[Parts I and II of Ron Ridenour’s China series can be read here and here.—Editors]
Part Three: Artificial Intelligence = Alienation Instructors
I am conscious of being alienated. Feeling, knowing we have no real control over our lives, or over what happens around us throughout the world. Many of us who look honestly inside feel isolated, estranged from people, society, ourselves. Hopelessly living limply with depression.
Che Guevara on alienation: “In capitalist society individuals are controlled by a pitiless law usually beyond their comprehension. The alienated human specimen is tied to society as a whole by an invisible umbilical cord: the law of value. This law acts upon all aspects of one’s life, shaping its course and destiny. The laws of capitalism, which are blind and are invisible to ordinary people, act upon the individual without he or she being aware of it.”
Such a worker is exactly what those who practice private ownership with endless profiteering want us to be: more readily molded into their cogs.
China seeks to be the world’s richest country. It already has the world’s second most millionaires/billionaires after the U.S.
Forbes magazine’s 2025 statistics show that “China’s stock markets have been on the roll, fueled by the AI boom…the CSI 300 [stock] index climbed 15% since we last measured fortunes, boosting the collective wealth of China’s 100 richest to $1.35 trillion from $1.03 trillion last year.”
Forbes “counted a record 3,428 ten-figure fortunes around the globe…no nation boasts more billionaires than the United States, which has a record 989 worth a combined $8.4 trillion. China follows with 539 billionaires worth a collective $2.2 trillion.”
China aims to be the world’s strongest technological power within 15 years. Alienation Instructor (AI) in the forefront.
“In the last twenty years, China has achieved the feat of turning an economy with approximately $2,000 GDP per capita into one of the world’s leading innovation hubs, with close to $14,000 today. The Chinese government plans to take this further. Its next goal, announced in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, released on 13 March, is to establish China as the world’s dominant technological power.”
The plan sets an economic growth rate of 4.5% by the end of 2026, producing 12 million new jobs, seeking to hold unemployment in cities at 5.5%. Its military budget will increase by 7% to $281 billion.
China’s military budget is intended to maintain its current military expenditures plus some growth; however, it has no war costs, because it is not at war with any country.
The U.S. today is warring in “seven known countries military engagements across six different wars. Wars with direct U.S. involvement include War on Terror (Somalia and Yemen), the war on cartels (Operation Southern Spear), and the Iran War. Wars with indirect U.S. involvement include the Russo-Ukraine war, the Gaza war, and the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.”
During the Joe Biden’s administration, he ended the 20-year war against Afghanistan, while continuing the War on Terror, and sending military aid and money for the Russo-Ukraine and Gaza wars without sending troops or pilots, officially. However, surveillance and CIA aid were and are still provided. In Biden’s last year, the military budget was $841 billion but reached $997 billon. The official U.S. military budget for 2026 is $1 trillion. Trump wants another $500 billion—$1.5 trillion—for 2027.
Those figures do not include some hidden costs in other categories, such as hospital/health care for wounded soldiers, or new war costs that began during the year, such as the current war against Iran, which has already cost the US $37 billion and now Trump-Pentagon want another $67 billion.
Senior Citizen Dies: A Youth Refused to Give His Seat on a Bus
As China’s government and business owners seek endless profits from their mixed economy and digital madness, many senior citizens cannot or do not want to keep up. I have the same problem in Denmark which, like China, seeks endless profits by creating unlimited digital technology.
I suspect that the death of a 70-year-old man on a crowded bus in Henan Province, in 2014, is partially a result of that mind-set: the new culture developed by the Communist Party of endless profiteering. China’s internet world went ablaze over the unnamed person’s death.
Apparently, he had asked a 20-year-old university student on a crowded bus to let him sit down in his seat. The young man refused. A dispute ensued, and went so far that the elder slapped the man’s face. The youth left the bus, but the over-stressed elder suffered a heart attack and died.
According to a survey by portal NetEase, “90 percent of respondents said it is a virtue rather than an obligation to give up one’s seat and so the student should not be held responsible for the man’s death.”
Technology/AI Is China’s Growth and Alienation Kingpin
Ending alienation would require a total end to capitalism and its accompanying wars-for-profit. It would mean developing education, media and products that would enhance self-worth with a view that all humans are equally worthy of living a useful life, and having enough resources to live without economic worries.
China is not doing that when it aligns itself with the economy and war-making of the world’s worst racists, genocidaire nations in the world, U.S./Israel.
Alienation is the consequence of “China’s Path” to achieve the biggest economy in the world, which it believes would keep the U.S. from warring against it. China already owns close to one percent of the U.S. economy, thus helping its “partner” keep going until it collapses in debt with a thoroughly alienated population.
Despite China’s real interests and diplomacy to convince the U.S. that China is not an enemy or a threat to the U.S., the governments of the U.S., especially with and since Obama-Biden’s regime and even escalating under Trump, move closer to China and its near waters.
A recent podcast by the superb website BreakthroughNews shows that “Japan is swiftly remilitarizing, the U.S. is funneling weapons to Taiwan, and the military encirclement of China is only escalating. Is the U.S. driving Asia into war with China?”
European economic think tank Bruegel’s 2025 study found: “China, the European Union and the U.S. innovate at the technology frontier in the three most important critical technologies—artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors…U.S. innovators dominate the innovation frontier for quantum computing and, to a lesser extent, AI, with Chinese innovators doing better in semiconductors. European innovators lag in all, but perform relatively better in quantum computing, in which they rank similarly to Chinese innovators.”
I do not know how it is in China but, in Denmark, where I have lived off and on for four decades, when I search for answers to any topic the first popping up is AI information. I had not programmed my computer for this, but when I read, what comes can be misinformation. I look at AI’s response quickly and then go further until I find what I can determine to be fair and accurate information.
One example of AI misinformation occurred when I wrote a question about how much oil does Cuba produce from its own sources. AI replied 30-50,000 daily barrels. Its source, so it wrote, was Wikipedia. When I went to the source, a different figure appeared, 80,000 or even more.
Denmark is the first country in EU, perhaps in the world, to end governmental postal service for sending letters. My search found that 170 nations have government postal services; those without are mostly small countries, usually islands, which rely on a large country nearby for mail services.
Denmark’s Post Nord closed down its letter services at the end of 2025, but kept sending packages. The Danish private company DAO took over delivering letters.
When Post Nord closed, it removed 1,500 mail boxes and sold most of them to Danes as souvenirs. DAO has no mail boxes. Now, the only way to mail a letter requires that one has a computer and a printer, which many people do not have. One must download DAO’s digital code replacing a stamp; print it and place it on an envelope. Then you must travel to where DAO has an office or some other business that takes the letter for DAO, which sends them out.
I do not have the knowledge, or patience to do this. Nor do I have a car, so I would have to take one or two buses to the nearest place where I could turn over the letter. My neighbor, who owns the little house I rent, has the knowledge, patience and a car to do this for me. When he searched Google for posting letters to the U.S., the AI answer stated No!
“Unfortunately you cannot use DAO to send letters to the USA,” translated from the Danish. My neighbor wrote to DAO about this. “You can use DAO to send your letter to the USA. You buy postage to your letter through our website, or from a DAO shop,” DAO replied.
So, my neighbor followed DAO’s instruction and drove 11 kilometers to a business he knew accepted the letter, and then placed it somewhere to be picked up and sent.
If that is not alienating, I ask some editor or reader to let me know!
From Artificial Intelligence to Robots Replacing Humans
The Guardian reported in February: “Dancing humanoid robots took center stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group’s Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and back- flipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. Not one fell over.”
China registered 451,700 smart robotics companies. Their worth, in 2024, was nearly $1 trillion, according to state data.
Elon Musk said he expects his biggest competitor to be Chinese companies.
China’s proud robots can run faster than humans, perform martial arts and stunts such as kung fu, comedy sketches, choreograph dance moves, orchestrate symphonies—all powered by Alienation Instructors. Worst of all is that the propaganda-drugged Chinese population apparently applaud such anti-human “development.”
China Still Practices Inequality Between the Genders
Apparently not wishing to enforce an end to one of the most gender inequalities—payment by the groom’s family—the Communist government still allows the groom’s family to buy his bride, no longer by law but by custom. During the Zhou Dynasty, more than 3,000 years ago, buying a bride was required by law. Today, the government wants to encourage an end to this absurd, immoral practice but is not stopping it. Three-fourths of all marriages in China still entail buying a woman.
The cost of a bride is called caili (彩礼) or “bride price.” The national average cash bride price is estimated between 69,000 RMB and 127,300 RMB ($9,500 to $17,500 USD), but this amount varies drastically depending on the region, urban-versus-rural dynamics, and family expectations. [See the following: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The cash caili is rarely the only financial hurdle. Today, a groom is often expected to provide the “Big Three” before marriage is approved: [See the following: 1, 2, 3, 4]
- An Apartment: In major cities, owning a property (often financed with help from the groom’s parents) is a baseline requirement.
- A Vehicle: A decent car is expected to demonstrate financial mobility.
- Gold Jewelry: Traditional sets of gold items directly are gifted to the bride. [See the following: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
“Since the 1980s, bride prices have risen sharply in many parts of rural China, driven by a skewed sex ratio rooted partly in the long-held son preference, rising wedding and housing costs after market reforms [capitalism], and the movement of young women from villages to richer regions.”
“The government has tried to rein it in. ‘Sky-high bride prices’ have appeared in China’s No. 1 Central Document…From the legal side, the Supreme People’s Court has moved to standardize how bride-price disputes are handled.”
This website is owned by Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a think tank based in Beijing.
Confusing contradictions for both genders: the government de-legalized having only one-child families (1980-2015). Many parents preferred sons, and the ancient practice of the girl’s parents requiring the groom’s family’s payment. Boys are still preferred, yet they must pay for a girl?
Fines for having two children were eliminated in 2015. Then the government allowed for three children or even more without fines.
Without the means to buy a human wife leads many men, especially younger men with limited family means, to replace human sex and love with sex dolls.
China Is the World’s Biggest Producer/Seller of Artificial Sex Dolls
“China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it is ‘hardware’ on display at the fair—whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls…Integrating AI has become more popular in the past two years, according to Hannes Hultman, Europe sales manager for Chinese sex toy firm Svakom.”
“You can ask the AI to control your toy,” Hultman said. “You create your own girlfriend and actually interact, and now you can basically touch your body through the toy.”
China began manufacturing sex dolls in 1993. A decade ago, sales were valued at $2 billion. In 2024, the sex-toy market was valued at $13.5 billion. Estimates are that, by 2030, it will be worth nearly $20 billion. The government must be thinking that sexual alienation will grow, just as buying a wife will continue and perhaps increase.
China produces hundreds of thousands of sex dolls annually—half are sold to Chinese; the remainder are sold to world markets, mainly in the West.
“Chinese manufacturers and retailers of sex dolls, toys and vibrators are turning their attention to increasing demand from their fellow citizens. At the Ningbo Yamei factory, for instance, two-thirds of the 300,000 vibrators it made last year stayed in China, Reuters reports. The remaining third went to Japan, the EU and other foreign markets.”
What You Sow So You Reap
On November 17th, 2011, in front of the Australian parliament, then President Obama announced plans to ‘pivot to Asia’ as a strategic rebalance of U.S. foreign policy to counter rising challenges in the region. This entailed an expansion of U.S. military bases and escalation of the U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia.
Part of the militarization was the agreement to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Missile Defense system (THAAD) in South Korea, which greatly angered both the North and China.
The THAAD system is capable of intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in the exo-atmosphere, such as North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
Although it is a missile defense system only, China views the THAAD deployment as a threat to Beijing’s ambitions in the East and South China Seas.
The presidents following Obama, Biden and two times Trump continue encroaching China’s seas and nearby countries.
Jeremy Kuzmarov writes: The U.S. has: “a) encircled China with military bases; b) sent warships into the South China Sea and spy planes over the Taiwan Strait, which is under Chinese jurisdiction; c) helped to transform Okinawa into a garrison state for war with China; d) sent nuclear-armed submarines and precision weapons to Australia aimed at China; e) furthered military cooperation with India, China’s historic enemy; f) turned Taiwan into a heavily armed “porcupine” that hosts U.S. Special Forces; and g) sent nuclear-armed B-52 bombers to Guam.”
Trump’s second term continues the “pivot to Asia”. He and his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have increased the war budget by $600 billion, nearly twice China’s military budget.
Trump administration is extending its buildup in Hawai’i—which has long been central to the architecture of U.S. imperial power, according to “The True Cost of the U.S. Military in Hawai’i”, a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies.”
The IPS report is cited by William Hartung in his comprehensive article concerning Trump’s plan to extend encircling China with new military bases from Guam to the Pacific island chain to the Philippines to Australia.
China’s own media show how much the U.S. is surrounding it with billions of dollars-worth of military might to intimidate and corral China’s one and half billion people.
China’s leading English-language newspaper with 470 million readers reported that a study showed 122 major exercises by the U.S. and its allies in other regions from the Philippine Sea to Australia.
The U.S. maintained a high-intensity military presence in the South China Sea and surrounding areas in 2025, including 11 nuclear-powered submarine, the report recorded.
Professor David Vine has studied the U.S. encirclement. He stated in an interview:
“In addition to the potentially nine U.S. bases in the Philippines, the United States already has, by the Pentagon’s own count, 313 U.S. military base sites in East Asia alone. And that’s part of a larger global network of around 750 U.S. military bases outside the 50 states and Washington, D.C.”
“The comparison with China’s military presence globally is helpful. China has about eight foreign military bases — one in Djibouti and some on human-made islands in the South China Sea.
Some of the materials in weapons the U.S. uses to surround China, and anywhere in the world, were bought from the Communist government. As pointed out in my part two, China has long been selling its capitalist-imperialist rival with rare earth minerals used for many types of weapons and surveillance satellites. Such irony only backfires.
China never enters U.S. waters or land territory.
Surveillance Gear to and fro: China-Israel
The Council on Foreign Relations reports on extensive surveillance monitoring systems sold and bought between Israel and China.
“Israel began selling military technology such as missiles, radars, and navigation systems to China in the 1980s, even before Beijing recognized Israel, and technology trade quietly intensified in the 1990s. At the same time, there were a string of allegations that Israel transferred sensitive military technology to China.”
The CFR report continued: “China is Israel’s second-largest trading partner globally and takes the lead in Asia. The Belt and Road initiative has significantly catalyzed China-Israel cooperation.”
China and Israel collaborate to enforce settler-colonialism—through surveillance technology.
Amnesty International’s 2023 report, ‘Automated Apartheid,’ identifies how Chinese surveillance technology, through state-backed companies like Hikvision, targets West Bank Palestinians in everyday life and maintains a dehumanizing environment for them.”
Massive Internal Surveillance
Readers must be wary of what the Western media tells us, because they have the same interests as their capitalist buddies. Nevertheless, some reportage does represent reality. Here are two examples.
China copies Western surveillance of its citizenry, even seeking to outdo them with the world’s largest network of 700 million closed-circuit television and video surveillance. The government receives facial recognition, phone tracking, and biometric data of its citizens and visitors.
“A Chinese cybersecurity expert has revealed to DW details of China’s new high-tech policing. From ski resort facial recognition to seats on a train, the system can track anyone and compile a ‘holistic profile.’”
DW wrote that “For years, China has operated the world’s most extensive CCTV network. A massive initiative known as the ‘Xueliang’ (Bright Eyes) project aims to merge these isolated islands of surveillance spread across the country…The system logs daily behaviors like gasoline consumption, regular shopping locations and whether an individual frequently visits ‘petition areas’. ..This massive data-fusion effort attempts to stitch together a person’s physical whereabouts, consumption habits and digital footprints into a flawless ‘holistic personnel archive.’”
Thucydides Trap
The rising power threatens to displace an established ruling power; the structural stress caused by fear and ambition makes war very likely.
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned President Trump during his May 2026 visit not to fall into this trap. These are Xi’s words:
“The world has come to a new crossroads. Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major country relations? Can we meet global challenges together and provide more stability for the world? Can we, in the interests of the wellbeing of our two peoples and the future of humanity, build a brighter future together for our bilateral relations?
These are the questions vital to history, to the world, and to the people. They are the questions of our times that you and I need to answer as leaders of major countries. This year is the 250th anniversary of American Independence. Congratulations to you and to the American people.
I always believe that our two countries have more common interests than differences. We should be partners not rivals. We should help each other succeed and prosper together and find the right way for major countries to get along well with each other in the new era.”
Does Comrade Xi really think that the Manifest Destiny-American Exceptionalism-Don Monroe Juggernaut will listen to such a plea for world peace and cooperation from the President of China who sells him what he wants to use for his wars and economic growth? For that matter, no U.S. president will listen since they all are employed by Wall Street capitalists’ needing perennial wars for endless profit.
Conclusion
If the founders of Marxism, and subsequent leaders of Communist parties—such as Lenin and Trotsky, Fidel and Raul Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara—could see what the so-called Communist Party of China is doing to enhance capitalist alienation, they would lead a revolutionary communist revolution.
During the last throes of my research for this writing, on July 11, I watched Denmark’s Radio (TV) Girl’s Choir sing a song I had never heard: “There Will Come Soft Rains.”
The title comes from both a 1919 poem by Sara Teasdale concerning World War I, followed by a 1950 Ray Bradbury short story. The lyrics by Kevin Memley reflect mainly what Bradbury wrote, five years after Hiroshima-Nagasaki.
Here is the first stanza, which reflects what I have come to believe will happen:
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the polls singing at night
And wild plum trees in tremulous white
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done
Not bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly
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About the Author
Ron Ridenour is a U.S.-born author and journalist, anti-war and civil rights activist since 1961. After joining the U.S. Air Force at 17, he saw the inner workings of U.S. imperialism first hand and resigned. In the 1980s and 1990’s he worked with the Nicaraguan government and on Cuban national media.
He now lives in Denmark and, in addition to writing a dozen books, has served as a special correspondent and freelance investigative journalist for many publications in the U.S. and several Latin American and European countries—among them: The Morning Star, New Statesman, The Guardian (U.S. and England), Playboy, Liberation News Service, Pacific News Service, Coast Magazine, Qui, Skeptic, Seven Days, and Pacifica Radio.
CAM co-founder Philip Agee wrote commentaries to two of his dozen books: Yankee Sandinistas: Interviews with North Americans Living and Working in the New Nicaragua, and Backfire: CIA’s Biggest Burn. See also: The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert and Winding Brook Stories at Amazon and Lulu. Other work can be found at ronridenour.com.
Ron can be reached at ronrorama@gmail.com.
