Resource: The rise of Xi Jinping, explained

[Leo Gura]

31 minutes ago, Joel3102 said:

Not that I disagree with a lot of America’s stupid preoccupations with rugged individualism etc, however this China romanticisation reminds me how a lot of the western intelligentsia fell for communism and had a soft spot for the Soviet Union.

The difference is that China is not a failed state, it is massively successful, even in ways the US is not.

China has a sustainable hybrid system.

Edited April 17 by Leo Gura

[Joel3102]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The difference is that China is not a failed state, it is massively successful, even in ways the US is not.

China has a sustainable hybrid system.

Perhaps. The Soviet Union lasted a good 70 years though.

They do seem to be killing it in renewable energy and AI though which is interesting.

Edited April 17 by Joel3102

[Waves]

Time to learn Mandarin, fellas...

[Terell Kirby]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

But also, China is more collectivist, which means they actually believe government is good and they are willing to self-sacrifice for the betterment of society. This is a deeply correct principle, unlike America's absurdly self-defeating libertarianism.

Steel man of collectivism .. yuck.

but you are correct in terms of excesses of libertarianism in the US.

I would assume you’re not advocating for a descent into Stage Blue, but an elevation to Stage Green collectivism?

[Husseinisdoingfine]

22 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's Blue-Orange. Not much to say about that.

But there is much more to say about it.

In the book Spiral Dynamics in Action, by Don Beck and others, China is a deep Confucius BLUE with a deep cultural PURPLE.  Purple? Yes, ancestors are too be respected, and face is to be kept, all of this comes from the Purple value system. Society's with purple in their culture aren't solely at that code. For example, Iceland is presumably at the GREEN system, but they have a deep PURPLE code in their culture, with their belief in the invisible elf people. 

The fact is, is that their political system of Government is a BLUE, one-party Marxist-Leninist style of government. This system of Government is very similar to that of Singapore, or Taiwan, back when Taiwan was a one-party state. I'll post an image of the Spiral Dynamics political evolution model later, but that is objectively the situation. And an ORANGE model of Government is much more of a pluralistic multi-party system.

So their Government may be effective, but will it last? Will it still be here within 50-100 years?

I ask this because China, according to Xi Jinping, is in the "primary stage of socialism", and intends to reach total socialism once the productive forces of capitalism have fully developed the country, by 2050.

https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/ehzwv3/china_after_2050_be_patient/

I really like Ken Wilber's analysis of Marxism. But what Marxism attempted to do, was to establish a pluralistic communitarian mode of production (GREEN, Ken Wilber's Collective Exterior quadrant), onto places that were pre-industrial, feudal, and still had monarchies (RED). So what happened, was the society's did evolve upwards, they evolved to BLUE. So what Marxism became was it turned into an absolutistic religion, and there was virtually no difference wether someone was a fundamentalist Christian or a fundamentalist Marxist, because it was believed in with that level of absolute certainty.

Edit: Pic taken from my iPhone. From the book, Spiral Dynamics in Action.

So it clearly states that a BLUE form of Government is one-party rule, government control. Does this not perfectly describe China?

What will happen to China’s one-party Marxism-Leninism once society and humanity evolves upwards the Spiral Dynamics integral? Will it be a GREEN socialism enforced by a BLUE government? 

Will their plans to become a socialist society after exhausting capitalism work? 

Edited Friday at 01:03 AM by Husseinisdoingfine

[Husseinisdoingfine]

[LordFall]

China has huge economic issues, it's middle class is sustained mostly by debt not actual productivity

It's a problem in the US as well but I think even moreso there, I don't know how solid their social safety net is but they're leading the globe in automation and robotics so predictably their unemployment will go up massively leading up to 2030. 

The CCP is also involved in all kinds of organized crime operations worldwide, this book does a good job exposing it 

[Hardkill]

On 4/16/2025 at 6:17 PM, Leo Gura said:

I will post a steelman of China on my blog soon.

China is doing some very impressive things that we should be openminded to. Especially given how badly America has been mismanaging itself over the last 25 years. It is no longer tenable that the American system is the best way of doing things.

 

On 4/16/2025 at 7:05 PM, Leo Gura said:

Yes, that's a major factor.

But also, China is more collectivist, which means they actually believe government is good and they are willing to self-sacrifice for the betterment of society. This is a deeply correct principle, unlike America's absurdly self-defeating libertarianism.

Libertarianism and fundamentalism has ruined America.

You cannot have a great society where everyone only acts out of private selfishness.

That Americans do not understand this in principle is shameful and stupid. And it's why China will overtake America as the world's superpower.

I genuinely wish that the United States would adopt many of the collectivist principles found in China. I also wish more Americans believed that government, in general, is good.

However, as you know, China is still nowhere near as developed, wealthy, or powerful as the United States. Not to mention, of course, the significantly reduced freedoms and voting rights for Chinese citizens compared to Americans.

Additionally, China's economy is currently in far worse shape than America's due to factors such as weak private consumption, comparatively limited social safety nets, and an intense cultural fear of personal debt, despite being burdened by considerably higher levels of corporate and governmental debt than the U.S. Furthermore, China's financial system heavily favors producers and local governments rather than consumers, while the U.S. financial system provides substantially greater support for consumers—quite ironic given China's collectivist orientation.

Nevertheless, I think it's possible that China and US could become equal superpower nations one day, whereby the USA would be the greatest Western superpower in the world while China would become the greatest Eastern superpower in the world. 

Edited Friday at 02:15 AM by Hardkill

[Kim S]

@Husseinisdoingfine

I love Ken Wilber. I started listening to Ken Wilber and Alan Watts, which led me to Leo about 12 years ago.

Thanks for sharing, very interesting.

Edited Friday at 07:51 PM by Kim S

[Yimpa]

@Kim S Wow, and welcome, what took you so long to post on here!

[Kim S]

@Yimpa Just reading and trying to process it all :-)

[sholomar]

China's done some impressive things. Autocracy can work with the right leadership. Democracy can falter when you have the illusion of choice but both sides are mostly corrupt career politicians looking to pad their net worth and thus are mostly bought out by wealthy interests.  I mean, it's human nature you'll never have perfection. Even at it's peak the US was making questionable moral decisions especially with foreign policy.

You have to manage human nature the best you can and that includes all our genetic propensities that the greens and others shame people for having, but that's not going to change without genetic engineering.  All stages below yellow like to moral shame other stages as if they can help being who they are programmed to be.

Edited Friday at 09:07 PM by sholomar

[zazen]

I think Spiral Dynamics can start to choke on its own framework when used too rigidly. The map is not the territory - and that territory we call life is highly complex and layered.

Doesn’t Wilber present the values of each stage as if they’re locked in some historical sequence? Like we’re on a civilisational staircase. Perhaps it’s directionally correct that there are dominant paradigms (stages) but that doesn't mean exclusive access to values within those paradigms, and exclusively at certain time periods in history.

For example, thinking that green values like compassion and equality didn't exist before the 1960's, or that rationality and inquiry didn't come ''online'' (as Wilber says it) till the enlightenment era. This is very western centric framing and historically myopic to non-Western civilisations that did exhibit such values before. 

Wilber frames these developments as “beginnings” that suddenly come online, as if they were entirely absent before certain points in time. That framing makes it seem as though development flows outwards from Europe - as if the world evolves according to the West’s timeline, with the West naturally leading the way. It presents Spiral Dynamics as if it spirals around a distinctly Western arc of history.

Development seems to be more contextual and fractal, rather than universal and linear. In reality, it doesn’t seem to unfold like a baton passed down a historical relay race. Can’t it emerge in parallel pockets across different times and places? After all, it is spiral, not ladder dynamics - which means values can and do exist simultaneously, not sequentially in linear progression.

This also means we don’t have to identify with any one “stage”. For example, thinking we have to hustle first in our orange phase before we care about the environment by choosing a EV over a diesel. Or thinking we can’t tap into red rage when being burgled because we fear flirting with warrior energy is toxic masculinity and will ruin that mornings turquoise meditation session. Life isn't like picking a Power Ranger colour to operate as.

The problem with Spiral Dynamics trying to map entire political systems to one color - is that its treating structure as proof of consciousness level. For example, Western democracies are assumed to be Green or Yellow because they’re pluralistic, but often function in service of elite Orange capitalists. Conversely, China is dismissed as “Blue” because it has a one-party system, despite the fact that it produces outcomes aligned with Green (social up-liftment, green investment) and Yellow (systems thinking, long-term planning).

Defining China’s governmental centre of gravity as blue because its centralized oversimplifies it.  It can be argued that’s it’s more like a Yellow-led integration of Blue governance, done with Orange execution, to produce Green outcomes.

- Confucianism provides the ethical spine (BLUE): order, hierarchy, duty, social responsibility.

- Capitalism with Chinese characteristics unleashes achievement, productivity, and scientific innovation (ORANGE).

- Collective well being, harmony, poverty elimination, ecological restoration and sustainable energy are clearly (GREEN) values, just not liberal Green values.

Western goggled Spiral Dynamics often mistakes stylistic differences for the absence of values. Just because China doesn’t wear Green on its sleeve or wave the pride flag, doesn’t mean it’s not practicing Green. It’s largely achieving Green results despite the virtue signalling of Green rhetoric common in the West.

This framing confuses progress with packaging, and mistakes Western aesthetics for higher development.

If we’ve been steeped in liberal gravy like a dunkin donut our whole life, it’s natural to misread China’s use of Blue tactics as proof of a Blue ethos. But what looks like Blue isn’t always Blue in spirit - it can be Yellow in function, using Blue strategically to hold a complex system together that governs over a billion people.

What looks regressive from one lens may be deeply adaptive from another. The problem is, it doesn’t look like Yellow in Western terms - it violates the Green moral aesthetic of expressive freedom and pluralism, even while achieving Green level goals like ecological balance and collective welfare.

Edited Saturday at 10:23 AM by zazen

[Leo Gura]

China is not Green. Don't kid yourself.

Edited Saturday at 10:30 AM by Leo Gura

[Breakingthewall]

China is exerting an enormous push toward human progress. On a cultural and human level, they are quite flat; they are completely focused on progress, and their efficiency is something never seen before in humanity. It is extremely stupid of the US to view China as an enemy or rival. The US is demonstrating time and again that, as a country, it has the mentality of a slightly retarded, fat, 12-year-old bully. China does not desire power or the right to impose its will. It desires wealth, and to achieve this, it needs others to be rich as well; otherwise, it cannot sell them its goods.

[raiden]

China is facing inevitable demographic and economic collapse. 

[Breakingthewall]

On 17/4/2025 at 3:54 PM, Husseinisdoingfine said:

What will happen to China’s one-party Marxism-Leninism once society and humanity evolves upwards the Spiral Dynamics integral? Will it be a GREEN socialism enforced by a BLUE government? 

It will be a socialism where everyone is a millionaire and only robots work. Then, they will rebel and wipe out the human race, giving rise, now, to true Marxist socialism, paradise on earth.

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, raiden said:

China is facing inevitable demographic and economic collapse. 

It seems that China has a long-term economic program that accepts population decline as inevitable.

[Tudo]

7 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

 China does not desire power or the right to impose its will.

How stupid do you have to be to believe in that? Every nation wants the power to impose itself.

[raiden]

3 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

It seems that China has a long-term economic program that accepts population decline as inevitable.

Could you elaborate? What does this even mean? The country is a gerontocracy.