I need to understand China. I do not understand China. How can I learn to understand China? Martin Wolf is also trying to understand China. Here he sets forth seven propositions that the Chinese elite make to him: Martin Wolf: How the Beijing elite sees the world: "How does the Chinese ruling elite view the world?...
...Here are seven propositions our interlocutors made to us.
China needs strong central rule... [with] the Chinese Communist party, with some 90m members... essential to national unity....
Western models are discredited....
All this has increased confidence in China’s unique model. Yet this does not mean a return to a controlled economy.... "[The] government... creates the framework for the market... promote[s] entrepreneurship and protect[s] the private economy”...
China does not want to run the world....
China is under attack by the US... the South China Sea, Taiwan, the Dalai Lama and now trade”. This then is a systematic attack....
US goals in the trade talks are incomprehensible....
China will survive these attacks.... US business is highly involved with and dependent upon the Chinese economy. The Chinese people, stressed others, are probably better able to bear privation than Americans. They are also highly resistant to being bullied by US power. Indeed, the Chinese leadership could not ignore public opinion in considering concessions...
I find it impossible not to grant (7), (2), and (6)—although if I had been among Martin Wolf's Chinese interlocutors, I would have said not that "US goals in the trade talks are incomprehensible..." but rather "US goals in the trade talks are incoherent where they are not silly..." It will take a generation, at least, of good behavior and strong productivity growth before a North Atlantic and democratic model will have a chance of again looking attractive to China's power elite and political class...
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