Challenges to the Chinese
My portfolio career may be collapsing all around me as the Government moves to abolish both Consumer Focus and the Communications Consumer Panel, but yesterday I had a stimulating time in Oxford addressing a group of 24 Chinese state officials from the centrally- administered municipality of Tianjin in the north of the country. The topic of the day, at the start of a three-week visit to Britain, was “Government Communications In The UK”. I took the morning and my son Richard took the afternoon in our first professional collaboration which was very satisfying.
I was encouraged at how open the Chinese visitors were to learning new methods of doing things and even new ways of thinking and, in a polite way I hope, I was quite challenging across a range of complex issues.
I challenged the sensitivity to criticism by the Chinese state and the lack of tolerance of dissenting views, even if it is felt that these alternative views are based on wrong information or understanding. I explained the open and transparent systems of communications in liberal democracies and argued that open systems encourage innovation and progress. I put forward the case for policy making to be based on evidence rather than ideology or prejudice – a message equally valid for British politicians.
I pointed out the artificially low level of the Chinese currency and explained the concern of a country like the United States with its trade deficit with China and its high level of unemployment as the country goes into mid-term Congressional elections. Of course, the Chinese are worried that a revaluation of the Renminbi would put small and medium sized companies out of business and we discussed different options for addressing the problem including a new global trade agreement and stimulation of domestic demand.
I questioned the heavy use of capital punishment in China and compared it to the similar support for state execution in the United States. I queried the justification for such an approach and whether it really was a deterrent. Interestingly one of those present was a Chinese state prosecutor who explained that the country was moving to restricting capital punishment to a narrower range of crimes but that Chinese culture and popular opinion was very supportive of the death penalty.
I queried the need for a standing army of some two million Chinese soldiers. I was advised that the country requires such a large army to deal with natural disasters and that there was no real threat to other countries because many of the soldiers are poorly trained and ill-equipped. I wondered whether China’s military resources could sometimes be used in other countries for peace-keeping or aid relief.
I suggested that China needed to rethink its foreign policy and determine more clearly to what it extent it wished to be part of the international community and to what extent it intended to continue to pursue non-mainstream positions such as support for North Korea and Iran. I argued that China and the US need to understand each other more and that China’s growing economic and military power brings with it the need to play a fuller and more constructive political role in global affairs.
The main message which I took away from this candid exchange of views is that China needs time and understanding from the West in order to come to terms with its new role and responsibilities in the international community. Europe and the United States took centuries to modernise their economies and evolve their political institutions. China’s economic reforms have only been running for three decades but have already brought about revolutionary change (as well as some problems) and wider social and political reforms will follow but at the pace and in the form to be determined by the Chinese themselves.
November 1st, 2010 at 12:20 am
Roger:
I always enjoy your insightful views particularly, in this instance, concerning China. China and Russia have held special fascination for me as a U.S. labor representative in the case of the former and as child of the Cold War in the latter. Traveling to both countries in recent years for lengthy visits was enlightening and educational for me.
Indeed, my wife and I are headed back to China next year where we plan to spend several days in Tibet.
As you know, the US has embarked on a foreign policy for more than 25 years based on the theory of democratic capitalism which posits that democracy institutions are strengthened in any society where a free market economic system exists. The thinking is that when people are given “free choices” in the marketplace, they will demand and expect “free choices” in the marketplace of ideas as incomes and standards of living rise. As a result, the US promotes an global system of “free” trade even as many of our trading partners continued to place barriers to market entry to U .S. goods and services while, at the same time, ignoring international labor, human rights and environmental standards.
The breakup of the USSR provided the perfect laboratory for democratic capitalism. Under the guidance of economic advisors from the US, the Russian Federation adopted a cold shot policy to implement virtually overnight a capitalistic economic system while introducing new democratic institutions. The result was chaos and stress throughout the former Soviet Union. Russians hate chaos and it was only a matter of time before a strong leader in the Russian tradition came to power, Putin, and the democratic process was stalled and rolled back.
China is testing that theory which leads to a different set of challenges. China maintains strong central political control while introducting capitalist reforms which have improved livings standards. But the international community will never threaten the legitimacy of China’s rulers by pressing too hard on human or political rights issues. In a nation without any democratic tradition and where millions are already left out of economic prosperity, central political command is the only way to prevent China from slipping back into warlordism. There are already hundreds of strikes and riots which occur in China every year that are suppressed by the government and are underreported by the international news media. But these riots are over economic grievances, not human or political rights.
That is why it is simply not in the world’s interest to have a repeat of the Tiananmen Square political protests or any activity which undermines the Chinese ruling elite’s control of the country. We cannot afford to have China break apart the same way the USSR did. The result would be a massive breakdown of their society that would make Russia’s experience look like a footnote in history.
Hence, US administrations of both parties strongly support China’s ruling party while publicly mouthing words and warnings over human right violations. In addition, our corporate leaders will follow any command, pay any price and bear any financial burden asked by the Chinese government just to enter their market.
But in my opinion, the path is not clear for 21st century to belong to China. You touched briefly in your comments on what I see as the major challenge facing China. A closed society that blocks the open flow of ideas for reasons of “ideology or prejudice” will never set free the creative spirit and imagination of its people.
Democracy doesn’t derive from capitalism. Democracy arises from the free spirit of people to think and then to act on their ideas. China, in my opinion, will never achieve its potential until the rulers unleash the creative genius of the Chinese people in all fields of endeavor including the arts, science, literature, business, economics and politics.
They would be wise do so sooner rather than later before the tiger reaches back to bite the hands holding the tail.
As always, your commentaries, in the words of that great detective Hercule Poirot, spark “the little grey cells.”
November 7th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Roger:
It is a pleasure reading your thoughts on the recent issues arising in China and I as an overseas student currently studying in Australia possessed the same feeling about your view on the Chinese policy making that were based too much on ideology. Yet I do believe that they are to some extent, necessary for now as every nation needs a certain time of peace and a stable society for it to develop.
History have proven it when the German Empire arose as a great nation under the leadership of Bismark ensured this stability with his “blood and iron” policy that was sometimes quite ruthless to those riots and strikes that threatened such stability in spite of their just causes. Control, therefore, must be maintained but it seems to me that the Chinese government is again, too preoccupied with this notion of enforcing stability.
In the old days, the Chinese people were preoccupied by their loyalty to the Emperor; During the great Cultural Revolution, the Chinese people were preoccupied by their admiration for Chairman Mao and his communist ideal and what is happening in China now is essentially a historical parallel to the past.
It is a preoccupation embedded deep in the culture of the nation and as a developing country, China’s greatest challenge lies in dealing with the relationship between innovative theories and its old traditions properly, to know what to compromise and what to retain.
Our government’s international policy is also influenced by this particular way of thinking and this is what I consider to be the worst thing. As the government has always been alarmed by the interaction of cultures in which foreign traditions may out-compete what we have in China, they are so scared of losing the faith of the youth that they are acting in a reality defensive manner in many issues regarding human rights.
While being attacked by the western media for the violation of human rights, the Chinese government tries to force everyone to accept it as a lie by bombarding them with their own lies, all for the sake of a stableness inside the psyche of all the citizens. That is the reason why our diplomats would respond to such attacks by reportedly implying that this issue does not exist at all.
To me, it is not something unusual for a developing country to encounter such problems. During the Industrial Revolution, London was well known of its unbearable air pollution and the living condition of the countless workers was also somewhat unspeakable. Great Britain’s global power would not be established without the wars and the invasions and the sacrifice of lives aboriginal people of its colonies.
This is clearly a path that all the great nations have to go through and it is such violation of humanity that today, enlighten us to reflect on our actions and to cheer humanity more than anything. It would certainly be inappropriate to blame China for the humanity issues while accepting the same problems encountered by other countries in the past as history.
In no way am I suggesting that Britain should be accused as well, but what I urge is to not let humanity itself be a barrier between China and the western world. Great deeds often come with great cost and man is capable of as much atrocity as he has in imagination.
I do believe that one day Chinese people will mourn for those who died in Tianan Men incident but for now, China seems not prepared to be confronted with such conviction. Interestingly, the more the government force people to think in a fixed way, the more we think the otherwise, as our generation are highly educated and I must disagree with the idea that the restriction by the government would hamper innovation.
Quite to the contrary, I consider this to be the force that is pushing people to think actively. It is interesting to look back to history again, and find out that the French Revolution and its radical social change based on Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights would arise in a nation under absolute monarchy. On the other hand, the way that we have run the country in the past 50 years was also a form of innovation that separated us from the Soviet communistic system and discovered our own way of ruling the country.
In short, things will change and all we need is time and to maintain the stability of the society while being well aware of the necessity of changes in such policy and to remain vigilant.