00:01you know take a look at the label on well almost anything you own your phone your sneakers your
00:07coffee mug chances are it says made in china it's just everywhere but here's the crazy part
00:12this global dominance it's a super recent thing to really get how china became the only country
00:18on earth that can truly challenge the united states we have to go back and uncover one of
00:22the most incredible comeback stories in all of human history okay so let's just put this in
00:27perspective on one side you've got china less than a century ago a nation absolutely wrecked by war
00:33carved up by foreign powers and just devastated by internal fighting and addiction they literally
00:38called it the sick man of asia now look at the other side that's the china of today the world's
00:44factory floor a leader in ai and 5g with massive global ambitions the change is well it's just
00:51staggered so that leads to the big question right how on earth did this happen how does a country go
00:58from being a symbol of total humiliation to the planet's workshop and a tech powerhouse practically
01:04overnight this my friends is the story of what you might call the greatest revenge in history
01:10now to understand china's explosive rise we can't just start with the 20th century it's not enough
01:16we have to go back i mean way way back because the seeds of china's modern ambition they were planted
01:23thousands of years ago see here's the thing you have to understand about china it's not just a
01:28country in the modern sense people call it a civilization state what that means is its identity
01:33is defined less by its current borders and more by this continuous ancient culture stretching back for
01:39millennia a history packed with incredible innovations that still shapes how it sees the world today
01:44let's just quickly appreciate the sheer scale we're talking about here i mean from the very first
01:49dynasties that got society organized to the birth of chinese writing then you get the xiu dynasty which
01:54came up with a really core political idea we'll get to in a sec then the qin dynasty comes along
01:59unifies
01:59all the warring states and starts building the great wall after that the han dynasty gives us the silk
02:04road and you know paper and the tong dynasty represents this incredible golden age of culture
02:08this isn't just a list of old facts it's the bedrock of a deeply proud identity okay so that core
02:14concept i mentioned it's called the mandate of heaven now this isn't like the divine right of
02:19kings in europe it's more like a cosmic performance review if the emperor was a good ruler and brought
02:24prosperity heaven had his back but if he was corrupt or if there was a famine or disaster well he
02:29lost
02:29the mandate and that meant the people had the right to rebel this idea that a government's legitimacy
02:34is tied to its results has echoed all the way through chinese history right up to today so after
02:40centuries of being this dominant world power the whole system just started to fall apart
02:45starting in the 1800s china entered a period of decline so catastrophic so traumatic that to this
02:52day it's known as the century of humiliation and it all kicked off with the opium wars britain had a
02:58major trade imbalance with china so to fix it they started flooding the country with opium when the chinese
03:03government tried to stop the drug trade which you know seems reasonable britain responded with its
03:07military the result was a total humiliating defeat china lost hong kong and was forced to sign these
03:13unequal treaties that basically stripped it of its sovereignty and kicked the door wide open for western
03:18powers so as the dynasty was getting weaker from the outside it was absolutely collapsing from the
03:23inside the typing rebellion was this massive civil war that just tore the country apart for 14 years
03:30and the death toll it's just astronomical an estimated 20 million people to put that in perspective
03:36that's more than the entire death toll of world war one it left the country completely shattered and
03:43this number this number eight it really tells you everything you need to know about how weak china had
03:48become when a popular uprising the boxer rebellion tried to kick all the foreigners out it wasn't just
03:54one country that came to put it down no it was an alliance of eight major world powers we're talking
04:00britain japan russia even the united states they marched on beijing crushed the rebellion and put china
04:06under even tighter foreign control the humiliation was absolute but out of the ashes out of 2 000
04:12years of imperial rule and a century of utter humiliation a brand new radical force was about
04:19to emerge this was the birth of red china and it would be forged in the fires of civil war
04:24and foreign
04:25invasion a really pivotal moment from this time was the long march the young communist army was facing
04:31total annihilation by the ruling nationalists so they began this epic retreat and listen this was not
04:37just a walk it was a brutal 9 000 kilometer journey over mountains and across rivers all while being
04:43attacked it was devastating for sure but it was also transformative it was on the long march that
04:49mao zedong really cemented his leadership and the few who survived emerged as this incredibly tough
04:54disciplined and fiercely loyal fighting force and just as this civil war was raging an even bigger threat
05:01showed up imperial japan launched a full-scale invasion the brutality of it was just unimaginable
05:08we're talking over 10 million chinese killed in a city of nanjing alone japanese soldiers murdered
05:14an estimated 300 000 civilians in just a few weeks the horror was so bad that it actually forced the
05:21two
05:21warring sides the nationalists and the communist into a very temporary and very uneasy alliance to
05:26fight this common enemy so after japan was defeated in world war ii the civil war started right back up
05:32but this time the communists who had all the support from the rural population and a disciplined army
05:37quickly took control in 1949 the nationalists fled to taiwan and mao zedong stood in tianaman square and made
05:45this iconic declaration the chinese people have stood up the center of humiliation was
05:50officially over now mao did something nobody else could he unified china under one strong government
05:57for the first time in over 100 years but and this is a huge but this unification came at a
06:03horrifying
06:04price his radical policies like the great leap forward caused the single worst famine in human
06:09history killing over 30 million people then his cultural revolution plunged the entire nation into a
06:16decade of violent chaos and paranoia so he left behind a china that was unified yes but also deeply
06:21traumatized and totally isolated from the world after mao died china was about to pivot again in a way
06:28that absolutely no one could have predicted it was going to shed its revolutionary past and begin the
06:33transformation into the economic giant we know today the first crack in that wall of isolation
06:39was a geopolitical masterstroke in 1972 president richard nixon a famous anti-communist flew to china
06:47it was a move that absolutely stunned the world for the u.s it was a clever way to play
06:53china against
06:53their main rival the soviet union and for china it was the beginning of the end of its time as
06:58a global
06:58outcast but the real economic earthquake started in 1978 under mao's successor dang xopang he launched a
07:06program he called reform and opening up he had this famous saying it doesn't matter if a cat is black
07:12or
07:12white as long as it catches mice basically he allowed farmers to sell their extra crops he let
07:17people start their own businesses and he created these special economic zones to bring in foreign cash
07:22and technology he kept the communist party in total political control but he unleashed the power of the
07:28market and the results well they were frankly unbelievable just look at this chart you can see the
07:34trajectory when the reform started in 78 the economy was tiny but after china joined the world trade
07:40organization in 2001 that growth just went into hyperdrive and today it's the second biggest economy
07:47on the planet hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty in what is by far the fastest
07:53and largest economic expansion in all of human history and so this incredible rise has brought china
07:59into a brand new era a direct and frankly escalating competition with the united states for global
08:06influence for tech supremacy and for military power so how do these two giants really stack up well the
08:13u.s runs on a market-driven economy and leans on its huge network of global alliances its biggest
08:18weakness right now deep political divisions at home china on the other hand uses what's called state-guided
08:24capitalism the government plays a huge role in directing the economy its big global project is
08:29the belt and road initiative building infrastructure all over the world but its major challenge is a
08:34demographic time bomb with a rapidly aging population and this rivalry is playing out everywhere we've seen
08:40the trade wars with huge tariffs there's this intense race for dominance in critical technologies like
08:45ai 5g and those advanced semiconductor chips and of course there's growing military tension over taiwan
08:52and control of the south china sea it's no wonder so many people are calling it a new cold war
08:58and that really brings us to the ultimate question for decades the world order was basically designed by
09:04and for western democracies but now china is offering a different path authoritarian political control
09:11combined with incredible economic growth so will its models succeed in shaping a new world order
09:16the story of the red dragon is still being written and the answer to that question is going to define
09:22the rest of our century
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