Transcription
I don't know. I think you've got to put yourself in their shoes. You know, I think the West, especially America, has been extraordinarily arrogant. You've been lecturing everybody so much everywhere around the world. You're so used to lecturing people and humiliating people. You don't think you're humiliating them. And finally, you've got somebody who's grown big enough to say, "No, we're not going to take that anymore." And you think they're thin-skinned. And that's the case.
Let me ask you a question then. Without elections, where does the Communist Party in China get its legitimacy? They, I mean, they were originally a revolutionary party. They won the war.
They get their legitimacy, like I said, based on outcome. Okay. Procedural legitimacy, I think, is what is getting liberal societies in trouble. It's what is getting liberal politics in trouble. As long as you follow procedure, even if you elect people that are completely incompetent, even if you elect people that are selfish, that are corrupt, that don't deliver, you're still legitimate. We don't want that. We want leaders who get their legitimacy by delivering. If you can deliver the goods, you are legitimate.
So, but the kind of dissent that you're talking about, I don't think we need in this country. Just look at the countries that have it. They're not being governed very effectively. They are polarized. Their governments are dysfunctional. Their people hate each other. Their media hate each other. We don't want that.
Okay.
I think there's an extraordinarily high degree of self-criticism within the party right now through this self-reinvention. Okay. Now, first of all, self-criticism is only useful when it's relevant. And let me just point out the party has been engaged in three major, major areas of self-criticism since the 18th Party Congress. One is political corruption. Okay, from 2012 on, every single newspaper, every single television, you can't get away from Chinese official media without reading and hearing about the horrible situation with corruption. And they attacked it because of that self-criticism. Okay.
Second, environmental degradation. Okay. You can't get away from media reports from the party itself about we've got to fix the environment. We screwed up. Okay. And anybody who lives in Beijing will tell you how much improvement they've had in their air in the past five, six, seven years. Okay? Ten, twenty years, ten, fifteen years ago, you go to Beijing, you could hardly catch a day with blue sky. Uh, now most days are blue sky. Okay? Self-criticism.
Third, most important right now, inequality. The last campaign to eradicate extreme poverty in the country. The campaign lasted about eight years. They took the last 99 million people out of absolute poverty. Nearly 2,000 party members died in the process. Okay. Several million of them went to the front lines. They went to rural areas with harsh conditions. Okay. So, why did they do that? Self-criticism. They realized there was a problem that economic reforms have lifted a lot of people, made a lot of rich people, and built this great big middle class, but many, many millions of people were left behind, and there was something wrong with that. So the entire campaign was driven by self-criticism.
Fair enough. Those are all, those are all three fair points of self-criticism. I guess what I'm thinking about is, and again, bear with me here for a second. If you look at what's happening in the United States now, where they've had a lot of historical problems with slavery, racism, they're going through this cathartic moment where they're discussing all of these issues. Europe as well, after the Black Lives Matter movement, Europe is going through a reckoning with its own past of colonialism, etc. In China, it seems again, the past is always blocked off. Nobody wants to talk about it. It's not open for discussion. Uh, you can't talk about, they even try to crush any memory of what happened in 1989. When will China have that kind of historical reckoning? When will the party go back and say, "Look, we made some mistakes"? That doesn't diminish their power now. Race is always a big problem in America. I, I know that's from the country's DNA. So I think I, I will support great discussion, a greater discussion in America, and that came very late. You know, come on, when did Lincoln live? 150 years ago, whenever it was. Okay, now you're doing this, and you call it self-criticism, and you're asking China when you're going to do it about 1989. Come on, cut people some slack.
Well, I think we didn't wait until after, uh, it's been since Lincoln that we've discussed race in America.
I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure things that have happened in the history of the People's Republic will be discussed much, much sooner than how soon you, you address the race problems in America.
Okay, fair enough. By the way, if any of you have questions, please send it to questions@fcc.org. That's questions@fcc.org. Let me just ask you a couple more questions here. First of all, the party used to, and one of its other strengths, I mentioned one strength was always self-criticism. Another one was it always allowed a lot of decentralization and a lot of innovation at the local level. And when I was covering China, there was a lot of stuff with grassroots democracy going on in villages and in, in, in, in counties. I don't hear about that anymore. It seems to be more of a top-down, no innovation. And I've never even heard anybody speaking about this kind of village elections or grassroots democracy. What happened?
The pendulum does swing from, uh, one period to another. You know, in the history of the People's Republic, uh, the pendulum has swung several times between decentralization and centralization. Okay. It will take too long to go into that history.
I know the cyclical history.
Right. But, you know, we had a period of decentralization for a couple of decades, and it's now swinging towards more centralized power. I think that's correct, driven by changes in circumstances and the needs of the development of the country. But I'll tell you, there's still tremendous amount of innovation and policy innovation and economic activities at the local level. So, if you, I mean, I was just in Suzhou, I was in, uh, other, you know, different cities, China, different counties, county governments, provincial governments, they're being very aggressive in coming up with economic development policies that are, that are, uh, that work within the specific circumstances in the regions they're in. Very aggressive.
Yeah. I mean, for example, Wang Yang, when he was in charge of Guangzhou, was credited with a lot of innovative policies there, and he moved up to the center. But, you know, I mentioned, you know, uh, self-criticism was always a strength. Local decentralization and local innovation was always a strength. A third strength, I think, and people have credited this, was always collective leadership. You know, it, nobody got too powerful, and leaders stepped aside. Does China still have that kind of collective leadership?
Well, that's also the pendulum. It does swing, uh, and has swung for many times, uh, between collective and more centralized, more collective, less collective. You know, the, uh, during the 16th and 18th Party Congress, those 10 years, they had nine members on the C, uh, uh, Standing Committee of the Politburo. It was, you know, bigger than before. So the pendulum swung toward, you know, a greater collection, a larger number of people at the top, and, and, and there's something good about it, but also it led to certain inefficiencies, certain power being diffused. And now they're in a new phase. So they shrank it, uh, at the 16th Party Congress back to seven, and then, of course, we have a leader that's that seems to be more powerful, uh, than leaders in the past. But, you know, the pendulum does swing. I mean, I, I think it is still, decisions are made by the Central Committee under the leadership of the Party Secretary, Secretary General, uh, and the Standing Committee of the Politburo. That system, those institutions stay intact.
Is it fair to say, and you may disagree with me here, but is it fair to say that the party, at least with this new centralized leadership and Xi Jinping in power, they don't like dissent? I mean, they don't like criticism, they don't like dissent. There have been academics who've been, you know, lost their jobs for dissenting. There have been bloggers who've been arrested. My question is, where are the checks and balances if you've got that much power centralized and you don't like criticism, you don't like dissent?
Well, I'm not so sure the kind of dissent that you have in liberal societies and how productive that is. You know, the kind of dissent that you're talking about. I, I mean, I assure you, there are a lot of criticisms in China. There are a lot of differences of opinions within the party institution when they discuss policies at different levels. Lots of debates, and all the policy decisions that come out at the end are results of debates, vigorous debates. I know that for a fact. But the kind of dissent that you're talking about, I don't think we need in this country. Just look at the countries that have it. They're not being governed very effectively. They are polarized. Their governments are dysfunctional. Their people hate each other. Their media hate each other. We don't want that.
Okay. But I mean, you know, when you think about it, though. Good. That's a good answer. But when you think about it, the party, 92 million members, that's only 6% of the population of China, which is about 1.3 to 1.4 billion. Can 6% of the population really represent, you know, the entire population of China?
It is bigger than what I call the holy trinity that runs America. The holy trinity. The one America is also in, in some way, a one-party state, and it's run by a party called the holy trinity. I call it Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood.
These three groups of people, including the nannies that they employ, no more than 100, no more than a million people. They make all the decisions in America. That's why you have all this dissatisfaction in the country.
Well, some people would add in the gun lobby and a lot of others in there as well.
Gun lobby too.
Into that trinity. But, uh, but seriously, I mean, what, what are the checks and balances in a, in a one-party state? What if, what if, what if the party, what if Xi Jinping got something wrong?
Let, let me tell you, without real checks and balances, the party would not have survived this long. Okay. So when we, when we talk about all these con, abstract concepts like checks and balances or democracy, for that matter. Okay. We ought not only focus on procedure. We ought to focus on outcome. When you have these really beautiful things like checks and balances and democracy and people's will, you, when you have them, the outcome should be success. Success means people are satisfied, and their lives are getting better, and they look towards the future with optimism, and society is cohesive. Okay. I don't care what kind of procedures you have. If you don't achieve those outcomes, I don't think you're democratic. I don't think these checks and balances do any good.
Are you one of those who believes that the East is rising and the West is in decline?
Well, I wouldn't put it in those terms. I mean, I, I'm one that I hope liberal societies could rejuvenate themselves. You know, liberalism needs some self-criticism. Liberal, liberals in liberal societies should learn from the party-state in China. The party-state in China has been very good at at self-criticism. That's why they reinvent themselves. You only reinvent yourself when you see problems. Otherwise, why would you reinvent yourself, right? So, liberal societies have been failing at that for the past decades because they take their system for granted. They think there's some kind of moral imperative that, uh, sometime, somehow, they take their system as a given that it works. It's the best thing you've got. So, of course, you don't need self-criticism. You don't need to reinvent yourself. I hope for a world where we have a, we have a degree of pluralism, a degree of plurality, different kinds of systems and ideologies could coexist and compete. So, I, I, I wish liberalism well.
Let me, let me ask a question that might be slightly provocative. Don't mean it to be, but I, I mean it and I mean it with all seriousness. I mean, most people would say that the vast majority of Chinese support what, what the Communist Party has done and what the Communist Party is doing. Why don't they have an election like in Singapore, where the ruling party has been in power? They have elections to legitimize their rule every once in a while. They continue to stay in power, but that kind of rejuvenates and allows them to claim legitimacy from the people.
Well, we have a system of selecting capable people from the population and move them up to lead the country, and they've proven to be great leaders and effective leaders. They have delivered countries. I mean, Singapore is a small place. I don't want to use it as an example. Okay. Countries, especially big liberal societies, at least in the past few decades, with your elections have not been able to produce leaders that are capable and effective and can deliver. So the best way for you to convince the Chinese to have elections is to make yours work.
Well, let me ask you the question then. Without elections, where does the Communist Party in China get its legitimacy? They, I mean, they were originally a revolutionary party. They won the war.
They get their legitimacy, like I said, based on outcome. Okay. Procedural legitimacy, I think, is what is getting liberal societies in trouble. It's what is getting liberal politics in trouble. As long as you follow procedure, even if you elect people that are completely incompetent, even if you elect people that are selfish, that are corrupt, that don't deliver, you're still legitimate. We don't want that. We want leaders who get their legitimacy by delivering. If you can deliver the goods, you are legitimate.
So it's performance-legit, performance-based legitimacy.
Correct.
Whatever you want to call it. I think democracy needs a set of new measurements. I think democracy needs to be measured by outcome, not by procedure.
But what, what happens in China if the economy suddenly collapses? You've got a demographic challenge looming ahead. You know, you could always have some economic problem with debt, etc. If the party is tying its fate to making people richer, how long can that go on? Again, the question, can China keep rising?
I'm not sure. I'm not sure. The party is tying itself by making people richer. I don't think that's the right term to put it. The party right now, like I said, in this current phase of reinvention, is tying itself with the future of China that's more equitable and productive, not making just a few rich. They want to lift everybody. Okay. They are tying their legitimacy with that mission. And I think most of Chinese people agree with that mission.
And they need to succeed. If they fail, they'll lose legitimacy.
Okay?
If they succeed, they'll keep that legitimacy for a very, very long time. In America, like I said, strong government turns bad, you recall it. Next one's just as bad or worse, and keeps going like this. There's no end to it. It's called elect and regret. And it's a continuous cycle of elect and regret. That's the numbers show that for decades. I mean, every time after an election, people regretted what they elected. That's not a good case. Okay.
All right. Back to industrial policy. My answer is, you cannot guarantee it'll be successful. Just like when you make a venture capital investment, you cannot guarantee it's going to make money. You know, it, it just, you just have to be smart about it. You have to have capable people at the helm. Number one. Number two, you cannot just do it with the state. You have to combine it with market forces. So you have to do both. You can't go back to a Soviet Union centrally planned economy, that doesn't work. So you have to do, but you cannot go neoliberal market economy, we all know that doesn't work. Okay. So you have to combine it. Uh, and I think, I mean, you, you know, industrial policy, you've got to give it time. Fifteen years ago, everybody was saying China's industrial policy on solar was a huge failure. I lived through it. Thank God, I, I mean, I didn't make investments in those industries. I made one, it was successful, but in wind power, okay? But all these companies failed because of excess capacity. So, when you pursue industrial policy, it's inevitable you waste a lot of capital because you make mistakes. But look at it now, and China's solar industry is the most successful in the world. But it's taken 10, 15 years and a lot of self-correction.
You know, when we were graduating from universities in the '90s, we all bought the story. It's like a prospectus of a bad IPO. We all bought it. That liberalism, elections, um, multiple parties, free press, I should be careful here at the FCC. Okay. All of that stuff put together is going to take us to paradise. Okay. Everybody will be very soon, if we just did these things and copied the American Constitution line by line, in one generation, we'll all be living like Americans. Okay. I bought it. I was convinced. We were all doing it. But 30 years have passed. When we looked back, the opposite had happened. Those countries from Africa to Latin America to Southeast Asia who did that, who changed their political models from whatever they were, you know, military or authoritarian, whatever they were called, to the liberal system, to the liberal regimes, none of them did very, very well. They all got stagnant. The one country that said no to it, China, succeeded.
So, I mean, you have to,
Doesn't it depend on how you measure success?
Well, I mean, if you're starving, you're not a success. You, you can, yeah, of course, you can say that if you're starving, if you're poor, but you can say whatever you want, you're still successful. I, I, I don't think most people will buy that.
I mean, some of the things that you, you say do not work. For example, let's talk about freedom of the press, because we are a press club, after all. What is wrong with freedom of the press? I mean, it, yes, I, I agree that there can be extremes, but generally speaking, when people have access to reliable, checkable, transparent information, they make better decisions.
I'm not sure if that's the case. Why? Why do you say that? I mean, it's not a proven case that people. First of all, I don't think that's a proven case. Okay. Secondly, I don't think it's possible practically. Okay. It's not a proven case. It's not like gravity that you can prove it that people who have reliable, checkable information, they make better decisions. I look at my kids, they don't do that. And they're grown. Okay.
Okay. Do they have access to?
Yeah. I look at my information.
No, I'm in the investment business. Okay. I got highly educated people who have perfect, transparent, great information, spreadsheets up to here. They make the wrong judgments. Okay. So, I, I just don't think it's a scientifically proven principle. You can claim it, just like you claim go, human rights are god-given. Okay? They're god-given. There's nothing I could say. Fine. I, I, you take that as self-evident truth, like Thomas Jefferson claimed he didn't have to prove it because it's self-evident. God said it. Freedom of the press is the same thing.
I think, well, I think press plays an important role in our society. Okay. Media, journalism are important. But if not regulated and managed well, it could do a lot of harm and could harm actual human beings, human lives. You, I mean, you could see everywhere in the world. Come on, look, look at what's happening in the world. Look at America. Look at Europe. Look at Africa. All these countries where speech is not regulated, look at what's happening in those countries. Look at what's happening to their people. We don't want that.
But by the same token, in countries where speech is completely regulated,
I'm not saying.
It's a black box. We don't know what's happening, and there are terrible things happening that only emerge later.
That is correct. Okay. I'm not claiming an absolute principle. I'm not claiming an abstract principle that somehow there's a particular way to regulate speech. All I'm saying is speech is a form of act, and acts are regulated because actions can harm people. We all know speech is a form of act. We know that in our heart. We know that if you grew up in an abusive family, your parents abuse you, they don't have to hit you, okay? But that affects your life forever. You need a psychiatrist forever. Think about that. If you, if you go to a school where teachers are abusive, he or she does not have to hit you. So words matter, words harm, and words must be constrained and regulated in a healthy, forward-looking society. How this is done, we don't have time to discuss that. Okay.
Well, in your book, you seem to believe that the Chinese Communist Party is the gatekeeper of what should be said, what should be believed, what should be, what what gives them.
At the moment, like I said, I, I spent a half a chapter on the internet. Okay. So, all of this stuff 15 years ago, 15, 20 years ago, Western journalists are talking about how China is regulating the internet. It's going to kill the internet. It was kill a vibrant society. Never panned out. And if you look at unfettered internet speech, social media speech, you just have to look at America. Look at what's happening there. Okay. Total polarization of society, total hostilities, there's no regard for facts, zero. Okay. Talk about the abundance of information, the totally unchecked, unfettered flow of information and speech. No country does better than America. Yeah. Okay. But do people make better decisions? Do they respect facts better? More? I don't think so. I don't think so. We're not going there. We keep what we've got. It's not perfect. I realize that. I live in Shanghai. I complain about it just like the next guy. Okay. People, nobody doesn't complain about it.
But Eric, there are times when facts need to be out there, and they are important. Like in your book, you refer twice to COVID death numbers.
Yeah. And you, you sort of give an indication that the high rates of COVID deaths in Western countries are a measure of the failure of liberal democracy. But the fact is, we don't know in China how many people died. I mean, the, we will never know that. We will never know that because the Chinese government changed the definition of a COVID death. They didn't report people who didn't die in hospitals. And that, those that kind of data is in, is important for future planning of pandemics. For example, that kind of data is expected from countries who want to be partners in the world.
Let's just say, I mean, you have a point that we don't, we have incomplete information. But let's just say we do have complete information, that too many people died in liberal democracies. That we do know, too many, way too many.
We don't do.
That has nothing to do with them being a liberal democracy. I'm not saying it has to do with the fact that we know the numbers.
I'm not drawing a causality here. I'm just stating a fact. It's for the rest of you to decide whether politics played a role in your country's deaths. If you can go to bed and say, "Hey, politics has nothing to do with it. Our political institutions are perfect. All these Americans died because for some other reasons, because they're stupid or whatever," then it's okay. You can believe that. Okay? You just draw your own conclusion. I'm stating a fact. I am not imposing a causal relationship on you. Okay? I'm looking at these numbers under those liberal democracies during COVID, how many people died and suffered tremendously. I'm not saying the US Constitution led to that. I'm not saying the US president led to that, who was elected in the American system. I'm not saying the Congress led to that. I'm not saying any of that. Okay? You, you guys decide whether politics was responsible for it.
You know, I, I was talking to, uh, some university students in Hong Kong the other day. Um, I drew an imperfect comparison between China and America. In China today, becoming bigger, becoming the largest economy in the world, just becoming the largest economy in the world was very similar to around the same time last century when America, between World War I and World War II, was quietly becoming the largest economy in the world. And you will know, between the two Roosevelts, what America went through. Great Depression, it lasted 10, 15 years. People starved to death, piled up corpses on the street. You don't have to read, just search for photographs of the Great Depression and what America and American society, American people went through to claim the American century, uh, was tremendously difficult, huge suffering. So, you're right. We need to be mindful of these difficulties that, and, and, and to be caring about human beings, especially young people.
Just following up on that, Eric, the other problem that China faces is, of course, the aging population.
Yes.
So, in combination with incredibly high youth unemployment, which we don't know what it is anymore because the government stopped releasing numbers, the whole "lying flat" and being full-time sons and daughters phenomenon, where where young people just say, "Forget it. I'm not even going to apply for a job. I'm just going to stay home and cook for my grandparents." Plus, the aging population. That, that's a very visible.
Time bomb.
These are huge challenges that we have to tackle, and we have to make sure the economic transition succeeds. I mean, if we stayed on the old course, I think the time bomb was much bigger. I mean, I wish we had gone on this change sooner. Uh, but we are doing it. Um, I wish we had dealt with the real estate problems sooner, but we're not doing it. Um, and the demographics, I mean, that's.
What can China do about the demographics? I mean, China created the demographics. There's always consequences when you meddle with with fertility.
Well, I mean, the demographic challenges are not unique to China.
No, they're not. But but China.
And didn't meddle, and his population declining faster than us. So I, you know, but we, our population was growing out of hand. You know, if we didn't meddle at that time, we'd have the opposite problem. Okay. Maybe we didn't quite get it exactly right, you know, but, but, but if we didn't meddle at that time, we'd be in probably bigger trouble now. Um, there's no way we could have implemented these market reforms and these, the. Can you imagine if we were, you know, having 10 children per family, uh, after which people were doing? Yeah, people would be starving. But the, the thing is now that those measures are gone,
You're not. People don't want to have families. You know, the, the birth rate in China is correct. Replacement. It's a major problem, and it's a common problem faced by so many countries, so many countries. Um, and, and I think the root causes are much deeper than we think. The root causes are cultural, economic, many things. Uh, so it's, it's a worthy of study.
In the next decade or two, what do you think of the role of China in the making of the Asian Century, or are we seeing a shifting away from Asian Century to more Indo-Pacific Century? So, what, what's your take on that?
Well, I don't know if we're going to have an Asian Century or Indo-Pacific Century. I mean, I, I think the primary contradiction in our world today, in the next 10, 20 years, is that there are people and countries who want to maintain a unipolar world, and there are peoples and countries who want to nourish and grow a multipolar world. Okay? That's the primary contradiction. And the multi, the unipolar world is a world that's essentially post-Cold War in that short period after the Cold War, and maybe 5, 10 years ago, I don't know when. Historians will have a better say on that. Uh, it lasted maybe a generation. Okay? That basically the US is a hegemonic dominant power, unquestioned. Their economic system, their military, their ideology can be imposed on any other country who disagree with them violently if necessary. Okay? That's the unipolar world, which we know we lived through it. Okay? And there are countries and peoples around the world who don't want that. Who want a multipolar world where countries and regions can pursue their own ideologies, their own politics, their own economics, and somehow get them to work together. Okay? Um, and I think that the first group is a very small group of countries. The second group is a very large group of countries and peoples. And, and I think if I'm going to name the 21st century, I'll name it after them.