China’s economic evolution from the time of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution to the present day has transformed a poor country into one of the world’s major economic powers. However, the fact that the most populous country in the world is still ruled by a communist dictatorship, thanks to the increasing westernization of its economy traces of the purest capitalism are visible, it is seen as a real threat to the western world. In reality, the country that for decades served the greed of some of the world’s largest world companies, which took advantage of the very low production costs to obtain more and more profit, is today seeing the results of a true revolution in crucial areas, such as technology and innovation. And this “revolution” is the result of political strategies that have been followed in the post-Maoist period – first with Deng Xiaoping and now with Xi Jinping.
It is unquestionable to the eyes of those who know the reality of Chinese society that the people, in general, live better today. The misery and extreme poverty that raged in Maoist China has evolved for the better. However, serious questions remain regarding values that, in our eyes, are fundamental such as freedom of expression or the guarantee of compliance with Universal Human Rights. Evidence shows that, when it comes to those fields, China remains very far from the standards of Western democracies (see the very present case of Hong Kong or the tennis player Shuai Peng, who mysteriously disappeared for a while and now is not allowed to speak freely because she denounced a case of alleged sexual assault). In 2017, at the Chinese Communist Party Congress, Xi Jinping, the Party leader who is also the leader of the country, clearly stated what China is today and pointed the way to its future when he said, in a three-hour speech, that “socialism with Chinese characteristics in this new era” meaning China had now “become a great power in the world”, and had played “an important role in the history of humankind (…) It is time for us to take centre stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind”, he added. For this week’s edition of Milénio Stadium, we had a conversation about these matters with Professor Jeremy Paltiel, from the department of political science of Carleton University, who specializes in the government and foreign policies of Asia (China and Japan) and Canada-China Relations.
Milénio Stadium: What significant changes in Chinese political strategy can be identified as responsible for China’s transformation – from being an extremely poor country to one of the world’s major economic powers?
Jeremy Paltiel: The major change was the opening to foreign trade and investment and the opening up of the internal market. China’s opening to globalization first transformed the agricultural economy and freed up surplus rural labor for work in export industries.
MS: Other than the economic dominance, how relevant is China in the geopolitical design of Asia Pacific? And what impact might it have on a balance that guarantees world peace?
JP: This is a difficult question. The “Asia-Pacific” initially emerged out of the US defeat of Japan in the Pacific War and the subsequent outbreak of the Cold War which left China and the Soviet Union dominating Eurasia while the US and its allies “contained” them through a string of alliances and bases in maritime East and Southeast Asia. China “switched sides” and welcomed US President Nixon in 1972. After Mao’s death in 1976 this gave Deng Xiaoping an opportunity to join the West in globalization. But Deng never intended to transform China into a democracy and proved it with the repression of the students in Tiananmen in 1989. Deng Xiaoping also downplayed military modernization in favor of industrialization economic growth and educational and scientific advance. Nonetheless, the spectacular success of China’s globalization in the 1990’s and 2000’s enabled the rapid buildup of China’s military power to the point of becoming the dominant economic power in Asia and the second economic power in the worl