Commentary Le Figaro editor Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849 that “the more things change, the more they remain the same thing.” This is a phrase that today’s China watchers would do well to keep in mind as Beijing strives to present itself to the world as a new kind of “superpower” uninterested in altering global rules, organizations, and relationships beyond promoting worldwide infrastructure and economic development. When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) emerged victorious in the Chinese civil war in 1949, Mao Zedong launched the country into complete class warfare and extraordinary economic development schemes such as the Great Leap Forward that included backyard steel smelting. When that failed disastrously, Mao was forced by his leading comrades to pursue more conventional development methods. For a time, that worked reasonably well, and the Chinese economy began to grow again. But Mao was not only interested in creating economic growth. He …