China Law Blog

Why, exactly, should China have to conform to 'international economic rules'? My sense is a whole different set of rules are emerging, and a lot of the time China is setting the agenda.

This disturbs me more than job losses and acquisition of underperforming manufacturers. At the end of the day, people are happy with the perks of globalisation (cheap imports, cheap foreign holidays etc), we also have to adapt to its downsides.

In general I would agree with your point that indeed the uplifting of one nation should not imply the downgrading of another.
However, western countries should be concerned because the developing world has not yet forgotten how our uplifting went at their expense. We might want to think that in the end it turned out allright, but I am pretty sure that doesn't go for a large swathe of the populations in developing nations, furthermore we have been seeing and continue to see that our economies are vulnerable exactly because they are more open then for instance China, I don't think however that China will be the cause for our demise, I think more that we will be responsible for our own. And then especially because of mistakes made in the past for which there are no ready-made solutions such as the fast-aging population in Europe which bogs down decisionmaking (critical in our globalizing economy) and our democratic principles that make it almost impossible these days to get anything done without enormous delays over futilities such as wording.

It is our democratic principles which set us apart from countries with wealth such as China. For all of China's forex reserves (needed to keep the currency rate fixed), the China that exists outside of a handful of cities is wretchedly poor and getting worse due to bad decisions, greed and corruption. NOT the imeperialist western countries. China loves the fact that it can get free aid and at the same time have a manned space program.

Look at other countries, quite a few African countries should be at developed world standards of living but they are run by totalitarian el-presidentes for life who funnel the country's wealth into their pockets...Nigeria anyone?

China is not the unique socialist country doing capitalism nowadays, but the only one doing that furtively. They call it socialism with Chinese characteristics. No clear definition of the term and hard to justify themselves and tell the rest of the world what they are doing. Although that’s not a good thing for the Communist Party which used to hold high the great banners of socialism and communist, it has benefited thousands and thousands of Chinese people since starting doing that, most of them don’t have much clue and don’t even care about where they have been heading to. They just want to get rid of poverty and leave all the pains and memories behind. People are looking to the future, looking for improving their quality of life. Apolitical ignorance is bliss, even if, in China, the personal could hardly be separated from the political. Besides China’s one trillion US dollars in reserves with 800 million people in dire poverty, there are a lot of more interesting things we can talk about.

Dan,
I'm with you in bold until the last line. As China gains a larger share of global economic production, US share must necessarily contract. I'm not in the camp that gets hysterical about this fact; and I'm not convinced yet that China's "uplifting" will result in a subordinate economic position for the US in the global economy (as many others already are). No matter what, as you say, there's much to be happy about in China's growth. But also concerned from the perspective of US self-interest.

to ZZXYZ
I agree. Ther are many more things to talk about. Dan's post touched a nerve that itself is connected to dozens of broad hot topics. Further, though, as in your last sentence, there are so many NEW things The Chinese Phenomena has got us to think, specially, HOW we think about "old" things today, in this perspective: awareness of effects of policies, culture clashes, shocks, interests, charming openings and abrupt closures. I am thinking how China affects me and my daily things: university students, markets, people's comments, articles in local papers, small talk, integration and mostly big question marks. There definitely is a lot, in Part I whithout needing a second one (right now).

nh --

I do not think it is so much that China will have to conform, it is that it will more and more become in their own self interest to do so.

christophe --

The West will adjust. It always has.

nanheyangrouchuan --

We agree in seeing our democratic system as a huge strength.

zzyzx --

I would say you need to add Vietnam to your list, and maybe Cambodia as well, or soon.

ChinaRedux --

That line is actually a corruption of a line from Marcus Garvey on race, but I think it applies equally to nations. I see the US and China both continuing to highgrade, but I also see the US always staying ahead. I am not sure if this pseudo-theory of mine can be applied to all countries worldwide, but I certainly do not see the US's economomy declining over time and so far history pretty much backs me up on this.

Ric --

I agree with you that there are many things to talk about along this same theme, but I do not think I even raised an issue regarding the various things you talk about in your comment, and those are definitely things warranting discussion.

I'm from Britain, lived in Japan for 3 years, and now here for 1.5 years. Democracy is certainly a good thing, but not as big a benefit as it is hyped up to be. The level of political awareness in average people is pretty similar between China and Japan, and only perhaps a bit higher in Britain.

The bigger difference, I think, is corruption and enforcement of laws. A Canadian friend, who's lived in Japan too, described living in China as living in the wild west.

But just how different is Chinese corruption from the corruption that we had in the UK 200 years ago, or in the US? A very interesting study would be the way in which corruption has been dealt with in the West, and whether China is following the same route. If we can look at our history, perhaps we will be able to see China's more clearly?

The big difference is corruption and enforcement of laws. And look how much of a difference those two little details make. Add to the list the feeling of having control. What happened in the last US Congressional election? Watch the neocons dance in the frying pan. When will you see that in China? Not until today's leaders are dead at the very least.

Corruption is corruption because we are all human, but corruption in Democracies gets attention and punishment. Look how often politicians get busted in Taiwan and SK, those are not western societies.

I'll first off say that I'm not arguing that China shouldn't be democractic, just to frame the discussion.

I'd say that having a free press is at least as important as democracy in policing corruption. There was a very influential Chinese businessman killed for corruption last year because the story hit the newspapers before he could do damage control. Improving the safety of newspapers and journalists would greatly aid their reporting of corruption.

It appears to me that the central Chinese government is most concerned about suppressing news stories about political movements and mass demonstrations. News stories about corruption, etc. are suppressed by local influential figures, rather than by the central government. I could be wrong, but that is the dynamic that I see (of course, it isn't quite as clear cut as that)

Yes, the neocons suffered in the last US election - but yet the US is still in Iraq. The democrats have had to move quite slowly on pulling out of Iraq because a lot of the support built up for the war still exists, in so far as many people don't want to see the US 'lose' in Iraq. Nationalism and bravado seems to be a strong force here, something that also is played upon very much by the Chinese government in enlisting the support of the Chinese population.

A feeling of being in control is not so important as a fear of not having the support of the population, perhaps. It is in the interests of the central government to be seen to be combating corruption. I don't know if it could be done faster by a democratic government or not. That is something that would be a very interesting study.

When I look at the experiment with democracy in Russia, and consider China, it makes me more sympathetic towards the Chinese government's efforts.

Chris --

I completely agree. Corruption pretty much correlates with wealth, wealth distribution, and strong systems. China's corruption is about where I would expect it to be at this stage in its development. It's really pretty close to the midle worldwide and I fully expect it to improve, just as the Asian tigers did in their various stages of development.

I am always saying that Hong Kong and Singapore give lie to the idea that corruption is somehow a Chinese characteristic.

nanheyangrouchuan --

Yes, and SK is also not a democracy.