Cyberpunk geopolitics
Posted by PsychochildAug 25
I want to delve a bit into politics. I’d really appreciate having a mature conversation here even though political issues, especially in the U.S., tend to stir up a lot of strong feelings. But, this is a topic that I think is interesting to discuss. I will also warn that this is from a very U.S.-centric point of view, but I welcome discussions from other points of view in the comments below.
The the bad old days of the 1980s, there was a palpable feeling of economic dread covering the U.S. The 1970s saw an energy crisis and a recession hurting the U.S. economy (sounds familiar….) The country experienced “stagflation”, state of inflation where the economy remains stagnant. This lead to lot of speculation about how countries with stronger economies might take a position of dominance on the world stage, replacing the U.S.’s traditional role.
One common focus was the rapid increase in Japan’s economic power, which is reflected in a lot of cyberpunk stories. Let’s take a look at the geopolitical situation envisioned by cyberpunk writers and perhaps look at how that is reflected in current times.
Japan in the 1980s
During the energy crisis in the 1970s, Japan was affected by oil prices just like every other industrial nation. But, while others such as the U.S. suffered inflation, Japan experienced less inflation and actual growth. This strong economy allowed Japan to get on its feet quicker than other countries. During the early 80s, the Japanese economy was still expanding while other countries were struggling to get back on track. This relative strength lead to a lot of admiration by business people, and the hot business trend was studying Japanese business practices to understand the advantages. I remember hearing news stories as a kid about Japanese companies buying a lot of real estate on the West Coast of the United States, fueling a belief (or perhaps a fear) that the Japanese were not just taking the U.S.’s place in geopolitics, but literally trying to own the land that made up the U.S.
One iconic part of cyberpunk is the power of faceless, multinational corporations. Gibson borrowed the Japanese term zaibatsu to describe the large corporations that dominated the world in the Sprawl trilogy. In fact, the modern keiretsu, which is a series of integrated companies but without the strong central families that dominated the zaibatsu, were seen as part of what made the Japanese economy so strong. Having a strong alliance of businesses would allow encroaching corporate power to be centralized and thus theoretically unstoppable given the history.
But, the Japanese economy had another element important to cyberpunk: it was focused on high technology. As computers were becoming more common in everyday life, a large part of the Japanese economy was focused on making those systems. Anyone living in the 80s remembers the rise in Japanese consumer products such as the Sony Walkman or the VCR. Once again, we saw an example of the Japanese taking over an aspect that used to be dominated by the U.S.: manufacturing.
So, the prediction was that Japan would dominate due to its economic power. A lot of cyberpunk literature reflects this, even if just by copying the concept of the large, faceless, multi-national corporations that got their start as the Japanese keiretsu. Of course, we know that this never came to pass. In the late 80s the Japanese economy suffered from a deflated asset price bubble, and a decade of continued deflation followed (called the “Lost Decade” by some). In contrast, the U.S. economy enjoyed tremendous growth and a shift away from manufacturing.
China in the 2010s
Looking today, we see that Mark Twain said it best when he quipped, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” We see another Asian economy rising sharply: China. Not only does it have a powerful economy, the sheer size of the country in terms of numbers means it has a lot of consumers to keep the economy going. Increasing the standard of living is fueling a lot of the growth, but also causing growing pains. The large population also adds a new dimension that the Japanese dominance couldn’t match in the 1980s: military power. A large population and access to high technology weapons means that China could field an army that could not be matched by any other country. With the U.S. spending a significant amount of resources on combat operations in two foreign countries, its losing a lot of its perception of invincibility that was already tarnished in previous wars.
But, it’s maybe not quite the same as Japan in the 80s. A recent, if controversial, Newsweek article talks about how the issue might not be that China is ascending but that the U.S. is descending without a replacement. While China is certainly an economic and military powerhouse, the linked article states that the autocratic form of capitalism in China isn’t something that other countries want to copy, even if those countries would love to have access in order to sell products to Chinese consumers. China is still very protectionist and restrictive, which limits the power they can effective wield over others if they limit the interactions others can have. So, it’s not quite as likely that the Chinese will be able to exert influence over others to the degree the U.S. has in the past.
There’s also the issue of American military presence. The Newsweek article points out that the U.S. spends a lot on military primarily because we’ve played the role of world arbiter and police force when other options have failed. With economic realities meaning that military presences will have to scale back, what does it mean for countries who used to rely on us?
So, it looks like the issue might be more of a void to fill rather than another country taking over as a global geopolitical superpower. Filling a void like that raises a whole lot of other issues, such as how peacefully it will happen. These are some interesting questions to consider if cyberpunk going to use modern times as a template to draw from.
What do you think? What major geopolitical effects do you think will shape a (post)cyberpunk-themed future?
12 comments
Comment by Lathain on August 26, 2010 at 12:18 AM
Just wondering,
Japan has frequently been associated with honor, structure, heirachy…
the cyberpunk focus on japan might not only be linked to the strong economical growth.
But rather the fact that they made a technological growth without losing their core values.
Futhermore being a smaller county, but having a high tech level and economical growth adds to the aura of super-power-japan, which threathens or takes over the world economy.
But more on topic,
In China the goverment plays a bigger role in the growth and economy, so maybe cyberpubnk will lose more of its Corporate oriented focus.
It could shift to a more open clash between corporate and goverments, the free reckless companies, vs a big and restrictive goverment.
Comment by Haversack on August 26, 2010 at 6:29 AM
The Geopolitical issues with digital content has interested me. Laws designed to protect content within a country do not have any reach beyond the borders of said country, much of the piracy that is so rampant on the internet is based in countries where copyright can’t be upheld or is difficult to do so.
Now where this becomes interesting is when you consider that China is becoming a big player economically and technologically. China will soon be creating digital content but since China is a communist state, any content produced is owned by the government. Piracy of digital content from China then becomes a major political issue since pirates would be directly taking from a world power.
Comment by Ysharros on August 26, 2010 at 7:42 AM
A quick aside because I have a million things going on. There has been a shift to portraying China in cyberpunk literature in the last couple of decades. Quick examples off the top of my head is the Forbidden City project (Tad Williams’ Otherlands, iirc?) and increasing portrayals of Shanghai, Hong Kong and other ultra-rapid growth cities instead of Tokyo. (Hong Kong of course is a bit of a special case.)
As others mentioned above though, the very different nature of Chinese politics & government makes it less easy to draw “through the looking-glass” parallels between the West and the emerging Far East. Tokyo may be very foreign but it’s still more recogniseable and comprehensible to Western eyes than, say, Beijing. That may be why Malaysia / Singapore aren’t used much (that I know of) in cyberpunk lit even though there’s certainly been a heavy investment in high-tech development there too. I don’t think many Western readers know much, if anything, about Malaysia or Singapore. At least we know about Japan, if only because we bombed them. (Before anyone flies off the handle, I’m being a little facetious AND I’m not American.)
Comment by Psychochild on August 26, 2010 at 11:13 AM
Interesting point about Japan being less foreign to Westerners. After WW2, the reconstruction efforts did bring about a fair amount of Western influence and culture to the country. There’s been a large love of Western culture in Japan over the last few decades as well; for example, the Wizardry series of games took on a life of their own in Japan.
China is an interesting topic as well. It’s not quite accurate to say that the government owns everything; China has been using a partial capitalist system that encourages free enterprise to a large degree. There is still an element of government oversight, but it’s a lot more “free market” than you might first anticipate. But, I don’t think you’re going to see the weak, ineffectual type of government you see in traditional cyberpunk that is cowed by the powerful megacorporations.
As I’ve said before, I see the parallels between old cyberpunk and our new situation to be fascinating. It’s not identical, but it certainly rhymes enough to remind me of that old song.
Comment by We Fly Spitfires on August 28, 2010 at 4:42 AM
I don’t see cyberpunk being influenced by China or even any sort of cyberpunk future involving then. A key difference between Japan’s rise in the 80s and China’s current rise is rooted in technology. Japan were the creators and innovators of new technology, a lot of which brought round worldwide revolutions. Suddenly every day lives were being affected by Japanese consumer products and as a result their economy was booming. That’s the prime driving force behind any sort of cyberpunk vision.
China on the contrary isn’t an innovator of technology but rather a low-cost producer. It’s Western and Japanese companies that are using the cheap labour and materials of China to produce their own goods. In that respect China is merely a workforce and is indirectly affecting our lives rather than directly. I mean, can you name a single Chinese brand of technology that is really impacting our lives today? Everything may be getting made in China but it’s not Chinese inventions.
This isn’t to say though that China will remain this way and the curious (and I’d even say scary) thing is that Chinese companies are starting to buy up European companies and their products. Essentially this means you’ve got famous and commonplace brands – such as Rover cars here in the UK – being produced AND owned by China.
This activity does annoy me somewhat because it shows a real lack of foresight by companies on a national level. For instance when Rover sold out to a Chinese company the owners of Rover were “surprised” when China closed down all of the UK factories and operation centres and moved all production to China, resulting in huge job losses across the UK. Although I can appreciate the need for free trading, this is bad for the UK in a long term and can have drastic side effects.
Of course, we need to also consider that the Chinese workforce will eventually start to demand better pay etc and eventually will no longer be as cheap as it used to be. When that happens, companies will start looking for somewhere else to produce their good and the entire bubble could burst. As we know from history though, mass recession usually leads to war.
So a cyberpunk future driven by the concept of a Chinese superpower? Probably gonna be nuclear armageddon :)
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Comment by Tesh on August 31, 2010 at 8:43 AM
The looming U.S. implosion thanks to terrible economic policy may well have some significant global repercussions. I suspect we’ll see a move to austerity of a sort, and more people intentionally moving *off* the grid because it’s proven to be corrupt and unstable, even as it trends to totalitarianism.
So… we may not have the specific sorts of megacorporations that cyberpunk typically embraces, but we do still have some of the same spirit in play; the little man’s distrust of the political and business structures, and some fierce individuality pushing against political leaders and businesses as they push for globalism. The scale and players are a bit different, but not the emotions.
I’d even suggest that cyberpunk’s megacorps and shadowy cabals are still in play today, they just aren’t acting against governments, they are absorbing and coopting them. The antagonism between state and business is a roadblock for the megacorps, so instead of fighting it, they are using it.
…at least, that’s one way to look at it, and one potential avenue for post-cyberpunk fiction. It’s less about The Matrix and digital space being the playground of the freedom fighters, more about the matrix of politics and business and how people fight that (say, like the “runner” premise of Mirror’s Edge, a sort of post-cyberpunkish game; tech is present and important, but so is dodging it). Digital devices and landscapes are one potential playground for those fights, but not the only one.
Comment by Psychochild on September 8, 2010 at 7:51 AM
I was at a conference over the weekend and spent a few days driving, so I missed some the comments above.
We Fly Spitfires wrote:
China on the contrary isn’t an innovator of technology but rather a low-cost producer.
While that is certainly it’s former role, I think it’s foolish to discount the possibility that China is coming up strong in developing technology. To put not too fine of a point on it, they’re lifting designs from companies that have outsourced manufacturing to China, and they’re acquiring companies with a lot of know-how. Also, if the dire predictions about fossil fuel shortages are true, China will need to shift away from manufacturing if shipping becomes more expensive than manufacturing locally. So, I think it’s possible that China might head in that direction.
Tesh wrote:
Digital devices and landscapes are one potential playground for those fights, but not the only one.
Agreed, the multinational corporations are co-opting the governments instead of defeating them. However, I think that the online medium will still be important. It’s become a vital part of everyday life, and it allows for people to better organize and communicate, especially in secret. I think it’s likely to play a big role.
My thoughts.
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Comment by Krypter on January 25, 2011 at 11:09 AM
The geopolitics of a future history can be a tricky thing, but if cyberpunk is the projection of our current fears 30 years into the future then China should definitely figure as a titanic force in any post-cyberpunk endeavour. The sheer demographic and economic weight of this country makes its influence on global affairs inevitable, even if its growth is not as smooth as linear extrapolation makes it out to be. Nevertheless, growth is not inevitable and China may recede as a threat if western economies restructure to deal with their own demographic challenges, as they have done (mostly successfully) in the past.
The United States will remain a world power, probably the dominant world power, for a long while yet. It has many advantages that are being ignored in the current gloomy climate of fear: a growing population, a young population (soon younger than China’s), a high degree of innovation & entrepreneurship, a flexible labour force, highly skilled and educated workers (the best in the OECD), global cultural popularity in everything from music to tv to fashion, immigration of the best and brightest from around the world, freedoms which are denied elsewhere, a stable government and strong civic institutions.
China, on the other hand, has many weaknesses which are downplayed at the moment: a population aging at amazingly fast rate, brittle government institutions based on fear and graft rather than civic participation (Chinese don’t trust their neighbours, let alone their local government), out of control pollution, deforestation, desertification, fragile central authority (provinces and cities often ignore gov’t edicts), restricted information flows, command economies which temporarily drive fast growth but are prone to huge miscalculations and misallocation of capital, no universal health care or pension system, and 700m peasants who are a major burden on the economy. The list goes on for much longer than this, actually, and makes the problems the USA is facing seem much smaller.
Brazil, Russia, India, Nigeria and Europe all face immense difficulties in the near future. There are no real contenders to replace the US as the global systems administrator, in the words of Thomas Barnett. What may happen, however, is that regional hegemons challenge American dominance in certain parts of the world, such as Brazil in latin America or China in East Asia. That would result in a breakdown in the global system we have known – and which the Americans constructed – since the Second World War. Such a scenario may lead to the fractured world so common to cyberpunk stories.
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