I'm pretty ignorant about China generally. The belt & road initiative seems like an industrial megaproject tied to international trade networks and thus, to my mind, clearly unsustainable and an example of them following the western 'development' model, albeit without forcing it through by military might with purely extractive goals (as far as I'm aware). The vid I posted was pretty dystopian, but I heard that a difference between China and western so-called democracies is that the one party state is actually far more responsive to the will of ordinary people, and changed its policies without much fuss after people protested. Western countries have more political parties to choose between but they all adhere rigidly to the demands of the capitalist oligarchy and it takes cities being burned before they budge an inch and make some minor concessions.
Anyway, agreed about needing to draw on all available cultural resources in the coming times, and that it won't be the same response everywhere. Another good thing about collapse, potentially - that the global monoculture breaks up and differences between cultures start to re-assert themselves. Though that could go pear-shaped in its own way of course...
cheers,
I
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