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At Large
Talking About the Real China
Mao Tse-tung would admire the underpinnings of its inhumane economic policies.
In a recent column Yang Yao, the esteemed director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University, explained China’s economic reasoning as “moving in a statist direction.” It was as if the past sixty years had not existed. Were we to believe that the PRC has not been a nation of political, economic and social totalitarianism all this while?
It was a beautiful argument built on statistical discovery and contemporary academic obfuscation. The need for not allowing the renminbi to float freely in the international market is all justified as necessary government actions based on Beijing’s commitment to “ensure strong employment and social stability.” Ah, yes, and the non-convertibility of the ruble during Stalin’s time in the USSR was to protect against Western exploitation. That explanation was as specious then as the contemporary Beijing version is now.
The truth is that the PRC is fighting tooth and nail to maintain its currency advantage in international trading operations. The growth of Chinese overseas investment in basic commodity production to fuel its own industrial growth is possible in great part by the West’s inability to crack the financial stranglehold China has on the valuation of its national currency.
It is worth noting that “off-the-record” conversations with Chinese officials explain away any state economic and financial controls as the result of pressure by state lobbying groups protecting their industrial status within the country. Let’s see, that means that the massive state political economic structure is simply reacting protectively to “pressure” from component parts of the nation’s special interests. Exactly whom is this theory supposed to convince?
Building a lock on natural resource availability is said to be required in order to ensure an uninterrupted supply of such important items as oil and other minerals essential to China’s booming economy. This is the justification for purchase (with the aid of the controlled renminbi and accumulation of vast amounts of hard currency, especially U.S. dollars) of ownership of mineral and commodity production in foreign nations. The economics of such basic investment abroad just does not work out competitively with simple purchase of needed supplies in the open market. And yet Beijing gets away with this commercial charade.
In typical Marxist-Leninist sophistry the official Chinese intellectual collective has come up with a new concept: As a result of the success of the “new Chinese state,” there must be a reformation of the market-oriented Western approach that proved so vulnerable during the recent financial crisis. This purportedly calls for a “new economic and social model” — something peculiarly and distinctively Chinese.
The fact that China now suffers from a self-created economic problem arising out of its calculated wage controls, which suppress labor income and completely over-balance the country’s capital-intensive development programs on the backs of China’s workers. Lip service is repeatedly paid to increasing family income — and yet the market reforms necessary to accomplish this aren’t forthcoming.
The vaunted great managerial ability of China’s political and economic leadership falls far short of the accomplishment for which it is given credit. Perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the gigantic social price being paid by the inequitable economic basis of China’s modern development is the fact that the extolled factory system of the nation is based to a great degree on the brutal totalitarian system of separating workers from their rural families.
Official estimates indicate nearly 60 million children have been left behind in foster homes due to the economically forced migration of their parents to work in the cities. This is approximately one half of all the children of rural China. It is said that their poorly educated parents have chosen to live separate lives from their families; that it is a conscious sacrifice for their good and the good of modern Chinese society.
The reality is that this system is the basis for what President Hu Jintao characterized as creating a “moderately well-off society.” The entire principle is an outgrowth of the Mao Tse-tung willingness to break down the Chinese family in order to replace it with a state-controlled system. Mao succeeded in the separation but not the destruction of the family. Today’s statist China hides a similar device, but in the end is doing the same thing. China’s economic life is dictated by such exploitive justification camouflaged by political economic rhetoric.
In explaining that China’s leaders are less driven by political philosophy than economic pragmatism, one falls into the trap of excusing excesses as simply logical defensiveness regarding the nation’s growth. This is a convenient device that allows for a very useful Chinese advantage. The Chinese have been very good at this. They have been practicing this methodology for hundreds of years.
About the Author
George H. Wittman writes a weekly column on international affairs for The American Spectator online. He was the founding chairman of the National Institute for Public Policy.
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Mike Walsh| 2.11.11 @ 6:39AM
For a long time I argued that fears of a militarily adventurous China were overrated: government policy had created a nation of one-child families, and these would never allow their futures to be used as cannon fodder. I have since realized that the Chinese government is quite capable of exploiting various classes within China, and there are plenty of rural Chinese who really can't do much about whatever adventures the government might decide to gamble their lives upon.
Alan Brooks| 2.11.11 @ 9:39AM
... say a Chinese Rumsfeld botching a war somewhere outside China?
Albert| 2.12.11 @ 9:05PM
Mr. Brooks is back with non-sequiturs and inanities. What is going on in China has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Rumsfeld and there is no analogy to Rummy and Iraq or Afghanistan. Mr. Brooks has a visceral need to berate the Bush administration even if he has to make stuff up to do it (which is silly, the GW Bush administration has much to be embarrassed for, but this ain't it.) Mr. Brooks HOPES ("Hope springs eternal!") that he can make the subject of his sinful idolatry, the inconsequential and imbecilic President Bozo of Kenya, look to be a great "man" by comparison to Bush. It does not work. Nothing that can be said about GW Bush, even if made up, can possibly make him look as bad as President Bozo looks on his own. Perhaps Mr. Brooks, you could napalm the Rumsfeld family home "with extreme prejudice" (your own words) when you have a free weekend. You seem to have an affinity for naplam, at least in its theoretical application. You need help, Mr. Brooks. I suggest you get it.
Louis Jenkins| 2.11.11 @ 8:08AM
Hard currency? The US dollar? I'd be stretched to call the US dollar that. And as far as the family being secondary to the welfare of the state? Well, that's the way communism works. The Chicoms are just enhancing what they already have.
Harry the Horrible| 2.11.11 @ 9:36AM
"...the PRC is fighting tooth and nail to maintain its currency advantage in international trading operations. The growth of Chinese overseas investment in basic commodity production to fuel its own industrial growth is possible in great part by the West's inability to crack the financial stranglehold China has on the valuation of its national currency."
I wish we had an administration that would do that for the United States of America...
cicero| 2.11.11 @ 11:29AM
As we should have learned from the fate of the Soviet Union, non-market and non-humanistic political or economic systems cannot maintain, and must, of their very nature, fail. In the '20s and '30, we were treated to reports identifying the Stalin regime as the pattern for the future. China's currency manipulation will last only as long as their trading partners allow it to. China's abuse of its people will only as long as those folks allow it. At some point, both will say, enough is enough, and call their bluff. At that point, the shole house of cards comes falling down.
Curtis Rasmussen| 2.11.11 @ 3:20PM
I worked with a Chinese immigrant some time ago. He agrees with you. A large portion of the country lives in rural, undeveloped regions and the real estate (millions of empty houses, government dictated) and business markets are propped up artificially. He thinks that the whole country is one crisis away from collapsing.
chris haynes| 2.11.11 @ 12:51PM
China is not manipulating their currency. President Bush certified they are not. 8 times.
The President is required by law to certify annually that China is not manipualting their currency. Every year our Presidents say no manipulation.
Surely that devout Christian, George W. Bush, would not lie. Surely that great patriot, Dick Cheney, would not stand for the American People being lied to.
john| 2.25.11 @ 2:57PM
what about the current liar in chief, moron.
Dave Williams| 2.11.11 @ 2:34PM
Brooks, you moron, we WON in Iraq. Go back to your little troll-hole.
bee free| 2.11.11 @ 10:27PM
---First of all, it's RED China STILL. Maybe evenmore than ever.
The perpetrators of that 'peacetime' extermination of 84 MILLION and their
descendants STILL utterly call ALLLLL shots
in the PRC.
As the falso paradigm of Left/Right is exposed as
bankster engineered, uh, let's keep things up to speed.
ON RECORD, Marxism was introduced 'by design'
to the Chinese via Bertrand Russell in the 1920's.
ON RECORD, the Globalists (Rusk, Harriman,
Rockefeller fronts etc.) BETRAYED Chiang Kai Shek and installed MAO in order to 'clear away
the clutter' of Old China (i.e. 'social enginereering'
via genocide)
transform it into the 'eugenics friendly paradise'
we know today. ON RECORD, just as Sassoon family/British East India used opium to destroy
Imperial China via social decay, bankruptcy
and famine.
(NOTE: most famines in history are
'engineered' by the rulers. In this case it was
turning over more than 70% of arable land to
opium growing that brought on famine
---THINK EUGENICS).
Finally. while the picture we get of modern RED China is entirely sponsored by eugenics mongers
such as Ted Turner, the world's largest landholder, it's important to realize the reality.
EVEN putting aside the 'engineered' cultural
liquidation of Tibet, Inner Mongolia and, of course their puppet front in North Korea----
A recent Radio Free Asia interview. A certain
Chinese prof. candidly revealed that in 2009
alone there wee some 20,000 MASS violent
demonstrations and strikes across the Chinese
hinterlands. ALLL violently suppressed.
KNOW what's behind our own economy destroying,
Walmart wampum culture...
Jason Way| 2.11.11 @ 11:06PM
Several good points in the article, but this one does not fly:
"This is the justification for purchase (with the aid of the controlled renminbi and accumulation of vast amounts of hard currency, especially U.S. dollars) of ownership of mineral and commodity production in foreign nations. "
Controlling the value of the RMB at artificially LOW levels, makes purchasing these overseas assets MORE EXPENSIVE for China.
Perhaps you meant to say that the low value RMB makes exports easier and thus allows the accumulation of greater US$ reserves? If so, you should probably reword that sentence.
Albert| 2.12.11 @ 9:16PM
The Chinese government is built on the Mao model. That model is totalitarian, period. That there are free market enterprises going on in China is just a means for the government to acquire international wealth which will eventually be used militarily against the West. Mao was the supreme egotist, craving absolute power and believing that he was entitled to it simply because he was able to get it. Mao had absolutely no respect for human life nor for human rights, and thought that Western economics were a tool to be exploited. Mao especially had no concern for the Chinese people, considering that he murdered over 50 million of them, and sought only power for himself. The current Chinese government is not much better and is still looking for a long term advantage over the West, first economically, then militarily. China is, and has been for a long time, looking to the Western World in the same way Hitler saw Russia, as "lebensraum" or living room, for expansion of the Chinese population, supplanting and murdering any other population in its way. This is what is coming. This is what China is aiming for. And this is what US President Bill Clinton facilitated in the 1990's by taking Chinese bribes and selling US strategic technologies to China, which are now being used to build the largest and most advanced military force in the world.
putra | 2.13.11 @ 11:20AM
I think there is a shift in value since falling to the era of Mao Zedong - Deng Xioping until now Hu Jin Tao. They are still communist but are not radical.
They are shy communist going to capitalist, and this threat for the US.
They have many significant advantages such as a lot of labor, low wages and the value of Yuan's currency is very low.
And now in China have started growing a new
middle class from the beginning poor workers.
JmsA| 2.13.11 @ 11:20PM
"They are still communist but are not radical."
Is that like being still a little dead or still a little pregnant? What part of totalitarian, communist tyranny or dictatorship (take your pick) don't you find radical? There's nothing more radical than exploiting and denying people their freedom, and the Chicoms do it just as well as anyone who's done it or is doing it.
Intelligent Design| 2.13.11 @ 5:15PM
Anyone know what medical care in China is like? Is it all provided "free" by the government? Or does the patient need to have the money to get treated?
Deals in China | 3.22.11 @ 5:04AM
Yes, real china is very good and love lift people.
Also if you think deals china products, you can visit our website: http://www.deals-in-china.com/
Thanks
weddingdresses | 6.24.11 @ 2:12AM
Maybe it was Jer. 17:9.
Reebok | 8.11.11 @ 3:51AM
is good
العاب | 4.11.12 @ 4:29PM
As the falso paradigm of Left/Right is exposed as
bankster engineered, uh, let's keep things up to speed.