The anecdote goes that when Chairman Mao Zedong met US President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1972, Nixon made a somewhat flattering remark: “You have changed the world.”
ixon, of course, was referring to the Cold War bipolarity, in which the side Beijing supported tilted the scales of superpower rivalry in a significant way. But Mao’s answer reflected a different view. “No, I did not change the world, only the downtown or perhaps suburban Beijing.” He was thinking of domestic politics and the hundred experiments he wrought on the Chinese society, all of them are more or less repudiated in today’s China. Yet, in the main, Mao’s words meant that he is not in the business of changing the world. After Mao’s death in 1977, China has witnessed rapid economic change, because his successor, Deng Xiaoping, believed that to be rich is no counter-revolutionary crime. Today, three-and-half decades later, the predominant story across the world is about China’s rise as the new superpower, its “economic miracle” and the success of its authoritarian growth model.
Recently, The Economist devoted its coveted special report to the rise of state capitalism, in the backdrop of China’s economic modernisation and its rapid rise to superpower status. Indeed, the topic has never been so timely. This year, the Communist Party of China (CCP) will holds its five-yearly party congress in October/November. The upcoming 18th party congress will set the stage for once-in-a-decade leadership transition and President Hu Jintao will most likely pass the baton to Xi Jinping, who is now the Vice-President. Similary, the Premier Wen Jiabao is tipped to be replaced by Li Keqiang, now Wen’s deputy. The whole world watches the leadership transition with keen interest. In that event, Xi Jingping will become the General Secretary of CCP and the Chairman of the crucial Central Military Commission by the time the National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, convenes its annual session in March 2013. Before they recede into the backroom, it’s a safe surmise that Hu and Wen would make sure that the new leadership will stick to the “peaceful rise of China” thesis in its relations with the outside world. Xi and Li might bring more caution to China’s relations with the West, especially the US, but it would be a caution attended by optimism.
[quote align=”center” color=”#b64736″]The new leadership has to transform China’s export- and fixed-investment oriented political-economic system.[/quote]
The reasons are two-fold. The first is to do with China’s precarious domestic conditions with the CCP struggling to maintain its legitimacy to monopolistic rule. The second is the broader strategic environment in which China and the US currently interact. “China will mature as a responsible stakeholder in the international community. Let’s hope that the rise of China will continue to be peaceful and China will learn to live harmoniously with its neighbours, whatever the dispute: geographical boundary or over scattered islands in South China Sea. China has no other option as it grows from strength to strength,” says an Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman. Then there are other issues for the new leadership to settle with the outside world. In the past few years, we have witnessed that China’s growth model and the attendant massive trade surpluses with various countries have stocked discontent not just in Western capitals, but also in developing countries like India. The three key elements of China’s growth strategy — an over-reliance on exports, dumping, intellectual property theft, a cheap currency and regulated interest rates — have skewed the patterns of China’s bilateral trade with almost all nations in the world.
The new leadership has to transform China’s export- and fixed-investment oriented political-economic system. China’s leaders are perhaps hoping that foreigners will believe that Chinese citizens value economic prosperity and stability more than, say, being able to discuss politics online or signing a document called Charter 08 calling for greater respect for human rights. Optimistic observers believe that China’s encounter with market-oriented reforms, even though opaque, or liberal institutions and instruments from the West would generate democratic change within. No doubt, such a change is decidedly in the world’s interests. However, such optimists are only partly right, in the sense that China has become more politically tolerant and socially pluralistic. Today’s China is a far cry from anything the Great Helmsman envisioned. There are more opportunities and many outlets for dissent.
Yet, its leadership has consistently proved that on everything ranging from global trade to Internet freedom, from village elections to the rule of law, Chinese rulers have proven that they have put the stability of the one-party rule above all. Therefore, it follows that even after the change at the top in Beijing, most China policy analysts would still be preoccupied by political jigsaws such as how to democratise China or security issues such as how to strike a balance of power within Asia-Pacific, which has now become one of the Barack Obama administration’s top foreign policy concerns. But it’s certain that for the new leadership, as in the old, the chief preoccupation would be how to protect China’s peaceful rise from its domestic political circumstances.
By Rajiv Jayaram
The author is a New Delhi-based newspaper columnist.
Email: rajiv.jm@gmail.com)
