The Chinese Paradox

Found via Strange Maps

ts size and its penchand for autarkism dictate China’s three main geopolitical objectives:

* maintain unity of the Han heartland;
* maintain control over the non-Han buffer zone;
* deflect foreign encroachment on the Chinese coast.

Clearly isolationist, these objectives also condemn China to poverty: as a densely populated country with limited arable land, China needs internatioal trade to prosper. The paradox is that prosperity will lead to instability. Prosperity will tend to be concentrated in the areas trading with the outside world (i.e. the coastal regions), creating economic tensions with the poorer interior. This might destabilise the Han heartland.

The paradox lies in the fact that despite its immense size and the fact that it borders fourteen countries, geography isolates China from the rest of the world–to the north, the tundras of Siberia, to the west the deserts of Central Asia, to the southwest the Himalayas, and to the southeast the mountainous jungles that lie on the northern side of the Indochinese countries. Land access is limited to the Pacific littoral on the north (Siberian Pacific) and south (Vietnam) and the thread of the ancient Silk Road traversed by trading Moslems and adventurous Europeans. So all foreign contact–and therefore the prosperity that comes with trading–is confined to the coastal areas, while the interior regions remain poor, leading to instability that threatens the whole of China.

See the link for details, including how Tibet, Mongolia and other areas that form modern China’s border regions fit into this.

Tags: China, geography, geopolitics