What China Thinks

Recently, I had been reading a book called What China Thinks, by Mark Leonard, who traveled around China for a few years talking to Chinese intellectuals and is now the director of European Council on Foreign Relations, a pan-European think-tank. As Leonard mentions in the introduction, while China's significance has increased on the global stage, we tend to focus mostly on its explosive economic growth, and little on the ideas and philosophies of mainland intellectuals. Names of intellectuals like Wang Hui, Zhang Weiying, Yan Xuetong, and Cui Zhiyuan are virtually unknown in the West. Leonard argues that this ignorance to the current developing trends in Chinese thought are costly and causes misunderstandings in East-West international relations.

I found the book to be quite thought-provoking. Some notes:

1) One of the reasons for China's dramatic economic growth has been its ability to successfully transition from its planned economy to a market economy, via the "dual-track" methodology. Leonard mentions in the book one of the intellectual likes to explain via the following story:

In one particular village, the elders tell all the villagers that zebras are evil and horses are good, hardworking animals. However, over time, it was discovered that zebras really are more efficient than horses. Having imprinted the fact that zebras are evil in the minds of the villagers, the elders decided that instead of suddenly proclaiming the benefits of zebras, they would secretly paint some of the horses with black stripes. When the villagers discovered these black-striped horses and mistakened them for zebras, the elders would reassure them they were not evil zebras, but are horses, just painted with black stripes. Pretty soon, the villagers would get used to seeing black-striped horses in the village, and soon later it was not too difficult to mix in actual zebras with the black-striped horses. In time, the more efficient zebras would replace all the black-striped horses without much fuss.

Similarly, China has steathily, incrementally moved from its communist, command economy with fixed prices to one where the market determines the price. The Communist Party still exists and retains its ideology, but in practice China has become more and more capitalistic. This contrasts with the Soviet Union when they pursued "shock therapy" reform policies, with spectacular failure. The lesson learned is that economic reform should come before political reform, and economic reform should be done incrementally rather than all at once. This contrasts with the ways of the West, where political reform often is sought first, and wholesale changes to the economy are done in batch.

To me, this seems to make a great deal of sense - after all, as consultants, when we try to implement something new in our client engagements, often times we set up a pilot program first to have an opportunity to make minor tweaks before rolling it out everywhere. You usually don't go from concept to practice in one breath whether you are rolling out a new campaign, writing new software, or engineering new projects; it seems to me rather irresponsible and unscientific for political leaders to do so with regards to political and economic reform.


2) One of the questions the book raises is whether the democracy is really the one and only path for a modern government to take, and it speculates on the possibility that China may find an viable and sustainable alternative to Western liberal democracies. As one Chinese intellectual argues, the most pressing issue for citizens is not who should run the government, but how the government is run. In the West, how the leaders of government are chosen give them their legitimacy, but most times it seems the constituents are less than satisfied with the decisions of the politicians they they elect to office. The argument goes further and contends that political decisions should flow from pragmatic, scientific evaluation of social problems rather than higher- level ideologies and principles. In essence, picking the leaders of a government should be more like the hiring process a board of directors goes through, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of candidates for executive positions. Competency is more important than ideology.

In fact, another Chinese intellectual argues that Western developed nations are prosperous and stable not because of Democracy, but because of Rule of Law, and constantly chides Westerners for misunderstanding their own political systems. In fact, he argues that Democracy and Rule of Law are in constant conflict with each other. Democracy gives power to the people, but Rule of Law puts limits on that power. Democracy makes laws, while the Rule of Law is about enforcing them. Democracy involves electing officials like congressmen, legislators, presidents, governors, and mayors, while Rule of Law involves appointing officials such as civil servants, judges, and auditors. Democracy is draws its legitimacy from popular appeal, where as Rule of Law derives it from entrance exams and performance reviews. It is, in fact, competency and meritocracy that keeps a government going, not populism and majority rule. In essence, the key ingredient in a successful government may not involve Democracy at all.

In these past few decades, the Chinese government has, objectively speaking, done a very admirable job in running the country, despite not using a democratic system and offering freedoms similar to those found in Western countries. It is in some sense, more like a benevolent dictatorship than anything else. And it needs to continue to do so, in order to maintain its grip on the country. This begs the question, is it perhaps better if a government's legitimacy comes not from how it is put into office, but from how good of a job it does while it is in office? Is the best government a government that fears for itself, fears for its existence if it does not serve the interest of its people? If a convict escapes, and hides amongst the populace by pretending to be "good" and must do so for the rest of his existence to prevent capture, then is he not as decent as his neighbor, even if he is "evil" at heart? And in traditional Chinese political thought, as long as a government has the "Mandate of Heaven" and serves the interests of its people, isn't it legitimate, regardless of who it is? Perhaps there is some form of meritocratic government that must be better than democracy. After all, we know in democracy that the masses are not always right, that special interests tend to wield disproportionate powers, and campaigns are turning more and more into a scientific process on how some member of the political elite behave to best pander to various demographics. There ought to be a better way.

In the US, we seemed to be sometimes brainwashed to believe in democracy, without giving it enough critical thought. It's not to say schools are to blame - every country inherently imparts some of its national ideologies and philosophies into the classroom. However, I look back on the campaign speeches given in the US, and more and more, this idea of democracy seems to be a rallying point to build consensus across all sorts of peoples, a way to induce American nationalism. America is proclaimed to be "great" because of Democracy; it is the "reason" why we were attacked during 9/11. Undemocratic nations are inherently "evil" and we must crusade onwards until they see the light. And so while I am not advocating for a change to any sort of non-democratic government, I think, especially in this critical juncture in history, it is important for Americans to critically reexamine the ideas for what constitutes a "good" government.