Isn't 'MAGA' just another form of ancestor worship?
11
I’m now finishing “Mao the Untold Story” by Jung Chang and Jon Holiday, a breathtaking account of a tyrant. Oh the humanity! Yes unity, but at the expense of 70 million lives and every aspect of Chinese history and culture. A readable must-read.
19
Stop calling this form of "government... Communism. There must be a dictionary at the NYT. Look up the word.
On my iMac..."a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. See also Marxism."
China, Russia, even Nicaragua, are not "communist governments but rather totalitarian dictatorships that have as much to do with capitalism as they do with communism.
48
By the time China was half way to its current anniversary, it would have been nigh impossible to find any aspect of Chinese rule that could be found in a handbook for communist government. The only reason that Western governments and policy wonks continue to call the government in Beijing communist is because it gives the ideology the biggest black eye since the Stalin purges and the Hitler-Stalin pact. The illuminated red plastic flag hood ornament on official limousines is nice though.
13
It should be noted that for “tenacity” we’re also doing our part. China suffered some of the worse excesses of Western colonialism well into the twentieth century—something that is at least as much a part of national consciousness as Confucianism. In that context our current trade policy—war before negotiations with a stated goal of destroying their economy—could not be better planned to drive nationalism. One seldom-noted fact is that the intellectual property theft we hear so much about was enormously increased by the trade war.
One other comment worth making is that the main thing keeping the Chinese regime in power is success. They have done a much, much better job of bringing prosperity to their population than we have. With the current rise of inequality in this country we have had stagnant real incomes for the bottom 50% since the 1980’s, and we are well down on the list for upward mobility.
That’s not to say that the Chinese regime is great—the Nazis did a great job of raising living standards too. But our view of China is still shaped by both racism and colonialism, and that drives policies that do us no good.
33
This article is such a perfect example of colonial arrogance.
Maybe Chinese people, unlike Americans, simply have faith in their government. Maybe they actually view government as a force for good rather than something to be distrusted. That's why they don't go around demanding to carry assault rifles.
Maybe Chinese are loyal to family and community not because of imagined dogma, but simply because they are reasonable well-adjusted human beings.
Maybe China is hostile to Christianity because this religion has been responsible for the oppression and extermination of hundreds of millions of non-Europeans in history. It has destroyed empires and sparked civil wars. Maybe China opposes the Falun Gong because it is a cult, much like Scientology.
Maybe Ian Buruma is just completely wrong. Not maybe. Definitely.
39
"The Cultural Revolution, during which it is believed that up to two million people were murdered ... And yet ... "
Translation: mega mass murder may be justified.
6
“…made a tacit deal with the educated urban class from which most of the protesters came. One-party rule would create the orderly conditions for people to become wealthy, in exchange for which they would refrain from political protest…
Sounds unsurprisingly familiar – “Hotel California” and “China, or [redacted]” are anagrams, after all…
But on this one:
“… Science became for some Chinese thinkers a new kind of dogma, something that explained everything…
We seemed to have dropped a qubit or two, in the quantum translation…
Ran a round trip through Google Quantum Translate – several different (but always recurring) results:
“…Finance became for some American thinkers a new kind of dogma, something that controlled everything…
“…Dogma became for some US thinkers a new kind of science, something that ambiguated everything…
“…Politics became for some GOP thinkers a new kind of pharma, something that ossified everything…
One last snip of yours – an open-mike moment into your biased thinking:
“…a harsher version of the Singaporean model could succeed for quite a long time…
China’s population is 200X that of Singapore’s…
All Xi would have to say – as did Reagan – are four right words…
In this case:
“Let 200 Singapores bloom”
The rest would be history…
1
Everyone who thinks China now is so bad needs to go to India, the great capitalist poster child in Asia. See what a wonderful result the people of that country have achieved by avoiding the communist monsters!
Yep, look at the way the untouchables are forced to live.
The way the super rich control the finance, banking, and educational systems.
Look at the unbelievable levels of corruption. Foreign aid used as personal bank accounts by the "government".
Look at the child beggars in the streets who are intentionally blinded (their eyes put out) by their controllers in order to improve their sympathy rating while begging.
Nice place! But at least it's not communist!
27
Perhaps one day the Chinese Communist Party will be so kind as to show the United States Government how in can reduce the violent disorder and social chaos that are now so prevalent in America.
9
China has been a great civilization for thousands of years, almost all of which were under imperial rule. This period of just over 100 years is a blip in their long history. It’s hard for Americans, with a national history of about twice this blip to understand the cultural history and general mindset of the Chinese people.
One of the things Mao did that was particularly positive was standardizing the language that was taught in schools. Before that, although the Hanzi (Chinese characters) were the same, the spoken languages had diverged so greatly in different parts of the country that they could not understand each other unless the communication was written. At the same time, they introduced simplified characters that involved fewer strokes for many, which were easier to learn. They also codified Pinyin as a standard Westernized transcription of the characters (thus “Peking” in Wade-Giles (an English/American attempt at this) became Beijing). This language standardization was the foundation that allowed China to become “great again”.
With the complete lack of understanding of historical context the average American has (from years of anti-Communist propaganda here), it is hard for any opinion piece to advance the dialog between our two countries. Trump’s bull-in-a-China-shop approach will only galvanize the Chinese people behind their country’s leaders.
Unfortunately, until the average American becomes more educated, this situation will not improve.
15
There has to be an alternative to a political system that facilitates the butchery of its own citizens for the purpose of harvesting their organs. How can the Chinese even be allowed a seat at the UN while this slaughter continues? Allowing a regime that is capable of this sort of cruelty to flourish and rise to take a dominant position globally should terrify every sane human being on the planet. The Communist Party of China and Socialism with Chinese characteristics must be confronted with force if necessary to prevent their continued existence, they must be stamped out, they must be defeated even if it means we risk losing everything in the process, because if they are victorious we may as well all be dead.
6
The sole reasons the Chinese Communist Party is still in power are US benevolence and US irrational preoccupation with Islamic terrorism.
We are no longer preoccupied with concern for Islamic terrorists, and we will no longer ignore nor tolerate China’s theft of intellectual property, its lopsided domestic market, its bullying of smaller neighbors, and its ghastly violation of human rights on a scale not seen since the death camps and gulags of the twentieth century.
4
It is really too bad that the need for "order" requires the deaths of millions to satisfy its sense of judgement. A pathetic fig leaf for tyranny and oppression. As one who would be eliminated as a religious undesirable (see Tibet, Uyghurs, etc.), I can not stay silent when the face of evil stands grinning in my face.
7
The only real answer is that Communism (what passes for Communism) is it is so much better than what came before in China.
1
Communist China is a misnomer.
Instead, what you have is a backwards authoritarian regime. This regime managed to bring prosperity to a segment of its population with trillions of dollars from Western capitalist who used virtual slave labor in China to become even richer than they were before.
Those dollars we're born on the backs of a decimated middle class and on the Earth's atmosphere and oceans, which are taking a beating.
Traditional Chinese culture is an archaic Bronze Age Relic. It is no coincidence that it was the Western rule of law as practiced in outposts like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore that led to the great Asian economic miracle...
If not for those Outposts, and if not for the trillions of dollars of Western capital, mainland China would still be a dirt-poor Backwater.
8
It is due to state direction and control of the "commanding heights" of the economy, that the People's Republic has lifted more millions of people from poverty than any society in recorded history. Contrast capitalist India, where thousands of poor farmers commit suicide every year. . . . Becaus China is Socialist, the system works to improve conditions for the whole population, not just a few rich people on top, as in the USA.
6
What are you so afraid of? Could it be a country that puts a lot of people in prison, a country that has little interest in average people and none at all for the poor, one that can’t keep its infrastructure maintained, a country that turned advanced education into a profit center, one that has an absurd health care system with outrageous costs that bankrupts many families, one that declares ‘war’ on everything, one that spends a billion dollars buying a President, who then wastes millions playing golf and insulting every living soul he comes in contact with, and even some he knows not at all, one that boasts about Democracy but can’t get even half of its eligible voters to vote, one that wastes billions chasing around drug dealers but refuses to do anything meaningful about addiction, a country that requires its citizens to register cars, obtain a driver’s license, and buy insurance, but sees no reason to regulate guns the same way.
China isn’t your problem America, your only problem is you.
42
Not unlike the late Roman's adoption of Christianity, China has abandoned its Confucius paganism roots and been forcefully converted into the more dogmatic state religion of Marxism. The modern day China is the hedonistic decay of that state religion, with echo of the authoritarian past.
This could be the lessons from history: democratic government were not always victorious and people might be will to take authoritarian government in exchange for social stability and economic efficiency.
1
In capitalist New York City today, there are more than 20,000 homeless children in the city's shelter system and an unknown number in the streets. Meanwhile, one billionaire is the solitary occupant of a penthouse triplex worth $38 million. Does this seem like a moral or ethical system to you?
8
I live in China, and here are my first-hand observations:
1. People here have a natural preference for order, since before Mao they had so little of it.
2. Just about everyone here is more prosperous than their parents, and immensely more prosperous than their grandparents. They don't want to rock the boat - why would they?
3, When they look to other countries such as the UK or US, they no longer see much to attract them, just chaos, sleaze, and conflict.
156
@Martin Mellish
Just got back (yesterday in fact) from visiting China for the first time and I had similar observations
20
@perltarry I'm just finishing 2 months in France. 4 months last summer. I speak the language. I observe. As an American I have a difficult time accepting that America's red, white, and blue indoctrination is all that we have been taught that it is.
20
@Martin Mellish
This may be true in the cities. Try asking the people in the countryside, in the non-Han majority areas, in Tibet. I'll bet you'd get a different feeling.
24
There are two countervailing currents that makes the Chinese system maddeningly complex. On the one hand, the Chinese state is built upon the edifice of the Chinese Communist Party, in effect there is no real distinction between the state and the party. The party is enormous with more than eighty million members. So the power and patronage systems of the party permeates Chinese society.
On the other hand, China is now a global society. It is not like North Korea, a hermit state with an enslaved population. The Chinese are not enslaved. They communicate with the world and through various technological mediums with themselves. Their interests and Chinese social and cultural modernity runs against the edifice of the state. The best example we have of this was the violent Hong Kong student revolt which was partially successful in rolling back state power. There many thousands of organized and spontaneous protests against authority throughout China every year. There are millions of foreigners in China, including overseas Chinese and Taiwanese who are completely free of control from the state. The freedom of Chinese culture as a global phenomena will one day, perhaps not tomorrow or next year, but certainly one day will dismantle the conflicted edifice of the communist party. That freedom will eventually erode the center of control and one day the Chinese will find they are indeed an autonomous community. It will happen.
14
The history of human civilization shows that kings and empires followed four type of models based on four prominent human traits - meritocracy ( Brahmanism in India based on intellect), autocracy (muscle power of kings), mercantilism ( British colony), and Democracy ( people power). Confucius wanted to fine tune the meritocracy and autocracy to create a harmonious society. The challenge of Chinese communist rule, it is trying to combine meritocracy, muscle power and mercantilism to create harmonious society. The ethical values of Confucius and mercantile values of untruthfulness and deceit can not coexist. Current problem of IPR, stealing of technology, trade manipulation and shadow banking are the signs of this contradiction. Chinese Communist Party need to look deeply into these contradictions. Only democracy have the openness and institutions to resolve these contradictions through the involvement of all forces in the society.
32
These a tantalizingly subtle and clear distinctions. I would very much like to read more of your thinking.
5
Mr. Baruma correctly says that in the 1980's the CCP opened up the economy to allow privately owned companies to compete, and if successful enrich their owners. However, he ascribes the formation of capitalist enterprises to urban intellectuals. Although this is true to an extent, this article glosses over the fact that many of the largest private companies in China are owned by the spouses and children of members of the Politburo and Central Committee of the CCP, if not those Party Leaders themselves. They pay lip-service to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Ze Dong Thought, but the leaders of the CCP are in fact the leaders of China's capitalist class. In some cases they even imitate the leaders of the United States capitalist class by sending their children to Harvard and other Ivy League universities. Their ideology emphasizes a national chauvinistic version of patriotism and loyalty to an authoritarian government. The CCP has abandoned its historic claim to be the vanguard of the struggle of workers and peasants against the remnants of the capitalist and landlord classes. There is no doubt the CCP deserves credit for leading hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and near poverty. There is also no doubt that the Chinese Communist Party is Communist in name only.
103
I am concerned the author is confusing Confucianism with Toaism. I sense China is more Toaist. They are similar but the the Toa goes deeper. Despite religious details the culture in general has a practice of unity as opposed to a culture of individualism we see in the United States. Individualism has a dark side. I get tired of hearing rappers talk about their money and cars and big houses. That's all we care about in America and that is our problem. We worship the material. Sit and watch reality TV. Look at our Potus. I'm tired of it.
4
If China was ever communist, that ended with the ascendancy of Premier Deng. China is an oppressive, one-party state-capitalist country where working people have no ownership or control over their workplaces. It is, however, a very traditionally Chinese system of centralized authority and meritocracy for those who make no waves.
10
The secret to CCP's success is simply that it competently addresses the interests of an overwhelming majority of Chinese people.
13
" extol order and compel obedience?"
How about carry out the wishes or consense's of the citizen's of the country through the exercise of voting. Cuba has become a model of "collect conscious" around the world. Praised for it's humanitarian relief work after natural disasters, encouragement of post secondary education for all, public health care , environmental work at home. Cuban communism is looking pretty good these days. China isn't too bad either. Capitalism(Monetarism) on the other hand has no ethics or morals. It's a dog eat dog world Milton Freidman says and writes. I disagree....greed with no ethics or morals and with the intent to harm to profit from isn't for me.
3
China's State Capitalism does trick it's people into thoughtless subservience, where those within the Communist party have it all...but a vast majority below, with no human rights to speak of, and unable to think, speak and act on their own. This is a huge waste of human potential. And may not change as long as Xi (and his ilk) is afraid of his own shadow. You are right though, China' people cannot want what they don't know, freedom and justice, and the joys derived from it, for all and each of them. It's like religion, that Marx equated to opium for the people, so they would tolerate current suffering for the promise of some future redemption. How long would it take to realize the beauty of social democracy, where the current odious inequality can be broken, and a more humane integration take place, the Golden Rule in full action?
2
China used to be a communist dictatorship. It is now a regular dictatorship with communist trappings. Any country in the developed world is more socialistic than the PRC.
6
As if our system of Government doesn’t create the same circumstances....a small minority that are enriched and blind obedience and conformity.
8
China and the West are different from each other. We have our problems in the west, mostly having to do with climate change and pollution, but we do not condone genocide, which seems to be accepted by anyone who praises Mao or the murderous society he created. Yes, I know that the original inhabitants of the United States were decimated by the expansion of European Americans across our country, and that fascists in Europe murdered millions, but we do not revere any of that. My point is, it is important that the West safeguard itself from any communist Chinese hegemony. We do not agree with them.
2
If you watch the Chinese TV dramas, you will see WHY the Chinese people honor their loyalty to the person in power, and take the respecting and obeying their parents as the unbreakable value. It's not just the "order and obedience" in Western or military sense.
China, North Korea and Japan are very similar. The people obey their government. No fighting back. When they fight back, they get quickly crushed and the end of story. Only South Koreans have fought back against their dictatorial governments, got crushed, then fought back again. Chinese, North Koreans and Japanese are really not very different. Only South Korea is the true democracy.
2
It's sad that so many hundreds of millions of Chinese have to live under the foul CCP dictatorship. Once upon a time, Americans believed that China would become more open and free once its people emerged from their grinding poverty. Well, it didn't.
4
The Chinese Communist Party should more properly be called the Chinese Capitalist Party. As Stalin said 70 years ago, the Chinese are radishes, red on the outside and white inside. The CCP has as its main goal to stay in power. It stays in power by improving the well being of the Chinese people. So far, it’s done a splendid job. It has raised hundreds of millions of Chinese from abject poverty to middle-class status. While the US sends its military to kill and destroy, the CCP sends engineers and businessmen to make deals.
9
Two things. First, thank you for this interesting piece and for the many links to more interesting pieces.
.
Second, I read this some hours after it had been posted online and it had seven comments. The various Trump pieces, way above it on the page, each have a jillion or so comments.
.
It seems to me that, if the rest of the world is hoping Americans ride in to rescue humanity once again from the gathering storm of another totalitarian dictatorship, the rest of the world is going to be disappointed. We're too busy trying to get rid of the only President in half a century who is pushing back against the Beijing dictators. We have little interest in Xi & Co.
.
Try to figure that one out.
“Communist” is now just a brand name for the Chinese government, which has transformed into a crony-capitalist oligarchy.
4
As the czars did to Russia, the emperors (including modern-day equivalent of Communist rule) are doing to China. I've lived in China twice. Citizens are mostly passive, cattle-like. A creepy Orwellian submission to authoritarian rule.
3
Please. China’s made great progress for millions b/c it is an authoritarian dictatorship. Westerners flock there to get rich, but the only people who want to immigrate to China are North Koreans. Talk to me about how great it is when free people risk their lives to move there
This focus on the 'mote' in China's 'eye' instead of the 'beam' in America's comes from the context and perspective of white European American Judeo-Christian supremacy.
For most of the past 2200 years China has been a civil secular educational diplomatic military socioeconomic political scientific and technological superpower. About 20% of the human race is ethnic Han Chinese.
America was built by enslaved and separate and unequal black African labor upon lands, lives and natural resources stolen by white European Judeo-Christians colonizers and conquerors from free brown separate and unequal First Nations human pioneers.
America has 25% of the world's prisoners with 5% of humans. And while only 13% of Americans are black like Ben Carson and Tim Scott about 40% of the American prisoners are black. Because blacks are persecuted for acting like white people do without any criminal justice consequences. Prison is the carefully carved colored exception to the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude.
By every positive socioeconomic educational and health measure Africans and First Nations people living in America are still separate and unequal to the reigning and ruling white European American Judeo-Christian majority. I am more concerned about my fellow Americans living in San Juan Puerto Rico than I am some Chinese in Hong Kong, Beijing, Taipei or Singapore.
5
Annually thousands of death sentences and executions are imposed and implemented in China, where figures remain a state secret; how about this small piece of information for sustaining order? We take care of you, and you better behave!
3
There is a model for how Chinese culture would evolve if left on its own: Taiwan.
5
Nicely composed and digestible for the common denomination of NYT readers. It couples nicely with Ms Chen’s piece today about how propaganda and political efforts of CCP are mostly directed inward with the bluster of how awful and cunning the outside is ( Western and other East Asians- read Japan, Taiwan, South Korea ).
Communism is just a name only. Just like we used our tax dollars to save private banks, GM, and AIG alike in 2008 financial crisis. Are we not practicing capitalism?
Deng used to say (in parallel) whether it is a black cat or white cat, as long as the cat can catch the mouse, it is a good cat. In fact, China is a socialist country, and our media keeps saying different things about China.
The bottom line is that the current Chinese government is very adaptive like "water." It constantly changes and flows to wherever the smooth passage and stable places it can go.
1
I was going to take this "Opinion" half seriously, until I read the part about "China is not so different from Singapore". For starters, Singapore actually has free and fair elections (might I say, probably freer and fairer than a lot of "admirable" Western democracies) and non-existent corruption. Certainly, Singapore does not subscribe to the philosophy that one political rival can propagate untruths about another (such as PIzzagate) without legal consequence, or that a crimimal POTUS can remain in office while legislators take their time playing partisan politics.
2
During the late '80s I used to play basketball with Chinese graduate students at the university where I taught. They told me that in middle school that they had been taught fairly orthodox Taoism as well. "The highest purpose is no purpose." How this was incorporated in communist ideology is unclear, but the powers that were obviously endorsed the teaching. And, if you are wondering, though I was an inferior player to them, in good Communist fashion, they nevertheless shared the ball with me.
3
China is slowly but surely on the road to becoming a dominant world power. They have a long-term gains mentality which completely contrasts with our short-term gains one. We can thank Big Business for this since they have given us the best Congress money can buy. Only in America.
16
The Chinese government is no different then the reign of Henry VIII and similar early rulers of Europe. Controlling the populace has a long history in human affairs.
The headline should read: "The Tenacity of the Fiction that the Chinese Government is Communist."
China was never governed in an especially Marxist manner. Mao, rather famously, didn't have any of the famous Marx/Engels/Lenin classics in his library when the governing cadres conquered and moved into Beijing in 1949 -- until someone noticed and explained that it would look better if copies were prominently placed.
China has virtually always been an autocracy. Mao and Deng were, effectively, emperors. Later rulers have had less individual power, but the top-down control remains. Since 1949, the nation has been an autocracy pretending to be Communist.
In a somewhat different form, the same truth applies to the former Soviet Union. Communism shares some features with democracy and Christianity: They are interesting ideas that might, someday, be attempted.
9
What is being called "socialism" or "communism", but dictatorial autocracy. "Socialism", at least the positive components exists in Scandinavia. What existed in Eastern Europe, the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, etc. is/was a top down autocratic rule by a small number of people. Effectively replacing imperial governments with their own form of an imperial government. Anyone opposed was dealt with harshly, like in any autocracy.
The CCP succeeds because, fro centuries, Chinese were suppressed. Since the reforms, Before Xi, the Chinese had more freedom than they had fro centuries; Xi is trying to undo it by actually adopting a North Korea model. Complete with a personality cult.
Unfortunately, for Xi, trying to be North Korea and Singapore will fail. Especially when the CCP starts taking away property and wealth from those who benefited from the reforms. If Xi thinks Hong Kong and Taiwan are problems, going back to the days of Mao will create many more Hong Kong situations.
The Chinese now have an every growing middle class. They also have every strong consumer society. A society that is still waiting for "socialism". That is true universal health care, a strong social safety net, and reducing the large poverty rate. Slogans and CCP orthodoxy only goes so far, but what they are sitting on is a time bomb.
Dictatorship with a capitalist face will only work with even more repression and filling up gulags.
9
Not to be a smarty pants but economic progress and moving millions and millions into the middle class trumps philosophy. And, those moving from the poorhouse to food safety are grateful to authoritarian rule. And, the Singaporean models is perfect as naturally bright children become successful through education and now China has an unlimited supply of scientist and engineers. China already rules the world but the West is fighting philosophy and politics.
13
After WWII, PRC, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea were all roughly as poor as each other. Currently, speaking purely of economics, China lags far far behind.
6
@Hunter S. However, there was no Marshal plan or strategic imperatives as with Japan, S. Korea or Taiwan. The PRC bootstrapped everything sense the 1970's without much aid or help.
7
@Hunter S.
But remember current China reform did not start right from the end of WWII. It tarted only 49 years ago (1979). Since then the rate of economic growth in China has definitely outpaced the neighboring Japan, Taiwan and S Korea.
6
The exploitation of the Chinese by the Mongols, then the Europeans, then the Japanese and then the Americans through Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang’s wife has shaped the Chinese people by creating a receptiveness to a government which is strong.
The philosophy or religion, if any, espoused by the Chinese government is secondary and almost irrelevant, as long as the government respects one other deeply held Chinese belief: ancestor worship, including respect for one’s parents.
If the regime of President Xi Jinping does not understand the power of that ancient Chinese force, or if to protect himself against the Red Army, President Xi adheres to an old-line Maoist approach, there will be many protests, much subversive activity by ordinary citizens and a great deal of blood spilled in the streets.
President Xi Jinping does not enjoy the pass given by the people to a violent Chairman Mao Zedong in gratitude for unifying the country, nor does he have at his side a sophisticated moderate with an international reputation like Premier Zhou Enlai.
3
When Mao took over China in 1949 its per capita income was lower than that of Africa. Chinese movies with English subtitles indicate that there is an understanding that huge mistakes were made during the the Cultural Revolution, so this alone is evidence that the Communist Party leadership learned from its mistakes. I agree that when trying to understand contemporary China it is very important to look at Confucianism and other older cultural and political tradtions. For instance, there were powerful robber barons in China prior to its unification over 2000 years ago and these capitalists were regulated and contained once China was united by the Qin and Han dynasties. The ancient tradition of competitive civil service exams, annual personnel evaluations, and expansive bureacracy with multiple departments all existed in China a dozen centuries or more before they were introduced in the West. If we spent a little time studying Chinese history and Marxist ideology we might also understand why allowing capitalistic ventures in China was not been seen as a contradiction by the Communist Party leadership, for Marx taught that developing a capitalistic system was a necessary first step toward acheiving socialism and his dreamy utopian vision. Both Mao and Stalin ignored this recomendation with disastrous results. Since the death of Mao, the Chinese have actually followed Marxist recommendations more carefully than they did under Mao.
10
Looking at the history of democracies and empires without democracy it is completely unclear how one can conclude that China's current structure will last for a shorter time than democracies. Given how social media is currently working to destabilize democracies the balance seems to be tilting away from democracies, outside of the Nordic models. Given a choice between Chinese style oligarchy and their gini coefficient plus high growth rates and American oligarchy, slow growth and gini coefficient, again it's unclear why an average person not indoctrinated in the western ideas of individual political freedom would prefer the latter. As for the types of freedoms, how much weight people put on free speech vs economic freedom and intergenerational economic mobility, which is an order of magnitude higher in China, is the critical question, especially as growth slows from 10% towards 5%.
11
Chinese GDP per capita is roughly $8,000. US GDP per capita is roughly $60,000. China is a developing country, so its economy is racing to catch up. The idea that it will quickly reach US levels or maintain its current rate is absurd.
1
@Hunter S.
I think Eb is correct. The Chinese are justly proud of their success in moving millions of their people from poverty to a middle class lifestyle. No, China is not as wealthy as the US overall, nor is the median individual as wealthy. But the wealth of average people in the US is stagnating or declining as more of the nation's wealth is concentrated in the hands of the rich. In China, the wealth of average people is increasing—and relatively quickly. While wealth is still concentrated at the top in China, trickle down is working there. In the US, it's more trickle up.
I am a strong supporter of democracy and an economic system based on free markets regulated and tempered as necessary to protect the public interest. Nevertheless, I believe Americans suffer from overconfidence in the superiority of their own system and therefore fail to see both their own weaknesses and others' strengths.
18
That has nothing to do with what I said though. To make a really rough analogy, children’s literal growth rate slows as they mature. Developing economies growth rates slow as they develop. To carry it further, if China ever reaches the development level of the US, it is highly unlikely that its current rate of growth would continue. Furthermore, China and the US have roughly similar Gini coefficients, so roughly similar levels of inequality.
Mr.Buruma made some superficial analysis of China with the usual western biases of key words like dictatorship, democracy, and human rights. The question he avoids is why do China produces leaders like Xi and his vision of socialism with Chinese characteristics and U.S. produces Trump with his MAGA. Those who look down on China don't like to dwell on the fact China has lifted 1.3 billion people out poverty into middle class while U.S. is stagnating for the last 40 years. Sure, we can compare the cost for China while ignoring the history of slavery, genocide, and wars of world policeman for the rest of the world.
24
@xeroid47
Capitalism is what lifted 1.3B Chinese from poverty. Our drift towards Socialism is why the US has stagnated the last 40years.
@xeroid47
“...China has lifted 1.3 billion people out of poverty into middle class...” I don’t think this number is correct. It is between 300 to 400 millions.
@xeroid47 the answer to your question is because in the U.S. you are entitled to publicly ask this simple question, and unfortunately, you will not be able to do it in China.
1
Amaury De Rienecourt addressed this problem in his 1958 book the Soul of China, a philosophy of history approach to the transformation of China. Hegel was heavily influenced by Chinese philosophy (Confucianism). Marx under the influence of Feuerbach articulated the idea of dialectical materialism. Lenin adapted these ideas to articulate a revolutionary, anti-Western ideology. Communism returned to its spiritual home with Mao's revolution.
Is liberal democracy attainable in China? Unlikely. John Naisbitt (Megatrends China) offers the idea of vertical democracy, a system claimed to enable democratic governance and choice within a Confucian unified state evolving in a Chinese way.
The more successful Chinese state, The Republic of China, shows that it is indeed possible for China to be democratic.
1
@Hunter S.
You need to look at what has happened in Taiwan (Republic of China) lately: Its economic growth has lagged behind and its college graduates have the lowest pay as compared to the young people who live in the neighboring Hong Kong, S Korea, Japan and Singapore. Drug problems in Taiwanese people and corruption in Taiwanese government officials are on the rise.
There is no guarantee western-styled democracy will do China any good.
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Mao’s revolution turned Marxism-Leninism on its head.
Instead of being based on the industrial working class, it was based on the peasantry, a class with no power over the means of production and therefore no possibility of wielding economic control over the direction of the state leadership.
Rather than a socialist democracy, China became a bureaucratic dictatorship with a socialistic economy. It never approached the goal of communism, the withering away of the state following the development of an egalitarian society.
The misnaming of Stalinism and Maoism as “communism” contributed to the West’s fear of totalitarianism, a fear today that persists in the rejection by so many of socialism.
This is an excellent analysis, as far as it goes. Like many Western discussions of China, however, it lacks self-awareness and self-reflection. Consider the role of capitalist ideology in the West, specifically the US. Capitalism is clearly a failed idea, one that has produced enormous human suffering, environmental destruction and economic inequality. Much like the Chinese model, it keeps its hold because it allows some to be very rich at the expense of everyone else. Yet, most Americans are so indoctrinated into their economic and political systems that they cannot and will not see their obvious problems. What is happening in China is similar. The combination of nationalism and China's unique historical circumstances have given the CCP enormous staying power. At this moment in time, the nationalist doctrine in China is driven by Xi's desire to reestablish an ideology hegemony over the state. Whether or not it will work remains to be seen. In fact, the argument that the CCP is necessary to China's current development may not be entirely spurious, but it is also clear that capitalism and freedom have no necessary connection. As Mr. Buruma indicates, this could go on for quite some time. But, again, look at the US as an example of that. Failed ideologies may still have many adherents who cannot see beyond their indoctrination. It is true in China; it is true in the US.
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@Shaun Narine. I find it interesting that someone from New Brunswick, a province with no real economy that only survives due to subsidies from capitalist Ontario, would criticize capitalism.
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Self-reflection and awareness actually occurred in China a few years ago with large unrest of migrant workers and farmers, the extremely poor population in China. It led to the conclusion that capitalism has gone too far and too many officials are corrupted. The fact that People seem obedient to this government suggests something right must have been right.
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Remarks are insightful but, agreed, there's a lack of standing. The Canadian model, apologetic capitalism, deserves an airing. I remain unconvinced that a better form of governance, economically AND morally, exists, however imperfect our system is.
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"China is not so different from Singapore, where a similar deal has been struck, if in a somewhat less oppressive manner."
This is challenging to accept once the notable difference in official corruption between the two societies is taken into account.
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Maybe yes, maybe no. But pretty much the same thing was said about the Soviet Union, or for that matter German autocracy. It's hard to predict the future.
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The system is actually quite fragile and will not continue once fast economic progress stalls. Economic progress for a significant majority of people (even at the cost of very high inequality and environmental degradation) is the crux of the legitimacy for CCP. Once that stops happening, it is hard to find a ideologically coherent way to justify its rule.
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Buruma seems blinded by the phenomena of ideology. But there is more on the world.
One of the most stubborn obstacles for progress in countries is the presence of rich powerful families that block any change that they don't consider in their interest and that instead further many nonsensical projects that allow them to milk the state. It is not hard to see such forces in Western countries but in developing countries they often manage to completely block progress.
It was the merit of Mao and his communism that they managed to overcome this and to put the country on a path of fast development - led by a powerful state bureaucracy.
Xi is just a power hungry opportunist who managed to grab power in a system of collective leadership. To reach his goal he is mouthing all the available ideologies such as nationalism, communism, Confucianism and the Singaporean model. To prevent his shallow opportunism to be found out he is trying to suppress competing interpretations of society.
Of course having a strong leadership can help to mobilize resources - specially now that China faces strong challenges from the US. But his cluelessness has already caused a lot of damage.
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True freedom and democracy should embrace diversity and be inclusive, including new thinking and different values.
It feels these days anything under the banner of “democracy” should be endorsed and supported, such as destroy public properties or disrupt public order or causing inconvenience to other around them occurring in HK recently. Anything under the banner of “communist”, no matter what is the content, such as lifting people out of poverty, great infrastructure building which allows their citizen to innovate, gets bad names.
I have lived in Sweden most of my life, and do not always share the same values as the mainland Chinese. After traveling back regularly, I have witness great progress of China with my own eyes. And after many sessions of heated debate with locals, I realized we have different values and it should be ok as long as they are happy.
Chinese work hard, regardless if they live in US, EU or in China, why in China it is slavery, while in the west it is good work ethics?
Deng xiao-ping understood that China need to adopt the strategy 摸着石头过河”, meaning take the road less traveled. China is large, and complicated to manage, I am humbled by saw the outcomes.
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Big difference - swedes choose their leaders. There is a free press and competing powers to prevent corruption. Such imperatives do not exist in China
@charlie corcoran,
Here in America we're SUPPOSED to be able to choose our leaders, too. Lately,with gerrymandering, foreign interference, "black box" voting systems and Citizens United, it does not seem to be happening that way.
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It's important to remember when you read articles like these is what daily life in China is actually like. I live here. I speak the language (not well). I'm on WeChat a lot with Chinese people. Daily life is going to work, going to the gym, going out to eat, hanging with friends, etc.: normal. There's no thought police running around. Sure there are lots of cameras and cops; so I don't jaywalk. Big deal.
This is just the daily life, not anything else. But *that* at least, is not different than in America.
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There may not be thought police about, but that is only because they cannot burrow into your brain. However, they may be reading your WeChat, monitoring your web usage and running dragnets on email traffic. The moment your thought is expressed, not even acted upon, but manifest verbally, you are noted and possibly filed. Not saying the US is much different in degree or scale, but don’t be naive or oblivious to the reality.
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Yes daily life in China is nice - if you have money - and aren’t being thrown out of your house by the government or a developer with government approval. Matter-a-fact most things are the same except the ability to speak your mind about the government, be openly gay, read or watch what you want, simple things like that, that to most don’t matter.
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A Chinese economist has a better explanation for China's rise than mr Buruma. This how he sees the difference between "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "capitalism with American characteristics":
In China the government directs the capitalists; In the USA the capitalists direct the government--and I would add-- both direct education and the media.
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It seems to me that ironically, the CCP is the ultimate plutocratic party. People there work virtually as slaves, they must dedicate their lives to the company and have very little free time. Of course they have made historical progress because of that and modern technology. They are taught Marxist ideology growing up which must be confusing as they get older and see that’s not at all what they have. I suppose that’s similar to here, where we’re taught that we live in a democracy where the citizens rule. We spend a lot more time and money sustaining that myth, but ultimately, we live in a plutocracy also, but one with many more freedoms. China is a very old culture and freedom was never part of the culture, maybe the desire for freedom has been removed from much of their DNA, because of the slaughter of the people who have wanted it down through the ages.
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@Tim Phillips There are plenty of people who work long hours in China to get ahead, just as there are in the US. However, there are also plenty of people who opt for an easier lifestyle and thus a lower income. If you wander around a Chinese city in the middle of the day, you'll see plenty of people playing mahjong, dancing, or wandering through the park with their children - many more in fact than you would see in any US city. Chinese people are, in my experience, much more capable of having fun than Americans are.
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In my view, it is a surfeit of older citizens who are idle passing time outside in public spaces during the working day hours. The economy and society in general has advanced so rapidly in so many manners which make the generation older than 50 obsolete in service and information economy terms. Their kids support them via their new economy careers and the established filial piety community principles. The government is off the hook, there is no sustainable federal social security for the senior citizens except the family’s younger cohorts.
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I have to disagree with some of the conclusions and especially the insinuations. The author, when he talks about "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" adds that "(some of) the people continue to get rich", creating the impression of a very limited rich oligarchy. While a small group of very wealthy is certainly there (as it is in the US), the incredible material progress of China at large is nothing short of amazing. Never in history have so many people benefited so much in such a short time. It took the US well over a hundred years to create a comparable wealth to what China accomplished in a mere 30. Frequently, when we look at China, we seem to emphasize the drops of vinegar in the wine, rather than the abundance of wine there is. We have a leadership in China that seems far more rational than our own. One that does not deny Climate change, but rather makes sometimes difficult compromises between the needs for development today and the needs to preserve the future. None of this is to deny China's authoritarian political system, its surveillance state, but rather shift the focus to achievements that are the envy of the poor everywhere.
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@bluesky You badly over-estimate how much "the people" have benefited from the amazing development of the Chinese economy. While a huge new nation of 300 million seems to have sprung up along the industrialized eastern coast, there are one billion in the interior who have seen less improvement in their lives. The coastal region cannot accommodate that one billion, most of whom remain mired in poverty and lack of opportunity. This is a split that will undermine China's development as a superpower.
Moreover, your understanding of the technocratic elite is superficial and naive. You only have to look at the environmental depredations in mainland China - the obvious pollution but also the depletion of underground water resources and much else - to see they do not have more "vision" than our own elites.
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The reason that China has lifted more people out of poverty than any other country has more to do with the sheer size of the population than amazing economics. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, among others accomplished far more amazing economic growth in the same time period and region.
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@robcrawford where did you get 300 million? In 1998, the estimate was that 60% of China’s then 1.2 billion (or 720 million) lived in coastal provinces, and I can’t imagine that there are even more after two decades and an additional 200 million in total population.
China does have geographical income inequality, and this has been the case for centuries. However, your characterization of sweeping poverty is a product of dogma rather than reality. For example, the second-tier megacity of Chongqing, adjacent to Sichuan, continues to be an economic powerhouse as it matched the GDP of Hungary in 2018. Tibet and Guizhou (another historically poor Southwestern province) posted the highest growth rates in China of 9.1%. Xinjiang’s 7% was disappointing but hard won. The central government’s long-standing initiative on reducing income inequality has been working, as the country stopped rapid increase in its Gini coefficient.
In terms of the environment, you fail to mention that China is the undisputed leader in global environmental initiatives. China has been planting more trees than the rest of the world combined. Furthermore, China - the largest car market - was among the first few countries in 2017 to ban gasoline cars. In terms of energy, China (ranked first) produces more than double the amount of electricity from renewable sources in the US (ranked second).
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Nearly every paragraph of this excellent analysis rings true. I would differ, however, that what we have in China is any form of socialism, as in "this form of socialism compels obedience."
What we have is a form of state-compelled capitalism where the workers are slave labor in an economy that enriches oligarchs who overwhelmingly have strong ties to the party leadership.
The deliberate addicting of the Chinese people to the gewgaws of capitalism is a far more dangerous opiate than religion, and was the death knell to anything Mao would recognize. The current leadership may fear Falun Gong and Tibetan Buddhism, but that's only because it competes with the state-sponsored drug of choice.
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This Opinion piece is exactly that, Buruma's opinions. There is not much facts and data to support them.
To explain China's leadership, there is no lack of statistics to show vast improvement to Chinese people's lives in the last 40 years. One fact alone says it all: USA's desperate effort to kill Huawei is enough evidence to show that China's leaders must have done a lot of things right. But it was not because of Communism.
Can anyone find a trace of "Communism" in China today other than its use in some names? Where can one find a commune in China? Of course Chinese leaders are tenacious but communism has nothing to do with their administration.
While universal suffrage democracy gifted Donald Trump to USA, and Brexit to UK, Chinese should be thankful their leaders refused to adopt it, much to the chagrin of many western China pundits. Recent protests in Hong Kong is hardly a reflection of "traditional Chinese culture" as Ian Buruma depicted them. It's rather residual British colonial influences. He should read Max Fisher's excellent analysis of the Hong Kong rioters' identity crises.
China still has a lot more work to make life better for its people, but what's striking about Chinese leadership is how they actually took the road less traveled. They shaped their own "China Model", custom tailored to Chinese history, culture & its people. This model won't work elsewhere. It's an amazingly unique case study.
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@Observer
I am not sure that an aversion to imprisonment without trial (etc etc) can be described as a 'residual' colonial influence. If it is one, is it such a bad one?
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@Observer
I am not sure that an aversion to imprisonment without trial (etc etc) can be described as a 'residual' colonial influence. If it is one, is it such a bad one?
I should add that, in the course of the work 'to make life better for its people', the Chinese government might want to start with the Uighurs and Tibetans.
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@Martin
Annual per capita GDP of Tibet: $6,315.
Annual per capita GDP of Nepal: $1040.
(Soure: Ceicdata.com)
Since the two countries have similar geography and resources (Tibet is if anything less fertile) the Chinese seem to be doing something right. That was also my anecdotal impression when I spent the summer of 2006 walking around remote areas of Tibet.
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Although its success has lasted much longer, the "new capitalism" of modern China reminds me of the success of the NEP economic reforms allowed in 1920s USSR. Also these one party systems based on what can only call state capitalism don't have much similarity to authentic socialism. The combination of a long Confucian tradition with a completely undemocratic history explains the difficulty of establishing any sort of democratic government in China.
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The Chinese seem well on their way to miring in their own version of Late Stage Capitalism, no matter what other ideological veneer might be misapplied to it. Every sort of corruption, financial chicanery, and over-leveraging can be found there today, while money is funneled out of the country by its elites as a hedge against confiscation. Xi is determined to turn his country into 1.3 billion, unquestioning consumerist zombies, the same as the goal has always been in the West. In the West however, this notion still provokes some pushback; the difference is that there seems to be no awareness or complaint among the Chinese people themselves about the destiny the CCP has chosen for them. They have cheerfully internalized the idea of the horrendous "social credit score", without protest and as long as they enjoy prosperity Emperor Xi enjoys the mandate of heaven. The Total Surveillance State though only works as long as it can continue to provide; once it falters and there is nothing to lose, the deal is off and it is subject to collapse. Labels such as Marxism or Confucianism are distractions for only the most gullible of the population - of which there may be hundreds of millions.
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This is a perceptive article. I would just add that Xi seems to be a sincere communist. In particular, he believes that once China reaches a high enough level of prosperity, the country will abolish free enterprise and become the sort of anarchist socialist society that Marx envisioned.
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@lkb I apology, but are you joking?
A perceptive article that may upset some sinophiles but is exactly on the mark. Confucianism with its insistence on filial piety, abject obedience to authority from the emperor on down, moral judgement based on the opinion of one’s oldest male relative, and devaluation of individual rights is a perfect match for modern communist dictatorship.
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