CHINAwatch

How anti-Beijing media tried to hype the massive Zhengzhou floods to discredit China's infrastructural claims

TV panel discussion on 26 July, 2021 with CNN News18 of India (My rebuttal starts from time counter 36:02)

Xi’s Gamble:The Race to Consolidate Power and Stave Off Disaster

The above think-piece in the July/August 2021 issue of Foreign Affairs is penned by Jude Blanchette, Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies based in Washington D.C. While the eminent scholar offers a wealth of well-argued insight, like many Western "China experts", there seem a number of "blind spots" which require deeper analysis:

 

(a) President Xi's awareness of the rare, time-limited, window of opportunity is well-documented. He said so openly many times. But the primary objective is the ultimate realization of the China Dream by the second centenary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 2049, when China is expected to have become a "strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern socialist country", reclaiming China's lost status as one of the world's greatest powers. China sees its time has come to return to the future where a large part of the world had been dominated by China and India, the two oldest Eastern civilizations, for millennia before the 17th century. President Xi's Belt and Road Initiative, capitalizing on China's global connectivity, is part and parcel of this China's Dream. 

 

(b) In face of the militarized China-encirclement Island China strategy, China's perceived assertiveness in the South China Sea is defensive of territorial claims and critical "sea-lanes of communication".  International trade and import of energy and materials are the lifeblood underpinning China's stability. It is in China's own interest to keep these sea lanes "free and open". The US-led "Freedom of Navigation" naval patrols are "provocative" in the eyes of Beijing.  

 

(c) President Xi's power grab also reflects the reality of no credible successor in the near horizon able and trusted to carry the China Dream baton forward.

 

(d) During this critical period of the nation's trajectory, threats to China's stability cannot be taken lightly. These include the Xinjiang conflict and separatism. Hong Kong's violent anti-Beijing protests with "independence" slogans, and Taiwan's "separatist" momentum. 

 

(e) The think-piece somewhat under-estimates China's massive reservoir of human capital by comparing China's university graduates representing 12.5 % of labor force against America's 24%. However, more than 8-9 million Chinese university students graduate every year, more than the numbers of the US and India combined. The number of tertiary students surged six-fold from 7.4 million in 2000 to nearly 45 million in 2018. The tertiary enrollment rate has reached 50%. More than 40% of China’s graduates are in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). China is second only to the US in the number of scientific journal publications, while its leading universities are climbing up in global rankings.

 

(f) Likewise underestimated is the role of China's private sector. As Yukon Huang and Joshua Levy point out in Foreign Policy The Shrinking Chinese State dated March 10, 2021, since the late 1990s, combined expenditures and investments by the government and state-owned enterprises have been remarkably stable— within a narrow range of 42 to 46% of GDP. In terms of central government spending, the state’s share in the economy is declining, while a vibrant private sector continues to spawn a galaxy of rising commercial stars.

 

(g) Similarly, China's infrastructure investment has by no means run its course. President Xi’s “2035 Vision” includes a plan to nearly double the nation’s 36,000-km high-speed rail lines, already more than two-thirds of the global total, to 70,000 km over the next 15 years. Including high-speed rail, an additional 200,000 km (124,274 miles) of the railway would be built. The plan aims to link towns of at least 200,000 people to the rail network and give cities of 500,000 and above access to high-speed trains. Even the remotest parts of the nation are to be connected.

 

(h) Massive urbanization with concomitant explosive consumption is set to drive productivity increases. The urban unemployment rate is to be capped at 5.5%, with labor productivity growth expected to outpace overall GDP growth. The urbanization rate is to be increased from 60.6% in 2019 to 65%, doubling China’s consumer middle class to 800 million by 2035. The hukou household registration system will be reformed to allow more migrant workers to become urban residents.

 

(i) Beijing's recent crackdown on China's leading tech giants must not be conflated with suppression of disrespect of the Chinese Communist Party. Let's not forget these top iconic tech leaders are all CCP members. It's to regulate a rising tide of hitherto unregulated digital banking and finance that could threaten China's financial stability. 

 

(h) Perceived authoritarianism notwithstanding, with a remarkable economic track record, the Communist Party remains highly legitimate and popular among the Chinese people, scoring one of the highest global ratings in terms of people’s support of their government, according to a recent Harvard Kennedy School report. Under the CCP's tutelage, some 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty, representing over 60% of global poverty reduction. Western multi-party adversarial "democracy" hardly fits the bill of a economically and socially-diverse country with 56 ethnic groups, 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 state-level municipalities, and 2 special administrative regions.  If democracy's ultimate aim is to improve the lives of most of the people, then China doesn't have to stick to America's one-taste-for-all Coca Cola formula, as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently quipped.  

 

Much of the above is encapsulated in the latest Five Year Plan (2021-25) (See a useful Chinese synopsis by the Trade Development Council). 

Beijing slams US for blacklisting 23 Chinese entities over alleged human rights abuses - Another example of misreading China's rise

Live TV interview on 11 July with Press TV.