Chapter 5 3. The Significance of China's Rise

The rise of China has extraordinary significance. It first reflects that the deep structure of Chinese society has undergone unprecedented qualitative changes, and the momentum of China's modernization has become irresistible.For a long time since the Opium War in 1840, most of the major changes in Chinese society were confined to the upper structure.The rural areas, which account for the majority of China's social population, are still in the natural economy and semi-natural economy. Even in 1978, our society was still a natural economy to a considerable extent.Farmers work day and night to make ends meet.The industrial base has been formed, but under the planned economy system, there is no vitality. Some meager commodity economies that existed before 1949 were also abolished. Plans and tickets controlled every cell of society, social mobility was extremely low, and there was no concept of foreign trade and international markets.Apart from continuous political movements, the social rhythm develops rather slowly.In the past, many people with lofty ideals in China were committed to changing China's political system and ideology. Now, through market-oriented economic reforms, we have completely broken the pattern of small-scale peasant economy and planned economy, and the entire economic and social structure of China has also changed. However, earth-shaking changes have taken place, and people's lifestyles have also undergone tremendous changes.This is the real change in China that has never happened in a thousand years.

China has completed the process of transforming from a closed agricultural society to an open industrial and commercial society, and has turned to an information society almost simultaneously with the West.Industrial society, commercial society, and information society have become the main features of Chinese society today.This new structural change has produced a genuine domestic demand for a society ruled by law and civil culture, as well as a real domestic demand for political system reforms suited to China's national conditions. Most of the countries I've traveled to are developing countries.Their situation is often the opposite of ours: the bottom of the society is still a medieval economic and social structure, social productivity and people's living standards are very low, traditional tribes and patriarchal societies dominate the lives of most people, in fact, these countries have not produced There is a real domestic demand for Western-style democratic politics, but under the pressure of Western countries, the upper-level structures of these societies have formed a post-modern Western-style democratic political structure, and the result is that the upper and lower structures of the entire country are completely out of touch.The crime rate in society is soaring. It is dangerous to go to the streets during the day, and no one dares to go to the streets at night. However, the parliament is discussing learning from "civilized countries" to abolish the death penalty.Ordinary people are struggling for their daily necessities, AIDS has devoured a large number of lives, the government does not even have the ability to distribute medicines to the grassroots, and various political parties are busy fighting for power and profit, always exercising tribalism, sectarianism or populism in the name of democracy The reality of socialism often results in continuous turmoil in the country, the inability of the government to integrate society, the decline of the economy and people's livelihood, and even civil war and national division.This problem is particularly acute in Africa.

China's structural changes are also reflected in the strengthening of the state's financial resources, which has created the necessary conditions and room for maneuver for us to solve various social conflicts today.When you visit developing countries, such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Kenya, you will find some typical phenomena in developing countries: there are few sidewalks in urban streets, and there are few street lights on the roads. There are piles of rubbish in a few places, and sewage splashes in the gutters, but almost no one cares about these things.This actually reflects the weak governance capacity and insufficient financial resources of the government.Either the economy is backward and there are not many taxes to collect; or the government is weak and the tax revenue cannot be raised; or corrupt officials have blocked tax revenue.The finances of many developing countries simply rely on limited foreign aid. The empty treasury has led to extreme corruption of officials and the military, lack of infrastructure, and very limited public services. Even post offices and hospitals are half closed.

On the contrary, although Western countries talk about democracy, the central government and all levels of government have never been sloppy in taxation.Take France as an example, if the tax payment date exceeds one day, you will be charged 10% more, and there is no room for flexibility.Historian Huang Renyu said that in Chinese history, it seemed that the imperial power was unlimited, but in fact the sky was high and the emperor was far away. The economic base was countless owner farmers, the agricultural tax revenue was not much, and the government's fiscal revenue was often not high.But in the past 30 years, China's economic foundation has experienced a qualitative leap. In 2011, the central fiscal revenue has exceeded 10 trillion yuan.Deng Xiaoping said in 1984 that by the year 2000, our national income will reach US$1 trillion, we can do this and that, and now our foreign exchange reserves alone will reach US$3.2 trillion, ranking first in the world.Deng Xiaoping repeatedly emphasized comprehensive national strength during his lifetime, and the fiscal revenue of the central and local governments is an important manifestation of comprehensive national strength.China's relatively abundant financial resources enable us to deal with various difficult social and economic issues more calmly.

Our infrastructure construction has advanced by leaps and bounds in the past 10 years, which is related to the country's financial resources, and the whole world is amazed by it.Ten years ago, our expressways were not among the top 30 in the world, but now the total mileage of expressways in China ranks second in the world.Our high-speed rail has developed rapidly from scratch, and its scale and speed have firmly ranked first in the world.All these have greatly promoted China's economic development and social progress. In China, with the change of economic and social structure, the change of people's psychology is another important feature of the great change unseen in the millennium.Changes in China's modern history are often limited to the elite class of society, while the psychology of the masses has not changed much.But now it is different. Every cell of ordinary people has been mobilized to develop, earn money, and achieve self-realization. The whole society is full of vitality and opportunities.Of course, when a society is undergoing such rapid changes, all kinds of anxiety and contradictions will also be highlighted, much like a teenager in adolescence, full of vitality and hope, but at the same time carries the risk of adolescence.But from the perspective of the long-term rationality of historical development, I am afraid that it is an inevitable stage for any society to modernize.

When I went out to visit by myself, I paid great attention to observing whether there were more or less idle people on the street, and used this as an important indicator to judge the potential and momentum of a country's development.When you go to Johannesburg, Cairo, Algiers, and Phnom Penh, you can see a lot of idlers, which shows that unemployment is serious in these countries.Go to Mumbai, a big city known as "Shanghai of India", and you will feel that there are several times more people doing nothing than in Shanghai.From this alone, you can conclude that it is not easy for Mumbai to catch up with Shanghai.

I visited Switzerland for the first time more than 20 years ago and felt the fast pace of life in Switzerland. I was deeply impressed by the rushing crowds and their hurried footsteps.At that time, the country was relatively free and leisurely.On the contrary, China is now arguably the busiest country in the world, especially in coastal cities, where the pace of life is faster than anywhere else in the world.Of course, extremes lead to opposites, and the issue of slowing down the pace of life is now being discussed in China.This is a question of the relationship between modernization and post-modernization, and the Chinese will eventually find a reasonable balance between the two.But from the perspective of a society's process of realizing modernization, the accelerated pace of life is probably an inevitable stage in the process of modernization.

This is also reflected in the rapid popularity of mobile phones in China.I feel that no country has more people using mobile phones than China.Of course, this is not necessarily a good thing.Many people in Europe say that mobile phones are a new public hazard, and it is not unreasonable.But from a broad perspective of historical development, this fact reflects the unprecedented increase in horizontal connections among Chinese people.Durkheim, one of the founders of French sociology, believes that the biggest difference between modern society and traditional society is that traditional society is dominated by vertical connections, while modern society is dominated by horizontal connections. In this way, the traditional vertical "mechanical cohesion" is transformed into the modern horizontal "organic cohesion".Once "organic cohesion" is basically formed, the process of modernization will be unstoppable.

This horizontal connection also brings China and the world closer together: today's Chinese economy has been integrated with the world economy, China cannot do without the world, and the world cannot do without China.In retrospect, when people still generally believed that China’s opening up was only open to developed countries, Deng Xiaoping repeatedly emphasized: China’s opening up is open to the whole world, both to developed countries and to developing countries. The big idea of ​​strategic vision has created a lot of development opportunities for China and the whole world. I visited poor Kosovo in the summer of 2006. In a small town with a population of only 200 people, I saw two or three businessmen sweating profusely Shoes and grocery products made in China were unloaded from trucks in a hurry.The person in charge of Kosovo National Television said to me: Without Chinese products, we cannot imagine how Kosovar people will live today.

A British scholar once summed up the changes brought about by the Chinese factor to me in this way: Whatever China can produce in large quantities, you should avoid it as soon as possible, otherwise you will dig your own grave.Whatever China cannot produce in large quantities, you have to work hard to produce, and then you will be invincible.This rather exaggerated statement outlines the many opportunities and challenges that China's rise brings to the world economy.Of course, it would be better to add one more sentence: the rise of China brings more opportunities than challenges to the world.

A European scholar once asked me what I think of the alliance of world democracies promoted by the United States. I said frankly: the key is that without China's cooperation, this alliance cannot solve any international problems.The rise of China means that today, from the fight against terrorism to global environmental governance, from resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis to dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue, from the new round of trade negotiations in Doha to the stability of the world financial order, China's cooperation is needed.Treating China as an enemy will only harm the interests of the United States itself.I also added: "One of the important experiences of China's rise is: refuse to be in command of ideology, and regard all countries as its friends or potential friends. Can't the United States get a little inspiration from this wisdom? ?” Former German Chancellor Schmidt appreciated this very much. He recently said: “If all countries and all power groups in the world can be as cautious as China, then the world will be more peaceful.” These are the words of a wise man. There is indeed a lot of wisdom behind China's fabulous rise.The rise of China is not only the total economic volume, total foreign trade volume, total foreign exchange reserves, gross national product, total highway mileage, etc., but also a new development model and the guiding ideology behind it.This model is not perfect, on the contrary, it has spawned many problems. Our own complaints about this and that in China (in fact, people in other countries complain as much as we do) illustrate this problem; but compared with the development model dominated by the West (like the IMF's "structural adjustment programs" in Africa and the US's "shock therapy" in Russia), the Chinese model works much better.It is at this point that China's rise is actually the rise of China's soft power.So far, the soft power of the West has not been able to solve a series of serious problems in the world today, such as extreme poverty, conflicts of different civilizations, and the threat of terrorism.The relative success of the Chinese model has not only enabled China to develop itself, but also led to the development of the entire world. At the same time, it has won a valuable right to speak for China and demonstrated China's growing soft power. All of this will benefit developing countries. Inspiration can also be helpful in rethinking how to collectively tackle the many challenges facing humanity.