Opinion Mandarins of self-doubt
Why China is keen to underplay its enhanced economic clout
Travelling for a few days through parts of China and talking to a diverse set of common citizenry helps clear up many misconceptions about this rising economic power which the rest of the world looks at with a distinct sense of trepidation and unease. When excessive greatness is thrust upon you,deep self-introspection is in order. This is what China appears to be going through at the moment,if one looks at the widespread debate in the official media as well as among academics over the long-term impact of Chinas relentless economic growth on its polity and society.
The outside world seems to look at China as a sure-footed juggernaut rapidly moving towards a superpower status. This is only partly true. It is true that the Chinese are immensely confident about creating material wealth,which they have done over the past many decades. They have beaten the Western capitalists at their game. That is not in doubt at all. However,one gets the distinct feeling that,at a collective level,the Chinese appear to be riven with self-doubts about their future,in a more philosophical and cultural sense. There is constant talk,even at the official level,of imbuing Chinas economic growth process with a sense of harmony derived from the Confucian philosophy. Clearly,this tendency appears to flow from deeper cultural DNA. Like Indians,the Chinese are also very superstitious and this is reflected in aspects of everyday life.
In general,self-doubt appears to be a trait more embedded in the Eastern consciousness as opposed to the Western way of looking at things,more in black or white rather than in shades of grey. Many years ago,Time magazine had carried an interesting essay titled Doing Good,Feeling Bad. It was based on a researched study of schoolchildren from Asia and the West who were put through an elaborate mathematics and science test. The kids were then asked how they had done in the tests. It turned out that the Asian kids uniformly said they hadnt done too well but their results proved otherwise. Kids from the West were sure they had done very well but the outcome was exactly the opposite.
China today is doing well but still appears to have a lot of self-doubt about sustaining high growth,especially in terms of its environmental impact. There is a well-thought-out national effort by the Chinese government to talk to its children. This was reflected in the way the government paid families from all over China to visit the Shanghai Expo. The government is clearly using the breathtakingly brilliant Chinese pavilion to communicate with its domestic constituency. Over 90 per cent of the expected 70 million visitors to the China pavilion are local Chinese. One also noticed that the bulk of them were school kids who have been given free entry to the pavilion. The theme of the tech-intensive presentations in the pavilion is maintaining sustainability and harmony in fast urbanising China. There is also adequate evocation of the life in pre-industrial China. In everything,the past seems to act like an inseparable shadow.
Institutionally,the Chinese system is non-democratic. But the communist party has evolved its own methods of seeking genuine feedback from society. An official from the Indian mission in Beijing said the Chinese government would publicly rebut criticism by outsiders about its system but will privately take it very seriously. The communist party does not always believe in the myth that some of its institutions create about the efficacy of the system. There is an element of dialectics here too. This again is perhaps derived from a measure of self-doubt.
The self-doubt is reflected even in the official media in various ways. Last week,the local Chinese English dailies had front page stories saying China had for the first time crossed the GDP of Japan in the second quarter of 2010. But this has not led to major celebrations. In fact the mainstream Indian media is far more celebratory of much smaller achievements. The lead editorial of China Daily,a prominent official English language newspaper,advocated caution against getting too excited about this new milestone that would make China the second largest economy after the US this year.
The fact is Chinas achievement in social and economic development,as yet,are far from enough to create the harmonious middle income society to which it aspires, the lead editorial says. This seems to be a running theme in the domestic discourse of China.
Another article in the same paper says: Chinas economic growth is still not securely founded,its productivity is comparatively low and the countrys agriculture mechanisation is at a relatively low level,with only 71 tractors for every 100 square kilometres of arable land.
The world looks at China as a great manufacturing giant,but the article in China Daily is severely critical of the nations industrial development strategy. It says: Chinas economic growth strategy is still dependant on traditional technologies with a low value add. Chinas consumption of steel,bronze,aluminium,zinc and other metals for every 10,000 yuan of its GDP value is four to six times the world average. The countrys economic output per unit of resources is one twentieth of Japans.
The implicit message here is not to get too excited about exceeding Japans GDP because this has been achieved by very inefficient use of resources which is not sustainable in the long run. This,again,is a recurring theme in Chinas public policy discourse. Unfortunately,one has not seen such ruthlessly self-critical analysis of the nature of growth being pursued by India in the local media. When have you last seen our government releasing well-researched data on the resource intensity of our growth process,especially in comparison with the rest of the world?
Of late,there is also talk in Beijing about a calibrated opening up of the media domestically and to foreign participation. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has been talking about it in various forums. Again this is happening because of the aspiration for individual freedom that economic empowerment creates. The Chinese Communist Party (CPC) recognised this phenomenon at the celebration of the 30th anniversary of
Deng Xiaopings call for economic reforms. On the occasion last week,the CPC publicly conceded it was important to guarantee peoples democratic rights and their legitimate rights and interests. This could further strengthen the feedback mechanism of a society which is conducting one of the biggest transformative experiments in history.
The writer is Managing Editor,The Financial Express
mk.venu@expressindia.com
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