China Is Rising While America Falls Behind | Silk and Steel

Jamarl Thomas (0:00)

We're joined with Carl Zha. What's going on, man? You doing okay today?

Carl Zha (0:04)

I'm doing great. Thank you. Thank you, Jamar. Thank you for inviting me.

Jamarl Thomas (0:09)

Always, man. I always appreciate this. An audience loves you, and I always appreciate you joining me also. Just so the audience will know, just in case they don't know who you are. Carl Zha, he is host of Silk and Steel Podcasts, focused on China and surrounding regions, their history, culture, and politics. You can follow Carl on Twitter, at CarlZha. You can follow the podcast on Twitter, at SteelSilk, the letter N. And you can subscribe and support the podcast on patreon.com/silk and Steel. Carl, yesterday was Chinese Independence Day. Oh, not Independence Day. It's Independence Day for us. Chinese National Day, I think, is what China calls it.

I guess, is there a comment on that? I mean, you covered Chinese history. This was the creation of the modern Chinese state.

What are your thoughts on it? Just before I figure we should at least commemorate it, considering the importance of the national flag.

Carl Zha (1:03)

Yesterday was the 77th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China. So by now, China in the modern form has existed longer than the Soviet Union.

And one thing that needs to be pointed out is that today in 2026, the average Chinese people have been living lives better than any time in the past Chinese history. I know there's a cult in the United States called Falun Gong who put out a dance show called Shen Yun and their marketing slogan is China Before Communism. Well, China Before Communism was actually not a very nice place to live for the average Chinese.

There was recurrent famine, civil war, foreign invasion. People can look up the life expectancy of China before 1949 It was pretty despicable. The Chinese average life expectancy in the 30s and 40s was comparable to Afghanistan during the Afghan War, which is we're talking about the male average life expectancy is in the 30s. Well, of course, that has to do with a large infant mortality because a lot of the babies, they don't survive into adulthood. That brings down the average, not saying like the average, the oldest people were like in their 30s in China at the time, just because large amount of babies would die. One thing that the communists has done after the establishment of the People's Republic is it brought the raise up the life expectancy by reduced infant mortality.

A lot of people talk about Mao's mistakes, talking about his responsibility for the 1958 to 1962 Great Chinese Famine. Well, that's true, but it's also true during Mao years the Chinese life expectancy shot up, because Mao has sent a lot of doctors to the countryside, to establish clinics, to provide basic medical service for the villagers. And that led to a sharp decline in the infant mortality, which boosted the Chinese life expectancy. And today, the Chinese average life expectancy is actually higher than the United States, for the first time in history. And so these are the things to celebrate. And also another thing was literacy. Before 1949, the illiteracy in China is about like 80 to 90%. It's only 10% of people know how to read. And today, that ratio again is reversed. 90%, like the Chinese literacy is over 90%.

SPEAKER_3 (4:11)

And this is why-

Carl Zha (4:12)

Actually, it's 99%.

Jamarl Thomas (4:14)

I looked it up.

Carl Zha (4:15)

Thank you.

SPEAKER_3 (4:16)

It's 99%.

Carl Zha (4:17)

This is why China is able to catch up very quickly in AI, in all fields of technology. And this is why a lot of Washington elites are worried, because China now is producing millions of STEM engineers every year. You know, they produce like five times amount of the STEM engineer than United States. So this is how they are able to catch up so quickly in all fields. Not because they are still in technology, like everybody is assuming, because if that were true, the United States will be leading in 5G or something.

So there are still areas that China may be temporarily behind, you know, in some area of AI, in some area of rocket science. But even there, they are catching up to SpaceX and American AI. So this is giving a lot of people anxieties. Now, back in 30s and 40s, the prevalent attitude of American hold to China wasn't anxiety. It was more like pity and, you know, oh, the poor Chinese are getting brutalized by the Japanese, right? But today, it's completely different, because China now is a very strong, very prosperous nation. You can't say independence, because China today has, you know, before 1949, China was beholden to all sort of foreign powers in China. Different foreign powers carve up their sphere of influence, and US was famously for the open door policy in China, which means, what really means is that the United States wants all the foreign power to have an equal share, because the United States was generally come lately when it comes to carve up the sphere of influence to China, because it doesn't want Britain and France to have the larger slice of the pie. So the United States, like, hold on, let's have an open door policy, so all of us get an equal share of the Chinese market.