Perceptions of "Harmony with Chinese Characteristics"

Welcome to my blog about my quest to learn Mandarin in Beijing. Without an explanation, the title is a misnomer: It has nothing to do with harmony in the dictionary definition of the word, it’s a tongue-in-cheek take on the Chinese Communist Party’s use of the world “harmony”.

When political dissidents disappear or are put in jail, it is said that they are being “harmonized”. President Hu Jintao has presented China’s foreign policy, including its relations with rogue regimes, as striving to build a “harmonious world”. When China competes with other countries for access to oil supplies through soft power, it is said to be a challenge to Beijing’s “harmony”. Official censorship is euphemistically called “harmonization”.

My title parodies the widespread use of “…with Chinese characteristics” – the catchphrase utilized to explain China’s inexplicable and unique features. China embodies “Capitalism with Chinese characteristics”, “Democracy with Chinese characteristics”, “Development with Chinese characteristics”, etc….

And so we have “Harmony with Chinese characteristics” – which is a convoluted way of saying nothing really.

While I study Mandarin for eight weeks at Beijing Language and Culture University, I hope to witness fluctuating state-society relations. A “harmonious society” (read: social stability) is the utmost concern of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The economic miracle in recent decades has intensified 9% economic growth as the cornerstone of legitimacy, and the ongoing global recession threatens to undermine and even overthrow this order.

In the case of China, economic reform has not been followed by political reform. But China-watchers have long predicted that a crisis could trigger social unrest, dissatisfaction with the regime, and perhaps democracy. Namely a crisis in the form of an economic slowdown. The CCP recognized this internal threat and established the magical figure of 9% economic growth as the minimum requirement to maintain a harmonious society.

This threat to political survival prompted Beijing to be one of the first to announce an economic stimulus package to the amount of $586 billion, which is larger than the entire economy of Sweden, Russia, Switzerland or Thailand, and is double the annual GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of industrialized oil-exporting Norway.

Considering that China’s economic hike, much like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan’s, was fuelled by exports to Western consumers, the stimulus package is absolutely necessary to maintain CCP power. Without the economic growth that has provided the legitimacy that the CCP lacks, (since ideology is basically out of the picture), Chinese citizens, particularly the emergent middle-class, might realize that the CCP is dispensable and demand political change. This would be the first crack that would cause the harmonious order to crumble.

Yet the CCP faces an enormous task in maintaining economic growth – it must switch from export-oriented to encouraging its consumers to spend their way out of the crisis.

With economic growth at only 6.1%, it’s a riveting time to be in China. How will the CCP manage the crisis and maintain the confidence of the population? Perhaps realizing its impending doom, it will precipitate the democratization process as occurred in the Soviet Union.

But expert opinion is mixed. On the one hand, China’s stimulus plan has been criticized as insufficient. One think-tank declared that “the average Chinese consumer is more likely than ever to save as much as possible.” Another expert points to the situation in the powerhouse province Guangdong where 20 percent of all factories have closed and draws a parallel with the Tiananmen incident. The difference is that in 1989 “The state survived because the economy was growing strongly, and most people preferred the security of the status quo to the risks of regime change [but] now that security has vanished.”

However, other scholars are more likely to sing the CCP’s praise for its handling of the crisis. One economist has named China the model for its economic response. Others believe that the current situation presents an opportunity to further entrench the CCP’s legitimacy as the only political option. (citation) This camp believes that if any political change is to occur it would come from above.

As the world holds its breath waiting to find out if China will follow the South Korean and Indonesian route of economic growth first, then political reform, I will be blogging from Beijing.

Unless of course, my blog is “harmonized”.

[Sources:
Jamil Anderlini, "Chinese exports fall sharply", http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16a8da60-3eab-11de-9a6c-00144feabdc0.html?ncli...
David Frum, "China Over a Barrel", http://www.aei.org/article/100132
Nicholas Lardy, "China's Role in the Origins of and Response to the Global Recession", http://www.petersoninstitute.org/publications/papers/print.cfm?doc=pub&R...
John H. Makin, "Can China Keep Growing?" http://www.aei.org/outlook/100031
Minxin Pei, "Will the Chinese Communist Party Survive the Crisis", http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22847...
Meredith Wen, "Fighting for Harmony: The Threat of Social Instability During the Global Financial Crisis", http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22633... ]