Posted on 08/03/2004 5:31:47 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
China: The center cannot hold
By Li YongYan
BEIJING - The West has often referred to China as the Middle Kingdom, in a mild mockery of Chinese emperors' illusion that their land occupied the middle location on the flat and square earth. Actually, the name has another, more accurate interpretation that has escaped Western observers: China also means central state. The "Middle Kingdom" is a misnomer because the central authorities don't know, or care, as much about the world outside their empire as about the provinces within their borders.
The central state functions like the central nervous system that issues orders to outlying localities on matters great and small. As the kingdom grows larger and the number and complexity of various affairs - military, administrative, economic and judicial - become too large, some of the administrative powers have to be delegated to local officials, starting the perpetual tug-of-war between the central authority, which fears losing control, and locals who want to have more autonomy. When the "center" becomes weak due to political incest, inaction, indulgence or just plain incompetence, the provinces get increasingly aggressive and keep pushing the envelope to expand their own powers.
Yet the center has managed to hold the state together. For the past two millenniums, dynasties and regimes have succeeded one another, but the fact that the central state has not disintegrated, except on a few short occasions, is an amazing testament to the strength of the glue, the political cement, despite the diverse and often conflicting interests in the vast land. The formula - punishing dissent and rewarding loyalty - is no secret, but consistently effective. It was then, and remains so today.
However, when the central state issues a public warning against disobedience, it can only mean one thing: the threat to centralization is too strong to be ignored any longer.
On May 29, the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's official mouthpiece, ran an editorial blasting recalcitrant officials for violating restrictions on the continued investment in certain industries.
'Cool down' decrees fall on deaf ears What happened is that, with energy and transportation sectors already bursting at the seams under the deluge of investment in industries such as steel, cement and real estate, and with bad debts piling higher on banks' books, Beijing tried to rein in the runaway enthusiasm, issuing a moratorium on further investment in those key industries. The central state's decree fell on deaf ears. Local governments kept pouring money into these booming sectors. First-quarter investment in infrastructure jumped another 47%. Infuriated, Beijing resorted to the one method that it finds most handy and proves most effective - it sacked the party secretary of one city that is home to a steel mega-project.
That would have been the end of the story. By tradition, all officials, all newspapers, experts and academics would sing along about the "necessity and wisdom" of the center's decisions, until the next wave of opportunities present themselves or a new crop of enterprising, opportunistic officials grow up.
But in a sign of changing times, some newspapers have aired opinions criticizing the central decisions as coming too late, being too arbitrary, too simplistic and ill-advised.
China Business Daily on May 9 reported that thanks to unstoppable rumors about implementation of macro-policies, panic is setting in and that damage has been done: in 17 trading days, Shanghai's stocks index dropped 200 points. Commodities prices such as copper, rubber and soybeans also lost a lot of ground. Even the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index's dive under 12,000 points was blamed on Beijing. The paper went on to quote the president of the finance school of the Northeast Finance University as warning against an over-drastic adjustment under the current pressure of unemployment and the reform of state-owned enterprises. Dr Huang Jinlao, head of domestic financial research at Bank of China, agreed, saying that administrative measures should be avoided as much as possible, because it is up to the banks to decide where to invest, free from government intervention.
Local governments, too, tried to make themselves heard through sympathetic media. A Jilin provincial official told Economy Magazine that some of the central government policies are not very reasonable, because the decision-makers are too high above, and too far away, to have a clear grasp of everything at the grassroots level. The southern Yunnan province believes its economy is lagging too far behind the rest of the country. So investment into the "western" area should be increased rather than decreased. "The problem is that investment in our province is not hot enough," the magazine quoted the locals as saying.
In a May 11 article, the Chinese Enterprise Association made a veiled criticism of the "braking policy". It called attention to "two disadvantages of the administrative measures" adopted by the government: 1) The government is suspected of returning to a command economy, contrary to its own overarching market reforms. And 2) Government controls may harm the healthy parts of economic growth and add to volatility.
Scathing attacks on economic policies The most scathing attack came in the No 18 issue of Beijing-based biweekly, Outlook, which pointed out that macro-control measures aimed at regulating the speed of the economy "missed the point" because deceleration, like acceleration, addresses only the rate rather than the performance and efficiency of economic growth.
To outsiders, scientific, economic and particularly political issues are all very debatable. No government is stupid enough to step out and tell the public that it knows best and always does it right. But here in central state, the public has an obligation to believe in the wisdom of the authorities who make sure that the only voice it hears is its own. So when Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward, media were full of testimonials by prominent scientists confirming that grain production could increase 90 times in one year. The same officials who only yesterday vowed to "carry the Cultural Revolution through to the end" would later condemn it as a wrongful purge after Deng Xiaoping came back and took charge.
To dance to the central tune was not only essential for advancement but also necessary for survival. Of the handful that voiced skepticism toward central policies, none came to a good end. Mao persecuted his two defense ministers and one president of China to death. Deng placed the Communist Party's general secretary Zhao Ziyang under house arrest from June 4, 1989, when he supported pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. Former president Jiang Zemin outlawed a quasi-religious sect, the Falungong, for breathing differently. So this unprecedented vocal disagreement with the central's economic policies is truly revolutionary, testing the limits of the current central state leadership that has done nothing yet to inspire fear, and consequent obedience.
The fact that people have been ignoring the central state and have not lost their freedom or lives will embolden further decentralization toward not only more economic autonomy but also political choices. Meanwhile, an increasingly endangered central government will be forced to rely more heavily on "administrative controls" to keep itself from collapse. Until a federal definition of obligations and rights is established between national and local governments and the transition to a market economy is complete, this war of attrition will continue.
Li YongYan is an analyst of Chinese business, economics and politics.
Ping!
China is not the only nation which had illusion that is the center of the world.
BTW, the center of everything is God Himself.
I thought it was because there were multiple Chinese Kingdoms, and the one that consolidated the other two was known as the Middle Kingdom.
blam? You've got the maps.
Boy, wait until the Chinese bubble bursts.
They didn't start allowing credit cards because their capitalists, all of a sudden.
It's because they're trying expansion and don't realize what's at the other end of the rainbow.
Expect 'Money Stores' and ditech.com to expand over there soon. ;-)
Can't find'em.
"China,
The center cannot hold"
And everywhere the blood-dimmed tide is loosed.
The best lack all conviction
and the worse are full of passionate intensity.
(sorry, Wm. Butler Yeats, but your scary lines fit Tiananmen Square and similar events)
and the worst are full of passionate intensity.
(for crying out loud).
It's pleasing to see.
The winner of the Warring States conflicts was a northern kingdom.
"The West has often referred to China as the Middle Kingdom, in a mild mockery of Chinese emperors' illusion that their land occupied the middle location on the flat and square earth."
Well I don't know too many Chinese ideograms, but one I do know is one of the two that make up the word "China". It is a rectangular box transected by a vertical line. It means "middle". I have seen it by itself on "medium" [pet klang] Thai chili sauce, to indicate "medium". So, the reason why it's called the middle kingdom is because that's what it's called, not because of "mockery."
Was just reflecting on that event this morning. When the bubble bursts, it will return and another revolution will occur. It might not be as non-eventful as Russia's recent overturning of Communism. Pressure will build as China's need for oil increases, just a matter of time.
'Pressure will build as China's need for oil increases, just a matter of time.'
"Turning and turning in a widening gyre..."
Yes, It was the 'need' for oil that drove Japan's territorial expansion in the 1930's and 40's...
That's right. Shortages of natural resources. That was the case for Germany also, mainly oil.
"The formula - punishing dissent and rewarding loyalty - is no secret, but consistently effective. It was then, and remains so today."
This author doesn't know anything about China. How can he concluded that the amazing fact of the 2000-year integration of China being just "punishing dissent and rewarding loyalty"? He can never explain why in history, when disintegrated into equally powered kingdoms, China finally reunited. He cannot explain why Mongolian and Manchurian, after successfully invaded China, amazingly became Chinese themselves or retreated. Every emperor in history did push dissent and reward loyalty, why only china survive?
To me, I feel that it is the Chinese culture that binds the chinese together. Although there is no god for chinese people, and no so-called religion, there are certain rules that all chinese people follow, i.e. how youngers should behave infront of elders, how teachers should behave infront of students, etc. Most of these rules were concluded in the Confucius doctrine, which developed years after years. Confucianism seems very different from other religions and very powerful at binding the Chinese together.
Great. So, in about
two hundred years, Christians won't
get thrown into jail . . .
Because "one China" is a religion. Having a same culture is not enough. European countries have almost same cultures. However, they do not unite into another Roman Empire again and again.
"One China" is a absolute creed which should be upheld even with tens of millions' blood. Whenever a new Chinese dynasty rose, half or two thirds of population died during the bloody struggle among aspiring new leaders(emperors.) It is not a nice benign culture but a bloody Jihad which binds China into one. Otherwise, China would be like Europe now.
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