China | Benjamin Studebaker

March 1, 2021

Are Declassed Professionals in the United States like Surplus Song Dynasty Civil Servants?

I’ve been reading Youngmin Kim’s A History of Chinese Political Thought. In one of his chapters, he argues that during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), a peculiar kind of “metaphysical republicanism” took root. As the Chinese population increased, the Song state struggled to create enough jobs in the state bureaucracy to accommodate larger and larger numbers of educated young men. Unable to pursue political power through the conventional pathways, these young men invented a new kind of political theory to make sense of their positions (or lack thereof). Kim’s description of this theory is eerily reminiscent of the kind of thinking that has become increasingly popular among what I like to call the “fallen” professionals–people with university degrees who have been unable to secure stable, prestigious positions within the power structure.

Read the rest of this entry »

August 27, 2019

The Real Stakes of Trump’s Trade War With China

I have a new piece out at New Republic on the president’s tariffs. You can read it here:

https://newrepublic.com/article/154852/real-stakes-trumps-trade-war-china

They have edited it to sync up with their preferred style, so it reads a bit differently from the rest of my work.

February 27, 2019

Green New Deal is More New Deal Than Green

Like many of you, I’ve seen that clip of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) arguing with children about the Green New Deal. If you haven’t seen it, I have it right here for you:

In and amidst the hostility, Feinstein said something quite honest in this exchange:

Well, it’s [climate change] not going to get turned around in 10 years.

I have a certain admiration for honest centrism. So often these days, politicians pretend to be more radical than they are to excite voters, only to disappoint them. But it’s not merely because we can’t get the votes in a Republican senate to pass the Green New Deal. No–it’s because the United States is at this point no longer capable of cutting its own emissions enough to deal with climate change, and it’s unlikely to successfully lead other states in this direction even if it tries.

Read the rest of this entry »

July 27, 2018

If Deng Xiaoping could Capture China’s Communist Party, You Can Capture the Democratic Party

There is a part of the left which believes the Democratic Party is beyond hope. They think it’s too corrupt, too beholden to rich people and corporations, and that it’s a waste of time and energy to try to change it. Even in articles which express support for running progressive and democratic socialist candidates on the Democratic Party ballot line, concessions are routinely made to this faction. Jacobin recently ran an interview with Seth Ackerman, in which Ackerman advises the left to run candidates as Democrats, provided those candidates are beholden to outside activist groups. But even this piece is far too pessimistic about the prospects for penetrating the Democratic Party. Right at the start, it begins with a left-wing shibboleth–that the Democratic Party has a “conservatising force field” which necessarily assimilates into the borg all efforts to change it. This is really wrong and it’s shockingly easy to show why.

Read the rest of this entry »

July 20, 2018

Why Every President Tries to Make Nice With Russia and Why It Never Works

One of the things I find odd about the way the press is covering the Trump/Putin relationship is how devoid of context and historical memory it is. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, four new presidents have come to power, and each has tried to create a good relationship with Russia. Bill Clinton was briefly successful, but the way Clinton used his success poisoned the well and made it very difficult for his successors to replicate his performance. Today I’ll tell you the story of how America has tried to turn Russia into an ally and why this effort has yet to succeed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tag: China