Stephen Kotkin on Xi’s China, Putin’s Russia at Goodfellows by the Hoover Institution
Can China’s current authoritarian model hold without destroying its economy, and what’s the near-term outlook for the war in Ukraine? Stephen Kotkin, an authority on geopolitics and authoritarian regimes joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, H. R. McMaster, and John Cochrane to discuss the latest in Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
This is a brilliant and extremely insightful debate. Goodfellows is one of my favourite shows. But in this episode Kotkin’s brilliant thinking and deep knowledge raised the bar. I learn a lot every time I listen to Kotkin.
The flow of the full discussion is not be missed, with some little treasures of humour. Anyway here are my main takeaways to understand the situation of China, Russia and Ukraine today:
From 10′. How Mao’s cultural revolution destroyed the central planned economy and opened the way for the rise of small farmers’ initiative and later for the private sector that the Party had grudgingly to accept.
Here Kotkin refers to the book “How The Farmers Changed China: Power Of The People”, by Kate Xiao Zhou
Then from 15′ under Deng the opening to the Western markets and the growth of private companies. The Communist Party actually collected credits for this transformation that it doesn’t deserve.
18′ why Gorbachev’s and Yeltsin’s Russia could not develop the same way as Deng’s China.
22′ How China partnered with the US, benefiting from the experiences of Hong Kong, Japan, S.Korea and Taiwan…
From 25′. Debate on the tension in China between a market economy and the Communist party central control. And how Xi’s regime hubris and demographics threaten China’s success. How covid lockdowns were used to reinforce the regime’s surveillance. Is China’s economic model doomed?
From 35′ Putin’s Russia.
Here Kotkin’s 2010 book “Uncivil Society: : 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment” is called to the discussion. After Stalin who accumulated more power than anyone else in history – “he was Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Hollywood all rolled into a single desk” – the soviet regime kept losing control. Putin felt the need to reinforce its regime’s power.
Today Putin is protected by a privileged praetorian guard of tens of thousands of officials separated from the wider Russian society. They all have their stake in the regime’s extractive nature. This is what makes it difficult to bring Putin down, according to Kotkin.
45′ great thoughts from Kotkin. Dictatorships survive any level of incompetence and corruption as long as they succeed in eliminating every political alternative. If you have a political alternative the whole dynamic changes. Therefore the way to deter a one party state despot (meaning China) is to create the possibility of a political alternative inside. Economic sanctions alone won’t do it.
50′ Russia’s war in Ukraine. Summary of Kotkin’s read:
Putin lost the attempt to coup d’état to decapitate the regime and install their puppets (the invasion was a coup gone bad?).
Ukraine’s people bravery changed what could have been the expected outcome.
An interesting equation that explains where we are: Ukrainian Valour + Russia’s Atrocities = Western Unity and Resolve.
How Ukraine excelled at the information war.
Now there is roughly a deadlock in the battlefield.
Unable to win the battles Russia resorted to destroying Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. They may even try to shoot down the satellites that are supporting Ukraine telecoms (this would be an additional escalation, but according to Kotkin is not out of the question). This will make it extremely difficult for Ukraine to win the war.
The West seems to be supplying the weapons for Ukraine just not to lose the war, but not enough to make them win. Why not supply enough modern air defense systems that would render Russian missiles ineffective at destroying Ukraine´s infrastructure? Why not do it now? Why did we not do it from the beginning? [Asks Kotkin…]
Given the situation the practical definition of victory for Ukraine does not seem to be the official one – recover every inch of Ukraine’s territory taken by Russia and get appropriate reparations.
But for the Ukrainian society victory is not necessarily territorial. It wouldn’t necessarily mean getting every piece of territory back. It would be the inclusion of Ukrainian society in the West – being part of the EU and some sort of protection from Nato. No one side is talking about it, but it seems the most realistic victory Ukraine could get.
Wars don’t necessarily end with peace, they can end with an armistice (like in the Korean Peninsula).