Growth and Arbitrariness: Frank Dikötter on the Rise of China. – Politics

The first anecdote with which sinologist Frank Dikötter begins his journey through four decades of China’s rise is a fascinating one: When he moved to China in 1985 to study Chinese, a friend addressed him with a postcard reading “Frank from Holland, Tianjin, China.” And that was enough; At that time, only eighty foreigners lived in the coastal city, including seven Dutch people and one from Frankfurt, he writes.

Those days are long gone: forty years after reform and opening-up began, China has the second-largest economy, and historic districts have given way to glass towers and soaring highways. No one was sending postcards for a long time; Instead, digital communications giants dominate. Internationally, there is a competition between China and the United States, as Beijing is considered a technological superpower and has a good chance of directing the 21st century as the Chinese Communist Party wants.

The real estate crisis and structural problems are not a coincidence

The questions that Dikötter dares to ask in his new book, China After Mao, seem even more surprising: Can one really speak of a miracle in this rise? Was there ever a period of “reform and opening-up”, the anniversary of which Beijing has just celebrated in a big way?

But perhaps now is a good moment to discuss precisely these questions: At home, China’s government is facing a massive real estate crisis, as cities stand empty, and entire neighborhoods are being demolished where no one ever lived. The country is heavily indebted and divided regarding development policy between East and West. Dikötter explains how many of these structural problems began in the 1980s. Meanwhile, the Communist Party continues to promote its system as superior to American-style capitalism. The number of supporters is growing, especially in the Global South.

At one point, Dikötter wonders how it is that after forty years of “reform and opening up,” there are no longer even a million foreigners living in China, just 0.07% of the total population, less than any other country and not even half of China’s population. North Korea’s share? “Enormous amounts of finished products are allowed to leave China, but relatively few of them are actually allowed to be imported,” he points out. A fifth of humanity is only allowed to watch 36 foreign films a year, and the authorities do not allow more. And: “Capital can enter the country, but it is difficult to withdraw it again.”

Hundreds of documents from city and county archives

Dikötter does not believe in the Kremlin’s Chinese explanations. Attempts to interpret the words and gestures of Chinese leaders in order to find out what was thought and done in Beijing. He prefers to focus on the facts. As with his trilogy on Chinese life under Mao, which has long become one of the standard works on the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap, he also visited Chinese archives and unearthed original documents for this study. In all, his book is based on about 600 documents from the archives of dozens of cities and counties, but also on unpublished memoirs. Most important are the secret memoirs of Li Rui, Mao’s former private secretary.

The result is a detailed and informed account of the rise between control and arbitrariness, ignorance and chaos. Instead of a grand plan, he sees a government stuck in “power struggles between endless shifting factions,” led by officials who “often have no idea.” About the basics of economics.” So they are obsessed with one metric that everyone understands: “Growth, often at the expense of development. The result is waste on a colossal scale.”

Beijing’s achievements are not on display

If you want to see a flaw in this incredibly intelligent and informed book, here it is: Dikötter, who has spent half his life dealing with the crimes of the Communist Party, finds it difficult to break out of this role: in some 400 pages he works on the Party, its unscrupulous leaders, and their Absolutely to protect their authority, even with tanks if necessary.

All of this is true, but it does not leave much room for Beijing’s vision, or even its achievements. Or to put it another way: If all of China’s officials were lazy, incompetent, and/or evil, China would certainly not be where it is today. Despite all the legitimate criticisms of the nature of the system, the book would have benefited from leaving room for these doubts.