Bow to the Sinaloa Cartel.

The Sunday Essay ☕️

Yesterday, I released an interview with Richard Wolff, a renowned economist and author. We debated the outcomes of USA/China competitiveness — a fascinating and nuanced subject that is often overly simplified - or massively sensationalized.

My biggest takeaway from studying this topic over the past year is how little exposure we in the West have to Chinese history. This is curious, given that China has led the world in innovation and sophisticated governance for most of the last 3,000 years.

It seems like a worthy area of study.

For those of us in North America, living in comparatively young countries, it isn’t always intuitive to grasp the significance of a multi-thousand-year history. Our countries are less than 300 years old, so a history spanning over a thousand years may seem ancient — and therefore irrelevant.

But the citizens of these countries weigh their thousand-year histories very differently. The China History Podcast has gathered data from numerous Chinese sociological studies, including ranking the most significant historical events. 

In America, we would likely hear about Sept 11, WWII, WWI, The American Civil war and the American Revolutionary War, the earliest of which takes us back 250 years. 

In China, the events commonly mentioned take us back 2500 years.

Below are some of the most commonly mentioned events:

The Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE), which laid the foundation for many of China's cultural, political, and intellectual traditions, including the establishment of Confucianism as the state ideology.

The Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 CE), considered the golden age of arts, culture, and cosmopolitanism, during which Buddhism was introduced. During this time, the Chinese capital, Chang’an (modern-day Xi’an), was believed to be the largest and most prosperous city in the world.

The Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644), known for its recovery following the fall of the Mongol Empire and rule in China. This era saw the construction of the Forbidden City in Beijing and the expansion of Chinese influence abroad through exploration. As I mentioned in last week's letter, Chinese maritime explorers of this era demonstrated technologies and competencies that were generations ahead of their European counterparts, such as Columbus, Vespucci, and Cook.

When more modern periods of history are mentioned, they are often remembered less positively — such as the Century of Humiliation (1839-1949), which followed the Opium Wars. After the Chinese Emperor banned the sale of highly addictive opium being imported by British merchants, the British Navy launched a devastating assault, defeating the Chinese Navy, seizing many port cities, and continuing to Beijing, where they burned the sacred Summer Palace to the ground — a site as important to Chinese culture as the Vatican to Catholics.

This pressure forced the Emperor to allow unrestricted opium sales in the country. The British then taxed the Chinese to cover their Navy's expenses, leading to 100 years of devastation in the country.

Imagine the perception when, shortly after, Margaret Thatcher appeared in Beijing to lecture the Chinese on human rights abuses.

For context, imagine if, in response to the DEA cracking down on cocaine shipments from Mexico to the U.S., the Sinaloa Cartel crossed the border with tanks and fighter jets, destroyed San Diego, Phoenix, and Houston, and surrounded Washington until treaties were signed allowing them unobstructed access to all American ports and border cities, legalizing the cocaine trade. Then, they handed America a bill to cover the costs of the invasion.

It is a difficult scenario to wrap our minds around, but it is nearly exactly what happened between the British and the Chinese in the 19th century.

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In this week's conversation, Mr. Richard Wolff and I used a bit of Chinese history to set the stage for our conversation: What will be the eventual outcome of modern Chinese / USA competitiveness?

Mr Wolf is an American Marxian economist - the idea of which tends to offend most of my capitalist viewers.

I get it.

But, the counter perspectives are where you find new insights. If you are looking for confirmation bias, you are not looking to learn anything.

I heard an excellent explanation of free speech recently:

“Free speech is allowing people who you don’t like, to say things that you don’t like.”

For the record, I like Mr Wolff. 

I hope you have time to watch this week's conversation.

Watch Now.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

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That’s all for today. Go do some push-ups.

Jay