In China, the upcoming leadership transition and an apparently growing trend for violent, populist nationalism has many wondering what the future of the country will look like.
These worries are not lost on Chinese Weibo users. According to the Ministry of Tofu, after the weekend's anti-Japanese violence number of micro-bloggers compared the growing nationalism in China with the violence of the Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the 20th century, and even the rise of persecution of the Jewish in Nazi Germany.
While, thankfully, the comparison to the Nazi-era may be hyperbolic, a different comparison between China and Germany has been wheeled out several times in the last few years, although it goes a little further back.
Does 21st century China resemble the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm II?
On the surface, its easy to see the resemblance. First, there's economic factors — two fractured, agrarian countries racing through industrialization and urbanization to become economic giants. Then the political and geopolitical factors — unaccountable legacy leaderships with lingering territorial disputes that could turn into hotspots (the Balkans for Imperial Germany, islands in South and East China Sea for Modern China).
It's not a new comparison. In 1997, Robert Kagan was evaluating the comparison in the Weekly Standard, and a year before that article Fareed Zakria wrote in the New York Times:
What about China today? Certainly the regime in Beijing has characteristics that make it a difficult partner. The best analogy, though, is not to the Third Reich but to the Second. Like Germany in the late 19th century, China is also growing rapidly but uncertainly into a global system in which it feels it deserves more attention and honor. China's military is a powerful political player, as was the Prussian officer corps. Like Wilhelmine Germany, the Chinese regime is trying to hold onto political power even as it unleashes forces in society that make its control increasingly shaky.
How seriously should we really take the comparison, however? Reddit users have dug up a 2009 article in Asia Times from Dr. Sebastian Bruck that aimed to evaluate the comparison. The article concluded:
China and Wilhelmine Germany are odd inter-temporal twins. They share a similar domestic predicament but rather different international environments. In the case of Germany, increasing might combined with a lack of effective international deterrence and a nervous leadership meant war. In the case of China, domestic developments point toward potential conflict while the international environment calls for peace. In the years ahead, it will be up to the skillful individual leadership of Chinese and American policy-makers to tip the scales in the right direction.
In 2012, the balancing act inside China appears obvious. Many have noted that Chinese authorities seemed happy to allow anti-Japanese protests this weekend, apparently relieved to have the focus off the domestic problems and a painful leadership transition.
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