URSABLOG: Change, From The Top Down

The Report on the Work of the Government, delivered by Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Third Session of the 14th National People’s Congress on 5th March is an impressive – and long – piece of work. I have a soft – if somewhat masochistic – spot for Communist Party language which has a turgid beauty all of its own, with repetitive exhortations and exclamations combined with self-congratulatory and self-critical passages but always with Xi Jinping at the core. It turns many people off, but don’t worry, I have read it so you don’t have to.

In fact this time I read it using a ChatGPT translation from the original Chinese, because the official English translation was not yet ready. Now one is I notice there is a difference in the version for non-Chinese speakers and for those that can read Chinese. The differences are subtle but telling: the ChatGPT version I read was speaking to a different audience, a domestic audience that should be taking full note of every part of the report as it not only applies to them, it expects the reader to act accordingly. The official English translation reads as though it is addressed to the rest of the world: this is what we have done, and this is it we are going to do. Pay Close Attention!

Although many complain at the apparent opacity of the Chinese state and the unreliability of statistics and information coming from within China, I do not always agree with the general opinion of western commentators that China is hiding things from us, and things are not always as they seem. If you want to know what the Chinese plan to do then just read what the CCP has written on that particular subject. It may be hard going, and not in language that is easy on the brain, but it usually turns out in exactly the way that they said.

Western commentary on China tends to come with a mixture of wishful thinking, unsolicited advice (this is what they should be doing), and seen through a lens of their own bias and experience, which is – obviously – not Chinese. This leads to errors in judgment: the countless books written in the last twenty years or so by western commentators with titles like The Coming Collapse of China, Red Flags and so on, some of which I have read in the past, have been spectacularly wrong in their predictions of failure and turmoil.

Having got tired of these books written by western ‘experts’ I started some time ago to read Chinese fiction – crime, literary, science fiction – written both before and after 1949 (some a very long time ago) and it has opened up my eyes to China as a country, as a people, as a culture, not just a problem that has to be fixed. Authors like Mo Yan, A Yi, Liu Cixin and – a great find – Lu hsun helped me a great deal, particularly those writing recently, who – having to beat the censor’s red pen – are telling stories in different times, in different worlds that apparently have nothing to do with modern China, but do nonetheless speak specific and universal truths about both modern day China and the human condition in general.

Whilst respecting the knowledge, experience and brain power of more intelligent people than me, I find that as far as China is concerned they can miss the point over and over again, and are waiting for the end of history to catch up so that China can join the club. Spoiler alert: China doesn’t want to.

Here are a few snippets from the Work Report (ChatGPT version) that shows China is determined to progress on its own terms:

Fully implement the new era of moral education and talent cultivation project, and promote the integrated reform and innovation of ideological and political courses in universities, middle schools and primary schools.

Not only will people have to know Xi Jinping thought, they will have to live it, and from a very early age.

Improve the support policies and market services for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, promote the empowerment of official scientific and technological achievements and the reform of separate asset management, and improve the efficiency of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

In case you are in any doubt, scientific and technological achievements are very important: they are stressed three times in one sentence.

Effectively stimulate the vitality of various business entities. Adhere to and implement the “two unshakeable”.

The two unshakable – since you ask – is a political slogan used in Chinese official discourse. It refers to:

1.                     Unshakably consolidating and developing the public sector of the economy

2.                     Unshakably encouraging, supporting, and guiding the development of the non-public sector of the economy

You can’t have one without the other.

We will carry out special actions to standardise law enforcement involving enterprises, focus on rectifying random charges, fines, inspections, and seizures, and resolutely prevent illegal law enforcement in other places and profit-seeking law enforcement.

China has a problem with corruption, is admitting it, and wants to eradicate it, tigers, flies and all.

We will accelerate the establishment and improvement of basic institutional rules, break down local protectionism and market segmentation, clear the bottlenecks that restrict economic circulation in market access and exit, factor allocation, and comprehensively rectify “involutionary” competition.

Involutionary – a word that does not exist in my dictionary – competition is when intense competition leans to diminishing returns and burnout rather than meaningful progress or innovation, everyone working harder and harder to simply not fall behind. Sounds like a good definition of shipbroking.

Expand high-level opening up to the outside world and actively stabilise foreign trade and foreign investment. No matter how the external environment changes, we will always adhere to opening up to the outside world, steadily expand institutional opening-up, orderly expand independent opening-up, and promote reform and development through opening-up.

Opening up is a theme used continuously since Deng Xiaoping first coined it in the late 1970s, a broad and long-term policy of engagement with the global economy whilst maintaining control over key sectors. Maybe they are using (and repeating) the phrase to emphasise the link with Deng, or in obvious contrast to what passes for policy statements coming out of the White House these days.

I am increasingly confused these days which way to turn. The ‘moving fast and breaking things’ methods of Trump’s Silicon Valley entourage – and their seeming contempt of democracy and its institutions – makes me very uneasy. At the same time as someone who is more democratic and open-minded than ideological and moralistic in make-up I nonetheless look to China’s steady and forthright growth – and its commitment to world trade (albeit with Chinese characteristics) – with less antagonism than I used to.

And it is probably in this in-between area – world trade – that I am most comfortable. Apart from the very basic fact that the demand for shipping is derived from world trade, and China is therefore the biggest influence on shipping in the world today, I also believe that trade – the buying and selling of goods over time and space – is fundamentally a civilising force for good.

I believe – strongly influenced by Josiah Ober’s The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece – that the amazing burst of civilisation, and all the glories that came with it, as well as  unprecedented economic growth from around 600 to 300 BCE was due to the growth of trade, first in the Eastern Mediterranean centred around what is now modern Greece, and then further afield. This feat was not to be repeated until the start of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century. This intense period – marked by huge advancements in science, technology, art, literature, architecture, philosophy, mathematics to name but a few – was due to the exchange of ideas, technology and cultures – and people – along the trade routes, mostly by sea.

I would argue that one of the major factors in the success of Classical Greece was that it was built on the interaction between the πόλεις – the city states if you like – which were continually experimenting with political models to organise their own systems. However democracies did not only deal with other democracies, and in some cases democratic πόλεις fought with each other. Likewise being an oligarchy, or a tyranny – benign of otherwise – did not mean closing themselves off from the rest of the world. The extraordinary birth of Greek civilisation came from the interaction of the πόλεις with each other, trading with each other, sharing ideas with each other, even if they did at times descend into violence and war.

China, as far as I can see – leaving aside the perennial problem of Taiwan – has no territorial ambitions beyond its current borders. It does, of course, have other ambitions to expand its power and influence throughout the world through trade, and it would be facile to suggest that their intentions are wholly philanthropic and benign. Nonetheless, the current attitude of the US towards the rest of the world hardly fills me with peace of mind either: the focus on making America great again means that others will have to be necessarily diminished, and by inference punished.

What unifies both countries’ current models however is a belief that size matters, and more than that, reforms and development have to be dictated and enforced from the top down. Executive Orders and Work Reports are orders. I feel that both approaches are misguided: real innovation and development doesn’t come from breaking things or being told what to do, it comes when people have the time, ability and means to solve their own problems, with the freedom to take risks and make their own mistakes along the way.

China too has an ancient civilisation – Confucius was sharing his ideas around the same time that Socrates was wandering around Athenian streets asking people questions – and whilst the trajectories of both civilisations went off in completely different directions, their legacies have been profound.

China is still working through moving on from their century of humiliation – 1839-1949 – when the UK, and then other global powers of the time, forced China to open its markets to opium and other goods. China’s weakened state at the time of their domination by western powers was a direct legacy of the early Ming Dynasty turning itself inwards – and dismantling shipyards – as it deliberately disengaged from foreign engagement. Their fear of foreign influence, their belief that the ‘Middle Kingdom’ was self-sufficient lead to political and technological stagnation and vulnerability from other peoples who had since moved on.

China has evidently learnt this lesson. The US – in a different way perhaps – is also rebuilding its shipbuilding capacity to counteract the threat it sees of China’s dominance in this area, but at the same time is putting up other barriers – trade and otherwise – to restrict the freer exchange of trade and people. China is reaching out, the US is turning inwards.

In the meantime, the rest of the world is having to change tack – and change their minds – as change, and rapid change at that, is being forced upon them. But maybe this is what being pushed out of your comfort zone looks like, and as Keynes once said (apparently): “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?” I’m changing my mind, but I haven’t made it up yet. Maybe that’s the point about change: it never stops, wherever it comes from.

Simon Ward