Chapter 16 2. The Chinese model may win

In October 1987, Janos Kadar, general secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, visited China and Deng Xiaoping met with him.At that time, the turmoil in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union had already emerged, and Deng Xiaoping gave him advice: Do not copy the practices of the West; do not copy the practices of other socialist countries; do not lose the superiority of your own system.I think Kadar himself agrees with Deng Xiaoping's views, but his colleagues in the party disagree with him, advocating "thorough political reform" in Hungary to make Hungary a "laboratory of democratic socialism".As a result, the "two radical" treatments of politics and economics came into being, that is, radical transformation in politics, from the original Communist Party system to a Western-style multi-party system; radical "shock therapy" in economy, from the original China's planned economy quickly turned to privatization and marketization.

Twenty years later, how is the situation in Hungary? In 2008, the world-renowned GFK company conducted a poll in Hungary, and the result was: 62% of Hungarians think that life is not as good as it was in the Kadar period 20 years ago; only 14% think that now is the "happiest period" , and 60% of people think that the Qatar period is "the happiest period".I visited Hungary in 1989 and again 20 years later, and I can see and hear this poll.Regarding the situation in Hungary and Eastern Europe, I will discuss it in detail in Chapter Seven. Now it seems that Deng Xiaoping’s three opinions to Kadar are a very good summary of the general idea of ​​the Chinese model: do not copy the West, do not copy other socialist countries, and do not give up your own advantages.On the basis of the "three don'ts", we boldly explore system innovation, boldly learn and learn from the strengths of others, and at the same time give full play to our own advantages, and gradually form our own development model.In response to the financial tsunami sweeping the world, China has demonstrated its strong macro-control capabilities, enabling the Chinese economy to take the lead out of the shadow of the financial crisis. It is no wonder that American financier George Soros has lamented many times recently: China is the biggest beneficiary of globalization. It is also the biggest beneficiary of the financial crisis.Why can China be the biggest beneficiary?I think the main reason is that China has formed its own unique development model through its own bold exploration and experimentation.

The Chinese model has eight main characteristics, namely, practical rationality, strong government, priority to stability, priority to people's livelihood, gradual reform, sequence difference, mixed economy, and opening up to the outside world.These characteristics are also my summary of China’s reform and opening up experience over the past thirty years, and these characteristics are based on Chinese civilization, especially the four “super factors” of population, geography, tradition, and culture.These factors generally regulate the uniqueness of China's development path, the path dependence of China's reform and opening up, and all the characteristics of the Chinese model.In the past 30 years, some people in China have tried to jump out of these eight characteristics, but in the end they are always pulled back in practice. China's super-strong genes have brought certain norms: Once we do not grow and develop according to this genetic map, China's development will be prone to setbacks and failures.

The philosophy of the Chinese model is mainly practical rationality, that is, under the guidance of the idea of ​​"seeking truth from facts", proceed from reality in everything, do not engage in bookishness, constantly summarize and learn from the experience and lessons of oneself and others, and promote bold and prudent system reforms and innovation.This philosophy has something to do with the fact that Chinese civilization has the strongest WTO culture in the world.In Chinese culture, attention to life, reality, and society always comes first.China does not have a theological tradition in the Western sense, and behind China's practical rationality today is the secular nature of Chinese culture.

Practical rationality can be traced back to the "theory of name and reality" in the pre-Qin period. One of the principles of "Name and Reality Theory" is that "the name should be in accordance with the reality", or "the name is worthy of the name". The "name" refers not only to the name, but to all value judgments about things that depend on "doing".Scholar Zhao Tingyang once summarized a characteristic of the Chinese philosophical tradition in this way: Philosophy is generally concerned with the issues of "to be" (that is, the "ontology" of "existence" and "what is") and "ought to be" (that is, the concern about "should be" However, the Chinese have a cultural tradition that emphasizes practice, and they are more concerned about "to be is to do" or "to be is to do" or "to be is to do" "(to do thus to be), that is, the "practice theory" based on "doing", "doing", "practice" and "testing".The Chinese are not satisfied with the Western deduction of "theory of existence" and "theory of norms", but put "theory of practice" first.Chinese reform practitioners are not satisfied with the discussion of "what is a market economy", "what should a market economy be like", "what is democracy" and "what is modernity" in Western discourses, but strive to use their own "doing" and "practice" to "investigate things" to make independent judgments on various existing concepts.In other words, the success of the Chinese model does not rely on the deduction of "value truth" itself, but puts "practical truth" above "value truth", and through its own successful practice, subverts some so-called "value truths" in the West. truth".

Probably due to this huge difference in philosophy, reforms led by the West always start with "constitutional amendments", then amend laws and relevant regulations, and finally implement them.China's approach is just the opposite. China always starts with "experimentation". Reform measures are piloted in a small area first, and then spread after success, and then formulate relevant regulations, laws and even amend the constitution.We use more "inductive" than "deductive" methods, that is, summing up experience from experiments and practice to generate theory.We admit that theory has certain guiding significance for practice, but we do not believe that reality must follow theory, but believe that the development of reality has its own laws, and what we need to do is to gradually discover these laws through practice.Nor do we accept the political romanticism that reality must fit theory, which is largely a lesson we have learned from past political romanticism.The political and cultural logic of the Chinese model has enabled China to avoid one political and economic trap after another, especially major traps such as shock therapy, total privatization, financial crisis, and national disintegration caused by pseudo-"democratization", and realized China's Full rise today.

China has a relatively neutral, strong, and promising government, which has a clear modernization orientation and is able to formulate and implement strategies and policies that are in line with the long-term interests of the nation.The role of the Chinese government in economic development is essentially determined by the four “superfactors” of a “civilized country”—population, geography, tradition, and culture.Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, China, a super-large country, has practiced a unified system. The so-called "multiple generations of Qin politics", the local system is the prefecture and county system. With hereditary aristocratic politics like that in Europe, it should be said that China's civil service system is thousands of years ahead of Europe.It was only after the Enlightenment that Europe borrowed the civil service system from China.

China's super-large scale also means that the country's governance is complex and arduous.The ancient needs of water control and disaster prevention, frontier defense and war made this tradition of a strong and active government continue to this day.This tradition is inseparable from China's large population and vast territory.Take China's annual "Spring Festival Transport" as an example. During the Spring Festival, ordinary people will go home for reunions and visit relatives and friends. This in itself reflects the Chinese cultural tradition.Every year during the Spring Festival travel season, more than 2 billion people travel on the road. In 2010, the passenger flow during the Spring Festival travel season reached 2.5 billion. What is the concept of 2.5 billion?This means moving the population of the Americas, Europe, and Africa all within a month.No system other than a more efficient system of government like China's can handle this challenge.

Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, the government authority formed in Chinese history and the political party authority formed in the long-term revolution and construction have been used to promote China's modernization, to organize the implementation of various reform measures, and to counteract Coordinate the various contradictions that arise in the reform.Throughout the developing world, the biggest problem facing countries that have adopted the Western model is what Nobel Laureate in Economics Karl Gunnar Myrdal called the "soft government" problem. The execution ability of the "soft government" is extremely weak, the government is kidnapped by various vested interests, politicians are endlessly arguing, it is often difficult to reach a consensus on building a road, let alone promote the family planning policy, the result is the modernization of the country It is difficult to move forward, and people's lives have not been improved for a long time, let alone catch up with developed countries.

In the past 30 years, China has completed the largest industrial revolution and social revolution in human history, but this process is also a process of increasing contradictions and conflicts. A relatively neutral, strong, and promising government makes us It has successfully prevented the social runaway and disintegration of the country that occurred in many national reforms, and reduced the contradictions and conflicts of different interests in the reform.Through government mobilization and persuasion, China has greatly reduced the cost of resolving complex conflicts.China today has the most powerful administrative and organizational capabilities in the world, which can be seen from the process of hosting the Olympic Games and the World Expo and responding to the financial tsunami.This capability is critical to China's eventual emergence as a first-class developed country.

Of course, from the perspective of national governance, the reform tasks of governments at all levels are not light.We must continue to explore and innovate on how to further adjust the relationship between the government and enterprises, and between the government and society, and how to ensure effective supervision of government work.In economic affairs, the government should do something, not do something, grasp something, and release something.However, in China's specific political culture, the transformation and weakening of government functions must also be promoted by the government. The government's initiative and large-scale decentralization of power during the process of China's reform and opening up is an example. We have handled the relationship among stability, reform and development fairly well.China is a country with a large population and limited resources per capita, which can easily lead to competition over resources and cause instability.In addition, the huge territory formed by the "summation of a hundred countries" makes China have a hundred times more complicated regional and national cultural differences than ordinary countries, and a little mishandling will easily lead to various contradictions and even conflicts.China's stability is still being provoked by internal separatist forces and external hostile forces.How many Western forces are looking forward to the independence of Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, Inner Mongolia, and the disintegration of China like the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia.However, factors such as the tradition of a strong Chinese government, the Chinese people's long-standing "great unification" complex, and the emerging world's largest unified market determine that such attempts by the West will eventually fail. The super-large scale of a "civilized country" also means that its domestic instability factors must be more than ordinary countries.This kind of unstable factor may cause more damage, so "stability overrides everything" is the great political legacy left by Deng Xiaoping, the top leader of reform and opening up, to the Chinese people.He said, "The overriding issue in China is the need for stability. Without a stable environment, nothing can be done, and the achievements that have been made will be lost."Deng Xiaoping also said with deep emotion in his southern speech in 1992, "History does not give China many opportunities for development, and the country collapses overnight. It is easy to collapse, but difficult to build." years to recover."This is Deng Xiaoping's profound conclusion after summarizing the experience and lessons of Chinese history and world history based on his rich political experience. I have also made a rough calculation myself. During the 140 years from the Opium War in 1840 to the reform and opening up in 1978, the longest period of stability in China did not exceed eight to nine years. As a result of the political movement, the country has no peace, the economy stagnates, and the people suffer.In the end, it was Deng Xiaoping, China's top leader, who made up his mind to maintain political stability and improve people's livelihood with a very strong stance. We finally achieved a leap-forward development rarely seen in human history.On the premise of adhering to stability, vigorously promoting reform, opening up and economic development is the key to the success of the China model.In a super-large "civilized country" like China, nothing can be done without stability. However, on the other hand, a "civilized country" also demonstrates such a cultural heritage: as long as the country maintains political stability and implements relatively enlightened policies, the people will have ample food and clothing, and the society will prosper, because Chinese people have The strongest tradition of hard work to get rich.Whether at home or abroad, as long as there is stability, most Chinese people can gradually become rich through hard work.The association of "Taiping" and "prosperous age" in Chinese culture points out this truth.As long as China stabilizes and develops, many existing problems can be gradually resolved in the process of development.Of course, we need to point out that giving priority to stability is not to avoid or cover up conflicts, but to create conditions through stability so that conflicts can be resolved more effectively. There are thousands of years of people-oriented economic tradition in Chinese history, and there is an ancient saying that "the people are the foundation of the country, and the foundation is solid, and the country is peaceful", which means that the people are the cornerstone of the country. Only by consolidating the cornerstone of the country can the country be peaceful, and the problem of people's livelihood can be solved. Good or bad, will determine the future and destiny of a country.In the past long period of natural economic conditions, "food is paramount to the people" and "everyone has food to eat" has always been the top priority for Chinese governments of all dynasties.In the early days of reform and opening up, the biggest pressure was how to solve the problem of food for the vast population. The goals of achieving "subsistence and clothing" and "moderate prosperity" proposed later are also a continuation of this people-oriented thinking. An important experience of China in the past 30 years is: a developing country must put people's livelihood first, and promote poverty eradication and improvement of people's livelihood as core human rights, because poverty, especially extreme poverty, damages the basic dignity and dignity of human beings. right.Proceeding from this concept, China has vigorously promoted the improvement of people's livelihood, especially in the eradication of poverty, and has achieved world-renowned achievements.According to statistics from the United Nations, in the past two decades, the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty in China accounts for 70% of the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty in the world.About half of the world's population still lives in poverty, and the Western model cannot solve the most basic livelihood problems in developing countries. A lot of human, financial and material resources are used by politicians to engage in politics and engage in the so-called "democratization" of competing for power and profit. ".The result is that "elephants fight and the grassland suffers", which makes people's lives difficult. From the perspective of the concept of "people's livelihood is the greatest", even if a country promotes political reform, it should focus on improving the quality of people's livelihood at a higher and broader level. Political reform should not be divorced from improving people's livelihood. Improving people's livelihood itself has its own It is conducive to creating the conditions needed for political reform, and political reform must ultimately be implemented so that the government can provide better services to the people and enable the people to live a safer, freer, happier, and more dignified life.The West's overwhelming promotion of "democratization" has resulted in a complete disconnect between political reform and the improvement of people's livelihood, and has caused endless turmoil and war in non-Western countries.Practice has proved that if the government of a developing country cannot build a social consensus to improve people's livelihood, but pins the hope of solving various problems on radical political reforms, the probability of success is zero.Radical political reforms have raised high expectations among the people, leading to an explosion in political participation, economic and social chaos and greater disappointment among the people.This radical approach will not succeed in Mongolia with a population of less than 3 million or Kyrgyzstan with a population of less than 6 million, let alone China, a country with a population of 1.3 billion. For China, a country with a large population, vast territory, and complex conditions, the biggest challenge facing decision makers is insufficient information, which also means that decision-making risks are high. Therefore, Chinese policy makers tend to reduce risks in the process of promoting reform and opening up. , so that the possible negative impact of the policy is within the controllable range.Under such circumstances, the central government pays more attention to the enthusiasm of all sectors, encourages various experiments, and promotes them after the experiments are successful.Some traditional Chinese wisdom, such as "crossing the river by feeling the stones" and "haste makes waste", etc., have also been used to guide China's gradual reforms. In addition, due to its large size and large population, even before the reform and opening up, China did not form a very complete and rigorous planned economic system like the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This made China one step ahead of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in terms of the initial conditions for reform.Even under the planned economic system of the year, China still maintained many spontaneous, decentralized, and unorganized activities, with large regional and sectoral differences. With the loosening of control in the reform and opening up, market factors are relatively easy to grow spontaneously.Through the observation and recognition of the central government, these situations are gradually raised to the strategic level of reform and opening up, and promoted to the whole country. This process is also gradual. Gradual reform is different from radical reform represented by "shock therapy".Radical reforms are based on the premise of political pluralism, resulting in a sudden explosion of political participation, completely destroying the original political order; while gradual reforms are based on the premise of maintaining the stability of the political order and ensuring the relative concentration of the political system.We rejected "shock therapy" and pushed for incremental reform.Instead of abandoning the existing imperfect system and starting a new one, we should make use of the existing imperfect system to operate as much as possible, and in the process, gradually reform the system itself so that it can serve the cause of modernization.The reform does not seek perfection, but seeks continuous gradual progress, continuous correction of errors, and finally completes the great cause of reform through the accumulation of gradual reforms. Practice has proved that this is an effective way to success.What I want to add here is that gradual is not necessarily slow.On the contrary, our overall strategy of reform and opening up is gradual, but the specific measures are often immediate.For example, we started opening up to the outside world with the establishment of four coastal special economic zones. In terms of the overall strategy, this is gradual, but as far as the establishment of the special zones is concerned, we quickly made a decision and began to implement them very quickly. The efficiency is very high. It embodies the speed and efficiency of China under the guidance of the gradual reform strategy. We established the comparatively correct sequence differences.Reform does not seek to be completed in one step, but to prioritize.Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, a clear pattern of first easy and then difficult has been formed.We generally regard reform as an overall process. In this process, there are first and last, and the general approach is to start with lower-cost reforms and form increments, so that there are fewer resistances and greater benefits. After this step is taken, we will deal with stock reform.For example, our reforms started with the relatively easy rural reform, and the enterprise reform started with the relatively easy expansion of power and concessions, so that the beneficiaries greatly outnumber the losers.This kind of reform that took the first step created the necessary conditions for other reforms, accumulated experience, reduced resistance, and brought about chain reactions.The success of rural reforms provided cities with a broad market, sufficient labor force and a good demonstration effect, and also promoted the start of urban reforms.Similarly, the rapid development of the private economy has created increments, created a competitive market environment, and promoted the reform of the state-owned economic stock. Behind this difference in order is the Chinese tradition of holistic thinking and dialectical thinking.Among all civilizations in the world, the Chinese are probably the strongest in terms of holistic thinking and dialectical thinking.The Chinese believe that to solve any problem, we must have a holistic view, and we can't treat the head with a headache and the foot with a foot.This enables us to have a more strategic vision in doing things and be able to prioritize.Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, a clear order pattern has been formed: rural reforms first, followed by urban reforms; coastal areas first, then inland areas; economic reforms first, and political reforms later.The vast majority of reforms do not seek to be completed in one step, or even two steps forward and one step back, but in general we have ensured the continuity of the reform, the problems that have arisen have been gradually corrected, and finally the great cause of reform has been completed through gradual accumulation.This approach is in line with the national conditions of China, which has a large population, a vast territory, and huge internal differences. China's current economic system is a "socialist market economy", which is essentially a mixed economy.It is a mixture of "invisible hand" and "visible hand", a mixture of market forces and government forces, a mixture of "market economics" and "humanistic economics". On the whole, we have established a socialist market economic system, which not only gives full play to the high efficiency of the market economy in controlling resources, but also ensures the strengths of socialist macro-integration, while rejecting market fundamentalism.For example, some people think that the land factor needs to be thoroughly marketized, and the state should give up control over the land. This is a market economy.However, China's per capita arable land area is one of the lowest in the world. The biggest possibility brought about by land privatization is that the land is quickly gathered by a few people, causing the majority of farmers to lose their land and fall into poverty.The tradition in Chinese history is "Under the heavens, there is no king's land", and the ideal of revolutionaries in the past is "land to the tiller".Instead of imitating the mainstream Western model, we separate land ownership from use rights and combine macro integration with market mechanisms. As a result, we have formed the world's largest urbanization process, the largest real estate market, and the largest high-speed rail network. And the second largest expressway network in the world, the housing ownership rate is higher than that of developed countries, and the living conditions of the vast majority of farmers have also been greatly improved. With the realization of the goals of "sufficiency and clothing" and "moderate prosperity", China is increasingly modernized and integrated with the world economy.In this process, we have basically mastered the "digital management" of the West, and some aspects are better than the West.At the same time, China has also developed its own "macro integration power".The basis of this "macro-integration" includes the state's control over land, finance, and large-scale backbone enterprises, the ability to "concentrate power to do big things" and macro-control capabilities, as well as vigorously promote the leapfrogging of the private economy. develop. During the more than 30 years of reform and opening up, the central government has played the role of providing macro guidance and ensuring a stable balance for this super-large country, while local governments at all levels have used resources such as taxation, land and policies to attract investment and promote local employment income. And social prosperity, and finally promoted the rapid rise of the whole country. It can be said that both the central government and local governments are the engines that promote China's economic development.This interactive relationship between the central and local governments can also be traced back to the "county system" of the Qin and Han Dynasties, to Wang Anshi's idea of ​​vertical control of "counties" and Sima Guang's interaction between local and local gentry, and to Mao Zedong's "two Walk on one leg."China has a large population and a vast territory. The population of a province is often equal to a dozen countries in Europe. Therefore, China has formed the largest local government system in the world.For this reason, how to mobilize the enthusiasm of local governments while maintaining the macro-stability of the entire country has always been the key to the success of China's "civilized country" governance. Economist Zhang Wuchang believes that the biggest secret of China's economic miracle is the competition between local governments, especially "inter-county competition", because the decision-making of land use rights is mainly in the county-level government, "through the expansion of contractual responsibility contracts... …a contractual arrangement between government agencies and private industry, with sharecroppers in cascades of subcontracting” that produced “awe-inspiring economic power.”Economist Shi Zhengfu also believes that the benign interaction of China's "three main bodies" (central leaders, departmental bureaucrats, and local governments) is the key to China's economic success.He believed that the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries had only "dual subjects" (central leaders and departmental bureaucrats). As a result, departmental bureaucrats always resisted reforms out of vested interests, and in the end all reforms failed halfway.In contrast, due to China's large territory, local governments have also become the main body of interest in economic development, thus breaking through the deadlock brought about by the "dual subject" and realizing the rapid development of China's economy. Of course, the "three-element subject" also has its own shortcomings, especially how to solve the problems of government "rent-seeking" and local protectionism.However, it cannot be denied that the positive effects of the "three-element subject" on China's overall progress are far greater than the negative effects of its defects.We should perfect it on the premise of affirming the achievements of the "three-element subject".We don't want to cater to the dogmas in the western economics and political science textbooks, but rewrite the western textbooks and write our own textbooks through the investigation and research of the Chinese model.Practice has proved that the role of governments at all levels in China is essentially a part of China's core competitiveness, but this role should also have a clearer boundary, and its defects should be continuously corrected in future practice. As a "civilized country", China always seems to need something that stands a little higher than market economics, companies, and individuals in order to make such a "civilized country" Only when political and economic affairs are well managed can the enthusiasm of all parties be mobilized and the unique Chinese goal of "satisfying the people" be realized in the Chinese economy.This thing is probably the kind of "walking around" that Deng Xiaoping said, the kind of overall consideration and strategic thinking ability unique to the Chinese, and the matching neutral and strong government that understands "the support of the people".If the "civilized country" does not have all of these, if the Chinese model loses all of these, then China's economic and political development prospects will not be optimistic, and it will even lose its advantages in global competition and lose everything. From the perspective of historical tradition, China was quite open from the Qin and Han Dynasties to Zheng He's voyages to the West in the Ming Dynasty.Openness, interaction, and communication have greatly enriched Chinese civilization and spread Chinese civilization to the world.However, after Zheng He's voyages to the West, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty ordered the sea to be closed, and China has been closed since then.If China had remained open to the outside world at that time, at least China would not have missed the Industrial Revolution, and the history of the entire world might have been rewritten. The all-round opening-up strategy of China promoted by Deng Xiaoping has its own characteristics: first, the coastal areas were opened up, then along the rivers and borders, and then the entire inland area was opened up. Now China has formed a pattern of all-round opening up in the east, west, north, south, and middle.During the Cold War, the United States consciously excluded the former Soviet bloc from the world market, and the "two world market systems" (socialist market system and capitalist market system) promoted by Stalin played into the arms of the United States.Deng Xiaoping's strategy is different. He believes that the main reason why China is backward in modern times is that it is closed to the outside world. Therefore, he vigorously promotes China's all-round opening up, integrates into the international market, participates in international competition, improves itself in international competition, develops itself, and selectively adapts to the outside world. In the world, selectively learn from other people's experience, but I am the main one, and I will never follow blindly. The self-confidence behind this highly open policy also comes from China's historical inheritance: as long as the Chinese civilization is opened to the outside world, it can be rejuvenated and bring forth the new.This has been the case in history, it is still the case today, and it will continue to be the case in the future.Opening up to the outside world has activated all the elements of Chinese civilization, making China a "civilized country" take on a new look through international interaction, reference, collision, and competition.At the same time, opening up to the outside world has also enabled us to better understand various problems in the outside world, and enabled us to establish more political self-confidence and cultural awareness. Chinese wisdom can make its own contribution to mankind. China's unique development model is obviously becoming more and more attractive to the outside world.We have achieved both development along with the trend and progress against the trend.Russian economics professor Vladimir Popov commented on the Chinese model in September 2006: "China's development model is irresistible to all developing countries, because it has triggered unprecedented economic development in the history of the world economy. This model runs counter to the Western democracy and neo-liberalism prescriptions prescribed by the United States.” Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade also pointed out: “Although Western countries complain that China is promoting democracy, The slow pace of reform cannot hide the fact that the Chinese are more competitive, more efficient, and more adaptable to the African business environment than their critics. It is not only Africa that needs to learn from China, but the West also has a lot to learn from China.” Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers also lamented: In two to three hundred years, historians will find that the "9.11" incident and the Iraq War are not important, and the only important event in the 21st century is the rise of China. Of course, while seeing the great success of the Chinese model, we must also keep a clear head, because the Chinese model itself is still developing, and there are many problems, some of which are quite serious, and must be seriously resolved.For example, our government has interfered too much, causing some markets to be underdeveloped; our political reforms in some fields are relatively lagging behind, leading to monopoly and rent-seeking corruption in some industries; our wealth gap, ecological problems, education problems, medical care Questions, etc., have caused a lot of dissatisfaction.But as long as we are clear-headed, determined, and brainstorming, these problems can eventually find solutions, and even become a good opportunity for our next development.An important experience of China's reform is to regard all problems as opportunities for further improvement. In a sense, we can also say that the Chinese model is the least bad model, that is to say, although this model has shortcomings, some of which are quite serious, it is better than the development models of other developing countries and countries in transition Much more, especially if you compare China's development in the past three decades with those countries that have implemented a Western-led development model: the West implemented a so-called "structural adjustment program" in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, which drastically cut public spending, As a result, the economic and social crisis in African countries has worsened.The United States implemented "shock therapy" in Russia, and many Russians today call it the third "catastrophe" in Russian history (the first two were the invasion of the Mongolian cavalry in the 13th century and the invasion of the German Nazis in World War II). The "Washington Consensus" requires developing countries to promote the liberalization of capital markets regardless of whether the conditions are ripe or not. As a result, the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the subsequent Argentine financial crisis were triggered. The economies of many countries fell back by 20 years. It has also tasted the disaster that market fundamentalism has brought upon itself.In retrospect, if China had no idea of ​​its own and failed to stick to its own development path but followed the West blindly, the consequences would be unimaginable, and it may even be a disaster for China. Over the past three decades, China has largely figured out its own path to modernization.In a country with a population larger than the sum of the European Union, the United States, Japan, and Russia, such an earth-shaking industrial revolution, technological revolution, and social revolution have been carried out. The country has maintained stability and the living standards of most people have improved significantly. It also successfully avoided the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the financial catastrophe that began in 2008.Looking at any country in the world, it is already a great achievement to achieve one of them, but we have achieved almost all of them, which is the proof of the success of the Chinese model. The Chinese model was formed in the process of large-scale international interaction and competition, so it is full of vitality and competitiveness.The specific practices of the Chinese model may not have universal significance in the world, but some of the concepts behind it, such as "seeking truth from facts", "people's livelihood first", "harmonious middle way", "holistic thinking", etc., will inspire many countries in the world , it will be helpful to solve many world problems.This I shall discuss in the next chapter.