Poreg Writer

As the stage is almost ready for the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) where General Secretary Xi Jinping will be anointed for an unprecedented third term, the irony is difficult to miss. The United States, which stood for the globalised village till recently, now encourages a roll back of globalization. But China, once a complete introvert, sees no reason to revise its national policy of opening up to the world, and is, in fact, going about it in a robust manner to pump prime its status as the emerging super power.

Both the US and China appear locked in a modern cold war with the West engaged in containing the Bamboo capitalist in his stride by de-linking the country from the global developmental effort. Interestingly, as of now, it is advantage Xi Jinping what with a wave of nationalism and populism sweeping the Middle Kingdom.

The rising spectre of nationalism and populism in China is no more than a “response to western pressure”, says, Zheng Yongnian, an influential Chinese commentator. These emotions, in his view, are “understandable.”

Nevertheless, Professor Zheng, one of world’s leading academics, sounds a word of caution. “China may once again close the door if ‘closing the country to the outside world’ is accepted as a valid ideology”. Because there is “no certainty” in history. If somebody believes openness is an inevitability, history will show that that very belief is “a grave mistake”.

Expectedly, the Zheng-take has received much attention both in the East and the West. As also his warning to the West “not to provoke” China into taking a step as drastic as “closing the country to the outside world”.

At the outset the learned professor (who is president of the Institute for International Affairs, Qianhai) makes two interesting observations while defending the reform process ushered in by Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader of the country from 1978 to 1989. One is about globalisation per se. Two is about China’s openness.

While on globalisation, Zheng contends that globalization and China’s opening-up were ‘previously two interdependent and enhancing’ forces. This helped China to catch up with the West. It finished in just forty years the development process that took the major western countries a century and a half. “Today, though, this circumstance is no longer present. In order to contain China’s continued rise and possibly even halt its modernization, the West not only opposes globalization but also makes significant efforts to decouple it from China,” notes Professor Zheng Yongnian, who is associated as the founder with the Institute for International Affairs, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.

Turn of events from the days of Trump Presidency and now under President Biden show, it is difficult to disagree with his prognosis.

He does not, however, think that the US can force politics on technology to coerce decoupling with China.

Elaborating his views in an interview with Global Times (GT) reporter, Wang Wenwen (on September 26, 2022), the egg-head said “Some Americans want to achieve a full decoupling because they want to turn the China-US relationship into a relationship like the one between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War era. This is a dynamic process since whether China and the US can decouple is not determined by the US”.

And his belief in the ‘openness’ of China via-à-vis its development/ industrialization is unshakable. “We believe that China’s reform process (in the past decades) was shaped by openness. There is no reason to change our belief in openness now that we are dealing with significant changes in the global environment. Instead, we should firmly believe in openness, let it continue to support national economic development, let it continue to shape the national economic future, and let it lead us to the center of the international stage when the West opposes globalization.”

Underlining the need for continued reform and open up, he told Global Times thus: “We should note that China must also have a sense of risk. When markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia are making progress, China must strengthen its competitiveness and cannot take it for granted. Competitiveness can only be maintained through human effort. Thus, we must continue to reform and open up”.

This Zheng- speak is pragmatism at its best, not influenced by sentiment but rational reason. A closed-door policy would undo all that China has achieved so far. Because, as he notes in one of his latest commentaries, “empirically, a nation’s level of economic development and sustainability will increase the more open it is.” Moreover, the economic development of different nations around the world has become “increasingly intertwined today as a result of factors like industrialisation, spread of technology, and spread of ideas”.

To drive home his contention, Zheng draws upon the Russian experience. “The Soviet bloc’s lack of openness was its most notable feature…. There cannot be thought innovation without thought exchange and as time goes by comes the state of rigidness. In addition, without opening up, there was no market for goods and no movement of money, technology, or labor (including talent) Since the modern era, Russia has made every effort to ingratiate itself with the West, and its ruling elites rarely reject the West.”

Contextualising China’s development in the last four decades, Zheng says: “One could argue that opening up and globalization have shaped China into what it is now.”

The reality check shows that what China has accomplished in the past 40 years of reform and opening up is a miracle in the annals of world economic history. Today it is the second-largest economy with 400-million-strong middle class. It has lifted 800 million people out of poverty, and boosted GDP per capita from less than US$ 300 to US$ 12,000 (by the end of 2021).

But there is a flip-side to the Chinese story.

It is the selectivity in importing Western ideas.

Writing in his highly readable tome, “Globalization and State Transformation in China” (Cambridge University Press, 2004), Prof Zheng said the Chinese leadership have been “open to the importation of Western ideas” for restructuring the bureaucracy and other important economic institutions to “accommodate” a globalized market economy.

“By contrast, the same leaders are reluctant to import Western concepts of democracy and the rule of law”, he lamented and cautioned that “ultimately, this selectivity will impede China’s progress in becoming a modern nation state”.

A warning, President Xi Jinping will do well to heed as he walks into the 20th party Congress, since his open crusade against corruption and inefficiency in the party, the government and above all economy has failed to deliver as the latest spate of suspensions, expulsions and arrests show###