China’s environmental problems: Beyond the propaganda

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THIS WEEK IN CHINA # 0017 (DATELINE: 8 December 2020
Facilitated by our special correspondent Godfree Roberts

Photo: Wind Power Station at Guanting Reservoir, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, P.R.China. Shot from Train 1456 on May 2009. By Xmhaoyu. Source: Wikimedia Commons.


 

Editor’s note: This article is based off a talk first delivered at the Eco-Socialism Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The corporate-owned media reports frequently about environmental problems in China, from air pollution in Beijing to toxins in the soil and the water. These stories ultimately function as propaganda in order to present China as a unique environmental calamity–part of a multi-pronged effort to demonize the country and especially the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).

As socialists, we know that the great environmental perils we face today are generated by the capitalist system. That’s why we organize to create a world based on meeting the needs of the Earth and all of its inhabitants.

There are serious environmental problems in China, yet questions about their origins and nature, as well as China’s efforts to acknowledge and confront them are rarely, if ever, explored in the U.S. media. It’s important that we answer these questions not only to defend China from the growing threat of U.S. imperialism, but also because those answers can help provide real world solutions and models for addressing the catastrophe of climate change globally.

There’s a lot of complexity to this, and so we have to grasp the different historical, political, and economic factors that have been at play since the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949.

The guiding role of the Party

When the Communist Party and the Red Army came to power, they faced some very profound challenges. They had to not only address the devastation wrought by colonialism, but also to develop an economy that would be more capable of meeting people’s needs.

Emerging from a broader national liberation movement, the socialist revolution was led by a communist party, and so they set about the task of building socialism. Within the context of China there was a lot of debate and conflict—within the Party, the state, and society as a whole—about exactly how to do that.

One of the primary struggles that played out over 30 years was the “two-line struggle.” One line promoted a vision of economic development based on socialist methods, including nationalized public property in the core industries and banking, centralized planning, collectivized agriculture, mobilization of the workers and peasants, and a monopoly of foreign trade. The other line promoted a vision of development that was bureaucratic and “pragmatic” rather than Marxist in approach, emphasizing a reliance on “expertise” and professionalism, utilizing material incentives, capitalist-style accounting methods and elements of the capitalist market—all while professing allegiance to the goal of building socialism.

In the end, after 1978-79, it was the “pragmatic” orientation that prevailed for a variety of reasons. Since that time, China has set itself on an economic development path which those leading factions within the Communist Party felt would do the best job of developing the technical and productive capacity of a modern Chinese economy. 

The key to that process was using the mechanisms of the market to promote and develop their productive forces. As this approach was implemented, many believed it amounted to an embrace of capitalism. This remains a contentious issue, and the PSL has previously written about it here.

The development of the Chinese economy over the last 40 years has been dramatic and has resulted in some very problematic contradictions, including greater wealth disparities, capitalist encroachments and abuses, and some privatization of social services. From the perspective of the environment, it’s also resulted in serious environmental stresses: pollution of the air, water, and soil. Building a modern industrial economy is obviously an energy-intensive endeavor.

When the CPC made the decision to use market mechanisms to develop the productive economy, there was a very important corollary or caveat, which was not to simply throw the country open, domestically or internationally, to the operations of capital. They didn’t simply say, “We are just going to build capitalism.” China is not a capitalist country, or a capitalist economy, or a capitalist society. It is a society within which, very self-consciously and very straightforwardly, very openly and honestly, the Communist Party retains its leading role politically, socially, and economically.

The CPC’s guiding role followed from the decision to use the mechanisms of the market to develop the economy, with the understanding that as that development took place, as the problems associated with markets began to assert themselves in a Chinese context, that some political force would be necessary to ensure that that process didn’t simply run out of control and lead to the restoration of capitalist political rule—a counterrevolution. Those political forces dedicated to defining a successful transition to socialism and then communism were understood to be located within the Communist Party, which now has 92 million members.

That is essentially a theoretical proposition: you can use markets to develop the economy, and the Party is going to oversee that process and try to moderate the worst effects of it. Now, how does that work in practice, specifically when it comes to the environment?

We can begin answering this question by looking at the last 40 years of China and especially the contemporary period under the leadership of Xi Xinping, who has been the principal leader since 2012.

Beyond the propaganda: Acknowledging and addressing environmental problems

First, the environmental problems associated with China’s industrialization process are the same historically associated with industrialization in any modern economy using the technologies, methods of production and fuel sources most widely available. In China, however, the problems have not gone unrecognized and, more importantly, they haven’t gone unaddressed.

Even with the population planning policies of China, which reduced the number of births by about 400 to 500 million (nearly one and a half times the population of the United States), the population has grown since 1980, and will continue to grow slowly through the middle of this century, probably peaking around 1.45 billion just before 2050. This growth has been far exceeded by the growth of the overall economy, which has allowed material standards of living for the vast majority of Chinese to rise significantly.

China has lifted over 500 million people out of poverty and created a “middle class” of some 300 to 400 million people, though there are still some areas in rural China where low incomes and poor material circumstances remain to be addressed.

This process of development, driven by the use of markets to increase the power of the productive economy, has also yielded serious environmental stresses. By the early 21st century air quality in many Chinese cities was often terrible, and soil and water pollution made farm products in some areas dangerous to consume. These were profound negative effects of market-driven development.

Because the CPC’s leadership has been maintained and not replaced by the organized political rule of the Chinese bourgeoisie (which is backed by the transnational corporations functioning within China), the Party retains the ability to address environmental issues in a way that is often unimaginable in societies ruled exclusively in the interests of capital.

Reducing coal use

At the heart of China’s most visible environmental problems is the question of energy. China has vast reserves of coal, and this fuel is cheap and easy to use.

In the early stages of development, coal was essential to the take-off of the economy. But as the economy developed, state and Party leaders have promoted policies to address the harsh effects of coal consumption. Ordinary people play a critical role in this process as well, protesting against environmentally destructive projects and activities, demanding cleaner air and water, and holding the leadership responsible for the results of their economic and environmental policies. Over the last decade popular movements and political leadership have combined to make great achievements in fighting environmental deterioration.

First and foremost are the efforts to reduce coal use. Coal remains the largest source of energy in China, but its role has decreased from nearly 80 percent of energy use in 1990 to 60 percent in 2017. The use of coal for cooking and heating in homes, which was a major source of poor air in China’s great cities, has been drastically reduced. These efforts, and others, have yielded a 30 percent drop in PM2.5 particulate pollution in Beijing and other big cities between 2014 and 2018. Much remains to be done in this area, but China has demonstrated a strong commitment to reducing coal usage and mitigating the negative impacts of the coal it does consume.

Investing in, developing, and distributing alternative energy sources

China has also taken the lead globally in the development and use of alternative energy sources. Overall, even though China is still a developing country with a per-capita income below the world’s average, China represented 32 percent of global investment in alternative energy in 2018 and matched this with 32 percent of installed capacity. Thirty-eight percent of all photovoltaic capacity worldwide is in China, and almost half of the world’s electric cars are in the country.

China is also leading in wind power, which accounts for four percent of national energy production, with twice installed as the United States. In addition, China is steadily enhancing its use of hydro-electric power, and now accounts for 25 percent of hydro power in the world. In China itself, as of 2015, wind and hydro together accounted for between 25 and 30 percent of energy production as a whole, and those rates are only rising. 

China is the largest investor in alternative energy research. They produce more energy leaders, more scientists, more research facilities, and simply spend more money than any of the world’s “advanced” economies. They spend three times more on research into alternative fuels than the United States. In 2017, this amounted to $126 billion spent by China, compared with $40.5 billion by the United States.

China not only invests and produces more for itself, but it distributes these technologies throughout the world. For example, solar panels produced in China—many around Shanghai—are both state of the art and low cost.

Reforestation

Another important Chinese initiative has been reforestation. Deforestation in China is nothing new; it’s a problem dating back thousands of years. But only now, with the CPC able to counterbalance the environmental costs of market-oriented economic development, is it being effectively addressed. China has the most aggressive program of reforestation of any country in the world. 

Reforestation is not only a matter of trying to control erosion and desertification. That is one dimension of it. Reforestation in China is also about bringing back huge tracts of oxygen producing forests, rehabilitating the lungs of the world and reducing air pollution, because they are pumping out clean oxygen into the atmosphere all the time. And most importantly reforestation aids in carbon capture, pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it in the soil. Forests also create their own micro climates that increase humidity and water tables and lower air temperatures, with the capacity to cool the overall climate.

Conclusion

Decreasing coal usage, investing in the research and development of alternative energy systems, and reforestation all work together. China’s response to environmental challenges demonstrates that the Chinese Communist Party retains some important ability to orient and plan the economy. And that’s the most important thing that we need to understand, because that’s exactly what is going on.

The Chinese socialists that wanted to use market mechanisms to develop the economy understood at the time that there were dangers involved, that there were contradictions involved. Deng Xiaoping famously said that “some people are going to get rich first” and that, “if you open the windows, the flies come in.” They knew that there were going to be problems, they knew that there would be contradictions, that there would be increased inequality, that there would be environmental stresses. But they didn’t abandon ship and turn the country over to the forces of capital. 

Developing a modern economy in a country with the world’s largest population after a century of colonialism is not a simple process, but rather one filled with challenges and contradictions. The leadership and guidance of a socialist, communist party has been essential to the course of development in China. China remains a “work in progress,” and the question of political leadership and the class nature of the system will be critical to the success of this great venture.     

That’s the possibility that we can see in China today on a scale unlike any other on our planet.

We need socialism. We can look at the experience that China has and see a living reality that is vehemently attacked by the interests of capital and the corporate media precisely because it is an real and substantive alternative to monopoly capitalism, one that can provide an instructive example when socialism comes to the most technologically advanced economies of the world. China provides an example—imperfect, of course—but one that we can learn from nonetheless.

 

Kenneth J. Hammond is Professor of History at New Mexico State University. Hammond was a student and Students for a Democratic Societyleader at Kent State University from 1967 to 1970. He later (1985) completed his degree in Political Science, then studied Modern Chinese language at the Beijing Foreign Languages Normal School in Beijing. Hammond received an M.A. in Regional Studies -East Asia(1989), and a Ph.D in History and East Asian Languages (1994) from Harvard University. In 2007, Hammond was appointed director of the Confucius Institute, a cultural initiative funded in part by Hanban on the NMSU campus that is dedicated to studying and publicizing China and Chinese culture. He is the editor of the journal Ming Studies.

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Pepe Escobar says China is “not interested in war, but in trade and development, both internal and with foreign partners.”

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Steven Sahiounie
MIDEAST DISCOURSE

China’s ping-pong team invited members of the US team to China on April 6, 1971, and the momentum was begun to establish warm relations between the two nations. However, during the current Trump administration, we have seen the relationship drop to its lowest point. The US and China have mutual political, economic, and security interests, such as in the area of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but there are unresolved conflicts relating to the role of the US as a bully toward nations who do not share their same political ideology.  To better understand the relationship, and where it may be headed, Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse reached out to Pepe Escobar for his expert analysis.

Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist, who writes a column ‘The Roving Eye’ for Asia Times Online, and works as an analyst for RT and Sputnik News, as well as Press TV, while previously having worked for Al Jazeera. Escobar has focused on Central Asia and the Middle East.

Steven Sahiounie (SS):  US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has said former US President Richard Nixon created a monster by establishing relations with The Peoples Republic of China decades ago.  Pompeo and others in the Trump administration are warning that the Chinese Communist Party is actively trying to export their political ideology beyond their borders.  These ‘China-Hawks’ are trying to instill fear among western democracies while pinning a label on China as the ‘bogey-man’. Should the US be dictating what other nations choose for their political system?

Pepe Escobar (PE):  Nixon in China was a clever Kissinger move to further split China from the USSR and in the long term create an additional, immense market for US capitalism. Deng Xiaoping clearly saw the opening – and after Mao’s death masterfully exploited it for China’s benefit. Pompeo is no strategist – just a lowly spy, with a Christian Zionist apocalyptic mindset. The crude, primitive ideology underneath the massive propaganda attack on the CCP comes from opportunist Steve Bannon. Himself and assorted China hawks completely ignore China’s history, the Confucianist mindset, and the fact this is a civilization-state not interested in war, but in trade and development, internal and with foreign partners. That is captured by the official mantra “community with a shared future for mankind.” Increasingly, governments and public opinion across the Global South are beginning to understand what’s really at stake.       

SS:  American tycoons, business executives, and Wall Street barons have encouraged Trump to moderate his policies and tone with China. The American business community and their western counterparts want to share in the Chinese leaps in science, technology, and education.  Can the western business community affect moderating trade and diplomatic relations between the US and China?

PE:  Wall Street is dying to get deeper into business in China because that’s where the action is for US capitalism, and increasingly so as the economic crisis bites deeper inside the US. The top destinations for international capital in the near future are in Asia – and mostly China. Trump’s “advisors” on the trade war are criminally myopic: not only they don’t understand how global supply chains work – and how major US capital is integrated with them – but also they assume mere sanctions will slow down China’s inevitable tech drive, which will be consolidated by the myriad strategies inbuilt in Made in China 2025. It’s an open question of what develops next, depending on the result of the US elections. Top Chinese scholars are discussing that Trump – free from campaigning for re-election – may even revert to those days when he extolled his friendship with Xi. In the case of a Dem administration, pressure on China may be slightly relieved, but quite a few sanctions will remain in place.        

SS:  The US is in a process of dismantling decades of political, economic, and social engagement with China while shifting to a new tactic of confrontation, coercion, aggression, and antagonism. The US revoked the special status of Hong Kong in diplomatic and trade relations and declared that China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea were illegal. In your opinion, will the US tactics lead to a military confrontation with China, or is this going to be a ‘Cold War’?

PE:  It’s impossible – under the current Sinophobia hysteria – to have a meaningful discussion in the US on why Beijing updated Hong Kong’s national security law. It has to do as much with subversion – as Beijing examined the Hong Kong conflagration last year – as with money laundering in Hong Kong by dodgy characters from the mainland. 

As much as the Caribbean is considered an “American lake”, the South China Sea is being configured as a “Chinese lake”. As a matter of national security, the South China Sea is absolutely crucial for the Maritime Silk Road. Moreover, China will never accept being encircled and/or “patrolled” by a foreign power in its maritime borders. The ultimate aim is to expel the US Navy from the South China Sea. The US Navy and the Pentagon know very well, after gaming it extensively, that a military confrontation with China – in the South China Sea or Taiwan – will never be a cakewalk and may result in a serious imperial humiliation. In a nutshell, Cold War 2.0 will remain – in different levels, way more rhetorical and heavy on propaganda than yielding military facts on the ground.     

SS:  The US presidential election is November 3.  Some have said that regardless of whether Trump or Biden wins, the US-China relationship may not change in policy, since both American parties and the general American public opinion has changed into a negative view of China over the last 4 years. In your opinion, can the US-China relationship be repaired?

Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist  


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Will Confucius marry Marx?

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Pepe Escobar

 

Philosopher Xiang: asking uncomfortable questions about the path for true legitimate governance.

The Quest for Legitimacy in Chinese Politics, that is arguably the most extraordinary effort in decades trying to bridge the East-West politico-historical divide.

It’s impossible in a brief column to do justice to the relevance of the discussions this book inspires. Here we will highlight some of the key issues – hoping they will appeal to an informed readership especially across the Beltway, now convulsed by varying degrees of Sinophobia.

Xiang delves right into the fundamental contradiction: China is widely accused by the West of lack of democratic legitimacy exactly as it enjoys a four-decade, sustainable, history-making economic boom.

He identifies two key sources for the Chinese problem: “On the one hand, there is the project of cultural restoration through which Chinese leader Xi Jinping attempts to restore ‘Confucian legitimacy’ or the traditional ‘Mandate of Heaven’; on the other hand, Xi refuses to start any political reforms, because it is his top priority to preserve the existing political system, i.e., a ruling system derived mainly from an alien source, Bolshevik Russia.”

Ay, there’s the rub: “The two objectives are totally incompatible”.

Xiang contends that for the majority of Chinese – the apparatus and the population at large – this “alien system” cannot be preserved forever, especially now that a cultural revival focuses on the Chinese Dream.

Needless to add, scholarship in the West is missing the plot completely – because of the insistence on interpreting China under Western political science and “Eurocentric historiography”. What Xiang attempts in his book is to “navigate carefully the conceptual and logical traps created by post-Enlightenment terminologies”.

Thus his emphasis on deconstructing “master keywords” – a wonderful concept straight out of ideography. The four master keywords are legitimacy, republic, economy and foreign policy. This volume concentrates on legitimacy (hefa, in Chinese).

When law is about morality

It’s a joy to follow how Xiang debunks Max Weber – “the original thinker of the question of political legitimacy”. Weber is blasted for his “rather perfunctory study of the Confucian system”. He insisted that Confucianism – emphasizing only equality, harmony, decency, virtue and pacifism – could not possibly develop a competitive capitalist spirit.

Xiang shows how since the beginning of the Greco-Roman tradition, politics was always about a spatial conception – as reflected in polis (a city or city-state). The Confucian concept of politics, on the other hand, is “entirely temporal, based on the dynamic idea that legitimacy is determined by a ruler’s daily moral behavior.”

Xiang shows how hefa contains in fact two concepts: “fit” and “law” – with “law” giving priority to morality.

In China, the legitimacy of a ruler is derived from a Mandate of Heaven (Tian Ming). Unjust rulers inevitably lose the mandate – and the right to rule. This, argues Xiang, is “a dynamic ‘deeds-based’ rather than ‘procedure-based’ argument.”

Essentially, the Mandate of Heaven is “an ancient Chinese belief that tian [ heaven, but not the Christian heaven, complete with an omniscient God] grants the emperor the right to rule based on their moral quality and ability to govern well and fairly.”

The beauty of it is that the mandate does not require a divine connection or noble bloodline, and has no time limit. Chinese scholars have always interpreted the mandate as a way to fight abuse of power.

The overall crucial point is that, unlike in the West, the Chinese view of history is cyclical, not linear: “Legitimacy is in fact a never-ending process of moral self-adjustment.”

Xiang then compares it with the Western understanding of legitimacy. He refers to Locke, for whom political legitimacy derives from explicit and implicit popular consent of the governed. The difference is that without institutionalized religion, as in Christianity, the Chinese created “a dynamic conception of legitimacy through the secular authority of general will of the populace, arriving at this idea without the help of any fictional political theory such as divine rights of humanity and ‘social contract’’.

Xiang cannot but remind us that Leibniz described it as “Chinese natal theology”, which happened not to clash with the basic tenets of Christianity.

Xiang also explains how the Mandate of Heaven has nothing to do with Empire: “Acquiring overseas territories for population resettlement never occurred in Chinese history, and it does little to enhance legitimacy of the ruler.”

In the end it was the Enlightenment, mostly because of Montesquieu, that started to dismiss the Mandate of Heaven as “nothing but apology for ‘Oriental Despotism’”. Xiang notes how “pre-modern Europe’s rich interactions with the non-Western world” were “deliberately ignored by post-Enlightenment historians.”

Which brings us to a bitter irony: “While modern ‘democratic legitimacy’ as a concept can only work with the act of delegitimizing other types of political system, the Mandate of Heaven never contains an element of disparaging other models of governance.” So much for “the end of history.”

Why no Industrial Revolution?

Xiang asks a fundamental question: “Is China’s success indebted more to the West-led world economic system or to its own cultural resources?”

And then he proceeds to meticulously debunk the myth that economic growth is only possible under Western liberal democracy – a heritage, once again, of the Enlightenment, which ruled that Confucianism was not up to the task.

We already had an inkling that was not the case with the ascension of the East Asian tigers – Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea – in the 1980s and 1990s. That even moved a bunch of social scientists and historians to admit that Confucianism could be a stimulus to economic growth.

Yet they only focused on the surface, the alleged “core” Confucian values of hard work and thrift, argues Xiang: “The real ‘core’ value, the Confucian vision of state and its relations to economy, is often neglected.”

Virtually everyone in the West, apart from a few non-Eurocentric scholars, completely ignores that China was the world’s dominant economic superpower from the 12th century to the second decade of the 19th century.

Xiang reminds us that a market economy – including private ownership, free land transactions, and highly specialized mobile labor – was established in China as early as in 300 B.C. Moreover, “as early as in the Ming dynasty, China had acquired all the major elements that were essential for the British Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.”

Which brings us to a persistent historical enigma: why the Industrial Revolution did not start in China?

Xiang turns the question upside down: “Why traditional China needed an industrial revolution at all?”

Once again, Xiang reminds us that the “Chinese economic model was very influential during the early period of the Enlightenment. Confucian economic thinking was introduced by the Jesuits to Europe, and some Chinese ideas such as the laisser-faire principle led to free-trade philosophy.”

Xiang shows not only how external economic relations were not important for Chinese politics and economy but also that “the traditional Chinese view of state is against the basic rationale of the industrial revolution, for its mass production method is aimed at conquering not just the domestic market but outside territories.”

Xiang also shows how the ideological foundation for Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations began to veer towards individualist liberalism while “Confucius never wavered from a position against individualism, for the role of the economy is to ‘enrich people’ as a whole, not specific individuals.”

All that leads to the fact that “in modern economics, the genuine conversation between the West and China hardly exists from the outset, since the post-Enlightenment West has been absolutely confident about its sole possession of the ‘universal truth’ and secret in economic development, which allegedly has been denied to the rest of the world.”

An extra clue can be found when we see what ‘economy” (jingji) means in China: Jingji is “an abbreviate term of two characters describing neither pure economic nor even commercial activities. It simply means ‘managing everyday life of the society and providing sufficient resources for the state”. In this conception, politics and economy can never be separated into two mechanical spheres. The body politic and the body economic are organically connected.”

And that’s why external trade, even when China was very active in the Ancient Silk Road, “was never considered capable of playing a key role for the health of the overall economy and the well-being of the people.”

Wu Wei and the invisible hand

Xiang needs to go back to the basics: the West did not invent the free market. The laisser-faire principle was first conceptualized by Francois Quesnay, the forerunner of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”. Quesnay, curiously, was known at the time as the “European Confucius”.

In Le Despotisme de la Chine (1767), written 9 years before The Wealth of Nations, Quesnay was frankly in favor of the meritocratic concept of giving political power to scholars and praised the “enlightened” Chinese imperial system.

An extra delicious historical irony is that laisser-faire, as Xiang reminds us, was directly inspired by the Taoist concept of wu wei – which we may loosely translate as “non-action”.

Xiang notes how “Adam Smith, deeply influenced by Quesnay whom he had met in Paris for learning this laisser-faire philosophy, may have got right the meaning of wu wei with his invention of “invisible hand”, suggesting a proactive rather than passive economic system, and keeping the Christian theological dimension aside.”

Xiang reviews everyone from Locke and Montesquieu to Stuart Mill, Hegel and Wallerstein’s “world system” theory to arrive at a startling conclusion: “The conception of China as a typical ‘backward’ economic model was a 20thcentury invention built upon the imagination of Western cultural and racial superiority, rather than historical reality.”

Moreover, the idea of ‘backward-looking’ was actually not established in Europe until the French revolution: “Before that, the concept of ‘revolution’ had always retained a dimension of cyclical, rather than ‘progressive’ – i.e., linear, historical perspective. The original meaning of revolution (from the Latin word revolutio, a “turn-around”) contains no element of social progress, for it refers to a fundamental change in political power or organizational structures that takes place when the population rises up in revolt against the current authorities.”

Will Confucius marry Marx?

And that brings us to post-modern China. Xiang stress how a popular consensus in China is that the Communist Party is “neither Marxist nor capitalist, and its moral standard has little to do with the Confucian value system”. Consequently, the Mandate of Heaven is “seriously damaged”.

The problem is that “marrying Marxism and Confucianism is too dangerous”.

Xiang identifies the fundamental flaw of the Chinese wealth distribution “in a system that guarantees a structural process of unfair (and illegal) wealth transfer, from the people who contribute labor to the production of wealth to the people who do not.”

He argues that, “deviation from Confucian traditional values explains the roots of the income distribution problem in China better than the Weberian theories which tried to establish a clear linkage between democracy and fair income distribution”.

So what is to be done?

Xiang is extremely critical of how the West approached China in the 19th century, “through the path of Westphalian power politics and the show of violence and Western military superiority.”

Well, we all know how it backfired. It led to a genuine modern revolution – and Maoism. The problem, as Xiang interprets it, is that the revolution “transformed the traditional Confucian society of peace and harmony into a virulent Westphalian state.”

So only through a social revolution inspired by October 1917 the Chinese state “begun the real process of approaching the West” and what we all define as “modernization”. What would Deng say?

Xiang argues that the current Chinese hybrid system, “dominated by a cancerous alien organ of Russian Bolshevism, is not sustainable without drastic reforms to create a pluralist republican system. Yet these reforms should not be conditioned upon eliminating traditional political values.”

So is the CCP capable of successfully merging Confucianism and Marxism-Leninism? Forging a unique, Chinese, Third Way? That’s not only the major theme for Xiang’s subsequent books: that’s a question for the ages.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pepe Escobar-nova-menor

Distinguished Collaborator Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he’s been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of “Globalistan” (2007), “Red Zone Blues” (2007), “Obama does Globalistan” (2009) and “Empire of Chaos” (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is “2030”, also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015. 

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Why has the Chinese government failed to convince the American public that China is their friend or at least not their enemy?

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Godfree Roberts

China's modern cities have sprung up in less than a generation, announcing the arrival of a far more rational and vibrant socioeconomic system.

Why has the Chinese government failed to convince the American public that China is their friend or at least not their enemy? That is a damn good question, with a surprisingly simple answer.

At present, 90% of Americans learn about China through Western media, so it’s hard for the Chinese Government to convince Americans of anything.

American media are even more tightly controlled than Chinese media and far less trustworthy, says the American Press Institute, “Just six percent of Americans say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public's view of other institutions”.

Americans don’t trust what their media tell them, but they don’t have other sources of information, either.


If the Chinese government ever convinces the American public that China is their friend, then the American public will start asking questions and that could get embarrassing for the US Government. Questions like:

Why are you taking our country in the wrong direction?

Why don’t I have a home?

Why are my kids hungry?

Why does the government spend so much and achieve so little?

Why is crime so bad when we spend four times more on police than the Chinese? (Who have a population roughly 4 times bigger?)

Why will China overtake us by 2025?

I think you will agree that they are disturbing questions and it’s probably best that people don’t ask them, in which case, it’s best that they don’t find out, which is fine, because their media certainly won’t let them.

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February 22) —"The average American also has never left the United States. Never seen another country unless it's through the media, and what the media shows them is probably outdated."  • And nearly all Western media has the constant anti-Chinese political refrain which has brainwashed many even highly educated American and British professionals. I have given up trying to correct such people because I would lose their friendship if I continue to do that. But that brainwashing rankles.

George Tait Edwards Mercantile “we both win” economies like China and Carthage do not offend their customers. Military “we win, you lose” bully-boy economies like the USA and Rome always do attack their enemies and even their friends. That is the historical pattern during the last few thousands of years. Trump is continuing that pattern - it’s all he knows he can do - and has deliberately made enemies of the rest of the world. America is proving it is nobody’s friend. MAGA is MEEBA- “Make Everyone Else Below America” and that’s no longer possible. Fortunately.
 
 


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Godfree Roberts • Publisher, Here Comes China Newsletter • Visiting China since 1967. Publisher, Here Comes China Newsletter. Author, Why China Leads the World–Forthcoming 2020.

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THIS WEEK IN CHINA: The Trade War with China, China-Russia Abandon the Dollar, and much more

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. BREAKING THE EMPIRE'S DISINFORMATION MACHINE IS UP TO YOU.

Special Dispatches by Godfree Roberts

THIS WEEK IN CHINA # 0001 (DATELINE: 8 Aug 2020)

Gleanings from the Middle Kingdom

The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world.  – Lee Kwan Yew.

THE ECONOMY

Factory activity expanded in July for the fifth month in a row and at a faster pace, beating analyst expectations. The official manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to 51.1 in July from June's 50.9, the highest reading since March. Analysts had expected it to slow to 50.7.[MORE]

In a series of deals worth hundreds of billions, PipeChina recently acquired infrastructure assets from China’s three largest energy companies. Central state ownership of the nation's vast pipeline network, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and oil storage facilities will  make it easier for smaller players to enter the energy sector and keep costs down.[MORE]

Tesla is advertising for another 1,000 Chinese factory workers and designers to join its studio as production ramps up. Q2 China revenues climbed 103% YoY to $1.4 billion, which means China generates 23% of Tesla’s total revenues compared to 11% last year.[MORE]

The world's biggest liquor company, Kweichow Moutai, said net income rose 13% in H1 2020. Earnings for the first six months were $3.2 billion and revenue jumped 11%. [MORE]

Tencent is now bigger than Facebook. After adding around $200 billion to its value this year,  Tencent shares rallied around 43% year-to-date (compared to 12% for Facebook), adding $198 billion to Tencent’s value. [MORE]

TRADE WAR

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As the chart above shows, China's membership in the WTO did not affect its manufacturing decline. [Cato Institute]

Moody’s says the trade war cost the U.S. economy 300,000 jobs and 0.3% of GDP. Bloomberg says it will cost $316 billion this year, while the New York Fed found that US companies's stocks lost $1.7 trillion as a result of the tariffs. Companies paid $46 billion in tariffs, forcing them to accept lower profit margins, cut wages and jobs, defer potential wage hikes or expansions, and raise prices for American consumers or companies and “farmers have lost the vast majority of what was once a $24 billion market in China”. The US goods trade deficit with China reached a record $419.2 billion. [MORE]

Russia more than doubled its meat exports in the first six months this year and China became the largest buyer of Russian meat, accounting for 45 percent of shipments.  [MORE]

Russia and China are rapidly abandoning the US dollar. Four years ago the greenback accounted for over 90 percent of their currency settlements. In Q1 2020, the dollar’s share of their trade fell below 50 percent for the first time. [MORE]

COVID CORNER

A Chinese COVID-19 vaccine candidate is effective against all detected strains of the virus so far, with lower chance and degree of adverse reactions than same-typed vaccine candidates under research."The inactivated vaccine we developed can cover all strains of the coronavirus that have been detected so far, including the virus strains tracked in the Xinfadi market in Beijing". [MORE]

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COLD WAR

A new Harvard study revealing that Chinese citizens’ satisfaction with their government has increased since 2003: “There is little evidence to support the idea that [the Communist Party] is losing legitimacy in the eyes of its people … By 2016, the Chinese government was more popular than at any point during the previous two decades. As such, there was no real sign of burgeoning discontent among China’s main demographic groups, casting doubt on the idea that the country was facing a crisis of political legitimacy.” Just as interesting is the fact that it has received little media attention: how could an evil authoritarian regime attract such widespread support from people across China? –David Dodwell. [MORE]

Harvard professor Charles Lieber, accused of lying about China ties, faces new charges. Lieber, 61, was charged in June with lying to US Defence Department investigators about his relationship with WUT and for lying to Harvard about those connections, leading the university to share that false information with the US National Institutes of Health.[MORE]

The People’s Bank of China says the country should switch from SWIFT to a domestic financial network and drop the greenback as the anchor currency for its foreign exchange controls. It also recommended developing legislation similar to the European Union’s Blocking Statute, which allowed the EU to sustain trade and economic relations with Iran despite US sanctions.[MORE]

BELT AND ROAD

The China-Iran deal will change the balance of power in the Middle East. The manufacturing products created by utilizing cheap Iranian resources will be used to crack the western markets through the China-Iran axis along with unrestricted access to Iranian military bases. China will invest US $280 billion in expanding Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemicals sectors, to be front-loaded into the first five-year period. Another US $120 billion will upgrade Iran’s transport and manufacturing infrastructure, this amount will increase in each subsequent period. Chinese companies will bid on any stalled or uncompleted oil, gas, and petrochemicals projects in Iran. China is granted the offer to buy oil, gas, and petchems products at a minimum discount of 12 per cent to cover risk premia and volume discounts. “Provided ALL goes as planned, Sino-Russian bombers, fighters, and transport planes will have unrestricted access to Iranian air bases” at Hamedan, Bandar Abbas, Chabhar, and Abadan. [MORE]

HUAWEI

Great video explaining the dirty tricks behind the Meng case: https://youtu.be/SVhLvS9lCNs

Huawei is considering all possible options against HSBC for allegedly presenting “misleading evidence” that resulted in the arrest of its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in Canada. The tech giant has hired five law firms in an all-out effort to free Meng Wanzhou.[MORE]

Cynthia Chung: “HSBC has a lot to lose if its relationship to the Chinese government falters. In 2017, the first joint venture securities company majority owned by a foreign bank, HSBC Qianhai Securities Limited, was formally opened for business in China. Though this was a great achievement by HSBC, its foreign majority ownership is a mere 51%, which could be easily taken away if they were considered at any point to be unfit for that level of responsibility.  Recently, HSBC also carried out the first transaction in yuan-denominated blockchain letters of credit. HSBC’s position at the forefront of facilitating blockchain trade in the yuan promises a way into a major market, with China-related trade producing an estimated 1.2 million letters of credit worth $750 billion last year”. [MORE]

ENVIRONMENT

The Yellow River is the clearest it’s been in 500 years, scientists say. A study found there has been a sharp reduction in run-off and sediment in recent decades that is unprecedented over the past five centuries. The change is a result of tree planting, less rainfall in the region and human activities like irrigation and tree-planting that use a lot of water. [MORE]

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The annual ranking of articles published in peer-reviewed science journals worldwide is now available from Scimago. Chinese scientists are widening their lead over US scientists every year, as we would expect, since the PRC invests four times more money in R&D than the US. Frans Vandenbosch kindly distilled it into this chart: [MORE] 

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China holds the most quantum computing patents, far more than the US Japan, or the UK says Chii Dong Chen, physics researcher at Taiwan's Academia Sinica. The US congress in December 2018 passed the National Quantum Initiative, planning to spend US$1.2 billion in five years to establish an office to organize quantum computing research. [MORE]

After a month in orbit, BeiDou passed its final test by locating a plane in flight while tracking and monitoring an air terminal. By the end of 2023, all civil aviation aircraft will have BeiDou-based positioning and tracking capabilities. Myanmar's Ministry of Fisheries has purchased 1,000 BeiDou shipboard terminals for vessel position information and tracking and 137 countries have signed cooperation agreements with BeiDou.100% of BeiDou's core components are made in China.[MORE]

Doctors have used gene editing to treat patients with thalassemia, the first time the technique has been successfully implemented in the country. Medical scientists at Central South University said those receiving the treatment had gone 87 days without blood transfusions.[MORE]

DEFENSE

CNBC reports that China is testing electronic warfare assets at fortified outposts in the South China Sea. The move allows Beijing to further project its power in the hotly disputed waters. [MORE]. China News reports that several US Growler electronic warplanes went out of control for a few second over the South China Sea then withdrew. According to the pilots, their instruments  became chaotic and the planes could not communicate with the outside world. The United States demanded that China dismantle the electronic equipment immediately, but was ignored.[MORE]

Admiral Philip Davidson's Senate testimony:

  1. “China is pursuing advanced capabilities like hypersonic missiles which the United States has no defense against. As China pursues these advanced weapons systems, US forces across the Indo-Pacific will be placed increasingly at risk.”
  2. “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”
  3. “China is undermining the rules-based international order.” [MORE]

A new RAND Corporation report explores four scenarios of what extended competition between the United States and China might entail through the year 2050:

  1. triumphant China: Beijing succeeds in realizing its grand strategy
  2. ascendant China, in which Beijing achieves many, but not all, of its goals
  3. stagnant China, in which Beijing has failed to achieve its long-term goals
  4. imploding China,  besieged by problems that threaten the communist regime's existence

 The report concludes that a triumphant China is the least likely. [MORE] 

Next year, ASEAN and China celebrate 30 years of bilateral relations and may upgrade it to form a 'comprehensive strategic partnership'. If they can all agree on a South China Sea Code Of Conduct by the end of 2020 it would invalidate US pretensions to secure “freedom of navigation” in an area where navigation is already free.[Pepe Escobar]

COLD WAR

Australia Tells US It Has No Intention of Injuring Important China Ties [MORE]

“Australia has made a principled call for an independent review of the COVID-19 outbreak, an unprecedented global crisis with severe health, economic and social impacts," said Foreign Minister Marise Payne. Australia was pushing for an investigation into China, not factual information about Covid-19.

Australia plans to set up US-funded military fuel reserve (in America!) amid China tensions [MORE]

The Royal Australian Navy guided-missile frigate HMAS Parramatta (FFH 154) is underway with the US Navy amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6),the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) and the Arleigh-Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) in the South China Sea. 

Australia rejects China’s assertion that its sovereignty claims over the Paracel and Spratly Islands are ‘widely recognised by the international community’.Australia is making clear that it does not recognise the claims of China or any other states to these islands and that they remain a matter of dispute. In this respect, there has been no change to Australia’s longstanding position on the disputed status of the islands. [MORE]

Australia Pours Money Into Insane US War Games Yet Won’t Support Its Own Citizens. Australian government slashes pandemic payments to workers after suspending parliament.  "Australia is not a real country, and it doesn’t have a real government," writes Aussie Caitlin Johnstone. "It is functionally nothing more than a U.S. military/intelligence asset. Despite a worsening COVID-19 surge in Australia’s two most populous states, the Liberal-National government yesterday announced the slashing of its pandemic wage subsidies and welfare benefits, as part of its drive to ‘reopen the economy.’" [MORE]

New Zealand Ramps Up Military Spending To Align With US and Australia Against China. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government, a coalition between Labour, the Greens and the right-wing nationalist NZ First Party, is committed to spending $20 billion on military upgrades.[MORE]

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that Chinese investment accounts for 2.0 percent of foreign investment in Australia: US: 25.6 percent; UK: 17.8 percent;  Belgium: 9.1 percent; Japan: 6.3 percent; Hong Kong: 3.7 percent; Singapore: 2.6 percent; The Netherlands: 2.3 percent; Luxembourg: 2.2 percent.

The European Union agreed to restrict the export of equipment used for suppression and surveillance to Hong Kong. The European Council stated that it expressed serious concerns about the “Hong Kong National Security Law”, stating that the law has severely eroded the rights and freedoms that Hong Kong should be protected until at least 2047. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas stated that it is reasonable to treat Hong Kong on the same basis as mainland China when exporting equipment for repression after the Hong Kong National Security Law takes effect.[MORE]. Review Hong Kong's 1997 Treason Ordinance here: [MORE]

“Canada, Australia and the UK have unilaterally suspended the agreements on surrender of fugitive offenders (SFO) with the HKSAR using the enactment of the National Security Law in Hong Kong as an excuse, which smacks of political manipulation and double standards. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government has reciprocated.[MORE]

The International Air Transport Association objects to testing aircrew for Covid-19 as it predicts industry will not recover until 2024. New rules make it compulsory for pilots and cabin crew to have negative result before they can fly to Hong Kong. The IATA does not support the move, though evidence suggests that the latest surge came from imported cases.[MORE]

LONG READ

The Truth About Social Credit

The most authoritative Government release on Social Credit in some time is available for public comment through August 20th., and seeks to clarify critical concepts and concerns in building China’s Social Credit System such as

  1. What data can be collected or used as ‘Credit Information’？
  2. When information can be shared or made public and how？
  3. What penalties are allowed, and what procedures are to be used?
  4. How negative ‘credit’ can be restored?

The overall goal is to make sure that the system is part of the legal system, not something beyond it or parallel to it.

The backstory.

If you aren’t living in or studying China, you may well believe that the Social Credit System is an algorithmic reputation scoring mechanism based on “real-time monitoring through big data tools” to generate a score “controlling virtually every facet of human life” that “dictates one’s place in society“. The reality is both more complicated and far less exciting.

People would likely have a more accurate understanding of the system if China had said they were crafting a “Law on the Collection and Use of Administrative and Regulatory Data” instead of a ‘social credit system’. The ‘social credit’ name isn’t only evocative in English but also reflects the misguided attempt to include diverse topics such as financial credit reporting, administrative regulation, and public morality propaganda under the same project name, even though these pieces remained fairly discrete in practice.

It’s probably safe to say that the primary function of ‘social credit’ is one of administrative regulation, operating through industry-specific blacklists. Regulatory agencies were all tasked with generating rules for what violations of the laws under their authority would justify blacklisting. Blacklisting is important, not only because it creates a negative public record, but also because various agencies have signed inter-agency MOUs to take limited enforcement action against those blacklisted by another agency. Blacklisting by the food and drug administration, then, might result in consequences when applying for permits from an unrelated agency. This tool lets you explore the full range of cross-departmental punishments under this system.

Updating the Blacklists.

The new draft rules revisit the drafting of industry blacklisting standards and procedures to require both a serious violation of law AND:

  1. A threat to health or safety,
  2. disruption of the marketplace,
  3. violations of judicial or administrative orders, OR
  4. refusals to perform national defense duties.

The third category is about increasing the enforceability of court judgments and refers to the court system’s blacklist for ‘judgment defaulters’- those who have an active judgment against them and the ability to satisfy that judgment, but who refuse to do so. This one blacklist is overwhelmingly driving most of the exotic penalties connected with social credit, such as the no fly list and limits on spending. Interestingly, it is described as necessary to increase the ‘credibility’ of the courts.

The new draft rules also require that industry blacklisting standards now include express mechanisms for being removed from the list or correcting information. More importantly, the standards must be released for a period of at least 30 days for public commenting before they are enacted, and their implementation must be periodically evaluated by a third party after enactment.

Blacklisting Procedures

Before being blacklisted, parties must be given notice of the reason and the legal basis and have a chance to object. If blacklisted, they must be given a clear written decision indicating the reasons, rules for removal, and so forth. Blacklisting decisions should generally not be made below the county-level and are reviewed at the provincial level.

Punishments

All credit punishments must be listed in a national catalog of penalties drafted in conjunction with experts and other concerned parties. The draft rules make clear that punishments methods cannot require 3rd parties like banks and businesses to take action against blacklistees.

An explicit legal basis must be provided for all possible punishments.

This has actually been done in the past for inter-agency punishments authorized in cross-departmental MOUs mentioned above, although some have found that the scope of the cited authority may have been exceeded. Generally, however, the need for a legal basis has already limited cross-departmental action to areas where an agency has discretion to consider a broad range of factors- such as in permitting and licensing, with punishments generally been limited to：

  1. Higher scrutiny or restrictions in authorizing necessary permits, credentials, or approvals,
  2. Higher scrutiny or restrictions on participation in government contract bidding or authorization of use of government resources,
  3. Restrictions on receiving/ revocation of awards and honors.
  4. Increased routine regulatory oversight
  5. limits on receiving government benefits.

One of the greatest fears about the social credit system is that the ‘credit consequences’ for a violation could become a way of covertly increasing the violations’ statutory penalty. Meaning that since ‘untrustworthy conduct’ refers to violations of laws and legal obligations, there shouldn’t be any collateral consequences that increase the punishment beyond what the relevant law authorizes. A parallel might be the lasting impact of a criminal record long after a sentence has been served.

The new rules are at pains to say that this can’t be tolerated. There must be a legal basis for penalties and that if the law doesn’t allow for sufficient penalties, the correct approach is to lobby to amend the law, not use social credit, not only requiring a legal basis for penalties but also adding that if the law doesn’t allow for sufficient penalties, the correct approach is to lobby to amend the law, not use social credit.

Credit Information

A global concern today is the collection of personal information and the new rules attempt to regulate what information should be collected and used as ‘credit information’. The inclusion of ‘Public Credit Information’-the information collected or generated by government agencies in the course of their duties- in social credit is to be limited to the types of information in a national uniform catalog created by the inter-agency committee for establishing social credit with the input of legal experts, scholars, affected businesses, industry associations, and others. Local public credit information catalogs have been available for some time, but a national catalog will limit local discretion and help standardize the system.

The purpose of collecting or using information is also required to be indicated- and consent must be given for the collection of information that isn’t authorized by law. To try and ensure that consent is voluntarily given, the rules say that it must not be coerced or gamed through methods like demanding blanket consent. This follows recent moves on privacy in the commercial sector.

If something is to be considered negative credit information- it must be based on judicial rulings, arbitration documents, administrative decisions and rulings, or other effective legal documents. Again, social credit is concerned with recording and publicizing violations of laws and legal obligations.

Conclusion

The draft rules are open for public comment until August. As written, they would require that industry blacklist and social credit rules comply with them by the end of 2021 or be invalidated. Much of what they say is positive, but not groundbreaking in that they largely restate principles that were always in place or were emerging in practice over the past several years. Moreover, the draft, like much national level authority is quite vague, leaving room for future problems. The required national catalog of public credit information or punishment lists, for example, are yet to be seen, nor are specific mechanisms and procedures for credit restoration and corrections. The requirements that all standards and rules for punishments be made public may ultimately be among the most concrete improvements- allowing monitoring and analysis of the systems’ evolution.

Most critically, the main purpose of the draft is to harmonize social credit with China’s existing legal system, and while ‘legality’ should be a minimum requirement, it is no panacea. Many laws creating obligations or prohibiting conduct in China are unclear or easily abused. Others, that criminalize speech such as mockery of the national anthem are simply unjust. Limiting social credit to the enforcement of such laws, can’t improve those underlying laws. Sponsor a translation at the wonderful China Law Translate. [HERE]

Special Addendum
Which country has arguably the best judicial system in the world and why?

China has the best judicial system in the world because the sine qua non for a good judicial system is trust and people trust their legal system because it applies the law uniformly to rich and poor, powerful and powerless, alike.

If people do not trust their judicial system it has failed, and China’s judicial system is the most trusted on earth.

How do China and America compare? How much do citizens trust their respective legal systems?

When he launched his anti-corruption drive in 2012, President Xi promised⁠1 to govern by virtuous example, yide zhiguo, and to create a socialist spiritual civilization, jingshen wenming. Four years later, reminded⁠2 a judicial study group that law and ethics are inextricably bound:

Law is virtue expressed in words and virtue is law borne in people's hearts. In the eyes of the State, law and virtue have equal status in regulating social behavior, adjusting social relations and maintaining social order. Rule of law must embody moral ideals that provide reliable institutional support for virtue. Laws and regulations should promote virtuous behavior while socialist core values–prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, the rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendliness–should be woven into legislation, law enforcement, and the judicial process.

Penal law and judicial processes still play minor roles in Chinese everyday life and the legal process remains a work in process. Members of the National Family⁠ 3 still address older strangers as ‘aunty,’ ‘uncle,’ ‘grandfather,’ or ‘grandmother,’ and every adult assumes responsibility for every child. Would-be criminals struggle against family, friends, workmates, classmates, and neighbors who counsel, mediate and compromise⁠4 with them to keep them on the path of virtue. They encourage self-criticism and use persuasion, education, and individually tailored solutions, which families can enforce far more effectively than police. So effective is mediation that Congress now requires all villages to maintain People’s Mediation Committees⁠5, courthouses to maintain mediation offices, and lawyers to become certified mediators. In 2019, seven-million mediators handled six million disputes and reduced the national legal bill to one-tenth of America’s⁠6.

As in France, magistrates are regarded as neutral truth seekers who interrogate suspects, examine evidence, hear testimony, render verdicts and determine guilt and innocence pre-trial. Though a Trial Spot in wealthy Shanghai provides defense lawyers for all criminal defendants, elsewhere defense lawyers are mandatory only for juveniles, the disabled, and those facing life imprisonment or death. If there is insufficient evidence for a conviction, the magistrate will suggest that the procurate either reduce the charges or investigate further. Since most casework involves paper depositions, the Western custom of cross-examining witnesses under oath before a judge is uncommon but, while American defendants lose their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination if they testify, Chinese defendants may say what they wish in their defense or refuse to be cross examined, without prejudice. If the investigating magistrate decides that the defendant is guilty the case goes to trial, which is really a sentencing hearing, but even if a defendant confesses and wishes to end the matter, the magistrate must hold an open trial and ask the defendant to confirm his confession publicly.

Though lawyers’ reputation in Chinese society has always been poor, the profession was boosted in 2012 when Li Keqiang⁠7, an expert on English common law, became Premier and, overnight, the Supreme Court’s internship program began attracting top students. Then President Xi suggested establishing independent judicial committees, including non-Party members, to select judges based on merit and professional track record and, by 2019, every province had an independent judicial committee to minimize local government interference, select and oversee the work of judges and prosecutors, and punish professional misconduct. Shanghai’s committee expelled a High Court prosecutor, two sub-prosecutors, the Vice President of the Provincial Supreme Court and a senior circuit court judge. Police, prosecutors and court officials are responsible for wrongful prosecutions until the day they die, and national appeals courts re-hear cases, overturn wrongful convictions, order restitution, and require lower courts to study their reversals.

The Supreme People’s Court’s website, with five billion visits, offers online courses on every element of the law, invites criticism of new laws, and provides an artificial intelligence interface to its six hundred thousand recorded trials. Its website invites citizens to email the Chief Justice, whose answers begin cheerily, “Hello! We received your question, and after consideration, we respond as follows…” and end with, “Thank you for your support of the work of the Supreme People’s Court!” Ultimately–since their ethical duty transcends their legal responsibility–the courts answer to the Party which, as arbiter of national ethics, prevents unethical and anti-democratic decisions⁠8. As former Chief Justice Xiao Yang explained, “The power of the courts to adjudicate independently doesn't mean independence from the Party at all. On the contrary, it embodies a high degree of responsibility vis-à-vis the Party’s [dàtóng⁠9] program.”

Though unarmed, police have powers their Western colleagues only dream of. Instead of removing miscreants from society they can issue temporary restraining orders and mandate home confinement, which gives them the opportunity to discuss solutions with their families. Convicted criminals–who can prosecute prison staff for breaching their rights–must receive humane levels of material comfort and dignity from arrest to release. Sentences are typically short, but prisoners must participate in career, legal, cultural, and moral counseling that focuses on the social consequences of their crimes. Even murderers are expected to repent, reform, and rejoin society.

Citizens can video police, who must publish the status of all arrestees online. TV programs regularly explain new laws and schools, offices, factories, mines and army units discuss concepts like the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence. After the success of a weekly TV show, I am a Barrister, the Legal Channel followed up with The Lawyers Are Here. Each episode introduces legal issues ranging from child custody to healthcare negligence and expert panels offer opinions and advise real litigants on air.

Online Trial Spots are reducing legal costs, promoting equitable outcomes and lightening the burden of enforcement. One app bundles free mediation, dispute settlement and legal aid and connects plaintiffs to thousands of lawyers, notaries and judicial appraisers. Another verifies plaintiffs’ and defendants’ IDs and combines face and speech recognition with electronic signatures, allowing them go to trial without leaving home. Using voice-to-text, it submits their files, transcribes their testimonies, and stores their case records in case of appeal. Beijing’s Internet Court provides artificial intelligence-based risk assessment as a public service and automatically generates legal documents, applies machine translation, and simplifies settlements through oral interaction with its knowledge base. In 2017 Hangzhou, home of Alibaba, launched the first cyber court exclusively for online e-commerce complaints, loan litigation, and copyright infringement. In its inaugural case, TikTok sued Baidu for ownership of user-generated video content.

With unarmed police, two percent of America’s legal professionals and one-fourth its per capita policing budget, China has the world’s lowest rates of imprisonment and re-offense. Crime remains low, trust is rising, and Beijingers no longer remove batteries from parked electric scooters. When Harvard’s Tony Saich⁠10 surveyed them about their greatest worry, most Chinese ranked ‘Maintenance of Social Order’ highest and when he asked which government service pleased them most they chose ‘Maintenance of Social Order.’

____________________________________________________________________________

NOTES

1 Report, 18th Party Congress, November 8, 2012. Xi was quoting from Confucius’ Analects.

2 Xi stresses integrating law, virtue in state governance. Xinhua. 2016-12-10

3 The Chinese term for nation-state is ‘nation-family’ and most Chinese would take for granted that the nation-state is an extended family.

4 Failure to do so can bring consequences. In 2018, when Liu Zehnhua committed suicide after raping and murdering Li Mingzhu, the court ordered Liu’s family to pay the Li family one hundred thousand dollars for failing to socialize their son.

5 In addition to People’s Mediation conducted by grassroots community mediators, China employs Judicial Mediation conducted by judges, Administrative Mediation conducted by government officials, Arbitral Mediation conducted by arbitral administrative bodies, and Industry Mediation conducted by specific industrial associations.

6 Average Person Spends $250 Per Year on Legal Services. Jay Reeves | April 14, 2015. Lawyers Mutual

7 At Peking University Law School in 1978, Li translated Lord Denning’s “The Due Process of Law,” becoming so proficient in the language that he broke protocol and spoke in fluent English at a Hong Kong University event in 2011.

8 In 2010 the US Supreme Court ruled that corporations can spend unlimited money on elections because limiting corporations’ “independent political spending” violates their First Amendment right to free speech.

9 A dàtóng society is the Chinese Dream, which Confucian scholar Kang Youwei rendered thus: “Now to have states, families, and selves is to allow each individual to maintain a sphere of selfishness. This infracts utterly the Universal Principle (gongli) and impedes progress...The only [true way] is sharing the world in common by all (tienxia weigong) This is the way of the Great Community, dàtóng, which prevailed in the Age of Universal Peace. Commentary on Liyun.

10 How China’s citizens view the quality of governance under Xi Jinping. Tony Saich. Journal of Chinese Governance. Vol 1, 2016

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

GODFREE ROBERTS, Senior Contributing Editor / Special Correspondent on Far Eastern affairs

Godfree Roberts was born in Australia and educated in the US, where he received Ed.D in Education & Geopolitics from UMass, Amherst. He lost his first job in 1961 for defending China's resumption of sovereignty over Tibet. He still annoys authorities by pointing out that the Chinese government has kept all its promises for the past 70 years while our government has broken them all. His book, Why China Leads the World, is forthcoming 2020. Roberts is a senior contributing editor and special correspondent on Far Eastern affairs. He is the publisher of Here Comes China Newsletter.  Roberts lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

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