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'China-bashing' lacks credibility - People's Daily Online
By Tao Wenzhao (People's Daily Overseas Edition)
16:58, March 05, 2012
Edited and translated by People's Daily Online
On Feb. 27, the Time Magazine website published an article by its senior reporter Michael Schuman, claiming China's current economic system is unsustainable. The writer even predicted that a crisis may break out in China around 2014 or 2015. Apparently, this is another clichés of the "China-bashing".
In the past 20 years, "China-bashing" has been emerging from time to time. In the United States, this theory was most popular in the early 1990s. Some U.S. politicians and academicians believed that, given that the even the Soviet Union, which had been ruled by Communist Party for more than 70 years, can fall apart so quickly, there was no reason that China will not follow suit.
Some people published articles and claimed that "China is on the edge of territory division, political collapse or democratic revolution".
However, China's development flies in the face of their expectations - not only did China not collapse, after Deng Xiaoping's 1992 southern tour talks set off a new upsurge of the reform and opening up, China experienced sustained and rapid economic development.
The "China-bashing" reemerged the late 1990s, the main argument this time being: the lack of competitiveness of state-owned enterprises and huge nonperforming loans on banks' balance sheet, which had reached the point of beyond remedy and about to collapse, meant that long-term economic recession was inevitable. But the prophecy of these people once again did not materialize, as China successfully dealt with these problems through a series of reform measures and continued to maintain the momentum of economic growth.
Schumann argued that since China followed the Asian economic model of investment-driven economy, and the other adopters of the model, Japan and South Korea, both experienced crisis, China is also sliding into the abyss of crisis step by step.
The logic of the Schumann's argument is a bit like "a crisis for everyone" - because the other Asian countries, Japan and South Korea have experienced crisis, China will hardly escape the crisis.
In fact, China's economic development is not following any existing model. For a country with such a huge population and such a weak economic foundation, China must strike out a path of development suited to its national conditions. This is manifested in Deng Xiaoping's policy of "crossing the river by feeling for the stones" and has been China's practice in the past 32 years.
Due to the limited space, it's unlikely to analyze the specific problems one by one mentioned in Schumann's article.
It is true that after these years of economic development, China is faced with a series of tough challenges, such as resource shortages, environmental deterioration, an aging society, insufficient domestic demand, excessive dependence on investment and labor inputs, and so on. These issues have been discussed for quite some time now in China, and this is precisely why we are promoting the scientific development concept and the "12th Five Year Plan" has made the adjustment in economic growth model as the main task. But the conclusion is that Chinese people can successfully implement the adjustment and sustain China's economic development. Not only can sustainable and high growth be achieved during the 20-year window of "strategic opportunity", but also can the window of opportunity itself be extended. This is the mainstream view internationally, as evidenced by the recent World Bank report.
After so many years of reform and opening up, Chinese public and the media have been mature enough to be neither carried away by China-flattering, nor worked up by China-bashing.
The United States is a very pluralistic society, so it is natural to have different views on the same issue. Actually just a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal website published an article, criticizing "China-bashing" from the five aspects including investment, real estate, shadow banking, labor, and debt level. Thus, China-bashing lacks credibility.
We will calmly treat all these views, and borrow from the ideas that are reasonable. The best answer to China-bashing is China's economic growth itself.
By Tao Wenzhao (People's Daily Overseas Edition)
16:58, March 05, 2012
Edited and translated by People's Daily Online
On Feb. 27, the Time Magazine website published an article by its senior reporter Michael Schuman, claiming China's current economic system is unsustainable. The writer even predicted that a crisis may break out in China around 2014 or 2015. Apparently, this is another clichés of the "China-bashing".
In the past 20 years, "China-bashing" has been emerging from time to time. In the United States, this theory was most popular in the early 1990s. Some U.S. politicians and academicians believed that, given that the even the Soviet Union, which had been ruled by Communist Party for more than 70 years, can fall apart so quickly, there was no reason that China will not follow suit.
Some people published articles and claimed that "China is on the edge of territory division, political collapse or democratic revolution".
However, China's development flies in the face of their expectations - not only did China not collapse, after Deng Xiaoping's 1992 southern tour talks set off a new upsurge of the reform and opening up, China experienced sustained and rapid economic development.
The "China-bashing" reemerged the late 1990s, the main argument this time being: the lack of competitiveness of state-owned enterprises and huge nonperforming loans on banks' balance sheet, which had reached the point of beyond remedy and about to collapse, meant that long-term economic recession was inevitable. But the prophecy of these people once again did not materialize, as China successfully dealt with these problems through a series of reform measures and continued to maintain the momentum of economic growth.
Schumann argued that since China followed the Asian economic model of investment-driven economy, and the other adopters of the model, Japan and South Korea, both experienced crisis, China is also sliding into the abyss of crisis step by step.
The logic of the Schumann's argument is a bit like "a crisis for everyone" - because the other Asian countries, Japan and South Korea have experienced crisis, China will hardly escape the crisis.
In fact, China's economic development is not following any existing model. For a country with such a huge population and such a weak economic foundation, China must strike out a path of development suited to its national conditions. This is manifested in Deng Xiaoping's policy of "crossing the river by feeling for the stones" and has been China's practice in the past 32 years.
Due to the limited space, it's unlikely to analyze the specific problems one by one mentioned in Schumann's article.
It is true that after these years of economic development, China is faced with a series of tough challenges, such as resource shortages, environmental deterioration, an aging society, insufficient domestic demand, excessive dependence on investment and labor inputs, and so on. These issues have been discussed for quite some time now in China, and this is precisely why we are promoting the scientific development concept and the "12th Five Year Plan" has made the adjustment in economic growth model as the main task. But the conclusion is that Chinese people can successfully implement the adjustment and sustain China's economic development. Not only can sustainable and high growth be achieved during the 20-year window of "strategic opportunity", but also can the window of opportunity itself be extended. This is the mainstream view internationally, as evidenced by the recent World Bank report.
After so many years of reform and opening up, Chinese public and the media have been mature enough to be neither carried away by China-flattering, nor worked up by China-bashing.
The United States is a very pluralistic society, so it is natural to have different views on the same issue. Actually just a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal website published an article, criticizing "China-bashing" from the five aspects including investment, real estate, shadow banking, labor, and debt level. Thus, China-bashing lacks credibility.
We will calmly treat all these views, and borrow from the ideas that are reasonable. The best answer to China-bashing is China's economic growth itself.
