Xi and Trump have both made their point. It’s time to end the posturing, and the trade war
- Tom Plate says the two leaders seem to be making policy moves based not on what’s best for their countries, but on how they can run down their predecessors
- Both the Chinese and US governments should be humble and remember to put the people first
It’s not easy being a superpower – whoever would imagine that might be the case? Sometimes, one almost feels an odd twang of sympathy for the leaders of China and the US. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown of the superpower.
Increasingly, I’m convinced, no one understands China well enough to possess an honest sense of what may lie in its future. Not, certainly, in Washington, which tends to imagine China as rooted at one extreme or the other (these days, more feral Han Godzilla than peaceful Pearl of the Orient). Imagine a middle ground for the Middle Kingdom – inconceivable!
A bit of a retreat to central state-owned enterprises may be looming. Perhaps Beijing figures that the injection of some retro will foster more central control over the economy’s trajectory, which has created not only wealth but also geopolitical tension (such as the current trade surplus with the US). Now that China is, happily, no longer dirt poor, its leaders perhaps feel they can afford to taper the wealth-accumulation trajectory a tad if it pays off in political stability.
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More power to Beijing. But to press further the implacable role of the party and the state is not a new idea. Even Deng would not hold that, just because Chinese citizens can afford to choose among fancy cars, they must be provided with a menu of competing political parties. At the same time, too much centralism can ruin any party.
As it is, the latest growth projection for China – a flat 6 per cent – would rate a standing ovation almost anywhere else; in China, this is seen as reason to compel political tightening. The US growth rate rolls up to only about half that – not China’s fault, of course, though Trump’s tirades might make you think that if China somehow just went away, so would a dimension of US economic mediocrity.
Possible good news out of Washington that Peter Navarro and his “nationalistic-economic” views have been quietly quarantined raised my spirits – and perhaps Xi’s. There are, as far as anyone can tell, many right nationalists, but few bright nationalists; but while Professor Navarro is bright enough, his postmodern grumpiness is not right for the 21st century. We need to bridge gaps, not create them.
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What exactly does that mean? In combing through the poetic texts of early Chinese thought, scholars such as University of Chicago Professor Edward L. Shaughnessy have been struck not by the simplicity of that phrase in antiquity but by its opacity. “Renewal of the Chinese nation” may not be contingent on making Marxism permanent, but then again, it may be. But if it lacks true Chinese characteristics, it will be no more than a temporary transplant. Unlike some mullahs who make the claim that only they know the right way, Zhongnanhai might accept that the virtue best suited to keep the dream vibrant is to display humility in the service of the people.
Columnist Tom Plate is a professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and the founder of Asia Media International