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Where is China going? Paul French leafs through three books looking at the People’s Republic with Xi Jinping at the controls
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he Sixth Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Congress took place in October with Xi Jinping declared China’s ‘core’ leader. Xi has emerged as a much greater figurehead leader of China than any other leader since perhaps Deng Xiaoping, or even perhaps Mao himself. This comes at a time of the completion of the rebalancing of the Chinese economy. Many feel it is essentially a moment when China is entering a new phase. But will that phase be stable, peaceful and unproblematic or will it be a period when demands for political change come to the fore, fractious geopolitical realignments occur (not least in the wake of one D Trump being handed the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) and some economic problems created decades ago have to be finally solved? In recent months some pretty
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Control will be the hallmark of the Xi administration
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big beasts in the international China watching community have weighed in on the subject. First, the economy. Arthur Kroeber has been one of the leading independent economic analysts of China for over a decade now. Kroeber’s snappily titled book, China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know, gives a useful overview of how China’s economy was freed from the shackles of Maoism and exploded into three decades of growth, the problems the current leadership inherits from that growth (pollution, debt, high expectations, a demographic time bomb, etc) before offering some analysis of the
future. Kroeber argues that much talk of China as an innovator ignore the fact that most is “adaptive innovation”, making things work better in the Chinese context. Kroeber is also worried about Xi’s tendency to want to control things rather than reform and liberalise. Which brings us to Kerry Brown’s book CEO China: The Rise of Xi Jinping. Brown, a former British diplomat and now head of the Lau Institute at King’s College in London, sees China’s anti-corruption drive, its rebalanced economy, its international stance as all ways in which, though he may have inherited these issues, Xi Jinping has been able to cement his position as head of the Communist Party and country. Brown explains in great detail Xi’s desire to control as many aspects of China and its citizens’ lives as possible – the internet, universities, banking and the currency. All of this goes to support Kroeber’s theory that control will be the hallmark of the Xi administration rather than any notion of democracy or a renewed push to liberalise the Chinese economy. Which, finally, brings us to David Shambaugh’s book, China’s Future. Shambaugh, who teaches political science and international relations at George Washington University, specialises in the party-state relationship in China. In this concise book he looks at China’s emergence onto the global stage. As with Kroeber and Brown he asks whether the immediate future under Xi might be one of stagnation, both politically and economically. Shambaugh see this decade as crucial to determining how China will engage the world in the future - more liberal or even democratic or will China instead emerge as a hard, authoritarian and aggressive superstate? ●
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