Published in 2014, “The Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, & Faith in the New China”, is an ambitious book authored by Evan Osnos, a staff writer with the New Yorker magazine since 2008.
Fluent in Mandarin, Osnos lived several years in China and travelled extensively throughout the country meeting intellectuals, business people, journalists, and artists.
Fluent in Mandarin, Osnos lived several years in China and travelled extensively throughout the country meeting intellectuals, business people, journalists, and artists.
What comes through in this book is not only a good description of China’s meteoric rise, but also the extraordinary problems and challenges facing it for the remainder of this century.
Osnos starts us off in the 18th century when Imperial China controlled one third of the world’s wealth with cities more prosperous than either Dutch or British ones. The 19th and 20th centuries in contrast saw the decline of Chinese supremacy as China became crippled by invasion, civil wars, and political upheaval. The modern era soon emerged which we can divide into two parts.
The first would start in 1949 with the takeover of China by the Communist Party (CP) led by Chairman Mao. The early beginning of Communist rule is a sordid tale of mismanagement culminating in the Great Leap Forward (1958), resulting in 30-45 million Chinese starving to death.
The second part started in 1979 with the emergence of Deng Xiaoping as supreme party leader and hence ruler of China. This pivotal year marks the beginning of reforms. Becoming rich was now suddenly a noble ideal. But there would be limitations, and ever the great communicator, the CP led it be known that the country’s new system of governance would be marked by capitalism but with no democracy, no multi-party elections, no free speech, no federalism, and no rule of law (independent judiciary). The CP would give its citizens prosperity and the grateful masses would respond with loyalty to the CP.
The world was changing in the late nineteen seventies. The Carter administration in the US would officially recognize the CP as China’s legitimate government (1978), much to the consternation of right wing Republicans in the US Congress, not to mention Taiwan which naturally felt both vulnerable and betrayed by a trusted ally. Meanwhile China would put in motion the whole process of economic reforms (minus political counterpart) by designating special economic zones in 1980 and officially permitting rural people to live and work temporarily in cities.
The rest as they say is history. In 1978 a full 80% of Chinese worked on farms. This figure would fall to 50% by 1994. But more revealing, while China’s exports were only a third of America’s in 1999, it would become the world’s largest exporter by 2009. But with economic prosperity came decadence as China would surpass the US as the world’s largest consumer of luxury goods by 2012. But more importantly for the Chinese, the top 10% of urban Chinese were by 2007 earning 9.2 times as much as the bottom tenth.
The Chinese version of the Gilded Age had arrived. This phenomenon, as Osnos correctly reminds us, is not a sign of progress. The Gilded Age in the US occurred in the 1870’s and 1880’s and was marked by a weak rule of law, corporate monopolies, and corruption: three major issues currently confronting China. Osnos fails to mention, however, that while the US had a free press and a multi-party system allowing it to elect progressives like Theodore Roosevelt to the White House, China enjoys neither a free press nor two party rule, making reforms much more difficult.
Osnos concludes that the biggest problem facing China today is the gap in opportunity between the wealthy and the poor, especially between those with family connections to the CP and those common citizens lacking in such advantages. He concludes by stating that China can best be described as a land of untamed capitalism, graft, & rampant inequality. The inequality part is especially revealing. The richest 70 members of China’s national legislature currently have a net worth of almost 90 billion dollars or 10 times more than the combined net worth of the entire US Congress!
Osnos describes China as a country that is directionless both politically and culturally. Chinese citizens today are not only more prosperous than at any other time in their history, but also enjoy certain liberties unimaginable just three decades ago. In the end, what it comes down to is the ability of Chinese citizens to live their lives as they choose so long as they refrain from challenging one party rule. Everyone in China knows they have certain liberties and advantages that were previously denied to them. Society is changing. But how far citizens can go in living their lives as free men and women remains unclear.
The internet is a case in point. Millions of Chinese use the internet to access everything from making purchases to reading articles published by the western media. In response to this phenomenon, the CP thus set up the “Great Firewall” in 2005 to control news from the digital media. All criticisms of the CP would be blocked out, along with references to Tiananmen Square, corruption committed by members of the CP, and any criticisms of CP policies with regard to how the country was governed. Deng Xiaoping would even state in response to the massacres in Tiananmen Square that the Party’s survival would depend on prosperity and propaganda rather than in opening the political process.
Free speech or the lack thereof is another case in point. The CP regularly uses violence to put down demonstrations, whether by artists, workers (remember, China was to be the “workers’ paradise”), environmental groups, or students. Yet there are more newspapers and media outlets than ever, only with certain restrictions. Chinese citizens have come to understand that there’s a line that can’t be crossed. The problem is that this line keeps shifting.
Why then do so many in China, especially among the middle class, still look at the CP in a favourable light? The answers are many but one that stands out is the fear of losing all that has been gained by antagonizing the government (aka the CP). Many also cling to the Confucius ideal which links morality to the strength of the state. In other words, let’s merge the market with strong government. This in turn requires one party rule whose authority must be ultimately respected regardless of errors and bad policies. This notion that we can have economic development without political reform seems to be accepted by many in China, even the middle class. And lastly, there’s the issue of nationalism: the belief that the West (US & Europe) can no longer humiliate China. Even a world renowned artist like Ai Weiwei is seen by many in China as a dissident too quick to accept western criticism of China while not fully appreciating the complex problems faced by it.
Many Chinese citizens also look at the economic and political malaise in Europe & the US as proof that western style liberal democracy is no panacea to a nation’s problems. Add the current situation in the Middle East, Russia, and much of the developing world, and the situation in China looks fairly good. China is definitely not a democracy but at least it’s not rife with sectarian violence as in the Middle East. Nor is it a despotic country like Russia where prosperity is essentially built around the price of oil. One also has to look at where China is today compared to states from the former Soviet Union like Ukraine. Why was China able to forge ahead compared to so many newly established countries since the end of both the Second World War and Cold War?
The author does point however that the situation is not monolithic. Dissent does exist in one form or another. As Osnos sees it, the Chinese people have outpaced the political system that nurtured the rise of China. The CP has in essence unleashed the greatest expansion of human potential in world history, and in so doing, also the greatest threat to its own survival. Even China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, recently admitted that unless the CP beats back the tide of corruption, the CP and China will perish. In any event, all indicators at this time point to a middle class seeking to reform the government rather than to replace it though western style multi-party elections.
Osnos’s book is a good description of where China is today. It reminds us that most of us would not choose to ever live under such a system. China’s challenges are many and they will likely affect the rest of us in one or another. Let’s take the issue of globalization. China’s economy is intertwined with the global economy. Much of the US debt is owned by the US. China is the biggest trading partner of numerous countries around the world. But China is not a Liberal Democracy based on the rule of law. In other words, it does not have a transparent system. How much then do we really know about the solvency of its public and private companies? What stake does the Chinese state have in these companies? Is the real estate market in a bubble or set to collapse? In short, we don’t know how robust the Chinese economy is because the reporting requirements are weak and practically non-existent. What we take for granted here in the West with regard to corporate and business law is non-existent in China.
China’s population is currently still overwhelmingly rural. But what happens when it becomes largely urban and middle class? History shows us that most nations that become largely urban and middle class adopt some form of liberal democracy based on the rule of law and multi-party elections. Many living in authoritarian societies once argued that cultural differences kept them from adopting liberal democracy. But what were once authoritarian Asian states like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan would eventually evolve into liberal democracies. They did so through education, adopting the rule of law, and by growing their middle class through economic prosperity. These states were all culturally influenced by Confucius ideals but managed to transform themselves into full-fledged democracies.
In the end Chinese citizens rather than the CP will determine whether Liberal Democracy is a system appropriate for Chinese culture. They may for example start by introducing the rule of law. Why for example should the CP be above the law? If there’s one phenomenon that displeases most Chinese citizens it’s the issue of corruption, currently rampant throughout China. How can the CP ever justify corruption? Fighting corruption after-all is not the same as arguing for multi-party elections though the long-term effect may have that desired result.
Federalism is another issue. Is it logical for a nation with 1.4 billion people to be ruled by Beijing? Shouldn’t power be diffused through-out the provinces and regions? Why not give more power to city mayors considering the current rate of urbanization?
There are other threats to the CP. As the author points out, millions of well-educated Chinese are starved for spiritual nourishment. 18,000 will crowd local arenas to hear the noted Harvard scholar Michael Sandel speak on issues like justice, paying up to $500.00 for a ticket! Churches and Buddhist monasteries are full of citizens seeking spiritual nourishment and some meaning to living in a society that seems to worship at the altar of material wealth and status.
This brings up the issue of inequality. Societies that remain unequal invite protest and revolution. Why should China be different? How far can the CP hold on to power if citizens don’t feel the system is based on merit? Indeed, the Chinese revere their past because a meritocracy was set up by Imperial rulers to attract the most qualified into the civil service. China today is anything but a meritocracy as even many in the CP would acknowledge.
And lastly, what if the CP is not able to continue growing the economy at such an expeditious rate? Citizens living in the countryside currently expect to get decent manufacturing jobs when moving to the cities, while the urban and educated middle class expect their university educated children to receive good paying jobs. What happens to the notion of prosperity and obedience to the CP if the rest of the developing world starts to catch up with China? More importantly, what if the West gets its economic house in order? Will China become less competitive?
In the end, the Chinese may come up with some alternative model that might even appeal to countries in the developing world. Perhaps the Singaporean model, which journalist Robert D Kaplan calls soft authoritarianism, will be adopted. Kaplan sees “soft authoritarianism” as a bridge for states trying to get from authoritarian one party rule to Liberal Democracy based on multi-party elections. It’s based on the rule of law, meritocracy, and greater liberties. Time will tell.
