Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, as promised, is plesed to provide the second installment of his three part series “It is good to be the King.” As clever readers will note, the first installment was posted yesterday; and in it your Maximum Leader pointed out some of the reasons why it is good to be Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Big Hominid even was kind enough to write an e-mail to your Maximum Leader wanting him to elaborate on the possible Russian Mob/Russian Government connections to which he alluded yesterday. As your Maximum Leader told the Big Hominid in a reply e-mail, those connections are mostly conjectural right now, but your Maximum Leader will try to research some on the subject and get back with you all.
So… Who else is it good to be?
Well loyal minions, it is good to be… Hu Jintao.
Chinese President Hu Jintao is a lucky man. He is the leader of what most people will concede is the next great world power. China is proof of what goes around comes around. China was, for centuries, the greatest nation in the world. They fell to second (or even third) rate status over the past few hundred years. But now they are on the verge of breaking out again. So why is it good to be Hu Jintao? Let us examine the reasons.
Hu has a booming population. Surplus labor provided by Chinese farmers is the engine that fires the massive Chinese economy. Sure there are concerns about farmers leaving the country side too rapidly and this causing a serious decline in Chinese food production. There are also concerns about too many unemployed farmers in your cities being a source for political unrest. But really now? Are these problems?
Hu is the leader of a Communist Dictatorship that is doing what it can to harness a market economy. That makes Hu an adaptive sort of fellow. He’s learned that so long as enough Chinese are happy making money and reaping the benefits of the market they don’t much care that they don’t have much political freedom. So are those migrant farmers really a problem now? No… If you need more farmers back on the farm, you call out the army and forcibly relocate them back to the farms. If the farmers in the cities are a cause for unrest, you call out the army and squash them with tanks. Either way you come out the winner.
You see, so long as the growing “middle classes” of China see the government as protecting their interests; they will likely continue to support even heavy-handed government action to supress and keep under control the teeming masses.
Hu has lots of other things going for him. He’s got political clout all over the world. If he wants to throw his weight around, he can. His economy and population are so huge that all he has to do to get his way most of the time is just threaten that he’ll cut off access to Chinese markets to the offending party. It works with gamy-handed, weak-willed Europeans (but then again - what doesn’t). It works with his Asian neighbors. (Of course, the massive Red Army will all those soldiers and tanks and guns and missiles helps back up the economic threat.)
Hu is a useful counterbalance to the US as well. In a way that Russia is not. Russia might be opposed to US action for a whole bunch of reasons. But Russia is the past. China is the future. When the US tries to get anything done in the world who does it go to (after the Brits and Austrailians) the Chinese and Russians. If the US can get the Chinese on board with a plan (which happens rarely) then pretty much everyone else in the world community will go along. Frankly, the Chinese very often take positions indirectly opposed to the US simply because they are forward thinkers. To the Chinese, when the US is engaged in an activity it buys China more time to grow stronger.
Did your Maximum Leader mention that Hu Jintao is the Communist Dictator of a huge country? Let us not ever forget that fact. Being a Communist Dictator has its advantages. Hu has authoritarian powers of government beyond our daily conception in the west. Can you imagine the outcry if George W. Bush tried to block internet content? Hu Jintaodoes it every day. You know the outcry when Americans learned that their Government might be tracking phone conversations they make? Hu Jintao has buildings full of people listening to wiretaps and reading e-mails. Can you imagine how people would react if George W Bush outlawed the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Hu Jintao has all sorts of religious activity banned. George W Bush is hounded by Cindy Sheehan where ever he goes. She’s even bought a house in his neighborhood. Hu? He’s got no problems like that. Hu has people who hound him “taken care of.” And by taken care of your Maximum Leader means that the people disappear or find themselves in a nasty prison camp until Hu changes his mind. (And Hu doesn’t change his mind.)
Oh yeah… Did your Maximum Leader mention that China needs oil? They need oil like the US needs oil. That makes them a big competitor for resources. A competitor with an appetite for winning. You know, dependence on foreign energy sources is probably the only big negative that Hu has against him right now. But if his economy continues to grow, he’ll have the resources to overcome that problem. He’ll probably be the ones that help the Russians get at all that oil and gas in the far east…
Anyhow… Hu Jintao has another big drawback… He’s just not nearly as studly as Vladimir Putin. Those glasses are sorta dorky and he needs a better tailor. (Your Maximum Leader thinks he’d be better served with smaller, rounder frames. Also, his suits have no style. With all those great tailors in Hong Kong you’d think he’d go for something a little more dynamic…)
Carry on.
