"The New Silk Roads" by Peter Frankopan

 A sort of economic history of the future world, this book considers the shift in global economic power from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in particular considering the economic rise of China whose GDP on a “purchasing power parity” basis has risen from 39% of the US in 2001 to 114% in 2016. This phenomenal growth has been achieved by investing in infrastructure, particularly energy and transport. And this is a story seen in other nations too, for example in India. But not in the West. Frankopan states that according to the OECD “not one of the ten fastest-growing economies of 2017 is located in the western hemisphere, nor has one been for the last decade.” (The Roads to the East)

Now China is seeking to export its economics to the world. To safeguard its growing demand for food, it is purchasing food producers in other Asian countries and in Africa and Australia. And it is investing over a trillion US dollars, again principally in transportation and energy production, in over 80 countries in central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. Their shipping initiatives alone could reduce shipment times by an average of 12% and trading costs by 10%. 

There are downsides and not just the environmental impact. The China investment programme risks feeding corrupt elites and saddling poor countries with unsustainable debts (which have led to the Chinese seizing control of national assets including territory). And many of the countries “have poor records on human rights, limited freedom of expression in matters of faith, conscience and sexuality, and control their media.” (The Roads to the Future) But when the West's response to, for example, human rights violations is to wield the big stick and impose sanctions, the Chinese are poised to offer help, increasing their economic power and weakening that of the West.

Indeed, the West is shown to be almost totally outplayed in this game. Sometimes they don't even realise what is happening. “The relentless focus on the White House, on Brexit and on the day's latest breaking news ... means there is limited focus on what is going on elsewhere in the world.” (The Roads to the Heart of the World) When they do react it is often to shoot themselves in the foot. Trump's sanctioning of Iran and attempts to sanction those who traded with Iran pushed a number of countries including Russia and Turkey towards China. The UK concern over immigration has meant that “More anglophone students from across Africa now take courses in China than they do in either the UK or the US.” (The Roads to Beijing) “Compared with the Silk Roads and Asia, Europe is not so much moving at a different speed as in a different direction. Where the story in Asia is about increasing connections, improving collaboration and deepening co-operation, in Europe the story is about separation, the re-erection of barriers and ‘taking back control’.” (The Roads to the Future) Profound Eurocentrism betrays a lack of historical perspective and is “symptomatic of the melancholy that accompanies the setting of the sun in a part of the world that has enjoyed the benefits of centuries basking in its warm rays.” (The Roads to the Future)

Already much of the world view the West with deep suspicion. The US, for example, is viewed as responsible for the instability in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. They are seen as wanting to prevent the change that is lifting so many out of poverty. “Those most incentivized to apply the brakes are those with the most to lose - namely the west, which having been asleep at the wheel now wants to return to ‘ normal’ and expects the newcomers to resume their old positions in the world order.” (The Roads to the Future) As a consequence of these perceptions, they are losing friends. “It is striking to note just how few true allies the US has around the world, and how even long-term partners question it's basic reliability.” (The Roads to the Future)

As someone who values liberal democracy and the right to free speech, not to mention my comfortable way of life, this book made me profoundly fearful for the future. But it is cogently argued and the conclusions seem inescapable. “As new connections forge and old links are renewed ... the west is in danger of becoming less and less relevant. When the west does engage in playing a role, it is invariably to intervene or interfere in ways that create more problems than they solve - or to place obstacles and restrictions in place that limit the growth and prospects of others.” (The Roads to the Future)

The only thing that makes sense is for us to play the same game as the Chinese. We need to invest in infrastructure, especially transport links and renewable energy. We need to invest in making friends (and trading partners) around the world instead of becoming defensive and pulling up the drawbridge. We even have to accept that our own lifestyles must be sustainable and on the basis of equality with others around the world. As Chinese president Xi Jinping says, "
the real enemy 'is not the neighboring country; it is hunger, poverty, ignorance, superstition and prejudice’.” (The Roads to the Future)

An eye-opening book. April 2024; 289 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"The Water Kingdom" by Philip Ball

 This is a history of China seen through the lens of water management. China is a vast land area with a relatively small coast which is irrigated principally by two huge rivers that flow west to east: the Yellow river, so called because of the vast amounts of silt it carries downstream, and the Yangtze. Both of these rivers periodically flood and the floods can devastate whole regions, killings millions of people: "Life on the Yellow river floodplain was not so much precarious as predictably disastrous" (Ch 1).  They have therefore been subject to water management schemes since the earliest dynasties. When you add in the importance of water for irrigation and for transport, it becomes easy to see why the empires in China rose and fell as a result of the ability of the imperial administration to control the water.

My biggest problem with this book is that the size of the subject, Chinese history over the past 3000 or more years, is vast. This, added to my utter ignorance of China, meant that a lot of what was being said went straight over my head. Ball tries to provide a soft introduction but this sometimes only served to make things more difficult. For example, he explains how to pronounce Chinese words under the pinyin system ... but q is pronounced like ch and x like sch and z like dds and c like ts ....so that I ended up thoroughly confused and resentful that the words weren't being written so that I could pronounce the,. Why not write Qin as Chin if that is how it is pronounced? When you add this first difficulty with that of understanding how the writing works,  remembering the multiple dynasties, some of which had multiple emperors, and understanding where the states and provinces are, it is a testament to the skill of this writer that I understood as much as I did. If one thing was made very clear to me it was that my ignorance of such a vast and important culture is inexcusable.

I learned inter alia that:

• soy salt was created to eke out costly salt, an essential for Chinese peasants who had little meat in their diet (Ch 1)
• that Chinese shamans made prophecies from the pattern of cracking in heated animal bones and tortoise shells (Ch 3)
• that Lao Tzu explicitly associated the tao, the way, with a water channel and that the old sign for the tao (I hadn't considered the possibility that Chinese characters have evolved) was a man at a crossroads (Ch 3) 
• that qi (chi, the energy that flows through the landscape in feng shui) is something similar to the Greek idea of pneuma, being wind, breath and spirit (Ch 3)
• that Confucius believed in a meritocracy and that if a ruler deviated from the dao, the way, it was incumbent upon his officials to speak truth to power (Ch 3)
• that there was a Ministry of Rites (shades of Titus Groan whose author, Mervyn Peake, was brought up in China) (Ch 5)
• that when the eunuch admiral voyaged to Calicut he heard about a prophet called Mouxie ... or Moses (Ch 5)
• that the leader of the Taiping rebellion (the worst civil war in history) Hong Xiuquan was inspired by the story of Noah's flood (Hong means flood) which had destroyed and then renewed the world; the Hongmen (Floodgate) is a Mason-like secret society today in Taiwan and Hong Kong ("where they are illegal because of their association with the criminal underworld organization the Triads") (Ch 6)
• that Feng shui means 'wind and water'; the magnetic compass was probably first design ed for feng shui geomancy, to find locations where chi energy flows; flowing water is good for flowing chi which is why buildings are often sited close to fast-flowing rivers; buildings with sinuous walls channel chi rather than block it (Ch 9)
• that Confucianism's emphasis on balance and harmony recommends practices that preserve ecosystems (Ch 10)
• that during the Great Leap Forward, desiring more steel production meant encouraging home smelting. "Entire forests were sacrificed in a single season in order to feed the backyard furnaces that smelted valuable tools and kitchenware into millions of tons of useless scrap metal." (Ch 10)
• that Shanghai has sunk by more than two metres in fifteen years due to the depletion of underground water reserves (Ch 10)

Selected quotes:

• "The Chinese word for 'landscape' is ... shanshui, mountains (shan) and water (shui)." (Introduction)
• "'Coolies': the anglicized word for any labourers who bore heavy loads, derived from ku li, 'bitter strength'." (Ch 1)
• "Fish forget about themselves in water, men forget about themselves in the dao." (Ch 3; quoting the Zhuangzi)
• "In Europe, empires were built by acquiring land; ib China that benefited you little unless you had a means of making it productive." (Ch 4)
• "There are two big problems with water in China today. There is not enough of it to go round, and it is often o foul that no one can use it anyway." (Ch 10)
• "Every year it is estimates that water pollution in China produces 190 million casualties and around 60,000 fatalities." (Ch 10)

Many fascinating facts but, due to my ignorance, much of it went over my head. March 2023; 314 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God