Re: [A-List] Re: China not transitional to capitalism: experts

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have re-read the report.

It seems to me to be a reasonable observation.

"Nearly three decades ago, no single Western economist could have
predicted that China's economy would grow at the fastest rate in the
world over the following 25 years."

True.

"At that time the preconditions set as necessary in standard Western
economic textbooks - a well-established market, private property rights
and effective rule of law - were not present."

True

"But overall progress has been made along the years, even in the first
half of 2003 when the country was hit by the outbreak of severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS)."

True

"A group of economists, politics experts and law experts gathered late
October in China's flagship business municipality of Shanghai to seek an
answer to what Westerners have hailed the "China miracle".
"

Fact.

"Mainstream economics in the West categorizes the Chinese economy as a
"changing socialist economy." This definition was called into question
by Chinese scholars. Shi Zhengfu, an economic professor with the
Shanghai-based prestigious Fudan University, said what has been produced
in China is probably not a change from one social and economic system to
another, nor "transitional" to capitalism in Westerners' view, but an
"evolution to an unknown world."

It did qualify "Mainstream economics  in the West".  Thus your crtiticism:
> for high-profile Chinese economists to
> call neo-classical economics "Western economics," as if a) no other
> schools of economic thought exist in the so-called "West" (itself a
> problematic construct), and b) there is something innately and
> peculiarly
> "occidental" about neo-liberal models of capitalist economy and
> ideological apologia for said forms of economy.

is misplaced.  You need to understand that Chinese economists are
bombarfed daily by "mainsteam" Western economists.  Thus not including
heterdeox economists in the US mainsteam is reasonable.

"This situation provides an epoch-making opportunity for the creation of
China's own economics," said Shi, who is director of the New Political
and Economic Center of the Fudan University."

This seems to me to be an open-mided observation.

"His view was echoed by a string of senior Chinese economic experts
attending the seminar on "Marching to New Politics and Economics" held
in Fudan."

For obvious reasons.

"China's economic system undertaken profound changes after 1979, and
choices for its unformed economic structure were many: from that of the
former Soviet Union to the Neo-classic economics of the West, and to the
"New Institutional Economics" based on transaction cost and property
rights."

Fact.

"But they fell into malfunction when applied to analyze unique economic
phenomena in this country. "According to Western economic theories, a
populous nation like China is less likely to have an economic blast-off,
but we made it," said Chen Ping, a professor with the China Economic
Research Center in elite Beijing University."

True.

"According to Chen, forces driving China's economic growth have many
aspects at odds with what Western classic economics think necessary. For
example, in China a competitive system has emerged before the reform of
property rights, and some regions have had earlier and faster economic
development because of favorable location."

True.

"China's experience validates a growth pattern of moderate competition
and economic evolution in co-existence (of different ownership), which
is distinctive from the Western economic growth model of consuming
natural resources and saving on manpower," Chen said."

Reasonable proposition.

"Wang Dingding, a renowned economist, said Western economists focus on
processing small issues in economics, but Chinese economists face
systematic changes, which may lay a foundation for the building of
China's social sciences, including economics theories."

Another reasonable proposition.

"China's economic growth, to a very large degree, relies on energies
released by a series of system reforms," Yao Yang, Chen Ping's
colleague, commented."

True.

Prof. Shi said China's economics could play a role in the following
three aspects: the enterprise system of multiple ownership including
public ownership; the pattern of social wealth distribution with the
creation of middle class going before privatization; local governments
acting as "administrator", not "night watchman" as they are in Western
countries.

Accurate obseervation.

"The research based on China's economics is not a copy research of
matters Western economics had done, nor is the goal of the research to
let China copy the Western style of economic development. We have been
confronting the same issues as US economists: all being untouched ones,"
Cui Zhiyuan, a professor working in a German-based institute, said."

Cui Zhiyuan, a friend of mine, was trained at MIT and Harvard. His
knowledge of what is going on in Chinese research circles is very reliable.

"Although to create an economic system fit for China's own economic
development has become a consensus of Chinese economists, few
innovations or inventions have been worked out, while they work on
criticizing and analyzing Western economics."

True.  You cannot criticise this approach as hogwash. The Chinese
economy needs an new economic theory independent of those of the West,
which grew out of the West's socio-economic history.  It is not fruitful
to try to modify Western theories to fit Chinese conditions. New
theories needs to emerge from pragmatic experimentation.

"The content of China's economic research is new, but the means of
research is old," said Shi Jinchuan, vice director of the Economic
School of Zhejiang University."

True

Stephen Green, head of the Asia Program of the Royal Institute of
International Affairs in Great Britain, said that "No matter what the
result will be... the Chinese are full of confidence in their own mode
of economic development."

Reasonable observation.

China is moving towards whatever works to feed its people and to
increase wealth across the board.  This article reports developments
among Chinese economists to seek a new economics that is more than a
mere transition to capitalism, as Western mainstream economists claim.
I suspect your trouble is that you do not like to tone of the
translation.  To understand the real message of the report, you need to
replace your Western mentality and put yourself inside the minds of
Chinese intellectuals and try to see when they are going, rather than
criticising them for "the notion
> that properly comprehending China's development performance is a
> function of whether one is endowed with the appropriate cultural
> epistemology or not seems to be part of the CCP's larger project to
> secure legitimacy strictly on the basis of nationalist criteria, rather
> than the socialist and nationalist criteria of times gone by."

The struggle is more complex.

Henry C.K. Liu


John Gulick wrote:
> Henry:
>
> While I might disagree with the analysis of a Maurice Meisner or other
> similar "libertarian Marxists" who claim that the PRC earns the
> classification of "bureaucratic capitalism," the article you posted from
> the
> People's Daily is so much hogwash. I'm not exactly sure why so many
> academics and experts in the PRC
> are inclined to resort to mysticism when explaining its pell-mell GDP
> growth these last 25 years, but I suspect it has something to do with an
> incentive structure that rewards said academics and experts
> for enshrouding this process in as much jargon-ridden mystery as
> possible, rather than in offering clear and critical analysis (there are
> of course some signal exceptions, such as Han Deqian). Most infuriating of
> all is the tendency, repeated over and over again in this piece, for
> high-profile Chinese economists to
> call neo-classical economics "Western economics," as if a) no other
> schools of economic thought exist in the so-called "West" (itself a
> problematic construct), and b) there is something innately and peculiarly
> "occidental" about neo-liberal models of capitalist economy and
> ideological apologia for said forms of economy. In essence, it seems
> that the Chinese academics and experts are bandwagoning with the CCP in
> the crude and cynical way it plays the cultural nationalist card to
> exempt itself from internal criticism. If the "West" equals the
> Reaganite-Thatcherite worldview and program, and if China has plainly
> "got rich" by following a tack other than the Reaganite-Thatcherite
> worldview and program, then only the "East" (or more specifically,
> Chinese) can fully understand why China has "gotten rich." The notion
> that properly comprehending China's development performance is a
> function of whether one is endowed with the appropriate cultural
> epistemology or not seems to be part of the CCP's larger project to
> secure legitimacy strictly on the basis of nationalist criteria, rather
> than the socialist and nationalist criteria of times gone by. But I
> suppose that none of this should come as a surprise, given that in the
> last years of his life Deng Xiaoping expressed admiration for Lee Kuan
> Yew and his crackpot views on Confucian exceptionalism.
>
> Well, I don't have any more patience, much less time, to spend on this.
>
> John Gulick
>
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