Transcription
So, we're here to, um, discuss China. But let me begin by sharing a personal and secret with you. Um, it's confidential. Can I trust you? Well, the secret is this: these days, I, um, seem to be suffering from a severe case of accidentalism. I can only see things the Chinese way. I can't help it.
So, with that disclosure, uh, let me say that from my vantage point, the West seems to be ailing. It took only one generation from achieving unrivaled superpower status for America to be shutting down its government and barely hanging on to its reserve currency. The richest country in the world cannot figure out a way to provide 15% of its population with medical care. On this side of the Atlantic, the most ambitious project since industrialization is so paralyzed that it cannot devise a way to help its own member states in which youth unemployment persists at above 50%.
Now, the West has dominated world affairs for a couple of centuries by now. Not a bad run, but all good things come to an end. Are we at that point? Until recently, on the back of globalization, the West seemed poised to finally swallow its biggest prey, the 1.3 billion strong China. But it was not to be so. So, perhaps discussions like this, I'll be it obviously saddled with accidentalism, and perhaps such adjustments could provide much-needed new ways of thinking for the West about the world and about itself. So, it is indeed an opportune moment to talk about China.
Ever since 1989, mainstream Western opinions about China have been dominated by two divergent theories on the future of the largest nation in the world with opposite policy prescriptions. The ultimate aim of both was the same: to build a universalized world order, which of course, could not be credible without China in it.
One is the imminent collapse school. This school of thought, espoused by what can be called "Cold Warriors," predicted a wholesale collapse of the country. The one-party political system was inherently incapable of managing the intensifying social and economic conflicts as the country went through wrenching transformation from a poor agrarian economy to an industrialized and urban one. The Western alliance should seek to contain China and thereby hasten the fall of a threatening power ruled by an illegitimate regime.
The other is the peaceful evolution school. These were the "Panda Huggers," I call them. Panda-hugging universalists. They made the "they will become just like us" prediction. As the country modernized the economy, it would inevitably fully implement market capitalism and democratize its political system. So, an engagement policy should be deployed to speed up that evolution.
Well, nearly a quarter-century has passed since the Western intellectual and policy establishment has been guided by these two schools of thought about arguably the most significant development of our time: China's reemergence as a great power. Perhaps it is time for an interim assessment, and the report card is not pretty.
The assumptions made by the imminent collapse school were the following: China is run by a dictatorial party clinging to the dead ideology of Soviet communism. Its political system is inherently lacking the ability to adapt to, much less manage, the rapidly modernizing Chinese society. The myriad social and economic conflicts were soon to implode, and the fate of the Soviet Union awaited the party-state. With that, a major ideological obstacle to a Western-designed universal world order will be removed.
Well, of course, the "Cold Warriors" have had to postpone the effective date of their prediction year after year for decades by now. What did they get wrong? It turned out that the party has not been holding back or reacting to China's modernization, but leading it. Self-correction, an ability many attribute to democracies, has been a hallmark of the party's governance in its many decades of running the largest, fastest-changing country in the world. It has pursued the widest range of public policy changes compared with any other nation in modern history. Most recently, it has successfully managed a highly complex transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, where many developing nations have failed. In the process, it has produced the most significant improvement in standard of living for the largest number of people in the shortest time in history. Because of this performance track record, China's modernization process has strengthened the party's rule, not weakened it, as predicted by some of these critics.
The key driver of the party's success, I would argue, is inherent in its political institution. Over the decades, the party has developed the process through which capable leaders are trained, tested, and eventually emerge at the top to lead the country. Whereas elections have failed to deliver in a large swathe of the world, meritocratic selection has in China.
As embarrassing as it must have been for the collapse predictors, the bitterest disappointment perhaps belongs to the panda-hugging universalists, who foresaw with philosophical certitude the inevitable evolution of China towards liberal democracy and market capitalism. Their conviction was guided by the grand post-Cold War narrative: after the fall of the Soviet Union, the world would come together under a globalized order. Western values are universal values. Western standards are universal standards. Indeed, many have capitulated to that narrative. A large number of developing countries transformed their political and economic systems, some violently, to meet the demands of globalization.
But China walked a different path. As the party embarked on dramatic reforms, the country possessed a degree of national independence unmatched by most developing nations. This ability to control its own destiny has allowed China to engage globalization on its own terms. Its one-party political system remained intact, and the party institution matured and strengthened. Its economic integration with the developed world was carried out in ways that brought maximum benefits to the Chinese people. Market access was granted in exchange for direct investments that created industrial jobs and technology transfers. The government exercised political authority above market forces and led the largest investment expansion in industrial infrastructure and health and education in human history.
The dream of "they will become just like us" has evaporated. Immediately after the Cold War, many were enamored by the material successes of the West and sought to emulate Western political and economic systems without regards to their own cultural roots and historical circumstances. Now, with a few exceptions, the vast majority of developing countries that have adopted electoral regimes and market capitalism are still mired in poverty and civil strife. In the developed world, political paralysis and economic stagnation remain. The hard fact is this: democracy is failing from Washington to Cairo. Even the most naive panda huggers could not sustain the belief that China would follow such shining examples.
If the West wants to deal with China rationally, a paradigm shift in its thinking is urgently needed. And perhaps, just perhaps, such a shift could provide fresh ideas on how the West can approach the world a little differently and even begin to solve its own problems.
Now, to begin a reassessment, it might be useful to first recognize what China is not. In terms of its international outlook, it is not a revolutionary power, and it is not an expansionary power. It is not a revolutionary power because, unlike the West of late, it is a non-ideological actor on the world stage and is not interested in exporting its values and ways to the outside world, even as its interests expand far beyond its borders. And make no mistake, these interests will be vigorously defended. It will not seek to actively change the internal dynamics of other countries.
It is not an expansionary power because it's not the Chinese DNA. Compared with the many empires in human history, even at the zenith of its power during its long civilization, China has seldom invaded other countries on a large scale. The Chinese outlook is that of centrality, not universality. More practically, the Chinese see, rather wisely, that although it could not accept wholesale the current global architecture as is, its rise must be peaceful, otherwise the consequences are unimaginable. China's sheer size makes this so. Self-interest would dictate that China is likely to err on the side of restraint as it reemerges as a great power.
So, is it possible that in the ashes of the two dead schools of thought, a new one could develop? The forced convergence led by the West has indeed caused dysfunction and dislocation for many, first in the developing world, then in the peripheries of Europe, now in the center of the West itself. Being repelled at the foot of the Great Wall may offer an opportunity for the West to self-correct before it's too late. Could this moment not lead the West to see that, for its own interests, a healthy respect for divergence might be a better path to foster a convergence of a more sustainable kind? History is littered with precedence of failures to accommodate rising powers leading to tragic conflicts, but that does not have to be destiny. Give China time. Allow the space and independence to continue on its own path. Live and let live. Perhaps that will produce an outcome more suitable to all. Thank you.