Russia and China

 

Russia and China

 One of the reasons that I went to Russia in 2017, and China in 2015, is to see these countries for myself, talk to knowledgeable people there, and not rely only on second hand accounts of what those controversial countries were about.

 My impression of Western Russia in 2017, (St Petersburg and Moscow), was that other than the Cyrillic alphabet these cities were quite European and cosmopolitan in nature.  St Petersburg, particularly, lived up to its epithet of “Venice of the North”.  The Winter Palace and Hermitage Museum, and the iconography and statuary in St Petersburg were literally beyond compare.

 We were hosted by a multi-generational Russian family in their apartment in St Petersburg, and were able to discuss some aspects of life in Russia.  Even at that time, in 2017, sanctions were affecting life in Russia.  These sanctions were imposed after Putin invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.  These sanctions restricted travel of Russian citizens to Western countries.

 A lecture by Dr. Sergei Akapov, Professor of Political Science at St Petersburg University, commented on Russia’s domestic and international orientation in the modern world.  Some of his main points were Putin’s 80% approval rating, Russia’s difficulty in competing with Germany and Western Europe and the “brain drain”, the loss of university graduates to higher paying economies.  He also commented on the sanctions back then, and how they were hurting Russia.  One can only imagine how badly the whole world’s sanctions are hurting Russia after Putin’s war on Ukraine.

 Moscow was another large European city, - drab in some places, and with reminders of the Soviet era.  The Kremlin and Red Square were iconic, but St Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square was blocked off due to celebrations around the 870^th anniversary of Moscow.

  China in 2015 was people, people, people, 1.4 billion of them, marching to pretty much the same drumbeat.  The society is rules driven, with the rules devised by the CCP, the Chinese communist party, to maintain hegemony in this large mass of people.  The urban Chinese are modern, technologically advanced, and do their own thing, as prescribed by the communist government.  Rural Chinese are abysmally backward, and striving to obtain urban ID cards.

 The Chinese are different from the Western world, and proud of it.  The aims of China are to become and remain the dominant economic, technological and military force in the world.  Their motto is “this is our millennium”.  The prevailing attitude is that “the West has treated us badly in the past, but never again”.

 China’s Three Gorges hydroelectric project on the Yangtze River, which can be seen from space, is an example of massive Chinese projects.  Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing are cities of nearly 25 million people each.  China’s Belt and Road Initiative was just getting started in 2015, as was Xi Jinping’s consolidation of absolute power.

 Ray Gruszecki

May 8, 2022