8/8/2019 China Contradictions

1/3

8/8/2019 China Contradictions

2/3

Country Driving is a pleasant, readable foreign perspective on China. The contrast with dissident Ma Jians 2001

Red Dust: A Path Through China is striking. The 30-year old Jians journey escaping a clampdown against

spiritual pollution provided a far more powerful view of life in and the internal contradictions of China. Jian, as

an insider who was also an outsider, provided insights into his country which Hessler, an outsider, can not.

Richard Macgregors The Party is a fascinating portrait of the internal workings of the Chinese Communist Party.

Head of the Beijing bureau of the Financial Times, Mr. McGregor illustrates how the Party controls every aspect of

Chinese life in considerable detail.

The Party examines the relationships between the Party, the state, business and military. It examines how the

Party runs the country through its control of personnel (through the Orwellian titled Central Organisation

Department) and Party Cells implanted in every business and government department.

Mr. McGregor deals with issues of corruption permitted within unwritten bounds as long as it contributes to the

Partys objectives and does not become too visible. He outline difficulties of controlling regional administrations

in the words of a vice-minister the central governments control does not extend beyond the walls of

Zhongnanhai *the Governments central office in Beijing+.

Written with admirable restraint and clarity, the authors treatment is journalistic relying on his personal

knowledge gained through sources and interviews. It does not offer explicit analysis, although considerable

insights are evident. Perhaps the most important insight is just how non-ideological the Chinese Communist Party

is. The Chinese rulers have adapted the Soviet apparatus of Lenin and Stalin as a highly effective form of social and

economic control.

Party membership is largely driven by potential access to power and status, often to gain immunity and protection

that allows engaging in activity including business transactions, unavailable to non-Party members. The inherent

conflicts of interest in the parallel mechanism of Party and Business are captured by the ill -fated Zhang Ruimin, the

CEO of Chinas largest whitegoods maker Haier: I appointed myself party secretary of Haier. So I cant have any

conflicts with myself, can I? He could and did with predictable consequences.

The Party exposes a system focused on only one objective, its own survival and power, which is taken to be

automatically synonymous with the success and destiny of China. The Party itself emerges as an infinitely

adaptable and highly complex organism that dominates life in China.

In the wonderfully titled China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom, Richard Baum, a respected and long-time

China scholar, provides an at times irreverent and always personal perspective on forty years of dealing with

China.

A scholar who admits he stumbled into Sino-study, Baums book is chronological and autobiographical. He traces

the emergence of China from its post War centrally controlled, socialist isolationism into a more market oriented

world power. The journey takes in key events: the 1970s Xidan Democracy Wall, the move to a more orientedmarket economy under Deng after the death of Mao and the removal of the Gang of Four, the set back of the

Tiananmen Square massacre and the return to market reforms following Dengs famous 1992 Southern Tour.

Baums deep connections with China and key players as well as his own insights are evident throughout. He does

not try to hide the bitter academic rivalries that his work and renown created. A fascinating aspect of China

Watcher is the length of time covered, allowing the reader to gain an appreciation of the changes in the country.

8/8/2019 China Contradictions

3/3

It also provides acute insights into the various policy debates and disputes that have shaped this progress. Baums

book will appeal to the Zhongguotong (old China Hand) and layman alike.

The rise of China fascinates politicians, policymakers, businessmen and interested foreigners. Each is looking to

understand China from its own perspective and for its own benefit, usually monetary, political or economic.

Some of the fascinating anecdotes in China Watcher are where Baum is called upon together with other

prominent Sinologists to brief politicians, such as the first President Bush. The different points of view of advisers

and the lack of knowledge of political and business leaders are revealing.

In the main, the West views China as its salvation a source of vast savings to finance the West and a large

domestic market for its goods and services. The alternative view, which frequently co-exists with the first, is a

threat, at an economic, political and military level.

The picture of China that emerges from these three books, representative of the growing non-technical literature

on the subject, is of a complex, unexpected and alien place. For a foreigner, China is, on the whole, impenetrable.

The Partys internal machinations make Machiavellis The Prince appear facile.

The complexity of business dealings is equally confusing. Concepts of intellectual property, rule of law andaccepted business practice are entirely absent. The chances of finding yourself in competition with your partner or

a firm owned by the Party or the Peoples Liberation Army are high. The only thing that probably is certain is that

you are going to be fleeced. Recent mutterings by Western business leaders testifies to some of these problems.

A common theme is the fierce and defensive internal focus of China at both government and individual levels. The

primary concern is the internal stability of the Middle Kingdom, at all cost. This will create problems in a world

where a cooperative approach to some issues, such as global capital imbalances and the environment, are

unavoidable. Whatever the future holds, it will not be dull where China is concerned.

Baum captures the essential contradictions of China in the closing paragraphs of China Watcher: China has

been my passion, my calling, my own personal Shangri-la and Chimera rolled into one. Although three decades of

economic reform and global engagement have made Chinas political and social reality far more accessible and

far less bizarre then they were in Maos time, the Peoples Republic remains for me a profound puzzle. Ever

changing, ever fascinating, and ever frustrating, it compels my attention even as it stubbornly defies

comprehension. I cannot look away.