>>Thanks for answering my post. With regards to "complaining to foreigners" not solving anything, let me say that for the most parts our complaining about US policies does not change anything either. Forums like SI are so that people can educate themselves and understand the big picture. If the goal is to "solve" problems, you should run for an office. So I think it is helpful and appreciated if you can bring about an understanding of Chinese issues and Chinese way of thinking.<<
You’re welcome, and I will try to make some comment when I have time. You sure ask some good questions, and I am not sure I have right answer to them.
>>I have a lot respect for what China has accomplished, but I am not sure how they have done it. This is something that I really like to study. <<
Personally, I think several things contribute to the rapid economic development in China.
1) effective population control thus freeing up a lot of money into economic development, which would have been used to set up more school, more health care system if let the population increase exponentially.
2) the one-party system in China also contributes a lot to the rapid economic development, believe it or not. A lot of things are getting done much faster and more effectively under one-party system. Just like a big corp. can only have one CEO. Every five year, the central gov. set up a concrete 5-year economic development plan, and follow it closely. The macro-economic policy is also more stable under one-party system, which is very important for the steady economic development.
3) Planning market economy instead of laissez fire market economy (if the US had had a little planning in 90’s boom, that would not left so much pain/over-capacities to absorb now).
4) Low taxation system for both enterprises (especially foreign direct investment) and individuals (this has drawback too, the government has no enough money to invest into health care system and educational system).
5) Dramatic downsizing the central/provincial government organization, and much less bureaucracy and red tape. Although I do not have the figure now, but the ratio between gov. employees and total population is for sure much lower then the ratio in the US.
6) Less regulations (compared to the US) to bound the economic development (telecommunication would be a good example, high-bandwidth Internet access, and may be wireless, has been developed faster than in the US, where there are too much regulations)
7) Emphasizing the basic science research in a lot of scientific fields and a good foundation has been laid up ever since 1950s.
8) Strong tradition of emphasizing on learning/knowledge/education over the 2000+ years of history. Expensive private schools now is more and more popular in China.
9) Willingness of individual self-sacrifice for the collective/national benefit
10) Business-savvy, especially southern Chinese, and thrifty virtue
11) self-reliance and competitive attitude and very strong national pride.
12) Historical tradition for friendly trading, from 200BC the Chinese brought language and textile technology to Japan, to 600AD Silk Road, to early 15th Century ZhengHe Voyages
I guess there are others. But these are ones I can think of now.
>>It is easy to see what you call consistent and pragmatic approach of the government and its "non-interference" doctrine. What is not so easy to see is how this is being accomplished. Many countries in the world would love to be left alone. But so far this has alluded all, even the former USSR, and China stands alone in this regards (actually Israel is another example but that is too special a case). <<
1) geographic location of China and highly homogeneous ethnic population (90% or so Han majority) are beneficial, if not decisive. Former USSR had 15 separate republics/ethnic groups.
2) Chinese do not like to follow the prototype of other systems. They would like to absorb them, and reform it according to its own situation.
3) Consistent foreign policies would make China more credible in meaning what it says, especially after Korean War and Vietnam War.
4) And even if during 1840-1949, the most humiliating period in Chinese history, China had not been colonized completely, not like India.
>>It seems that China has found a set of mechanisms that prevents outside influence on internal dissent while at the same time manages to ease internal tensions and bring about progress. The details of what motivates the government and how they shape these movements is a mystery to me and I am hoping you can shed some light on this.<<
Outside influence has never been popular in modern China’s history. And it is not hard to understand why by looking at the 110-year Chinese history between Opium War and 1949. Weakness to outside/foreign influence is viewed by the majority of Chinese as “yield” to foreign power, so it is very unpopular. I think Deng Xiaoping said once the most unforgivable thing the Chinese gov. can do for Chinese people is to yield to pressure from outside (not his exact word but meaning). As a result, it is not hard to prevent outside influence for Chinese gov.
As for the internal dissent and tensions: there wasn’t much internal dissent and tensions among the Chinese people before the Cultural revolution. Yes, there were all kinds of political movement bet. 1950 and 1965, but the target of those movement were almost always the minority intellectuals, and party leaders. And those political movement (plenty of people did not realize) were just a mechanism for keeping CCP from corruption of power. Mao himself did not like rule of law, so political movement was the only mean to keep party leaders from corruption, and thus the party in the ruling position. Although most people agreed that those movement often times wronged some good people, and over-scaled. I guess one could call it as “collective damage”. Officials corruption was very rare before 1966, and it was pretty much absolute equalitarianism. Even if Mao Zedong or Liu ShaoQi’s salary was only about 8 or 9 times higher than a new college graduates. The corruption among CCP members has only been a problem after late 1970s, and thus the internal dissent and tensions.
But generally speaking, majority of Chinese are not asking too much from the gov. It seems that most Chinese realize that it is NOT easy to govern a country with such a big population, and limited resource. And there is no tradition of rule of law. Having said that, the current trend of high unemployment rate, if not deal with properly, that would means a lot of tension. That is why the gov., in this new 5-year national economic development plan put creating jobs as the national priority.
Now in cities, basically, many people retire at the age 53 and they can have 90% of or so their regular pay, enough to make a good living for most of people who have jobs. Some have choice, but some do not, but even if those who have a choice in whether retiring, they would not get too much pay even if they work longer. The difficult party are those who have retired much earlier, who have been unemployed, and who are middle-aged, and no proper education. Although they do have some money from the gov., but they would have to find some other jobs to make a living. Many of them just work as a small vendors. So for these people, deflation, which has been going on in China for the last 3 years or so, is not a bad thing.
>>As to your list of dislikes, let me just say that those who come to China from outside, be it foreigners or the Chinese graduates of foreign universities, would not be in China if they did not have the privileges that they have. The real issue is can China provide the same privileges to its local population? And my guess is it cannot.<<
I think in terms of equal treatment for Ph.D graduates, is only a matter of gov. policy. Because, in many cases, the quality of Ph.D programs in China is just as good, maybe better in some cases, as the Ph.D programs in developed countries. And that is why still a lot of college graduates want to go abroad to study. They call it “get gilded” abroad. And they will be better off after returning to China.
Hope these help. |
