The 75th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China: A Milestone Amidst Global Turmoil
The ongoing year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. On September 21, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed to the nation that “the Chinese people have stood up… Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation.” This was followed by a grand celebration in Tiananmen Square on October 1, now celebrated annually in the mainland.
A Historical Milestone
In 1949, China accounted for a mere 4% of the global economy. Fast forward to today and that figure has almost quintupled to 19% of the world GDP. This is not a trivial increment; rather, it has profoundly transformed global economic dynamics. Following the reform and opening-up policies, China has become a significant global player.
Chinese Economic Challenges and Propaganda
To be fair, China faces its share of economic challenges, but these are considered manageable. Curiously, international pundits have had a field day with this. In 2023, they first labeled the Chinese economy a global inflation threat and then a global deflation threat. When both projections fell flat, they declared China collapsed—ironically, amid its recovery.
More recently, early in September, Bloomberg predicted that “deflation stalking China since last year is now showing signs of spiraling.” A week later, Philip Glamann, the agency’s China editor, warned that “worries about falling prices and the threat they pose to the world’s second-biggest economy are reaching a crescendo.”
Such reports, intended or not, distort economic realities by amplifying the risks of the Chinese economy beyond recognition. Ironically, China stocks closed out their best week since 2008 the same day the country’s central bank cut its reserve requirement for banks, a part of stimulus measures to boost the property and financial markets.
The Role of the Global South
After centuries of colonialism and a half-century of Cold War, the economic gap between the West and the Global South grew in the postwar era due to unequal exchange. What shifted this equation over the past two decades is China’s rise.
In the 1990s, the developing world was still mainly dependent on the West. By 2007, large emerging economies, led by China, fueled global growth while the West began to stagnate. As a result, China’s impact on low- and middle-income economies has soared.
Chinese investment abroad has accelerated since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. This includes the rise of complementary institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB). These initiatives have boosted modernization in many emerging and developing economies.
Propaganda and Disinformation
In Washington, neoconservatives would like to reverse these 75 years of history. These efforts could significantly accelerate post-US election. The first signs—disinformation wars setting the stage for economic instability and geopolitical turmoil—are already intensifying.
In early summer, Reuters reported that during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the US military had launched a secret campaign to discredit China’s Sinovac vaccine in the Philippines and other regions. By early September, the U.S. House passed a bipartisan $1.6 billion bill for the State Department and USAID over the next five years to deliver anti-China propaganda globally. This sum is about twice the annual operating expenditure of CNN, all aimed at spreading misinformation about China.
The Real Global Risks
Throughout the ongoing year, trade has driven China’s economic growth, fueling the rebound of the Caixin manufacturing PMI. Unsurprisingly, electronics and electric vehicles, the two fastest-growing export categories, have been targeted by Washington and Brussels. Interestingly, even with a 100% tariff, the cheapest model from the Chinese automaker BYD in the U.S. would still be the most affordable.
In the second quarter of the year, Western governments blacklisted a record 198 Chinese entities. Research group Rhodium cautions, “sanctions are likely to remain a key risk for global investors as scrutiny of Chinese companies expands into new areas.”
Effectively, US policies are aimed at reducing imports and bolstering domestic production. They are supported by the expansion of “Buy American” provisions. As new research shows, this has resulted in the increasing cost of buying American. Ordinary Americans foot the bill for their government’s tariff and sanctions wars, and soon Europeans may as well.
Genocidal “China Collapse” Ideologues
The most consistent proponent of the “China collapse” theory has been Gordon Chang, a favourite of Washington and Fox News. He has promoted this thesis since 2001. In a recent Fox interview with Maria Bartiromo, Chang insisted that “China is falling apart.” He is associated with the Gatestone Institute, notorious for its Islamophobic disinformation campaigns and far-right policies.
At Gatestone, Chang has suggested Taiwan should launch a missile attack on the Three Gorges Dam to drown the downstream population, signalling they are "prepared to take Chinese lives in the hundreds of millions." This mind-boggling proposal is part and parcel of broader efforts to destabilize China.
Conclusion
Before the trade wars initiated by the Trump administration, China had replaced the US as the engine of the world economy. Over the past decade, China contributed 31% to global growth, more than three times the US share. Looking to the next five years, China’s contribution could be greater than that of all G7 economies combined.
In the foreseeable future, the greatest threat to global recovery is not China but the mix of protectionism, sanctions, and geopolitics in the West. This strategy relies neither on international law nor consensus but on brute force. Worse, it threatens to undermine the rise of the Global South.
