Teaching Comparative

Can we be objective about China?

Carsten Holz is an economist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In an article in the Far Eastern Economic Review, he questions the objectivity of people (including himself) who study China.

There are questions here that comparativists should ask themselves too. Should we really call the Chinese government a "government?" Or is that a misleading analogy to governments in the West?

Have China Scholars All Been Bought?

"Academics who study China, which includes the author, habitually please the Chinese Communist Party, sometimes consciously, and often unconsciously. Our incentives are to conform, and we do so in numerous ways: through the research questions we ask or don’t ask, through the facts we report or ignore, through our use of language, and through what and how we teach...

"China researchers across different disciplines may not all be equally affected. Economists and political scientists are likely to come up against the Party constraint frequently, and perhaps severely. But even sociologists or ethnographers can reach the forbidden zone when doing network studies or examining ethnic minority cultures.

"Our self-censorship takes many forms. We ask Western instead of China-relevant questions. We try to explain the profitability of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by basic economic factors, when it may make more sense to explain it by the quality of enterprise management (hand-picked by the Party’s “Organization Department”), or by the political constraints an enterprise faces, or by the political and bureaucratic channels through which an enterprise interacts with its owners, employees, suppliers and buyers...

"We do not question the meaning of the Chinese word shichang, translated as “market,” but presume it to be the same as in the West.

"Similarly, we take at face value China’s Company Law, which makes no mention of the Party, even though the Party is likely to still call the shots in the companies organized under the Company Law... The Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee and the Shaanxi government... explicitly require the Party cell in state-owned enterprises (including “companies”) to participate in all major enterprise decisions... At the national level, the leadership of the 50 largest central state-owned enterprises—enterprises that invest around the world—is directly appointed by the Politburo...

"We ignore the fact that of the 3,220 Chinese citizens with a personal wealth of 100 million yuan ($13 million) or more, 2, 932 are children of high-level cadres. Of the key positions in the five industrial sectors—finance, foreign trade, land development, large-scale engineering and securities—85% to 90% are held by children of high-level cadres...

"Our use of language to conform to the image the Party wishes to project is pervasive. Would the description 'a secret society characterized by an attitude of popular hostility to law and government' not properly describe the secrecy of the Party’s operations, its supremacy above the law and its total control of government? In Webster’s New World College Dictionary, this is the definition of 'mafia.'

"We speak of the Chinese 'government' without further qualification when more than 95% of the 'leadership cadres' are Party members, key decisions are reached by leadership cadres in their function as members of Party work committees...

"Does China’s government actually govern China, or is it merely an organ that implements Party decisions? By using the word 'government,' is it correct to grant the Chinese 'government' this association with other, in particular Western, governments, or would it not be more accurate to call it the 'government with Chinese characteristics' or the 'mafia’s front man'?...

"The Party’s—or, the mafia’s—terminology pervades our writing and teaching. We do not ask if the Chinese Communist Party is communist, the People’s Congresses are congresses of the people, the People’s Liberation Army is liberating or suppressing the people, or if the judges are not all appointed by the Party and answer to the Party. We say 'Tiananmen incident,' in conformance with Party terminology, but called it 'Tiananmen massacre' right after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, when 'incident' would have made us look too submissive to the Party.

"Which Western textbook on China’s political system elaborates on the Party’s selection and de facto appointment of government officials and parliamentary delegates, and, furthermore, points out these procedures as different from how we view political parties, government and parliament in the West? By following the Party’s lead in giving the names of Western institutions to fake Chinese imitations, we sanctify the Party’s pretenses. We are not even willing to call China what its own constitution calls it: a dictatorship...

"Who lays out the systematic sale of leadership positions across Chinese governments and Party committees?...

"Party propaganda has found its way deeply into our thinking. The importance of “social stability” and nowadays a “harmonious society” are accepted unconditionally as important for China. But is a country with more than 200 incidents of social unrest every day really socially stable, and its society harmonious? Or does “socially stable” mean no more than acceptance of the rule of the mafia?..."

---

Labels: China, concepts, pedagogy

posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:45 PM