An
Economic
Inquiry
into the
Nonlinear
Behaviors
of Nations
DYNAMIC DEVELOPMENTS AND
THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATIONS
Rongxing Guo
An Economic Inquiry into the Nonlinear
Behaviors of Nations
Rongxing Guo
An Economic Inquiry
into the Nonlinear
Behaviors of Nations
Dynamic Developments and the Origins
of Civilizations
Rongxing Guo
Peking University
Beijing, China
ISBN 978-3-319-48771-7 ISBN 978-3-319-48772-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48772-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956914
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
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To those men and women who have devoted themselves to, but still were
maltreated in the process toward, free, democratic, and prosperous nations
Acknowledgments
Since the 1960s, I have been lucky to become an element of one of
the world’s most important civilizations. Perhaps, Chinese civilization
has been the only world-class indigenous civilization that is still surviving today. Even luckier is that I have been witnessing both China’s long
declining cycle (1820–1970) and its ongoing growth cycle, all enabling
me to have ample evidence on nonlinear behaviors of one of the oldest civilizations in the world. I am particularly proud of living in such a dynamic
and rapidly changing country—though my feelings about it are somewhat
mixed—naturally and socially. Nevertheless, it is the coexistence of various contradictory factors (including shortage and abundance, poor and
rich, justice and prejudice, good and evil, and so on) that encompasses the
driving forces behind the nonlinear behaviors of humans, civilizations, and
nations throughout history.
Many organizations and individuals have offered their generous help,
without which I would not have finished the manuscript as per schedule.
Specifically, Fig. 2.1 is created by Luc (Changlei) Guo upon my request,
and Table 2.2 is based on a Chinese comic dialogue by Hou Baolin
(1917–1993). Figures 3.1(a) and 6.1 are based on the photos undertaken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),
Washington, DC. In addition, I have also used the images drawn by Ali
Zifan and Shannon in Figs. 3.1(b) and 3.3, respectively, both of which are
available at Wikimedia Commons—an online repository of free-use images
(license: CC-BY-SA 3.0). While every effort has been made to ensure copyright compliance, but if any have been inadvertently o
­ verlooked, I will be
pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I must also mention Professor Eui-Gak Hwang (Seoul), Dr. Matthew
Piscitelli (Chicago), Dr. Xiaoxuan Lu (Cambridge, MA), and Professor
Vicky Xiubao Yu (Shanghai)—without their help and advice, this book
would not have been finished within such a short period of time, at least
in its present appearance. I have also benefited from many other well-­
received scholars and authors throughout the world, whose viewpoints
on humans, civilizations, and nations have been adopted or cited (all for
review purposes) throughout this book. They include Robert L. Carneiro,
Napoleon Alphonseau Chagnon, Jared Diamond, Jerry B. Howard,
Stephen Lansing, Kathleen McFarland, Barack Obama, and Xu Ke.
Last but not least, I have received many useful comments from various
anonymous reviewers. Of course, all views and remaining errors in this
book are my sole responsibility.
Lake Yanqi, Beijing
Summer 2016
Rongxing Guo
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Scenarios 1
Hypotheses 5
References 7
Part I
The Paradoxes of Humans, Civilizations and Nations 9
2 Culture as an Anti-Darwinian Process 11
“Mr. Tortoise, We Shall Race!” 12
Human Weakness and Complexity 13
Humans’ First Voice: “Let’s Do It Together!” 19
Following the Footsteps of the Sages 25
Lucretius, Poggio, and Sima Qian 32
References 35
3 Good Environment, Bad Environment 39
Old World, New World 40
Fleeing Amazonia: A Hard Choice 43
Norte Chico: “I’m Ugly but I’m Very Gentle!” 49
Why All the Indigenous Cultures Failed 55
A New World Hypothesis 63
References 66
ix
x CONTENTS
4 Living in the Lands Threatened 71
Incheon, Korea: “Go! Go! Go!” 71
Comparing South Korea and Taiwan 74
East and West German Reunification: 1 + 1 = ? 88
In Search of a New Growth Theory 96
Are All External Threats Helpful? 101
References 104
5 Are There Any Optimal Strategies for Nations? 107
Friend Nation, Enemy Nation 108
Enemy’s Enemy as Friend 110
Enemy, Threat, and Incentives 114
Evidence from International Data 119
Seeking the Thresholds of Strategies 125
Appendix: Instability and Threat Scores, by Country 130
References 134
Part IICultural Cyclicity and the Nonlinear Behaviors
of Nations 137
6 Civilization as a Cyclical Human Process 139
Why Humans Believe in Astrology? 139
Rivers, Cyclical Floods, and Civilizations 144
How the Cyclical Phenomena Matter 154
Cycles Research and Civilizations 159
Policy Implications 166
References 169
7 China: Short Cycles, Long Cycles 173
Origin of the Nation 173
The King Is Dead, Long Live the King! 178
Size, Border, and Dynastic Life Span 185
Focusing on the 1820–1970 Cycle 191
China in 2100: Three Scenarios 197
Appendix: China’s Major Dynasties: Selected Indicators 201
References 204
Contents xi
8 Western World: A Longer Cycle 207
Rise and Fall of the West 207
Focusing on the United States 214
Tipping, Obesity, and Carp 217
What Are Their Long-Run Effects? 224
Further Implications 232
Appendix: Explaining the US Obesity 238
References 241
9 In Cycle We Trust 245
Beyond Doomsday 246
Where Is the Newer World? 249
The Post-“Beijing Consensus” Consensus 255
Rock, Paper, and Scissors 263
In Cycles We Trust 267
Appendix: A Model of Human Evolution (1980–2010) 268
References 274
Epilogue 277
Index 283
Abbreviations
BMI
Body Mass Index
CCP
Chinese Communist Party
CCTV
China Central Television
DMZ
Demilitarized Zone
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic Acid
DPP
Democratic Progressive Party
ECFA
Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement
EIU
Economist Intelligence Unit
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
IEP
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
IMF
International Monetary Fund
IOC
International Olympic Committee
KMTKuomintang
MDL
Military Demarcation Line
MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
NAL
National Agricultural Library
NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NOC
National Olympic Committee
OCA
Olympic Council of Asia
OECD
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
PLA
People’s Liberation Army
PRC
People’s Republic of China
RMS
Richter Magnitude Scale
xiii
xiv Abbreviations
ROC
SETI
UFO
UN
UNESCO
USSR
WHO
WTO
Republic of China
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Unidentified Flying Object
United Nations
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
World Health Organization
World Trade Organization
List
Fig. 2.1
Fig. 3.1a
Fig. 3.1b
Fig. 3.2a
Fig. 3.2b
Fig. 3.3
Fig. 4.1
Fig. 4.2
Fig. 4.3
Fig. 5.1
Fig. 5.2
Fig. 6.1
Fig. 6.2
Fig. 7.1
Fig. 7.2
Fig. 7.3
Fig. 8.1
Fig. 8.2
of
Figures
The Neanderthals were replaced by the Cro-Magnons
Amazonia: Why was there no indigenous civilization? Peru: Where is the cradle of civilization in the Western
Hemisphere? Body mass index (BMI) and indigenous populations,
the Americas Body mass index (BMI) and White populations, USA Why the Colorado River did not give birth to an indigenous
civilization? GDP growth rates, South Korea and Taiwan, 1960–2015
The GDP growth differences between Germany and the other
OCED countries, 1990–2000
The optimum size (S*) of an independent state The Deluge by Gustave Doré (1832–1883)
Larger nations tend to have lower probabilities for external
threats to encourage economic progress
Nonlinear dynamics and the evolution of the Songhua River
in northeast China
Tikal (Guatemala) and Zhengzhou (China): average monthly
temperatures Location, territorial size, and Chinese dynasties A cyclical view of the Chinese economy, 1500–2100 China’s population cycle, 1950–2100 The growing foreign-trade deficits in the United States,
1960–2015 Nonlinear population behaviors of Europe
and North America, 1500–2100 16
46
47
52
53
59
80
95
97
115
128
153
156
192
198
200
230
236
xv
xvi List of Figures
Fig. 9.1
Fig. 9.2
The varied growth cycles of the major economies, 1500–2015 251
Voice and accountability, China 1996–2014 259
List
Table 2.1
Table 2.2
Table 3.1
Table 4.1
Table 4.2
Table 4.3
Table 5.1
Table 5.2
Table 5.3
Table 7.1
Table 7.2
Table 8.1
Table 8.2
Table 8.3
Table 9.1
of
Tables
The world’s fastest men from 1968 to 2015
14
Dialect differences in Beijing, Shandong, Shanghai,
and Henan
22
Human and cultural features of selected American countries
51
Asian Games medal count of Japan and South Korea,
1951–201473
South Korea versus Taiwan: average annual GDP
growth rates, selected periods
86
Medals won by Germany at the Summer
Olympic Games, 1956–2016
99
Colluding with enemy’s enemy: selected cases
111
The average per capita GDPs (in PPP US$) by different
types of nations, 2010
122
Determinants of long-run economic performance:
estimated results
124
Explaining China’s three short-lived dynasties
191
Major incidents relating to China’s long, declining
cycle (1820–1970)
196
Average human body weight by world region in 2005
218
Human body weight differences between the
US and other rich countries, 2005
219
Rates of overweight and obesity in the
United States, by race, 1987 (%)
221
Regressions of body mass index (BMI), 1980 and 2010
252
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
This book sets out to examine the driving forces behind the dynamic
behaviors of civilizations and nations. Frankly speaking, existing college-­
level textbooks and relevant monographs have presented incomplete and
sometimes misleading descriptions of the origin of civilizations. Still, historians and anthropologists have highly simplified, if not dismissed, the
initial conditions and other environmental and external factors that may
have decided or influenced the rise and fall of civilizations and nations. It
seems that many historical events relating to the ups and downs of civilizations and nations have been rather stochastic and unpredictable. However,
this does not mean that there are no driving forces behind the nonlinear
human and cultural behaviors. Accordingly, if these forces do exist and
are endogenous or predictable, then there may be some general laws (or
mechanisms) by which to define or influence the long-term, nonlinear
behaviors of civilizations and nations.
Scenarios
In recent years, the Middle East has once again stepped into the spotlight,
leaving various breaking bad news and events that have shocked the rest
of the world. The Middle East is one of history’s grand epics, the cradle of
civilization, and a beautiful, complicated land that is home to some of the
most hospitable people on the planet. However, why has the Holy Land
© The Author(s) 2017
R. Guo, An Economic Inquiry into the Nonlinear
Behaviors of Nations, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48772-4_1
1
2 R. GUO
that had significantly contributed to human civilizations been suffering so
many unwanted human and cultural catastrophes? Were these catastrophes merely the accidental and exogenously induced events? Or have they
been endogenously determined and bound to happen? In fact, historically,
many other civilizations in the rest of the world—say, the Chinese and
Indian civilizations, to name but two—have also followed the trajectories
of nonlinear evolutions and development during the past thousands of
years or so.
For a long period of time, the emperors of China had been considered
the rulers of “all under heaven”—a phrase which was used to refer to the
whole world. Although in practice there would have been some areas of
the known world which were not under the control of the Chinese emperors, it was believed that the political rulers of those areas had derived
their power from the emperors of China. This is known as Sinocentrism,
which regards China as the center or unique relative to other countries.
The geographical dimension of traditional Sinocentrism, which regards
Chinese culture as more ancient than and superior to other cultures, was
highlighted by Chinese reactions to the publication of the first world map
composed by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610):
Lately Matteo Ricci utilized some false teachings to fool people, and scholars unanimously believed him … take for example the position of China on
the map. He puts it not in the center but slightly to the West and inclined
to the north. This is altogether far from the truth, for China should be in
the center of the world, which we can prove by the single fact that we can
see the North Star resting at the zenith of the heaven at midnight. How can
China be treated like a small unimportant country, and placed slightly to the
north as in this map?1
Later on, another Jesuit, Guilio Aleni (1582–1649), modified Ricci’s
earlier work and published the complete map of all the countries (called
“Wanguo Quantu” in Chinese) in the 1620s by responding to the Chinese
Emperor’s demand to have China located in the center of the world map,
which resulted in the Sinocentric configuration. Unfortunately, the Ming
dynasty (1368–1644) was eventually conquered by one of its unimportant subordinate people—the Manchus—20 years later, and neither had
the Manchus believed that the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) would have
1
Cited from Wong (1963, 44).
INTRODUCTION 3
become so weak during its late years. China’s economic stagnation even
occurred after the Republic of China (ROC) and the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) were founded in 1912 and 1949, respectively.
Many puzzles relating to specific nations and civilizations have
remained unanswered: that the unified Germany as a whole has won much
fewer Olympic medals than either East or West Germany did during the
1972–1988 Games; that South Korea—a much smaller country in terms
of population, economy, and territorial size than Japan—has since the
mid-1980s won more gold medals than the latter during the quadrennial Asian Games; and that a time-series comparison of South Korea and
Taiwan reveals that, from 1960 to 2015, external threats have not retarded
domestic economic growth. More important regional or global questions
include: Why has China’s robust economic growth been accompanied by
its slow, sometimes still slipping-back, social and political progress?
***
The 2010s has seen various challenges to the US leadership throughout the world. Following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and subsequent
annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the United States and
its allies, including the European Union, Canada, Australia, and Japan,
imposed economic sanctions against Russia, including some specifically
targeting Crimea. Many of these sanctions were directed at individuals—both Russian and Crimean. In general, they prohibit the sale, supply,
transfer, or export of goods and technology in several sectors, including
services directly related to tourism and infrastructure. They list seven ports
where cruise ships cannot dock. Sanctions against individuals include travel
bans and asset freezes. Obviously, Russia’s annexation of Crimea has been
at the risk of huge costs, and it seems that the US leadership, not that of
Russia or any other nation, has gained a global admiration.
On the other side of the globe, the US military and diplomatic “pivot,”
or “rebalance,” toward Asia has become a popular buzzword since 2011.
Indeed, the United States has been more confident than any other countries in the rest of the world. For example, in each of its military actions
conducted in the past decades, the United States was always actively
supported by many, if not all, of its political allies. By way of contrast,
Russia and China—also world-class players—had far less, if any, fanatical followers or even were isolated in a few international events. This has
been described in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address
on January 12, 2016, in which he also gave a stirring mention regarding
America’s political, economic, and military advantages over its competitors, as the following:
4 R. GUO
I told you earlier all the talk of America’s economic decline is political hot
air. Well, so is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger
and America getting weaker. Let me tell you something. The United States
of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It’s not even close.
We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined. Our
troops are the finest fighting force in the history of the world. No nation
attacks us directly, or our allies, because they know that’s the path to ruin.
Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was
elected to this office, and when it comes to every important international
issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead—they
call us.2
Immediately before the President’s State of the Union address, there had
been a nasty episode. The patrol craft of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy seized at gunpoint two US Navy riverine command boats that had strayed into Iranian territorial waters in the Persian
Gulf. The Iranian forces detained the American crew of the two vessels,
nine men and one woman, at a military base in the Farsi Island. The sailors were released unharmed along with all their equipment on January
13, 2016. However, Iran released a series of images and videos, showing
the US Navy sailors on their knees with their hands clasped behind their
heads as they were being apprehended on their vessels. Two of the videos
featured one of the Americans, apparently the lieutenant commanding the
boats, apologizing and praising Iran’s treatment:
It was a mistake that was our fault, and we apologize for our mistake. … The
Iranian behavior was fantastic while we were here and we thank you very
much for your hospitality and your assistance.
It is also worth mentioning that another tragicomic, though quite accidental, event occurred at a Pentagon press briefing on February 9, 2016,
when a high-ranking official, who was discussing the Air Force’s $120
billion budget, suddenly fainted at the podium. The entire incident was
caught on camera:
US Air Force General James Martin Jr was talking about the future of the
F-35 program when suddenly he started to slump forward, dipping his head
beneath the dais. In the video from the press conference, Carolyn Gleason,
2
Cited from Obama (January 13, 2016).
INTRODUCTION 5
Assistant Air Force Secretary, rushes to Martin’s side and grabs him by the
arm. Light laughter is heard in the room before Gleason asks someone to
help her steady the general. Three Air Force staffers rush over and grab
hold of Martin, who appears dazed and woozy. Gleason then took over the
briefing, joking that her boss “kept threatening to pull a hammy.” Martin
then made a feeble attempt to get up from the chair, but Gleason insisted
he remain seated.
Martin was later taken to a hospital as a precaution. He was back to work
on the next day and was said to be doing well. Maybe what had happened
was due to that the general, a career officer who works under the Air
Force’s Financial Management and Comptroller office, had been overburdening himself with work on those days. Indeed, he should take a rest.
Hypotheses
This book sets out to examine the driving forces behind the dynamic
behaviors of civilizations and nations. Frankly speaking, existing college-­
level textbooks and relevant monographs have presented incomplete and
sometimes misleading descriptions of the origin of civilizations. Still, historians and anthropologists have highly simplified, if not dismissed, the
initial conditions and other environmental and external factors that may
have decided or influenced the rise and fall of civilizations and nations.
It seems that many historical events relating to the ups and downs of
civilizations and nations have been rather stochastic and unpredictable.
However, this does not mean that there are no driving forces behind the
nonlinear human and cultural behaviors. Accordingly, if these forces do
exist and are endogenous or predictable, there might be some general laws
(or mechanisms) by which to simulate the long-term, nonlinear behaviors
of civilizations and nations. In order to present my viewpoints, I will use
both narrative and analytic approaches in this book. More often than not,
analytics (focusing on theory and analytical models) and narrative (focusing on data and historical events) each have both advantages and disadvantages in presenting a research project. However, the combination of
“analytics” and “narrative” can capture the conviction that data linked to
theory is more powerful than either data or theory alone.
This book is based upon a critical review of existing literature on this
topic, and on a variety of indicators (from a historical and comparative
perspective)—both qualitative and quantitative. All my description of and