September 28, 2024: Both China and Russia have long histories of corruption. These two countries sometimes managed to use the corruption to sustain economic growth rather than stifle it. Governments, usually monarchies, made rules that concentrated on taking as much wealth from any new entrepreneurs as possible. This process left unchecked would damage or destroy a prosperous economy. Corruption, in the form of paying royal officials to back off and let business continue, worked in Europe first and eventually, in the 20th and early 21st centuries, in China. There is still a culture of corruption in China but the senior government officials recognize it exists and openly struggle to suppress it. That is difficult to do in China, India and the Middle East, where corruption is seen as a tradition that is often respected and seen as useful to get things done.

The origins of the Russian nation go back to 862 when Prince Rurik established a government in the northeastern city of Novgorod and surrounding areas. That government expanded over the next 800 years. This was disrupted by the 1237-40 Mongol invasions. 350-400 years later, long after the Mongol disruption, Russian expansion east resumed and continued until the 1700s, when Russia expanded to the Pacific and achieved a size similar to what the Russian Federation is today. After 1991 Russia lost many of its central Asian territories and a dozen smaller areas. All these lost lands were occupied by non-Slav people who were not as productive or as loyal to the state as the Slavs.

Europe and the United States were more effective at reducing corruption. Russia was somewhere in the middle, with western-looking Russian rulers like Peter the Great deliberately trying to suppress corruption and adopt European business practices. Large-scale corruption ceased briefly when the Communists took over, resumed after World War Two, took off in the 1980’s and by the 21st Century so dominated Russia that economic growth tailed off and millions of Russians emigrated to Europe where their earning and savings wouldn’t be stolen by their very corrupt government. Russian leaders don’t want to admit that their high levels of corruption are a major reason why Russia still cannot catch up economically with Europe and the United States.

Russia is also in the habit of squandering its economic gains by starting wars. This began with Peter the Great and continued throughout the 19th century. The war with Japan in 1904-05 ended with Russia defeated, the first time an eastern nation had defeated a western military power. That was followed by Russia blundering into World War I and surrendering to Germany a year before the allied victory over Germany eliminated the German occupation of Russian territory. That was followed by a Russian Civil War that raged from 1917 to 1922 and ended with a communist takeover of the Russian government. That led to Russian plans to attack Germany in the mid-1940s but the Germans attacked first and Russia suffered military and civilian losses that amounted to 18 percent of the population. Because of assistance from the western allies, mainly the United States, Russia prevailed and took advantage of the situation to gain control over most of Eastern Europe and many non-Slav central Asian territories.

This was a land-grab too far and Russia could not afford it. In 1991 this Russian empire went bankrupt and collapsed. The empire dissolved into 14 new nations, including the Slavic Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine. Not content with this, after 2000 Russia planned to reconquer most of these new nations, starting with Ukraine in 2022. That did not work out well and now they are stuck in a war they cannot win but do not want to just give up and leave. NATO nations responded to this invasion with economic sanctions and over a hundred billion dollars’ worth of military aid for Ukraine.

China was less reckless than Russia, but also failed at building a stable empire. Organized Chinese territories first appeared about 4,300 years ago. A united China emerged several times since then, but until the 1700, these empires were temporary and civil wars and rebellions kept pulling apart a united China into many kingdoms. It wasn’t until the early 20th century that a stable, in terms of size, Chinese nation emerged. From then until 1949 there continued to be civil wars and uprisings that prevented these united territories from being ruled effectively.

While China was the most advanced civilization in the world for over two thousand years, the Europeans managed to become an economic and military superpower while China stumbled from one disaster to another.

Modern Europe began with the Renaissance that thrived from the 14th to the 17th centuries and was followed by the Industrial revolution that ran until the mid-19th century. These two events established the foundations of modern industrial societies. After that, Western nations, led by the United States and West Europe created an economic colossus that continues to generate more than half the global GDP as well as most of the scientific and technical advances.

China lost out on this and did not undergo the industrial revolution until the 1980s. China quickly became the second largest, after the United States, economy in the world. Now China is risking all that economic progress by making plans to conquer the island of Taiwan, which is an economically successful democracy off the Chinese coast. China hasn’t made a move yet because Taiwanese allies like the United States, South Korea, Japan, Australia and Singapore threaten to oppose a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Worse yet, such a war would disrupt trade, which is what keeps the Chinese economy going and its population supplied with imported food, petroleum and technology. Noting the fate of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese are no longer eager to actually try and take Taiwan by force.

Local media in Russia and China regularly report on corruption and complain of the continued inability of the government or people running businesses relying on corruption to operate profitably. It doesn’t have to be that way, because lower levels of corruption in America and Europe are a major reason why those two regions account for so much of the global GDP. China and Russia don’t want to admit that their high corruption levels are a major cause of their economic problems. Leaders in these two countries talk about dealing with corruption, but neither Russia nor China has been able to do much about the problem.