How China Fakes Its Success with Frank Dikotter

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Frank Dikotter (1:02)

When you have a figure of 5% GDP, which we must achieve, that's a quota. You dig a hole, it's GDP.

You fill it with concrete, it's GDP.

You build a house on top of it, the GDP destroyed the house, build a bigger one, still empty, also GDP. But you can sit in your bullet train, which is empty, and you can look at these great skyscrapers, which are also empty. Why are they exporting so much? Because nobody has the means to buy any of it inside China. We think communism is under production, not enough. No, it's too much of this and too little of that. It remains a classic misallocation of capital, which creates the illusion, the illusion of great achievements. But the moment you start looking at the numbers, it all vanishes rather quickly.

Konstantin Kisin (1:55)

The British government wants to force YouTube to downrank independent content like this and replace it with approved messaging from the mainstream media. The only way you can fight back and continue to enjoy our content is to make sure you're subscribed. Like this video and comment below to have your say on what the government is doing. Frank Dikotter, welcome to TRIGGERnometry.

Frank Dikotter (2:17)

Thank you for having me.

Konstantin Kisin (2:17)

It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. You are one of the world's greatest experts on the history of China, especially over the last 100 plus years or so.

Frank Dikotter (2:26)

Thank you.

Konstantin Kisin (2:27)

The question we wanted to start with is, just for you to tell us and our audience, it's a part of the world that's poorly understood here in the West, I feel, by most people or not understood at all. How does China, which is communist today, become communist over the last 100 plus years? Because when we think of China, we think of it as the Chinese Imperial Society. That's the historical narrative we have.

How does it go from that to what it is today?

Frank Dikotter (2:56)

Yeah, well, that's a long story. And I'm not entirely sure where to start, but one thing you want to bear in mind when you think about the Bolsheviks and Lenin in 1917, they basically inherit the boundaries of the Romanov Empire, right? The Tsarist Empire. So the one thing we tend to forget is that the communists in 1949, when they conquered power and the red flag goes up over the Forbidden City, inherits the Qing Empire, which collapsed in 1911 So what I'm trying to say here is that in terms of geopolitics, the China we know today is very much based on the empire that lasted from roughly the middle of the 17th century till 1911 when it collapsed. So to put it in a slightly more brutal manner, it is an empire that has yet to decolonize.

So think of Xinjiang Uyghurs, concentration camps, Tibet.

Large chunks of that territory belonged to the Qing Empire, conquered by the Manchus in 1644 This empire collapses like many empires in 1911 What you then see from 1911 to 49 is an extraordinary interesting period called the Republic of China.

Konstantin Kisin (4:17)

Can I pause there? Because I'd love for you to tell us briefly why the Qing Empire collapses.

Frank Dikotter (4:24)

The bottom line is that they were overstretched and had to control a huge amount of territory.

But I think one other reason is that they managed to conquer so much through violence, that the moment there was any sense of weakness, a great many of these peoples they conquered, including Tibetans and Mongols and Uyghurs rebelled in the 19th century. So this is one of the great stories, now that you ask about the 19th century, why did it collapse? Have you heard of the Taiping Rebellion?