A profoundly powerful and courageous essay. I realized while reading this that I who has been engaging with China for 25 years am just as susceptible to underestimating China’s accomplishments and it’s implications to the US and globally as those whose based of knowledge and lived experience is much shallower and short-lived. Tremendous kudos to you for synthesizing this argument and putting it out there in such a hostile environment.
Kuo’s Great Reckoning is real and an excellent read. However, the crisis isn’t only intellectual. It’s also geological. Levenson taught that a civilisation thrives when its mind and its world stay in tune; that harmony has broken in the West but has flourished in China, where thought and material capacity now move in civilizational concert. Mokyr saw progress as a culture of ideas, yet ideas alone never powered a factory. Pomeranz reminded us that the engines of Enlightenment ran on sugar, coal, iron, colonies and slaves. Judiciously creating law like terra nullius that justified extraction without compensation. The robber-baron age turned theft into economic theory, and then Bretton Woods failed, converting mineral wealth into credit. Liberal hegemony kept spending what empire had once stolen, mistaking fiat for fuel calling it globalization. Now the feedstock of Western thinking, the resources that made its viability possible, can no longer be taken for free. By 2025 the old centres of “civilisation” are hollowed out, in a reverse Wallerstein, where the periphery is becoming the core. Kuo names the reckoning well, but the cause runs deeper. The mind did not fail the West; the mine did.
Bibliography
Kuo, K. (2025) The Great Reckoning. Sinica Podcast / Substack Essays.
Levenson, J. R. (1958–1965) Confucian China and Its Modern Fate. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mokyr, J. (2016) The Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pomeranz, K. (2000) The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wallerstein, I. (1974–1989) The Modern World-System. New York: Academic Press.
Good luck with getting your message across Kaiser. I appreciate your attempt to explicitly base your view on hard facts; getting people to see and accept these is a fundamental challenge in itself before you even get to intepreting them.
Thanks so much, Nicholas. What surprises me most is that so many of the responses to this essay have been very positive, along the lines of what you've written above, and that there's been relatively little pushback on it. I'll take it!
Congratulations on a profound and eloquent essay. Western modernization was premised on increasing divergence between the West and the Rest. China is the avatar of a new era of convergence. In 2008 the GDP (PPP) of the developing world exceeded that of the developed world for the first time since the 1870s. China is a big part of the story, but without China the developing world reached parity in 2023. It is truly a new world.
Humility is not part of Elite American DNA. Neither is Honesty. We can only hope... Your interviews with Jonathan Czin and Daniel Kurtz-Phelan show a younger generation thinking more openly, more critically. That is reason to hope. Leave that White American Boomer Arrogance in the dustbin. Learn from the failures. See them as failures. I say this on the day Dick Cheney's death was announced. Thank you, Kaiser, for all you have achieved - the depth and breadth of your thinking is such an inspiration! We need your incisive vision to help us navigate the uncharted horizons ahead, the inevitable storms. A deeper look into the nature of K-12 education could reveal more hard truths and insights. One of the ironies is the extent to which American K-12 does not prepare the average person for citizenship in a Democracy, but I would argue the average kid growing up in China today is, in fact, getting that preparation - basic skills, including solid math skills that can be used for personal finance management, climate awareness, community and social responsibility, respect for institutional processes. I would also say, let's not overlook expressions in popular culture (and its commercial businesses) to understand the shifts. Netflix is so international now, that we can see the rest of the world feeling their way to a new China with casual references that used to be place-held by Japan. When I think of my own mindset shifts over the last decade, let alone those of my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc... Your essay has captured how profound the changes have been. We could say our ancestors suffered long and bitterly to allow us to witness these successes. But now that we are here - the exact meaning is no longer as clear as when everyone was just striving to get out of desperate poverty, to consistently put food in front of people, let alone give them a table to sit at while they ate. Psychologically, I was hit by the realization that if there is no longer such a struggle for quality of life over there, then why am I still here in America? Of course, I know why - a person's life is more than just consumerism. All these are unexpected and uncomfortable realizations - macro and micro. I do see native cultural aspects that the American Progressive Left would envy, far more than what Klein/Thompson claim via "Abundance" - the values of harmony and Confucian ideas around self-improvement, personal responsibility, and social/community responsibility. Again, reference to pop culture - I watch a lot of C-dramas on Youtube, in addition to all kinds of stuff on Netflix. There is a striking difference in the way social conflicts are handled. There is far more everyday discourse around Human Development than in America. There is more regular reference to the idea of Harmony and respecting Nature - for real, for everyone, not just something hippies and of-the-soil ranchers/farmers do. When I went to the Confucius Temple in Beijing this summer, I found it so moving to watch and listen to the parents - many from farther flung places, as their dialects/accents gave way - interact with their children with all the same reminders I grew up with. This is not happening in America. No one takes their young children to some temple to honor an ancient figure and then says "And this is why it's important to do your homework!"
This thought-provoking essay leaves me with two related questions: what is the reckoning and who do you think needs to experience it?
At first, I thought the great reckoning means coming to terms with China’s achievements along the lines of the China Dream. That would be odd since major establishment media (Bloomberg, The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal) cover China extensively.
Next, I thought maybe you mean people need to get ready for an even more capable China that will emerge (relative to the rest of the world) in the near future. You’re a careful writer who would identify such an extrapolation, so maybe it’s not that.
Then, prompted by your expressed disagreement with Fukuyama’s end of history argument, I thought you might mean recognizing the advantages of China’s political system (alternatively, to stop dismissing it). That also sounds odd because the prevailing western sentiment seems to be respect in the form of fear rather than disdain. Ryan Haas wrote “China Isn’t Ten Feet Tall” in Foreign Affairs in response to that anxiety.
Yes, there are always voices out there quoting Epoch Times and predicting disaster, but they aren’t credible. And yes, there are academics like Yasheng Huang and Minxin Pei who talk about the limitations of the political system, but they seem careful and likely immune to western cultural hubris.
I'm always late to these conversations, but if people are still paying attention I'd like to raise an issue that this very insightful essay only touches on peripherally. Namely, different measures of human flourishing. It has become clear in the past few years that the Chinese model is capable of producing material flourishing, as the American model at least used to, and perhaps with some adjustments still can.
But what about what Chinese people would call "spiritual flourishing." It's clear that
American promises of liberal and participatory democracy yielded, however unevenly, possibilities of spiritual flourishing until recently. Now I think many of us doubt that that door remains open--we are either caught in endless political shouting matches or turned off and bitter. But what is the Chinese record on spiritual flourishing? How satisfied, how engaged, how uncynical are various elements of the Chinese population? I ask this as an open question, since I haven't been back there for several years. But the continued flow into the diaspora, even when the material comforts are now available at home, leads one to question how successful this side of the effort of modernity has been in China.
Another comment that perhaps is too obvious to write (but I'm writing it anyway) is that the Cold War and post-CW US foreign policy always assumed the superiority of liberal democratic, only lightly regulated capitalism, and tried to export it. That was part of the American hubris that you discuss, and I'm not sure how necessary it was/is to the historical and continuing imperialist resource extraction and labor exploitation that made America Great the first time. But I don't see much evidence that China is very serious about exporting the Chinese political or cultural system. Confucius Institutes have mostly fizzled, and if some people like to watch Chinese movies, they are hardly very effective propaganda vehicles. Perhaps China's relative lack of cultural or moral export points the way to a more multipolar world in which we can all have our separate ti while our various sorts of yong converge.
And finally, I won't be around to see it, but what happens when India "catches up"?
For business reasons I have been in China more than a year of my life in dozen trips from 2004 to 2025. I saw it happening like a movie. Each trip something new and grandiose. For me, the opening up of Chinese economy by Deng Xiao Ping in 1978 was not only an opening up of the Chinese economy but really the breaking up of the world economy. Someday in the future the historians will nominate 1978 the start up of a new era - The Pos Contemporary Era, based not in fossil fuel but in clean energy. Just the opposite of western Industrial Revolution. And China will lead (already doing it) this transformation. The way I see it.
How do you interpret the change in US policy towards China that began with the first Trump administration? Hasn't there been a reckoning on the US side over the past decade? To a great extent, US policymakers from both major parties have changed American approaches to China because of the realization that yes, China is indeed a powerful country that can challenge the US across a variety of domains. Don't most Western leaders accept that China's system is producing results? Otherwise, why are so many in the US/West concerned about China's growing power?
That’s not the reckoning I’m talking about at all. The one you’re talking about is only one part of it, and honestly from where I sit it consists mainly in that’s trying to trip China up, keep it down, contain it, or ensure the U.S. keeps its higher position in a notional moral hierarchy. It attributes China’s gains to IP theft, cheating, foul play. It’s a mere reaction and not an intellectually honest reckoning, with the attendant self-examination.
Kaiser, I completely agree that China should be studied with cognitive empathy, with the humility to ask if China has anything to offer the rest of the world, and with an acknowledgment that China’s own culture, traditions, and philosophies may lead China to legitimate governance outcomes that differ from Western/American liberal values. Your discussion with Robert Daly a couple years back on the morality of the U.S.’s China policy remains among my favorite pieces of China-related content. I also agree that many Western analysts/policymakers don’t sufficiently consider these factors.
But, at the same time, I believe there are many observers in the West who DO treat China seriously with cognitive empathy and humility and still conclude that Western liberalism (imperfect as it is) leads to more human flourishing than what China has to offer under the CCP. And because of that, these analysts may conclude it is necessary at times to act in Western interests, which oftentimes frustrates Chinese leaders as they feel constrained.
In other words, I think we should be careful in concluding that just because a person reaches a different conclusion about China than you do, it doesn’t mean that person isn’t studying with cognitive empathy. I’m not saying it was your intent, but this essay reads to me that if an individual doesn’t reach the same conclusions about China that you (Kaiser) do, then that individual is not treating China fairly, or that such an individual can’t see all the imperfections of Western values/liberalism. In fact, I personally am in alignment with much of what you said (although I don’t agree with references to white privilege). But there are some very smart people who treat China seriously and reach different conclusions.
Furthermore, many in the West have been complaining about China’s IP issues, exchange rate manipulations, cyber attacks, etc. for well over a decade—these are not new topics. But something changed 10 years ago or so in how many analysts view China. So I guess my original question is that is it possible we are in the early stages of the Grand Reckoning that you call for. A Grand Reckoning is not something that will happen in a day, week, or year. It will be a decades long project as long as China keeps accomplishing more and more.
Lastly, I don’t follow your reference to white privilege in your essay. Many Westerners go out of their way to state their frustrations with China are with the CCP government, not Chinese people. As difficult as it may be to separate the CCP and the Chinese people/nation in practice, the sentiment behind viewing the two as distinct does not make it seem there is widespread racial animosity to ethnic Chinese individuals. After all, many Chinese dissidents are some of the first to call out the CCP as not being legitimate. Are these individuals practicing racism or so they just not agree with the CCP policies?
To be clear, I like many parts of your essay and hope it gains traction. Because China is so complicated, it is always wise to consider our assumptions and the lens we view the country. I think it is possible to study China fairly, yet rigorously. And when we do those things, it is possible to come to different conclusions about the legitimacy of China’s government. And that is just one reason, of many, which makes China so fascinating.
A profoundly powerful and courageous essay. I realized while reading this that I who has been engaging with China for 25 years am just as susceptible to underestimating China’s accomplishments and it’s implications to the US and globally as those whose based of knowledge and lived experience is much shallower and short-lived. Tremendous kudos to you for synthesizing this argument and putting it out there in such a hostile environment.
Kuo’s Great Reckoning is real and an excellent read. However, the crisis isn’t only intellectual. It’s also geological. Levenson taught that a civilisation thrives when its mind and its world stay in tune; that harmony has broken in the West but has flourished in China, where thought and material capacity now move in civilizational concert. Mokyr saw progress as a culture of ideas, yet ideas alone never powered a factory. Pomeranz reminded us that the engines of Enlightenment ran on sugar, coal, iron, colonies and slaves. Judiciously creating law like terra nullius that justified extraction without compensation. The robber-baron age turned theft into economic theory, and then Bretton Woods failed, converting mineral wealth into credit. Liberal hegemony kept spending what empire had once stolen, mistaking fiat for fuel calling it globalization. Now the feedstock of Western thinking, the resources that made its viability possible, can no longer be taken for free. By 2025 the old centres of “civilisation” are hollowed out, in a reverse Wallerstein, where the periphery is becoming the core. Kuo names the reckoning well, but the cause runs deeper. The mind did not fail the West; the mine did.
Bibliography
Kuo, K. (2025) The Great Reckoning. Sinica Podcast / Substack Essays.
Levenson, J. R. (1958–1965) Confucian China and Its Modern Fate. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mokyr, J. (2016) The Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pomeranz, K. (2000) The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wallerstein, I. (1974–1989) The Modern World-System. New York: Academic Press.
Good luck with getting your message across Kaiser. I appreciate your attempt to explicitly base your view on hard facts; getting people to see and accept these is a fundamental challenge in itself before you even get to intepreting them.
I just upgraded to a paid subscription after reading this essay. Bravo.
I find it truly heartening that you can so eloquently summarize and put to words what has now been apparent for some time.
And disheartening that so many still won't acknowledge the obvious truth before us. Prefering to hope and cope instead.
A superb essay Kaiser.
Thanks so much, Nicholas. What surprises me most is that so many of the responses to this essay have been very positive, along the lines of what you've written above, and that there's been relatively little pushback on it. I'll take it!
Congratulations on a profound and eloquent essay. Western modernization was premised on increasing divergence between the West and the Rest. China is the avatar of a new era of convergence. In 2008 the GDP (PPP) of the developing world exceeded that of the developed world for the first time since the 1870s. China is a big part of the story, but without China the developing world reached parity in 2023. It is truly a new world.
Humility is not part of Elite American DNA. Neither is Honesty. We can only hope... Your interviews with Jonathan Czin and Daniel Kurtz-Phelan show a younger generation thinking more openly, more critically. That is reason to hope. Leave that White American Boomer Arrogance in the dustbin. Learn from the failures. See them as failures. I say this on the day Dick Cheney's death was announced. Thank you, Kaiser, for all you have achieved - the depth and breadth of your thinking is such an inspiration! We need your incisive vision to help us navigate the uncharted horizons ahead, the inevitable storms. A deeper look into the nature of K-12 education could reveal more hard truths and insights. One of the ironies is the extent to which American K-12 does not prepare the average person for citizenship in a Democracy, but I would argue the average kid growing up in China today is, in fact, getting that preparation - basic skills, including solid math skills that can be used for personal finance management, climate awareness, community and social responsibility, respect for institutional processes. I would also say, let's not overlook expressions in popular culture (and its commercial businesses) to understand the shifts. Netflix is so international now, that we can see the rest of the world feeling their way to a new China with casual references that used to be place-held by Japan. When I think of my own mindset shifts over the last decade, let alone those of my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc... Your essay has captured how profound the changes have been. We could say our ancestors suffered long and bitterly to allow us to witness these successes. But now that we are here - the exact meaning is no longer as clear as when everyone was just striving to get out of desperate poverty, to consistently put food in front of people, let alone give them a table to sit at while they ate. Psychologically, I was hit by the realization that if there is no longer such a struggle for quality of life over there, then why am I still here in America? Of course, I know why - a person's life is more than just consumerism. All these are unexpected and uncomfortable realizations - macro and micro. I do see native cultural aspects that the American Progressive Left would envy, far more than what Klein/Thompson claim via "Abundance" - the values of harmony and Confucian ideas around self-improvement, personal responsibility, and social/community responsibility. Again, reference to pop culture - I watch a lot of C-dramas on Youtube, in addition to all kinds of stuff on Netflix. There is a striking difference in the way social conflicts are handled. There is far more everyday discourse around Human Development than in America. There is more regular reference to the idea of Harmony and respecting Nature - for real, for everyone, not just something hippies and of-the-soil ranchers/farmers do. When I went to the Confucius Temple in Beijing this summer, I found it so moving to watch and listen to the parents - many from farther flung places, as their dialects/accents gave way - interact with their children with all the same reminders I grew up with. This is not happening in America. No one takes their young children to some temple to honor an ancient figure and then says "And this is why it's important to do your homework!"
This thought-provoking essay leaves me with two related questions: what is the reckoning and who do you think needs to experience it?
At first, I thought the great reckoning means coming to terms with China’s achievements along the lines of the China Dream. That would be odd since major establishment media (Bloomberg, The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal) cover China extensively.
Next, I thought maybe you mean people need to get ready for an even more capable China that will emerge (relative to the rest of the world) in the near future. You’re a careful writer who would identify such an extrapolation, so maybe it’s not that.
Then, prompted by your expressed disagreement with Fukuyama’s end of history argument, I thought you might mean recognizing the advantages of China’s political system (alternatively, to stop dismissing it). That also sounds odd because the prevailing western sentiment seems to be respect in the form of fear rather than disdain. Ryan Haas wrote “China Isn’t Ten Feet Tall” in Foreign Affairs in response to that anxiety.
Yes, there are always voices out there quoting Epoch Times and predicting disaster, but they aren’t credible. And yes, there are academics like Yasheng Huang and Minxin Pei who talk about the limitations of the political system, but they seem careful and likely immune to western cultural hubris.
In summary: I’ve missed something important.
I'm always late to these conversations, but if people are still paying attention I'd like to raise an issue that this very insightful essay only touches on peripherally. Namely, different measures of human flourishing. It has become clear in the past few years that the Chinese model is capable of producing material flourishing, as the American model at least used to, and perhaps with some adjustments still can.
But what about what Chinese people would call "spiritual flourishing." It's clear that
American promises of liberal and participatory democracy yielded, however unevenly, possibilities of spiritual flourishing until recently. Now I think many of us doubt that that door remains open--we are either caught in endless political shouting matches or turned off and bitter. But what is the Chinese record on spiritual flourishing? How satisfied, how engaged, how uncynical are various elements of the Chinese population? I ask this as an open question, since I haven't been back there for several years. But the continued flow into the diaspora, even when the material comforts are now available at home, leads one to question how successful this side of the effort of modernity has been in China.
Another comment that perhaps is too obvious to write (but I'm writing it anyway) is that the Cold War and post-CW US foreign policy always assumed the superiority of liberal democratic, only lightly regulated capitalism, and tried to export it. That was part of the American hubris that you discuss, and I'm not sure how necessary it was/is to the historical and continuing imperialist resource extraction and labor exploitation that made America Great the first time. But I don't see much evidence that China is very serious about exporting the Chinese political or cultural system. Confucius Institutes have mostly fizzled, and if some people like to watch Chinese movies, they are hardly very effective propaganda vehicles. Perhaps China's relative lack of cultural or moral export points the way to a more multipolar world in which we can all have our separate ti while our various sorts of yong converge.
And finally, I won't be around to see it, but what happens when India "catches up"?
For business reasons I have been in China more than a year of my life in dozen trips from 2004 to 2025. I saw it happening like a movie. Each trip something new and grandiose. For me, the opening up of Chinese economy by Deng Xiao Ping in 1978 was not only an opening up of the Chinese economy but really the breaking up of the world economy. Someday in the future the historians will nominate 1978 the start up of a new era - The Pos Contemporary Era, based not in fossil fuel but in clean energy. Just the opposite of western Industrial Revolution. And China will lead (already doing it) this transformation. The way I see it.
How do you interpret the change in US policy towards China that began with the first Trump administration? Hasn't there been a reckoning on the US side over the past decade? To a great extent, US policymakers from both major parties have changed American approaches to China because of the realization that yes, China is indeed a powerful country that can challenge the US across a variety of domains. Don't most Western leaders accept that China's system is producing results? Otherwise, why are so many in the US/West concerned about China's growing power?
That’s not the reckoning I’m talking about at all. The one you’re talking about is only one part of it, and honestly from where I sit it consists mainly in that’s trying to trip China up, keep it down, contain it, or ensure the U.S. keeps its higher position in a notional moral hierarchy. It attributes China’s gains to IP theft, cheating, foul play. It’s a mere reaction and not an intellectually honest reckoning, with the attendant self-examination.
Kaiser, I completely agree that China should be studied with cognitive empathy, with the humility to ask if China has anything to offer the rest of the world, and with an acknowledgment that China’s own culture, traditions, and philosophies may lead China to legitimate governance outcomes that differ from Western/American liberal values. Your discussion with Robert Daly a couple years back on the morality of the U.S.’s China policy remains among my favorite pieces of China-related content. I also agree that many Western analysts/policymakers don’t sufficiently consider these factors.
But, at the same time, I believe there are many observers in the West who DO treat China seriously with cognitive empathy and humility and still conclude that Western liberalism (imperfect as it is) leads to more human flourishing than what China has to offer under the CCP. And because of that, these analysts may conclude it is necessary at times to act in Western interests, which oftentimes frustrates Chinese leaders as they feel constrained.
In other words, I think we should be careful in concluding that just because a person reaches a different conclusion about China than you do, it doesn’t mean that person isn’t studying with cognitive empathy. I’m not saying it was your intent, but this essay reads to me that if an individual doesn’t reach the same conclusions about China that you (Kaiser) do, then that individual is not treating China fairly, or that such an individual can’t see all the imperfections of Western values/liberalism. In fact, I personally am in alignment with much of what you said (although I don’t agree with references to white privilege). But there are some very smart people who treat China seriously and reach different conclusions.
Furthermore, many in the West have been complaining about China’s IP issues, exchange rate manipulations, cyber attacks, etc. for well over a decade—these are not new topics. But something changed 10 years ago or so in how many analysts view China. So I guess my original question is that is it possible we are in the early stages of the Grand Reckoning that you call for. A Grand Reckoning is not something that will happen in a day, week, or year. It will be a decades long project as long as China keeps accomplishing more and more.
Lastly, I don’t follow your reference to white privilege in your essay. Many Westerners go out of their way to state their frustrations with China are with the CCP government, not Chinese people. As difficult as it may be to separate the CCP and the Chinese people/nation in practice, the sentiment behind viewing the two as distinct does not make it seem there is widespread racial animosity to ethnic Chinese individuals. After all, many Chinese dissidents are some of the first to call out the CCP as not being legitimate. Are these individuals practicing racism or so they just not agree with the CCP policies?
To be clear, I like many parts of your essay and hope it gains traction. Because China is so complicated, it is always wise to consider our assumptions and the lens we view the country. I think it is possible to study China fairly, yet rigorously. And when we do those things, it is possible to come to different conclusions about the legitimacy of China’s government. And that is just one reason, of many, which makes China so fascinating.
Here's an essay I wrote that breaks down the racism bit in this more recent piece. https://thechinaproject.com/2020/08/21/white-privilege-american-hegemony-and-the-rise-of-china/