Alessandro Aresu. Composite Greatness: The Chinese Model

Imagine looking at a world map: for you, Europe is at the center, the Americas on one side, and Asia on the other. Now, try to imagine that for over a billion people, that map is wrong. In Chinese, the word for “China” literally means “the Middle Kingdom,” the center of the world, and this is not just a matter of pride: historically, China has always mapped the world with itself at the center and everything else—including us—on the periphery. This shift in perspective is the first step toward understanding why the Chinese model today is not only different from ours, but also poses a profound challenge to the Western way of thinking about progress, power, and the future. We often make the mistake of thinking that China is “emerging” as a new power: in reality, if we look at history over a span of centuries, China and India have simply returned to a central role they had already held for millennia. Over the past 70 years, East Asia has become the manufacturing and commercial heart of the planet, and China has gone from being a rural, impoverished society to leading the way in industrial production, robotics, and electric vehicles, while its trade surplus has reached unprecedented levels: $1.2 trillion. But there’s more: the share of global scientific publications produced by China has risen from zero to 32% in forty years, while that of the United States has plummeted from 40% to 15%. And this means that the center of global knowledge is shifting, not just the center of global goods. Behind these numbers are the stories of people who have spanned the entire Chinese social spectrum. Take Wang Huning: he was born in 1955, studied Western political thought, went on a study trip to the United States in the late 1980s, wrote a lucid book on the strengths and weaknesses of the United States, and was then called to join the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, eventually becoming one of the most powerful men in the country. Thirty years ago, his book, “America vs. America,” already identified the internal American contradictions that have now exploded before our very eyes. Or consider the contrast between two images: in 1921, Deng Xiaoping, aged 16, worked as a laborer in France, transported on a ship almost like livestock; in 2018, the daughter of Huawei's founder walked the runway at the debutante ball in Paris. In one century, China has gone from being utterly marginalized to mingling with global elites. But the price of this ascent has been extremely high: millions of exploited workers, pollution, and inhumane working conditions in factories. Yet now, some Chinese factories are more advanced, automated, and safe than many Western ones. Chinese science has trained armies of researchers: a young woman like Guan Mao, who graduated in China, arrives in the U.S., organizes ten artificial intelligence conferences in one year, earns her Ph.D. from MIT, and within a few months becomes a researcher at Amazon and a professor in Pennsylvania. For every story like hers, there are thousands of similar talents now competing in the world's most advanced laboratories. But the real game changer is that, today, China no longer merely copies. It is betting that the West is no longer capable of turning theory into concrete action: while in Europe, plans are announced to produce solar panels or chips, in China, those factories already exist and are producing on a scale never seen before. And when it comes to strategic resources like rare-earth elements, China has shown that it can use them as geopolitical leverage, as it did with Japan in 2010. From Beijing’s perspective, the world map is dotted with initiatives ranging from the Belt and Road Initiative to forums with Africa, but the real secret is the balance between authority and harmony, discipline and flexibility, innovation and tradition. This balance has always been precarious; at times, it has swung too far toward tradition, causing China to miss the train of the Industrial Revolution, and at other times, it has swung too far toward rupture, as during the Cultural Revolution. Today, China is three things at once: a society that is still agricultural and poor, an industrial factory that moves goods across half the planet, and a post-industrial power focused on the future of technology. But this success has a downside: growth is no longer in the double digits, the new generation of educated young people is struggling to find jobs that meet their expectations, and beneath the surface, a frustration is growing that is not (at least for now) translating into political revolt, but risks turning into a social crisis. And while China feels it is at the center, it no longer wants to just learn from the world: now it is offering an alternative model, but not a universal one. When it addresses African or Asian countries, it says, “Learn from China's development, but remain true to your own identity.” It is not trying to export its own path like the West did, but rather to point out the limitations of American models and propose a different path. Yet, precisely because of this difference, the West risks getting everything wrong: if we continue to interpret China using old categories, not only will we lose sight of reality, but we will also be outpaced by those who study us and know us better than we know them. The real asymmetry is this: China does not ignore you, but you risk ignoring China. And while Europe is grappling with the question of what the West is, China continues to consolidate its own map of the world, shaped by actions rather than words. The future is not entirely open, but some doors are now closed: the era when Europe could divide China at will will never return. The eyes of Southeast Asia and Africa are on China, and the real test will be whether they can learn from its mistakes and its achievements. The sentence that sums it all up? China is not only returning to the center: it is redrawing the map, and we will be left off the map if we don't learn to change our perspective. If you recognize yourself in this perspective, you can mark it on Lara Notes with I'm In — choose whether it's an interest, an experience, or a belief that now concerns you. And if you feel like sharing this idea with someone—perhaps Wang Huning's story or China's scientific breakthrough—on Lara Notes, you can tag those who were with you using Shared Offline: because a genuine conversation on these topics should not be lost. That was Il Fatto Quotidiano: You've just saved yourself over two hours of class time, but your journey through the map of China has only just begun.