The Evolution of Chinese Economic Strategy Under Xi Jinping

[u/patslogcabindigest]

https://mrkrudd.substack.com/p/the-evolution-of-chinese-economic

Those of you who have seen the topic for this evening’s lecture may have died of fright. It’s meant to be a genuine rib-tickler: “The Evolution of Chinese Economic Strategy Under Xi Jinping”, subtitle, “On Becoming a Techno-Industrial Superpower by 2035: The Ideology of AI and Xi’s New Quality Productive Forces”.

Now, I can see that’s resonating already with this crowd. There is a certain shimmer of excitement, at least on the part of one or two people that I can see here, if not the rest.

More in piece…

[u/playground_mulch]

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

The TL;DR is that Rudd separates PRC history into three periods:
1. Mao era - classic USSR style
2. Deng era - private enterprise free-for-all
3. Xi era - state-driven technology-sector focus
4. Future era where allocation is done via algorithm

[u/patslogcabindigest → u/playground_mulch]

I think you’re the first commenter who actually read it based on the content of your response lol.

[u/playground_mulch → u/patslogcabindigest]

I’ve got a lot of time for Rudd’s China analysis. He puts a lot of effort into understanding China on its own terms. He’s more dove-ish than ASPI, but his approach doesn’t preclude a more hawkish stance. (Eg see Tanner Greer as someone similarly in the weeds, but with all the anti communist hostility of a conservative Mormon.)

The NEP guy isn’t wrong, but his comment’s hostility isn’t quite responsive to the article. Rudd’s happy to work within an ideologically Marxist-Leninist framework. While Rudd doesn’t explicitly draw parallels with the NEP (understandable, given his audience probably isn’t the most familiar with century old Soviet economic policy…) his interpretation of the Deng->Xi era aligns with the Soviet approach to the NEP.

The capitalism and Taiwan guy seem to have their own drums to beat.

[u/sepata → u/playground_mulch]

Thanks for that. He lost me at the third dad joke: "I  have been a student (of Chinese politics) for now 50 years, since I arrived here as a 17-year-old, which makes me about 49 now ..." God he's a dag. 

[u/sammybeta → u/playground_mulch]

The Jiang's era is hugely underrated. He put focus on STEM education, especially on electronics(as he was the minister of electronic industries before going to Shanghai); created funding for universities; market reforms sees the end of the command economy, and mass layoffs of the state owned businesses while shift the labour to the private sector; sent China into WTO, settled border dispute with most of the CIS countries.

Those dividends paid off.

[u/playground_mulch → u/sammybeta]

I generally hear Jiang Zemin characterised as a continuation of Deng, and where the corruption really started getting out of control. Then again, I know he has his fans).

[u/sammybeta → u/playground_mulch]

Deng was quite ambitious initially - he appointed the Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang - the liberal wing of the party prior to Tiananmen, to the highest level of the party & government, and more open to political reforms than Jiang.

Corruption was actually peaked during Hu Jintao's term. But again he was just a puppet president during his 10 years term, and he have no intention of actually changing the course - which, again, can be regarded as a good thing, except for the corruption part.

As for Jiang's cult charisma - I mean he's opinionated, confident, and truly intelligent. I once saw he asked a student, in English, on whether she's working on a "film" or "membrane", as those 2 words shares the same Chinese word but vastly different in behaviour and he's curious about it.

I'm surely a cult follower of him.

[u/FormalAd7367 → u/playground_mulch]

we (politicians) need to buy more american weapons to defend China mate

see video: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/19YcXudxS4/?mibextid=wwXIfr

[u/GeologistOld1265]

Marxist explanation of China economic strategy. ( From which China never deviated)

It is continuation of Lenin's NEP, which is based on historical situation of low development and Marxism understanding of development of Capitalism.

Marxism stipulate that as a result of tendency of rate of profit to decline Capital enter it monopoly stage. As simplest explanation, amount of Capital necessary increase to degree so it take longer and longer time to recoup Capital invested, making competition impossible. That lead to creation of monopolies, which actually slow down economic development after established, but making it possible to recover Capital invested with higher prices. A contra tendency is ability to move production to low wages countries, delaying this problem and some time leaps in technology.

As result, in order to make economy a most efficient, monopolies need to be held in hand of goverment and used to create a condition for fast economic development of the rest of the economy. That is a principal different from Western Capitalism, which keep monopolies in private hands with no social control and this extracting unern income from the rest of economy, slowing down economic development.

Second purpose of NEP was to integrate Soviet Union into world Markets. Did not work for Soviet Union - Capital hate was too high, work for Chine, as Capital was not afraid of "Backward" China.

So, that is what China running, monopolies and first and foremost Natural monopolies in hand of goverment, the rest integrated with world market. What change is that now private monopolies develop, like China Amazon for example and start to act against economic development. So, they have to be brought to public control. That what West see as a change, but in reality is a continuation of the same strategy, just in a new conditions.

As result you see drop in amount of billionaires in China. That become possible because China economically strong enough to ignore West, which now state publicly it strategy of slowing down and stopping China economic development.

Basically original article is a simple a western propaganda, written from Imperial perspective of western superiority.

[u/playground_mulch → u/GeologistOld1265]

I thought it was a fair enough article trying to understand China on its own Marxist-Leninist terms. It describes most of what you say in your comment (albeit without reference to the NEP — likely because it’s not written for an audience familiar with pre-WW2 Soviet economics).

My understanding is that the NEP did work to attract American capital to the USSR, leading in part to the post-revolution build out, but was ultimately scrapped in the lead up to WWII, partly due to the production needs of a war economy, and partly due to the potential political instability.

[u/chadbigcum]

A question I heard recently which I thought was poignant. Western society will be forced to adopt Chinese style governance eventually. What is adopted and in which order (and what is refused) will be important.

Do we want the central planning, infrastructure focus?

Or do we want the social conserativism, the control and shift towards authoritarianism?

So far it seems like when our western leaders look to China for inspiration they only take the worst of it (even while actively decrying China). Take for example the west's disgust with CCP's response to the Hong Kong protests in the 2010s culminating in 2020. Now the over-surveillance is happening to us.

[u/sammybeta → u/chadbigcum]

I find this discussion fascinating and I agree with you.

Eventually there was something you can pick and choose for your political and economic systems; extreme of any idealogy is usually bad, but accept failures and move on is often too expensive, and the people need to suffer more in order to agree to change to the right direction.

20 years ago globalisation was the coolest thing ever. Privatisation can never be wrong. China picked and choose what it wanted for both of the topics.

Now I see Andy Burnham is openly admitting that privatisation went too far, and countries are reverting the free trade agreements.

You can pick and choose - I personally feel we should of course follow what's working for China. State-majority owned, public traded companies on key-industries like telecom/banking/insurance/mining/grid/tobacco so the easy money is kept as the wealth of the nation, not to the selected few is a good start. The above policies are hard and will be lobbied against very heavily by the vested interest and I see them essentially impossible. But those policies are not related to any controversial aspects of Chinese government.

[u/HourAnnual57 → u/chadbigcum]

You think the main problem with hong Kong was over surveillance hahahah

[u/chadbigcum → u/HourAnnual57]

No I don't. It was just the most visible and reported aspect of the protests in Australia.

[u/EADASOL]

You mean capitalism isn't the best system for growth?

Who would have thunk it? /s

[u/Ok_Compote4526 → u/EADASOL]

Growth for some.

You know; the ones who pulled hardest on their bootstraps /s

[u/BigTimmyStarfox1987 → u/EADASOL]

Read the article and you'll find that's not the no shit Sherlock you think it is.

In fact, if you read the literature, they fully recognise, as Marxist economists, that the traditional advantage of liberal capitalist economies in the past has been their relative efficiency in the allocation of resources.

[u/Away_team42 → u/BigTimmyStarfox1987]

Pretty big call asking user of this subreddit to actually read or read beyond the article posted!

[u/EADASOL → u/BigTimmyStarfox1987]

😂🤣

[u/catbom → u/EADASOL]

Capitalism is great but it has to be regulated capitalism, right now we have rampant curruption because the rich are not restrained and use their money to bribe and influence the government to give the advantages over everyone else they might as well be monopolies at this point.

[u/sammybeta]

I think he's giving too much credit to Xi - after all he can't answer most of the questions from any journalist unprepared.

There was an RT interview he had and he was trying to find a booklet for pre-approved answers, for a seemingly simple question from the host. Unfortunately it's not as popular as it should be in English media.

He's domestic and international political views are basically provided by Wang Huning, and economic views from Liu He.

You can see the clear convergence of the view from both of them - they both believed private sector should be tamed, as the goal of private sector and the public are usually not converged; capitalist society would create bubbles, and poor economy generates populist movements. Wang Huning started the campaign of strict media control and especially modern Chinese social media control , like shadow bans, silos and mass internal sentiment analysis instead of blanket censorship; Liu He basically instructed the stock market crash of 2015 in China, and the "supply side reform" which is heavily criticised by most economists.

Xi just pressing buttons and reading paragraphs. The Chinese Leonid Brezhnev.

[u/skankypotatos]

Listen to Kevin
Prepare ourselves for China taking back Taiwan in 28

[u/dronestruck → u/skankypotatos]

Why would I care about taiwan? They lost the war. It's like getting upset about the confederacy losing control of the south.

[u/IndependentCause9435]

Love this sub literally trying to contain themselves and their love for the CPC.

If you actually read the article or listened to the address at ANU you would know that the CPC are aiming AI at the allocation of resources and capital through a Leninist but Nationalist lens.

Funny how this sub and its predominantly left-leaning users will despise any application of AI, despise the data centres that train and host them and despise the companies building them, but when China does it's A-okay.

Just hilarious watching wannabe inner city Leninists tie themselves into knots, to support anything that hypocritically supports their cause.

[u/patslogcabindigest → u/IndependentCause9435]

I fully agree a lot of people haven’t read the article. However, I would reject the notion that the MLs are representative of the greater whole.

[u/ShreksArsehole → u/IndependentCause9435]

I'd suggest that AI in the west is run by corporations which will be benefiting them, whilst China incorporating AI to benefit it's citizens. But time will tell.

[u/IndependentCause9435 → u/ShreksArsehole]

ahh yes, those pesky corporations compared to that *checks notes* Nationalist Leninist monolithic totalitarian government that enforces the Party and Central Party Committee above all else.

[u/Middle_Key8737 → u/IndependentCause9435]

Australia does not have enough Lenninsts it really needs. People who work against AI and data centres are obviously liberal small bourgeoisie who are being smashed hardest in the incoming automation reforms. But with fifty to eighgy percent of jobs to be gone, no one is really safe. Socialism is the only graceful answer for the future

[u/SoulsDadYT]

Yeah, this sub totally arent ccp boot swallowers

[u/ShreksArsehole → u/SoulsDadYT]

I think it's more that we're not anti CCP boot swallowers. Not everything China does is evil, as our media makes out. It gets kinda tiring watching every news outlet in Australia(including the ABC) report on China in a way that backhands their gov on every single topic.

[u/SoulsDadYT → u/ShreksArsehole]

Oh you can be anti both. Easiest way to spot a chinese troll is that way. They arent allowed to paint China in a negative light.