-owned broadcaster China Central Television:

In terms of the goals of China's government, this week provided a good opportunity to learn so long as one recognizes in this context that "short-term" means five years while the year 2049 looms on the Chinese culture's visible horizon.

The year 2049 looms on the California culture's visible horizon also. We might want to give some thought to how China's goals might impact us as we cope with economic and environmental issues.

To learn more about China, its history and culture, watch the six episode Story of China at PBS.org.

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This post is the second one of four on the 21st Century political and cultural objectives that have been set by China. Click on the images below to read the other three.

Xi Jinping's 21st Century Silk Economic Belt and Road About California's future if China becomes the world's 21st Century economic center

At the beginning of this month, for two weeks an event took place for which I can find no news coverage in the United States - not even California news sources. Here is how the China Daily described it:

    An annual event dedicated to promoting business and cultural exchanges between China and California, ChinaWeek draws industry and government representatives from Guangdong, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanghai and Chongqing to expand and deepen bilateral trade and investment, said Peter Shiao, chairman of ChinaWeek and its organizer.
    California Governor Jerry Brown, as usual, was upbeat on the state's relationship with China during his keynote speech at Tuesday's California-China Business Summit, an important component of ChinaWeek.
    Brown anticipates closer and deeper collaborations within a wide spectrum of industries and fields between China and California, especially high tech, clean tech, real estate, agriculture, infrastructure and education. "Let's roll up our sleeves to have the work done," said the governor.
    China in the past 16 years has invested $16 billion in more than 370 businesses in California and accounted for 60 percent of international trade activities in the "gateway state", said Shiao, adding that China remains Los Angeles County's biggest trader partner.

Not one American news website story on this gathering can be found if you do a Google news search.

On the other hand, this past week's Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was given some, albeit mostly dismissive, coverage by the American press, from both mainstream and alt right.

Click on images to see larger versions!

What may have been the most significant political speech of 2017 was a toast at a banquet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. China's President Xi Jinping in calling for renewing the Silk Road spirit said:

    More than 2,000 years ago, our ancestors, driven by a desire for friendship, opened the overland and maritime Silk Roads and thus started a great era of exchanges among civilizations. Today, we gather here to renew the Silk Road spirit and discuss the Belt and Road development for international cooperation. This is both a continuation of our shared legacy and a right choice for the future.

He also noted that the Belt and Road Initiative embodies the aspiration for inter-civilization exchanges, the yearning for peace and stability, the pursuit of common development and the shared dream for a better life.

Silk Road? Belt and Road Initiative?? 2000 years??? Where is the all important "me" in that????

In considering such a span of human history, it is wise to keep in mind these words from the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz:

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Despite the fact that "selfies" and self-important tweets are all the rage among the consumers of the world, there is no "me" in considering 2000 years, even in or particularly in the World Wide Web. Individual fruit flies and individual humans are equally unimportant over time periods measured in centuries.

Yes there have been individual humans who made a significant continuing impact on humans in time spans measured in thousands of years. It would be fair to say that of the 100,000,000,000± billion folks who have ever lived and are not alive today, 100± individuals made a significant impact that reverberates through history to today. That's 1 out of every 1 billion.

So it's likely that, out of the 7 billion now alive, there are seven individuals out there who will be recognized as someone who still impacts significantly on human life 2,000 years from now.

And not that most of us don't contribute to the cumulative gross mess that is human history. But it is likely that when it comes to altering the course of that history in a meaningful way, this guy is probably one of the seven....

You probably recognize he is not Donald Trump nor any other American. Nor for that matter is he from any European culture. If you are among 95%+ of Americans, just from the picture below you will not be able to place a name...

...with the face of the man in the middle with is wife, China's President Xi Jinping.

On February 11, 2009, while visiting Mexico, then Vice-President Xi spoke in front of a group of overseas Chinese noting that China's task was to keep "its 1.3 billion people from hunger" and regarding the financial crisis affecting the Atlantic oriented world: "There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us. First, China doesn't export revolution; second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches. What more is there to be said?"

That helps put a bit of perspective on his visit to Central Asia and Southeast Asia in September and October 2013, when as China's President he raised the initiative of jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.

Additional perspective (for those who live in a country that is less than 400 years old) comes from China's history where writing began around 7000 BCE,  the first empire dynasty emerged around 2100 BCE, and the Shang Dynasty from the 17th to the 11th century BCE created oracle bone script which is a direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters. To make a long story short, around 220 BCE the state of Qin established the first unified Chinese state. Its King Zheng enacted legalist reforms throughout China, notably the forced standardization of Chinese characters, measurements, road widths (i.e., cart axles' length), and currency. His dynasty also conquered the Yue tribes in Guangxi, Guangdong, and Vietnam. The Han dynasty emerged to rule China between 206 BCE and CE 220, creating a cultural identity among its populace still remembered in the ethnonym of the Han Chinese. The Han expanded the empire's territory considerably, with military campaigns reaching Central Asia, Mongolia, South Korea, and Yunnan, and the recovery of Guangdong and northern Vietnam from Nanyue. Han involvement in Central Asia and Sogdia helped establish the land route of the Silk Road, replacing the earlier path over the Himalayas to India. Han China gradually became the largest economy of the ancient world. For more historical detail on the Silk Road click on this image:

Historical extent of Silk Route/Silk Road. Red is land route and the blue is the sea/water route.

Xi's Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road - also known as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Belt and Road (abbreviated B&R), or One Belt, One Road (abbreviated OBOR) - is a broad international economic development strategy that focuses on connectivity and cooperation among countries.

The plan covers 65 nations, about 60 per cent of the world’s population and a third of global GDP. China has budgeted $40 billion for the project. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which began operations last year with $100 billion in capital, is also expected to fund Belt and Road projects.

The Belt and Road initiative is geographically structured along six corridors, and the maritime silk road:

• New Eurasian Land Bridge, running from Western China to Western Russia
• China–Mongolia–Russia Corridor, running from Northern China to Eastern Russia
• China–Central Asia–West Asia Corridor, running from Western China to Turkey
• China–Indochina Peninsula Corridor, running from Southern China to Singapore
• China–Pakistan Corridor, running from South-Western China to Pakistan
• Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Corridor, running from Southern China to India
• Maritime Silk Road, running from the Chinese Coast over Singapore and India to the Mediterranean.

The initiative calls for the integration of the region into a cohesive economic area through building infrastructure, increasing cultural exchanges, and broadening trade. Apart from this zone, which is largely analogous to the historical Silk Road, another area that is said to be included in the extension of this 'belt' is South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Many of the countries that are part of this belt are also members of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). North, central and south belts are proposed. goes through Central Asia, Russia to Europe. The Central belt goes through Central Asia, West Asia to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. The South belt starts from China to Southeast Asia, South Asia, to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan. The Chinese One Belt strategy will integrate with Central Asia through Kazakhstan's Nurly Zhol infrastructure program. (Much of this information is from the Wikipedia entry which offers more.)

From a movement point of view the B&R historical ties looks something like this:

But in terms of world impact it could also be viewed this way...

...or this way:

Click on image to access links to each country.

Attending the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation this past week were the following representatives of non-member nations:

Heads of State:

• Argentina: President Mauricio Macri Chile: President Michelle Bachelet
• Fiji: Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama
• Greece: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras
• Italy: Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni
• Kenya: President Uhuru Kenyatta
• Philippines: President Rodrigo Duterte
• Poland: Prime Minister Beata Szydło
• Spain: Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy
• Switzerland: President Doris Leuthard

Minister Level:

• Australia: Trade Minister Steve Ciobo
• Brazil: Secretary for Strategic Affairs Hussein Ali Kalout
• Finland:  Minister of Transport and Communications of Finland Anne Berner
• Germany: Minister of Economic Affairs Brigitte Zypries
• North Korea: Kim Yong-jae, Minister of External Economic Relations

Other:

• France: Jean-Pierre Raffarin, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Defense and Armed Forces in the French Senate
• Japan: LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai
• South Korea: Ambassador to China Kim Jang-soo; Park Byeong-seug, National Assembly member for the Democratic Party
• United States: Matt Pottinger, National Security Council senior director for Asia (Who???)

There is a lot of recent history and current activity involved, not all of which has been successful as explained in Wade Shepard's I Spent Two Years On China's Belt And Road, And This Is What I Found. Shepard also provides a proper perspective:

    China takes a long-term view of these investments, and have show that they are willing to exercise the requisite patience. By long-term view, I mean 30, 40, 50 years down the line, not the 5 to 10 years that is roughly where the west’s nearsightedness kicks in.
    China has shown that it is both willing and able to weather the storms of domestic and international politics in order to get what they want in the end.

Shepard is one of those rare American's who, in addition to being able to read and write well above a 6th grade level, is a China expert based upon his travels and study in China. He is currently traveling the New Silk Road doing research for a new book. You can follow his writings through this feed.

Which brings us back to that 2000 year window. As Shepard commented about Americans, we are limited by "the 5 to 10 years that is roughly where the west’s nearsightedness kicks in." That is really generous as much of our business activity is controlled by a 5 to 10 week time frame and generally Americans struggle with a planning attention span of 5 to 10 days.

So it's probably ok that those selfies and tweets are on some electronic device and/or cloud that will certainly and inevitably disappear over the next hundred years. They don't matter, not even Donald Trumps tweets, nor all the self-important news reporters following them.

As explained in an Atlantic article while most post-election analysis cited economic anxiety as the main concern when people chose to vote for Donald Trump, a newer survey paints a different picture - it was cultural anxiety that drove white, working-class voters to Trump.  Sixty-eight percent of white working-class voters said the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence and nearly half agreed with the statement, “things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own country.”

So, the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence. Members of the alt-right and Trump tweet about it on their smart phones manufactured in Asia by Asians. But then again so do the members of what is now being called "the Alt-Left" led by Bernie Sanders which is working to take over the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Sunday that Eleven Asia-Pacific nations agree to salvage Trans-Pacific Partnership:

    Eleven Asia-Pacific nations, including Australia, agreed on Sunday to salvage a massive free trade deal that US President Donald Trump pulled out of days after taking office in January.
    Australia's Trade Minister Steve Ciobo pushed for the agreement at a meeting in Vietnam to "launch a process to assess options" to bring the Trans-Pacific Partnership into force.
    New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay, who chaired the meeting, left open the possibility of the US rejoining the TPP despite Mr Trump saying he prefers bilateral free trade deals.
    Mr McClay said each country had to consider both economic values and the strategic importance of the agreement "but in the end there is a lot of unity among all of the countries and a great desire to work together to come up with an agreement."

As I explained almost one year ago Sanders and Trump to destroy Pacific Rim states of California, Oregon, and Washington by forcing the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Because the Alt-Left and -Right led American voters (I consider them both among "The Deplorables") wanted their grandchildren to have income and eat, before voting they examined major economic shifts, studying them as much as they possibly could, ignoring their own self-indulgent feelings of stress. So they knew the TPP was a plan to reduce the impact of China on the economies of the Pacific Rim nations and the World over the next 50-100 years - the lifespans of their children and grandchildren.

Except, of course, that isn't what they did because the ignoramuses leading them, Trump and Sanders, still don't know what's happening. As Bill Maher regularly notes, the American voters mostly are stupid, failing to vote their own self-interest mostly because they don't know what that is.

At this point we are facing what I call The Deplorables Map of the Future of World Economics because they at election time assured it (click on it for a larger version):

This economic China-centric world is the future. As the intent of the B&R is explained by The New York Times:

    [China's President] Xi is aiming to use China’s wealth and industrial know-how to create a new kind of globalization that will dispense with the rules of the aging Western dominated institutions. The goal is to refashion the global economic order, drawing countries and companies more tightly into China’s orbit.
    “President Xi believes this is a long-term plan that will involve the current and future generations to propel Chinese and global economic growth,” said Cao Wenlian, director general of the International Cooperation Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, a group dedicated to the initiative. “The plan is to lead the new globalization 2.0.”
    Mr. Xi is rolling out a more audacious version of the Marshall Plan, America’s postwar reconstruction effort. Back then, the United States extended vast amounts of aid to secure alliances in Europe. China is deploying hundreds of billions of dollars of state-backed loans in the hope of winning new friends around the world, this time without requiring military obligations.
    Mr. Xi’s plan stands in stark contrast to President Trump and his “America First” mantra. The Trump administration walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the American-led trade pact that was envisioned as a buttress against China’s growing influence.
    “Pursuing protectionism is just like locking oneself in a dark room,” Mr. Xi told business leaders at the World Economic Forum in January.

As of 2017, China (including Hong Kong) holds $1.324 trillion in U.S. debt derived from our deficit balance of trade. The average American can pretty much figure out where that came from by looking at the stuff around his or her house, cupboards, and closests (as well as staring at that phone in his or her hand). Much of it contains components, or is entirely, made in China. After all it is where the Trump family has their clothing lines made. So President Xi is pretty comfortable loaning a few billion here and there around the world.

But wait. Didn't I say that while the B&R includes about 60 per cent of the world’s population, it only includes a third of global GDP?  And my "Deplorables Map" above doesn't correctly reflect the World as it does not include Europe, particularly the European Union members. After all, the EU is the second largest economy in the world and the world's largest trading block. Of course, Brexit likely will change all that. However, what were talking about here is the area in the square...

...which geographically isn't perhaps the largest block. But nonetheless, it the following map initially would seem to indicate a meaningful portion of the World's economy...

...except... notice the round purple dots on all the countries that are members of China's Belt and Road Initiative and remember as mentioned above that the heads of state of Greece, Italy, Poland, and Spain, plus cabinet ministers from Finland and the United Kingdom attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

It might not be unreasonable to assume that China's economic policy influence in Europe would increase substantially in the next 50-100 years as the United States abandons its allies like it did in the Pacific Rim.

When contemplating Europe, we have to remember that it is the same distance between Berlin and Beijing as it is between Berlin and the State Capitol of Illinois, Springfield. Far more Chinese citizens live closer to Berlin than Americans. Denver is closer to Beijing than Berlin.

The problem is, our history is Atlantic-centered (except for California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska). That made sense when the sailing ship was the primary source of transportation between continents. But since the mid-20th Century aircraft altered the reality for everyone except Americans East of the Mississippi and Europeans who still live in the 18th Century.

I get it. Sure the Deplorables of the left and right and the Brexiters feel things have changed so much that they often feel like a stranger in their own countries. But it's long past the time that sailing ships were lobbing cannon balls while Francis Scott Key wrote those sterling versus in the defense of owning slaves. Get over it. There are new problems now. Americans are going to have to adjust or lose out completely by the beginning of the 22nd Century.

Back in January, California Governor Jerry Brown went to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to speak at a Lunar New Year celebration to reaffirm what he called the state's "great interest" in working with China. As explained in the LA Times:

    "There will be a few side arguments in Washington," Brown said. "Don't worry. When it comes to California and China, we're on the right track, and we're going to stay there."
    California has collaborated closely on climate change with Chinese officials, who have studied the state's programs as they formulate their own. Brown said the state also has benefited from China's production of solar panels, helping to drive down the cost of renewable energy.
    "We are working together with China," he said. "Whatever little differences we have, or whatever big differences, the fact is, we have one world. We have one space we're all connected by."
    Brown's brief comments at the consulate weren't all rosy. Often preoccupied with existential threats , he told the audience that he wanted to make sure they "walk out of here with at least three things to worry about."
    First, he said, "you will suffer" if climate change isn't addressed. Second, nuclear bombs could "get used by somebody," which would be "very bad." Third, the global financial system "might collapse again."
    "That's a lot to worry about," Brown said.

Next month Brown will be in China to attend a climate change conference. Brown previously visited China in 2013 on a trade policy trip. He makes these trips because he knows that China and the U.S. have to take the lead on climate change. He also knows the most serious threat of nuclear war comes from North Korea. He understands that as was true in 2008 the potential collapse of the global financial system will result from U.S. economic policy, the impact of which China is trying to avert.

Finally, he understands that while California's economy ranks, depending on year, between #5-#8 in the world, it couldn't without strong foreign trade as represented by this data:

At the end of the 19th Century, bilateral trade relationships between countries dominated which led to the most murderous century in history. At the end of the 20th Century during which 100+ million people died in wars, multilateral trade relationships between countries became the norm to avoid conflict.

China's leadership understands this world reality and intends to take the leadership role which will be facilitated by the absence of U.S. influence. California's leadership understands this world reality and intends to continue its active role in order to protect the interests of its people, particularly necessary in the vacuum left by the U.S. government.

And if you don't think there is a potential threat, consider this article that appeared in Asian news sources but not American news sources in March 2017 Moscow and Beijing join forces to bypass US dollar in world money market and perhaps you'll begin to understand that isolating the U.S. as Trump touts bilateral trade negotiations could become a disaster for the grandchildren of The Deplorables.

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This post is the first one of four on the 21st Century political and cultural objectives that have been set by China. Click on the images below to read the other three.