The Mountains Are High and the Emperor is Far Away

Martin Wolf discusses the political and economic future of China and the growing tension he foresees between the goals of those in power and the goals of society:

China’s autocracy of bureaucrats, by Martin Wolf, Commentary, Financial Times: What happens when a communist autocracy presides over a dynamic market economy? Do they live together happily ever after or does one destroy the other?

A visit to Beijing last week, combined with reading the thought-provoking new book by Minxin Pei ..., an American scholar of Chinese origins, has persuaded me to raise these questions. But they have been bubbling in my mind since I read S.E. Finer’s illuminating discussion of the history of China’s government. What emerges from this masterpiece is how much today’s party-state is just another imperial dynasty in twentieth century guise.

Finer summarised the contrast between the ideology of the Ch’in state, which unified China 2,200 years ago, and of the Greek and Roman republics, which are the west’s ancestors, as follows: “Collective and mutual responsibility, not individualism; authoritarianism, paternalism and absolutism, not self-determination; inequality and hierarchy, not equality before the law; subjects not citizens; duties not rights.” Who, reading this list, can fail to recognise its continued relevance?...

In imperial China, strong rulers could subject the bureaucrats to their will. This was easiest in the early years of a dynasty. Sooner or later, however, the bureaucrats pushed the emperor into a ritual role: ossification then ensued. ...

“The mountains are high and the emperor is far away.” This well-known saying captures what so often happened. When the emperor was weak, it became difficult to reach decisions. Officials looked after themselves and their families. Infirmity of purpose, corruption and an inability to protect the empire itself ensued. Sooner or later the dynasty fell, to be replaced by another, often after a period of chaos.

Using the analytical machinery of political science, Mr Pei describes today’s “dynasty” as being in just such a period of bureaucratic ossification. He points to the emergence of a “decentralised predatory state”, in which officials feather their nests at the expense of the state, the economy and the people. ... Tension is growing, he suggests, between the state and the society.

Mr Pei argues, persuasively, that China’s gradualism, often favourably contrasted with the former Soviet Union’s ... radical reforms, is as much a political as an economic strategy. Its aim is also to generate rents for those with political power or those whose support the powerful need... This is a vision of the state, not as benign maximiser of the public welfare, as traditional Chinese and contemporary communist ideology would suggest, but rather as a vehicle for competitive rent-seeking. By preserving profitable distortions, gradualism creates the rents. The more dynamic the economy, the greater are the rents. But the bigger the distortions, the less dynamic the economy risks becoming. The government is walking a tightrope.

One vast difference between what is happening to China today and what has happened to it in the past is evident: its dynamic economy. By offering its cheap, hard-working labour to the world and investing almost half of gross domestic product, China has managed to lift itself from age-old poverty. The society now emerging is increasingly urbanised, literate and open to the world. What might all this mean for the country’s political and economic future and so for its relations with the rest of the world? I envisage four possibilities.

First, reforms continue, the economy grows and political reform restarts. A democratic, law-governed society then emerges smoothly over the next few decades.

Second, China becomes a prosperous market economy under a reforming communist regime. An autocratic superpower then transforms the political balance of the world.

Third, China proves unable to pursue the necessary reforms, which ultimately stifles the economy’s progress. The regime becomes ever more repressive and China becomes a sad case of failed development.

Fourth, slowing growth generates political crisis. Turmoil ensues. But a democratic regime finally emerges.

I find it hard to believe in the smooth transition explicit in the first possibility. I find it as hard to believe in an advanced, internationally integrated economy governed by a communist autocracy... The third also looks implausible: it is hard to believe the Chinese will allow anything to stop them from gaining greater prosperity. The last possibility is far easier to imagine.

I am forecasting neither a political crisis nor a sharp economic slowdown in the near future. The Chinese economy could continue to grow rapidly for years. But the combination of a market-led economy with a bureaucratic autocracy does not look a good bet for the long run. The market’s irresistible force is meeting the party’s immovable object. At some point, one of them must surely give.

Comments

[anne]

This is an interesting and carefully drawn argument, but I would argue in turn that there is a failure to understand how broad, diverse, competitive within unifying bounds, and open China's leadership is. We argued just this at a breakfast this morning. Mao Tse Tung had read Thomas Jefferson and early on formed a leadership concept in which rather than a command structure being used there would be education to generate a common understanding of possible leadership problems and approaches to resolution. China, of course, was authoritarian by history and with communism, and there were harsh contentious failures, but the governing principles seem to have persisted through the failures to become better refined. A number of us read China's ledership as broader and more flexible than commonly supposed, and so stronger.

[anne]

Imagine "Death of a Salesman" being performed in China in 1983, even to the surprise of Arthur Miller. A curious mix of authoritarianism and openness. But, the arts reflect this mix continually in the last generation. Look to modern Chinese art and notice the internal contradictions, but I find these exciting healthy signs.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/world/asia/30beijing.html?ex=1306641600&en=66cded5b0bcefc92&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

May 30, 2006

Found in Translation: King's 'Dream' Plays in Beijing
By HOWARD W. FRENCH

BEIJING — For months now, Caitrin McKiernan has gone from place to place in this city to ask Chinese people an unlikely question: What does the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. mean to you?

The questions don't end there, either. In most of these gatherings, she gets far more specific, burrowing into the history and tactics of the American civil rights movement.

"Who knows what the Birmingham bus boycott was?" she asked a group of university students in May. "What is a sit-in?" "What's the meaning of separate but equal?" At the level of language, every one of those terms presents a formidable challenge, even to a woman who has spent years in this country and speaks fluent Chinese.

But language is not the half of it. How can one translate Dr. King's actions into the realm of ideas for an audience in a city notably hostile to protests? How does one convey to Chinese people the meaning of the life of a man who died fighting for civil rights nearly 40 years ago?

The answers may have begun to emerge since the production at the National Theater on Sunday of the play "Passages of Martin Luther King Jr." by the noted King scholar Clayborne Carson and based on the life and words of the American civil rights leader. Ms. McKiernan, who studied under Mr. Carson at Stanford and is the play's producer, was prepared for any kind of audience response, from deeply moved to completely stumped and anything in between.

But the responses of Ms. McKiernan's discussion groups and the reactions of her cast suggested that Dr. King's message would hit home here, that Chinese viewers would see parallels to divisions in their own society. That prospect poses a thorny problem for the government, which, on one hand, has endorsed Dr. King's work as a blow for the class struggle and against American imperialism, but on the other insists that racism and discrimination are purely problems of decadent Western societies.

The government, however, gave the production its imprimatur, and permission to play at the prestigious theater.

A distinct possibility was that the universality of Dr. King's message and the causes he fought for would completely escape Chinese viewers.

But the reactions Ms. McKiernan has heard so far suggest otherwise, and give her reason to hope that her dream of building a bridge between the societies by talking about peaceful struggle and universal rights has some hold on reality.

During one recent discussion at a Beijing university, after viewing excerpts from the PBS documentary "Eyes on the Prize," students explored their feelings on the discrimination they discern between migrant workers and more affluent residents of the country's eastern cities. Others spoke about the inferior position of women in their society or of being treated badly during visits overseas or the predominance of American power in the world.

"The significance of Martin Luther King for me is that we have to have the courage to stand up for our legitimate benefits," said a Chinese student who identified himself as Paul.

Ms. McKiernan has avoided lecturing her audiences, or even steering the discussions. "I don't want this to be about what happened in the U.S. in some past year," she said. "I want this to be about what discrimination is, and how it relates to your life."

The talks have usually begun with an explanation of how Dr. King's life came to mean so much to her, a Californian who first came to this city at 16 as an exchange student and had to struggle to overcome cultural differences with her host family. Then she studied Dr. King in college, and she has had him on her mind ever since.

"I realized that King was this great bridge between the United States and China," Ms. McKiernan said. "China is an emerging superpower, and the U.S. is the superpower, and King is someone that both sides believe in, and can be the starting point for a dialogue about how we wish the world to be."

Then she sighed, and said, "But it's the hardest thing I've ever done." ...

[a]

Anne, thanks for looking into the issue! As always, :).

What Mr. Wolf has envisioned is hardly any nuance.

Sure there is conflict of interest between the local government and the central government, but it will exist no matter what (in the US, the state and federal government also have difference, although thanks to democracy, most of the local affairs are taken care of at the local level). And often, the more developed an area, the more open and the more they contribute to the central government and in return, the central government is more likely to be on their side (ShangHai and GuangDong are good examples); the places where the mountains are high are typically the poorest areas in China, they rely on the central government's help to get by each day and yet corruption is hard to rein in.

I am not expert on the current political power distribution of CHina, but the central government is not weak, and the urbanized economic strong area as Mr. Wolf said, is open. I don't see the central government has conflict of the affluent areas of the country. The part of the central government that is truly annoying is their state secrecy and their obsession with National Security (and remind of us of WHO?).

As for authoritarian regime "transforms the political balance of the world" --- I alsways found it laughable. Was it not Hitler elected? And isn't it now USA that is waging illegal war? No matter what regime China will have, it will "transforms the political balance of the world". Because, I sincerely hope, China will not join the current power's colonial mentality, since virtually all power countries in the world were colonial power some while ago. I hope China and India can change that and the rest of the world would benefit.

[anne]

Intelligent analysis and comparisons :)

[lonesome moderate]

Because, I sincerely hope, China will not join the current power's colonial mentality, since virtually all power countries in the world were colonial power some while ago.

China does not have a colonial mentality? I believe that there are many people who would disagree with that, such as the Dalai Lama.

[Palindrome]

I'm just a simple laowai, but I've always heard the proverb in the title translated as "Heaven is high and the emperor far away", which really makes much more sense.

Wikipedia agrees:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phraseology:Tian_Gao_Huang-di_Yuan

[Absurdfool]

Tian_Gao_Huang-di_Yuan:
"Tian" translates as the sky, or heaven if you like (as a matter of fact Tian_Zi means "son of heaven" or the emperor itself)
But the proverb should actually go like this:
Shan_Gao_Huang-di_Yuan
And, "Shan" means mountain....