Refreshing and largely convincing analysis, but still China is breaking treaty commitments over Hong Kong, treating some of its minorities very badly indeed, and threatening to invade Taiwan and conquer islands to control sea lanes. The dangers are real.
J Bryant
2 years ago
Great article. This certainly isn’t the view of the CCP and its planning capability we routinely see reported in the mainstream media. China is very good at controlling information about its government and society.
I’d love to see an article about what it’s like to be a western journalist in China. Are you followed by the secret police? Are you granted interviews with local or national government officials? Can you travel freely? Is your reporting subject to review and censorship?
Jonathan Ellman
2 years ago
I find this quite convincing. I think our misjudgement in the West is of our own planning and organisational capacities, which since Covid and now the Afghanistan withdrawal have been revealed as just as confused and chaotic as the Chinese.
Ed Cameron
2 years ago
Hmmm… not sure about this.
Interesting language: “cohering mechanisms”, linked with “punishment”. Enforced coherence, then. Lovely.
And that’s punishment in a ‘judicial’ system with very predictable results. One not only used by the CCP against the corrupt, some of whom are fitted up, and many of whom are not cadres.
With every investment in a foreign country, no matter how uncoordinated, the CCP can claim another national interest to defend.
Last edited 2 years ago by Ed Cameron
Norman Powers
2 years ago
Hmm. Great and thought provoking article indeed. This is the sort of stuff that makes Unherd a daily must read. I wish I had something insightful to contribute but I don’t – will need to ponder this deeply
I do hope all of this is true – but is it only true for today?
If there is a very long term strategy then we may just be at the stage where they are creating new systems so that they can control everything from the center – such as with the social credit system?
If you can get to a point where a single office can determine who can travel and who is allowed a bank account, internet access, or mobile phone – then everyone can be reigned in to the central strategy.
LCarey Rowland
2 years ago
Lee, this is an incredibly enlightening explanation; it ties a lot of loose ends together. It makes sense.
I visited China in 2009, when my son was working there for a consulting company.
Many of the apparent differences between the Maoist indoctrinators and Deng reformists have been at work for, lo, these many years since 1949.
Here’s one way of putting China into perspective, at least for a yank such as myself.
We Americans had our revolution in the 18th-century. China had theirs in the 20th-century. (You Brits had yours, I suppose, in the 13th-century.)
Our revolution was based upon a supposed Enlightenment, guided by Adam Smith, Hobbes, Mill, Franklin, Jefferson etc.
Chinese revolution was a post-Marx, post Lenin rearrangement.
We began with an emphasis of liberty and free enterprise.
The Chinese began with an emphasis on redistribution.
In classic Hegelian fulfillment,Chinese revolutionaries synthesized the dichotomy between our liberty-seeking and their equality-seeking.
But in the bottom line, it’s all about equality of opportunity, toward which the Chinese appear to be moving, while on this side of the Pacific, our seasoned activists strive to tweak our reforms toward equality of outcome.
Go figure. In the end, only the truly-enlightened Brits have the historical wherewithal to advise in such matters of international import, because the sun never sets on the British (whatever it is that you have now.)
Cheerio! and Nihau. Thanks, Lee, for posting your well-informed perspective on UnHerd..
David Simpson
2 years ago
A very helpful and thought provoking piece, thank you
Julian Farrows
2 years ago
the often-dreadful state of China’s public lavatories
I can readily testify to this. Having come off the plane, my friend met me and took me to the city park. True to form, after eating airplane food and finding myself in sudden tropical heat, my stomach rebelled against me. After a grim fifteen minute march through the park, I finally found a public lavatory. It was a hole in the ground with no toilet paper. Thankfully there was a woman selling toilet paper by the sheet. After throwing some money at her and snatching the entire roll, I was able to finally relieve myself. It was a truly unpleasant experience, but one in which I learned to carry toilet paper around during my travels in China.
Christopher Bradley
2 years ago
A very convincing article which reinforces my experience as a tourist in China, we encountered fairly open cynicism and criticism of government. Equally we also saw many empty Tower blocks with no lights at night. Beijing railway station had over 20 High speed trains waiting at platforms with no sign of passengers. Capital equipment seemed to be very underused. Yards with many lorries, excavators and cranes standing idle.
There is however a discernable strand of xenophobic racism.
George Wells
2 years ago
$3bn on toilet upgrades over the next 18 months – as there are 1.4 billion Chinese, this is just over $1 each annually – this is not a lot of money. If UnHerd is commissing articles from Professors of ‘Political Economy’ – please find one who can count.
Refreshing and largely convincing analysis, but still China is breaking treaty commitments over Hong Kong, treating some of its minorities very badly indeed, and threatening to invade Taiwan and conquer islands to control sea lanes. The dangers are real.
Great article. This certainly isn’t the view of the CCP and its planning capability we routinely see reported in the mainstream media. China is very good at controlling information about its government and society.
I’d love to see an article about what it’s like to be a western journalist in China. Are you followed by the secret police? Are you granted interviews with local or national government officials? Can you travel freely? Is your reporting subject to review and censorship?
I find this quite convincing. I think our misjudgement in the West is of our own planning and organisational capacities, which since Covid and now the Afghanistan withdrawal have been revealed as just as confused and chaotic as the Chinese.
Hmmm… not sure about this.
Interesting language: “cohering mechanisms”, linked with “punishment”. Enforced coherence, then. Lovely.
And that’s punishment in a ‘judicial’ system with very predictable results. One not only used by the CCP against the corrupt, some of whom are fitted up, and many of whom are not cadres.
With every investment in a foreign country, no matter how uncoordinated, the CCP can claim another national interest to defend.
Hmm. Great and thought provoking article indeed. This is the sort of stuff that makes Unherd a daily must read. I wish I had something insightful to contribute but I don’t – will need to ponder this deeply
Me too!
I do hope all of this is true – but is it only true for today?
If there is a very long term strategy then we may just be at the stage where they are creating new systems so that they can control everything from the center – such as with the social credit system?
If you can get to a point where a single office can determine who can travel and who is allowed a bank account, internet access, or mobile phone – then everyone can be reigned in to the central strategy.
Lee, this is an incredibly enlightening explanation; it ties a lot of loose ends together. It makes sense.
I visited China in 2009, when my son was working there for a consulting company.
Many of the apparent differences between the Maoist indoctrinators and Deng reformists have been at work for, lo, these many years since 1949.
Here’s one way of putting China into perspective, at least for a yank such as myself.
We Americans had our revolution in the 18th-century. China had theirs in the 20th-century. (You Brits had yours, I suppose, in the 13th-century.)
Our revolution was based upon a supposed Enlightenment, guided by Adam Smith, Hobbes, Mill, Franklin, Jefferson etc.
Chinese revolution was a post-Marx, post Lenin rearrangement.
We began with an emphasis of liberty and free enterprise.
The Chinese began with an emphasis on redistribution.
In classic Hegelian fulfillment,Chinese revolutionaries synthesized the dichotomy between our liberty-seeking and their equality-seeking.
But in the bottom line, it’s all about equality of opportunity, toward which the Chinese appear to be moving, while on this side of the Pacific, our seasoned activists strive to tweak our reforms toward equality of outcome.
Go figure. In the end, only the truly-enlightened Brits have the historical wherewithal to advise in such matters of international import, because the sun never sets on the British (whatever it is that you have now.)
Cheerio! and Nihau. Thanks, Lee, for posting your well-informed perspective on UnHerd..
A very helpful and thought provoking piece, thank you
I can readily testify to this. Having come off the plane, my friend met me and took me to the city park. True to form, after eating airplane food and finding myself in sudden tropical heat, my stomach rebelled against me. After a grim fifteen minute march through the park, I finally found a public lavatory. It was a hole in the ground with no toilet paper. Thankfully there was a woman selling toilet paper by the sheet. After throwing some money at her and snatching the entire roll, I was able to finally relieve myself. It was a truly unpleasant experience, but one in which I learned to carry toilet paper around during my travels in China.
A very convincing article which reinforces my experience as a tourist in China, we encountered fairly open cynicism and criticism of government. Equally we also saw many empty Tower blocks with no lights at night. Beijing railway station had over 20 High speed trains waiting at platforms with no sign of passengers. Capital equipment seemed to be very underused. Yards with many lorries, excavators and cranes standing idle.
There is however a discernable strand of xenophobic racism.
$3bn on toilet upgrades over the next 18 months – as there are 1.4 billion Chinese, this is just over $1 each annually – this is not a lot of money. If UnHerd is commissing articles from Professors of ‘Political Economy’ – please find one who can count.
How many public toilets do you think each person needs exactly?
Makes me think of how the British empire operated.