crazedmongoose

Argh this is such a difficult question for me because the China model is actually very very complex. Critics generally categorize it as "adopting capitalism without relinquishing political control", but that's only true to a degree. Though I follow it and am interested in it so much, I can't find you one single thing which may give a balanced view because to different people it means different things

To western leftists it is a betrayal of everything they stand for - for a communist party to engage in large scale capitalism without making any social or political progress.

To many third world regimes it means a way to achieve their selfish dream - to rule over a rich and independent country without any need to cede control, power or wealth.

To the Washington consensus it means a huge threat to democracy, because now you can attempt this program of economic liberalization without playing by the rules of being pro-democracy, pro-West and liberal.

To the IMF it means a threat because now China is setting up the BRICS bank and the Asia Development Bank which will allow string free loans to developing countries without playing by economic rationalist rules.

But then when we come to the actual origin of the China model - China itself, you see that the thinking becomes even more higher order and confusing.

To Chinese leftists like their flagship thinker Professor Cui Zhiyuan, it means a step towards socialism.

To some of the more arrogant members of the Chinese government it means a blueprint to sell to the world and project soft power, in the same way the US sold it's Washington consensus and Chicago School liberalization regimen.

If I were to personally sum up the Chinese model, and I think, if I'm allowed to be arrogant, that my version actually mirrors the architect of the model Deng Xiaoping, so it's like a purist view, the China model is this:

• "Seek truths from facts", this is an adage from Deng Xiaoping. It means to constantly be thinking and reflecting on both your successes and failures and to never let your ideology lead you to construct a version of facts that fits into it (I think, anybody used to a bipartisan democracy can see very well what he meant). The system must be self-evaluating and changing. Engaging in deception is fine, but you must never engage in self deception. Which leads to....

• Pragmatism. "It doesn't matter if it's a black cat or a white cat, if it catches mice it's a good cat" said Deng. Deng has fostered a culture of pragmatism and technocracy in the Chinese government. Rather than prescribe a universal solution like the US or USSR did, Deng and the other architects of the China model wanted people to assess the local unique situation and prescribe a custom solution. This is where some current Chinese leaders are deviating from the original vision, because they try to prescribe the China model as a universal solution. But in China itself, the original model which is largely intact, is still about the culture of evaluation, constant thinking, pragmatism and technocracy which leads to...

• A long vision. I'm going to follow up with another quote Deng favoured "for a virtuous man, ten years is not too long to seek revenge". This means you should always be taking the long view. It is not enough just to settle the problems of today - we have seen many capable dictators do just that - from Tito to Kruschev, only to have the system fall down around them when they're gone. You must be trying to design a habitat which can meet the problems after you're gone - problems you don't even know exist yet. Think about this, China has, for a developing country, taken steps unmatched by any other country of its relative poverty to combat climate change. This is a problem Deng could have never foreseen.

• Trial & Error. This is only really possible because China is a unitary state, but almost every Chinese policy is first trialed in a city or a province, in fact, at any one time there'll be hundreds of trials going on at city, county and provincial levels. These trials go from different taxation schemes, pollution reduction, city-planning, traffic congestion, foreign investment model, education model, price on carbon, democratic elections (yes you read that right) and even civil and social laws. China is a constantly evolving lab of petri-dishes and simulated programs. Good policies are adopted, bad policies are discarded. The process of learning and adapting never stops.

• Culture of debate. If there are two huge differences between the communists in China and the USSR, one is that in China they have managed to maintain the sense of destiny for 65 years - far longer than when the Soviets stopped believing that they were marching towards the end of history. But more importantly there's this: the CCP fosters a culture of debate, and unlike in the USSR useless apparatchiks can't be expected to get too far. Which sounds so funny and absurd to us in the West, given that we're talking about a one party autocracy which a history of brutal repression. But the CCP actually loves internal debate. This feeds into the culture of technocracy which feeds into the trial and error which feeds into the constant evaluation and redesign of the system.

Now, at the end of this I want to add something: the China model did not spring out of thin air. It's formation was also a complex thing and owes a lot to the earlier success of countries like Singapore, South Korea & Japan (especially Singapore which China eagerly borrowed from and still learns avidly from). What China showed however is that this model can be made to work on one of the largest and poorest countries in the world, and in modern history one of the hardest and most unstable places to govern in the world.

Generally the Chinese model is seen as the greatest chance of salvation for North Korean because China in the early 60's to mid 70's was somewhat like North Korea - huge economic instability & troubles and externally very threatened. The difference was that China was also politically very unstable.

The China model, which was unprecedented in history, allowed for the maintenance of political stability whilst economically improving themselves and avoiding chaos whilst defending themselves from external threats. It's seen as a realistic model now for many developing countries who are unsure of how to develop because the traditional western model where you transition to a free market and a democratic government is so fraught with risk and often leads to catastrophe. One prominent country that's generally seen to be adopting the China model is Vietnam.

Note that actually, people think that there is a world of difference between the China model and the South Korea model but I don't think there is. South Korea built up its economy in the 70's-80's during which it was still a fairly repressive dictatorship. It had political stability only thanks to the dictatorship and American military backing. They too implemented economic development before political liberalization. Whether they're just further along the curve than China, or whether China really has managed to to chart a completely seperate course, is up to debate.

Haha sorry I forgot that in my excitement I forgot to describe why some might view it as better than the Washington model.

I think this article from The Atlantic is not a bad way to be introduced to the China model, though I think it mischaracterizes what the China model is about a lot, and pushes an unnecessarily confrontational stance between China & America (I believe that if humanity is to progress China & America must co-exist as partners, and I see no reason why the Washington model and the Beijing model can't coexist, unlike Washington and Moscow which were diametrically opposed) but it does explain its appeal and expansion across the developing world.

http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/03/why-the-china-model-isnt-going-away/274237/

edit: so there's one part of this article already that I take issue with

(another problem with the China model is) a reliance on benign and wise autocrats for the China model to work, which is hardly a given -- for every Deng Xiaoping, the politically savvy and foresighted architect of China's economic reforms, one could find ten Mobutu Sese Sekos or Kim Jong Ils.

Having gone through Mao, China knows more than anybody the dangers of leaving your country up to the whims of one man. So significant steps are taken to counteract this possibility. For example - no Chinese leader is allowed to build a cult of personality, the party and state as a whole unit must have primacy over any leader. Next - the country is always ruled by a council of seven, with representatives from major internal and vibrant factions from the CCP, known as the "Politburo Standing Committee" which generally puts things up for votes. Party officials are slowly voted up from the local levels to weed out incompetence and erratic-ness. There is an expectation for party officials to be supremely well educated for them to get anywhere. Before promotion to national leadership promising party officials are made to head up cities and provinces to see how they'll do (for example, the current President of China Xi Jinping was at one point running the now highly successful city of Xiamen) and thus can mediocre ones be weeded out before they advance too far. Even among the so called "red nobility" - the powerful political families whose roots trace back to the early days of the revolution which produces generations after generations of leaders, no single family takes primacy and no single son or daughter of these families are considered untouchable (the recently purged party boss Bo Xilai is the son of the one of the oldest and most illustrious political dynasties in China). You may see the Romneys or the Kennedys in the political sphere of China - but you will never see the Assads or the Kims.

Off the top of my head, a few trials going on right now:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Free-Trade_Zone

They're trying to make half of Shanghai into essentially a very liberal and business friendly space, including less restrictions on currency exchange, foreign investment as well as less internet restrictions.

Another current example is the price on carbon, which ranging from Emissions Trading Schemes to direct carbon price is trialed in seven administrative divisions (covering hundreds and millions of people and a huge GDP).

One interesting legal example (here the mutability and party control of China's judiciary comes in) is an attempt in the city of Shenzhen to trial a Good Samaritan law (though last I saw this proposed law was fucking awful, instead of protecting Good Samaritans from legal liability they want to criminalize non-good Samaritans)

But as I said, there's good reason this program of trial and error is impossible to most countries - China's a unitary state, not a federation. That means what the government says goes without any real checks and balances from the provinces and cities. In the US you would get into constitutional issues really quickly.

I don't want to give the impression that I think China's model is better than Western models, I just want to explain what it's appeal is and why it is more complex than generally understood.

So I want to mention a couple of things:

I think in China you have to judge whoever governs it by the aggregate. The Communist Party's achievement comes from the Human Development Index, the increased life expectancy, the reduced infant mortality, increased women's rights, increased literacy rates, huge reduction of absolute poverty etc. It's been about 50 years since there was a huge famine in China and that in itself is an impressive achievement. This should be weighed, and separately from all the CCP's wrongdoings which I'm sure you're familiar with.

The individual's lives.....well go to China and see for yourself I'd say. But the amount of government interference on the average individual's lives isn't huge. The CCP more or less allows or can't be bothered to repress freedom of speech, expression or religion (unless you're Falun Gun). Freedom of movement is becoming vastly better with the rapid abolition of the hukou system.

I'll say this for China - every expat I know including myself (I'm not there anymore, but I was before) often joke about "China having too much freedom", and it's really hard to explain but every.one.of.us.makes.these.jokes. It's just something you have to get down there to see. If China is meant to be an omniscient repressive police state then it's very terrible at being one.

They're like anybody else - people have good or bad lives, try to make the best of what they can, they have up and downs and generally remain very upbeat. That's one thing that is amazing about Asia in general - the optimism. "Oh sure I just lost my multi-million dollar business and now I sell kebabs at a snack stand, but you watch! I'm saving up for my daughter's college and bribery fund and have hired her the best tutor, in twenty years she'll be wealthy like I was!"