CHINA’S THINKING

Sep 02, 2008 Editorial

The unquestioned material accomplishments of China over the last thirty years were highlighted during the recent Olympics, but what changes have been wrought in the thinking of their new elites?

This question was recently examined by the writer Mark Leonard in his book, “What does China Think?” He identifies three spheres of active debate amongst Chinese intellectuals – economic development, political development and the question of China’s national power and its role in global politics. All three dimensions, he concludes are leading to the emergence of an exclusive and novel world centred on China, which the author defines as China’s ‘walled world’.

On the economic realm, there is intense questioning of the uncritical stance of the “open door” policy, implemented by Deng Xiaoping, and countered by proposals of an alternative modernity, dominated by Chinese features. It is acknowledged that widespread inequality and environmental damage have been created following the embrace of free-market economic policies.

Additionally, the uncritical acceptance and imitation of the western model has done much damage to the social fabric of Chinese society. The development gap between mainland and coastal China is one conspicuous example.

China, the consensus suggests, needs to (re)evaluate the principles of free market economics and refine them to provide social welfare, health and education with effective government intervention.

In the political realm, experiments in democracy and democratic governance are on the rise in China. The Chinese intellectual, Yu Keping, an informal adviser to President Hu Jintao, has suggested the notion of ‘incremental democracy’, which ‘rejects a big bang of political reform in favour of gradualist change from the bottom up’.

It entails that village committees and local party cadres are elected rather than selected and that the people have a greater voice in the management of the socio-political system. A Chinese academic, to explain the difference between the Western model of democracy and democracy of the Chinese variety, has put a culinary analogy forth.

He ‘compared democracy in the West to a fixed-menu restaurant where customers can select the identity of their chef, but have no say in what dishes he chooses to cook for them. Chinese democracy, on the other hand, always involves the same chef — the Communist Party — but the policy dishes which are served up can be chose a la carte’.

In terms of national power, the Chinese appear determined to transcend Deng Xiaoping’s dictum ‘bide our time and build our capabilities’, which proposed that China’s weak domestic standing had to be turned on its head by embarking on a policy of economic development.

The economic miracle achieved, the Chinese have now turned on the question of national power. Unlike the hegemonic premise that undergirded the national power of the United States and the former Soviet Union with their respective military alliances, however, China’s is not to be based on domination. Rather, according to one Chinese academic, it will be based on building bridges of cooperation and peace rather than division and conflict.

One line of Chinese academics repeatedly emphasise “soft power” as opposed to “hard power”: the ability to influence others in ways so they desire what the Chinese desire rather than through compulsion. This thinking has found favour with the power elite as evidenced by the plans of the Chinese Ministry of Education to establish one hundred ‘Confucius Institutes’ on the lines of the Goethe Institute and British Council, to teach Chinese as well as promote Chinese culture.

The economic and political internal logic and the concept of national power cogitated on very vigorously within the intellectual class of China is producing what the author terms “China’s walled world”. This “walled world” is contrasted to the ‘flat world’ of American globalisation and hegemony.

The implications of the ‘walled world’, marking China’s overall progress to become a superpower inevitably demand that ‘western policy-makers will need to adapt their own ideas if they want to promote and protect their liberal values’.

Leonord concludes, in this Huntingtonian formulation, that the relationship between the western liberal world versus China’s walled world will be a major feature of global politics in the future. Will the rest of the world, including Guyana, be forced to choose sides?

Latest News

CHINA’S THINKING

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| March, 17th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

GPF arrests Presidential Guards by 48 runs as cricket action gets...

Superbet supports One Guyana 3×3 Quest

FIDE Master Drayton outclasses strong competition...

Wiltshire, Chris dominoes tourney set for March

Houston Sec’, New Central, Saints sent packing

Charles’ all-round performance helps EBDCA U23...

Features/Columnists

“One Guyana” is no less a national slogan than “Green Guyana”

If Guyana’s President Ali is the “Zelensky of the Caribbean”, who is the Putin?

Partner v. investor

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

CHINA’S THINKING

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| March, 17th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]