Turn back to view China 回望中国 Most impression about China is based on imagination instead of facts
This weekend I read an interesting book with an uninteresting title, One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China. I also found my Chinese classmate Miss Wang took this book as her book review for our IBT class. It was written by an American who lived in China for about two decades. Although I have no interest on business, especially in China, I surprisingly found that the author led me to a new view for my home country, China. The author, James McGregor, communicated all kinds of people from workers to officials, from engineers to managers in China. He is not the only one who witnessed the development of China. However, he is one of a few reporters who have a deep understanding for the history and reality of China. An Chinese idiom says that a stone from the other mountains can carve your jasper. For me, James McGregor is such a stone which is rough but hard. Sometimes I can't agree his explanation, but I have to admit he touched the reality. As a foreign student from China, I am always expected to answer such questions, what is China and what is happening in China. This book triggered my interest to give my answer for the discussion.
The first character of this book is to observe China from the view of history and culture. Just from this point, The author entered the mind of Chinese and exceeded others. Most misunderstanding for China by western world are from the ignorance and disregard for Chinese history and culture. If you didn't know them, you won't really understand China.
For understanding current economic reformation and open to foreign policy, the author discussed the history from 1793 when Lord George McCartney arrived China from British empire. He described the refusal by Manchu emperor to open the Chinese market for foreign country. The subsequent history is known: the Chinese market was opened by the opium, gunboat and the forced unequal treaties. So the recent history memory for Chinese is miserable and humiliated. However, Chinese opened the gate for outside the world in 1978 initiatively and joined the World trade Organization in 2001 finally. It is really a long history. But for understanding Chinese, the span of this history is not enough. Why China open her gate and embrace the world clumsily but sturdily? For discovering this question, it is essential to trace the history to Han Dynasty 2000 years ago and Tang Dynasty 1300 years ago. The famous silk road appeared and thrived in Han Dynasty. The Buddhism also entered China from India at that time and left a deep influence in Chinese culture. Tang Dynasty is more open than any other former Dynasty in China. In the capital of Tang, Chang'an, lived many foreigners from Japan, Korea, Persia and Arabia. Guangzhou had became the biggest international trade harbor in the world at that time. In Tang Dynasty, Chinese had much interest for foreign music, clothes and foods. Foreign culture was very popular in Chang'an. Even a branch of Christian, Nestorianism, spread through the whole country. At the same time, Chinese culture also left a deep influence in the neighbor country of east Asia. Although it was long long ago, the strong and open character of Han and Tang left in the Chinese memory. However, when the world evolved to the capitalism. Confucius's teaching couldn't prevent the modern army from the western world. More and more foreign production and missionary entered into China. It brought a great feat to ordinary peasants. As a reaction, they were organized in the movement of Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Christians with violence. Although it indicated the awareness of nationalism, it was also the unreasonable blind action. Finally, it failed under the attack of eight foreign countries. In 1900, the troop of these countries entered into Beijing and made retaliation. Firstly Qing Dynasty tried to use Boxer Rebellion to resist western world, but it was weakened with the failure of this movement. Finally, the governance of Qing Dynasty was ended in 1911. But the country was still politically fragmented and the society had no many changes. After the Russian socialism revolution, Chinese intellectual elites believed Russian revolution was a successful sample for China. Therefore, Chinese Communist Party established. Chinese Communist Party finally won the fight with Kuomintang in Mainland in 1949. This the basic background in which Chinese intellectuals started to learn from the western world. From the declining Qing Dynasty, Chinese didn't stop this learning. These energy included the republic revolution by Sun Yat-sen, the capitalism test by Chiang Kai-shek and farmer's revolution by Mao Zedong. The last energy in current China is the called reformation and open policy by Deng Xiaoping. Therefore, in some extent, Chinese is trying to seek the lost glory today.
Although Buddhism is left in Chinese culture with significant influence, in general, Chinese's mind was governed by the teaching of Confucius. He was a great educator for individual and social morality at 2500 years ago. He promoted individual morality as a resolution for social problems. He emphasized a society should be organized by certain orders and all members should be placed in these orders. In his philosophy there was no place for God instead of the saint who has the high morality and responsibility for the public and the society. After him, most of emperor in China acted his teaching as the basis of the country. The following scholars constantly commented the classics which was compiled by Confucius as the way of their creative expression. Under the teaching of Confucius, a model citizen in ancient China was a practical idealist devoting him to the society. Although, this standard was so high; it still became the social consensus. The traditional Chinese culture is the production of agriculture society. In that society, Confucianism was acted as absolute truth. However, there was no much resources in Confucianism to develop the commerce as well as the modern government and science. So the process of learning from western world also was the process of negating Confucius. In 1919, young college students went to street in Beijing to protest the re-allocation of foreign benefits in China in spite of the role of China as a winner country in the World war I. This is known as the May Fourth Movement. An extreme anti-tradition thoughts appeared with May Fourth Movement. It tried to give up Confucius completely. Two famous slogans in this movement, "crash the shop of Confucius" and "democratic and science", was spread widely. The kernel of Chinese culture is Empiricism. It values the change and practice. Yijing, an important classic of Confucianism, demonstrated the forms of changes in abstract concepts. Whatever you like Confucianism or not, it has became a part of the culture. Even in the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976) which tried to destroy and wipe out the Confucianism, it didn't succeed. When China intellectuals chose the socialism, they believed the socialism was able to resolve the problem of China. But the Chinese socialism is not the original socialism which was created by Carl Max. It is changed a lot to fit the circumstance of China. The reformation led by Deng Xiaoping was welcomed and accepted in China; although, it was not consistent with traditional socialism doctrine. A well-known words by Deng Xiaoping is "pass through the river by toughing the stone in it." This is a vivid depiction of current policy in China. The Chinese character (Chinese written language) is very important to maintain the unity of the country. Because the Chinese character doesn't indicate the pronunciation of spoken language but its meaning, people can communicate each other through it. Maybe people can not communicate directly with their different dialects, they always can share the thoughts and feeling from the history and culture. It is also possible for Chinese to read the classic works which was created 2000 years ago. So it is just like a miracle in world civilization history. When people know more about their history and culture, as a natural result, they are proud for their country. Therefore, patriotism occupies an important position in the Chinese culture. Relying on the patriotism from the ordinary people, China spent the hard time and survived in World war II. On the other hand, Chinese is not a fanaticism ethnic group. There is no market for fanaticism in China. In history, Chinese had no many interest for military march in other countries. They just satisfied with the admiration from the other countries.
The second character of the book is that the author put the objective facts prior to his standpoint. The most easily mistakes committed by western world is to guess China from the political and ideological view. Someone just imagines China through their political glasses. They satisfy with their imagination and refuse to accept the true situation. They can't get the facts of China. The author of this book, James McGregor, is not such person.
The author lived in China for about 20 years. He experienced the changes of China. He is so sensitive that sometimes from his description I can remember some living scenes many years ago. He stated that at the beginning of reformation, the only vegetable in Winter was Chinese cabbage. In the whole Winter, you only had cabbage on your dinning table. But now the living conditions is greatly improved. Not only in economy, but also in the social life many changes happened. He gave a story about Mr. Hu Shuli, an editor who tried to create an more independent magazine to discuss the social and economic problems. In his book, the author also observed that China officials are practical and realistic. Comprising with political affairs, they have more interest on economic affairs. They want to get a beneficial position in negotiation and collaboration with foreign companies. Economist Steven N. S. Cheung thought the reason of fast development in China is based on the competition between the different place of China. He said, such competition made China into the most welcomed area for foreign investments. His conclusion can be proved even in my home town, a small town in Xinjiang. The officials of local government always tried to draw more investments from the outside. The investor got the best treatment from the local government. Some policy limitation of central government also was adjusted by the local government. The operation of local government sometimes looks like a big company. Deng Xiaoping, the creator of reformation and open policy of current China, is called the general designer of this policy. But even for Deng himself, he had no clear thoughts about the final target. In fact, the policy in China has a great flexibility. Many policies and ideas were tested in some certain area. If the test is successful, then that new policy will be promoted in the whole country. If the policy was proved improper, it will be suspended. The changes is so great and fast that most Chinese had no prediction at 20 years or 10 years ago. In the beginning of reformation, there is almost no any private enterprise in China; today the biggest privatization in the world happens in China. I can remember when I was a student in high school, my political teacher once complained that sometimes he didn't know how to explain the current economic policy to his students because it changed so frequently. For some economist, China is a big proving ground for their economics theory. They tried to promote their theory to Chinese government. It is the process of learning from western world for China. Socialism was the part of this process; market economy is also the part of this process. Of course, there are a lot of problems and difficulties in this process. Just like Miss Wang said in the end of her book review, the author always concerned the negative examples of doing business in China. But the author really touched the problems of China. In my opinion, a severe problem in China is the imbalance of development between different part and different group. If you went to Shanghai, you see you are in a modern metropolis. But if you traveled to some rural area in west, the time seems stopped 50 years ago. The increasingly income gap between different social groups also brings problems. In addition, the environment is severely damaged.
All of these problems is not easily resolved. However, they are the problems happened in the process of reformation. Chinese prepare to resolve these problems in the process of development. We have no clear answers for them, but we know China won't stop and we will continue to go. This confidence originated from our culture. We expect that China does not only make a great development in the economy but also in the culture. We expect to last the glory from the ancestor. The most important is, you should know, China is in the process of changing and developing.
xiaoyong (04/18/2008)
Turn back to view China
回望中国
Most impression about China is based on imagination instead of facts
This weekend I read an interesting book with an uninteresting title, One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China. I also found my Chinese classmate Miss Wang took this book as her book review for our IBT class. It was written by an American who lived in China for about two decades. Although I have no interest on business, especially in China, I surprisingly found that the author led me to a new view for my home country, China.
The author, James McGregor, communicated all kinds of people from workers to officials, from engineers to managers in China. He is not the only one who witnessed the development of China. However, he is one of a few reporters who have a deep understanding for the history and reality of China. An Chinese idiom says that a stone from the other mountains can carve your jasper. For me, James McGregor is such a stone which is rough but hard. Sometimes I can't agree his explanation, but I have to admit he touched the reality.
As a foreign student from China, I am always expected to answer such questions, what is China and what is happening in China. This book triggered my interest to give my answer for the discussion.
The first character of this book is to observe China from the view of history and culture. Just from this point, The author entered the mind of Chinese and exceeded others. Most misunderstanding for China by western world are from the ignorance and disregard for Chinese history and culture. If you didn't know them, you won't really understand China.
For understanding current economic reformation and open to foreign policy, the author discussed the history from 1793 when Lord George McCartney arrived China from British empire. He described the refusal by Manchu emperor to open the Chinese market for foreign country. The subsequent history is known: the Chinese market was opened by the opium, gunboat and the forced unequal treaties. So the recent history memory for Chinese is miserable and humiliated. However, Chinese opened the gate for outside the world in 1978 initiatively and joined the World trade Organization in 2001 finally.
It is really a long history. But for understanding Chinese, the span of this history is not enough. Why China open her gate and embrace the world clumsily but sturdily? For discovering this question, it is essential to trace the history to Han Dynasty 2000 years ago and Tang Dynasty 1300 years ago. The famous silk road appeared and thrived in Han Dynasty. The Buddhism also entered China from India at that time and left a deep influence in Chinese culture. Tang Dynasty is more open than any other former Dynasty in China. In the capital of Tang, Chang'an, lived many foreigners from Japan, Korea, Persia and Arabia. Guangzhou had became the biggest international trade harbor in the world at that time. In Tang Dynasty, Chinese had much interest for foreign music, clothes and foods. Foreign culture was very popular in Chang'an. Even a branch of Christian, Nestorianism, spread through the whole country. At the same time, Chinese culture also left a deep influence in the neighbor country of east Asia. Although it was long long ago, the strong and open character of Han and Tang left in the Chinese memory.
However, when the world evolved to the capitalism. Confucius's teaching couldn't prevent the modern army from the western world. More and more foreign production and missionary entered into China. It brought a great feat to ordinary peasants. As a reaction, they were organized in the movement of Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Christians with violence. Although it indicated the awareness of nationalism, it was also the unreasonable blind action. Finally, it failed under the attack of eight foreign countries. In 1900, the troop of these countries entered into Beijing and made retaliation. Firstly Qing Dynasty tried to use Boxer Rebellion to resist western world, but it was weakened with the failure of this movement. Finally, the governance of Qing Dynasty was ended in 1911. But the country was still politically fragmented and the society had no many changes. After the Russian socialism revolution, Chinese intellectual elites believed Russian revolution was a successful sample for China. Therefore, Chinese Communist Party established. Chinese Communist Party finally won the fight with Kuomintang in Mainland in 1949.
This the basic background in which Chinese intellectuals started to learn from the western world. From the declining Qing Dynasty, Chinese didn't stop this learning. These energy included the republic revolution by Sun Yat-sen, the capitalism test by Chiang Kai-shek and farmer's revolution by Mao Zedong. The last energy in current China is the called reformation and open policy by Deng Xiaoping. Therefore, in some extent, Chinese is trying to seek the lost glory today.
Although Buddhism is left in Chinese culture with significant influence, in general, Chinese's mind was governed by the teaching of Confucius. He was a great educator for individual and social morality at 2500 years ago. He promoted individual morality as a resolution for social problems. He emphasized a society should be organized by certain orders and all members should be placed in these orders. In his philosophy there was no place for God instead of the saint who has the high morality and responsibility for the public and the society. After him, most of emperor in China acted his teaching as the basis of the country. The following scholars constantly commented the classics which was compiled by Confucius as the way of their creative expression. Under the teaching of Confucius, a model citizen in ancient China was a practical idealist devoting him to the society. Although, this standard was so high; it still became the social consensus.
The traditional Chinese culture is the production of agriculture society. In that society, Confucianism was acted as absolute truth. However, there was no much resources in Confucianism to develop the commerce as well as the modern government and science. So the process of learning from western world also was the process of negating Confucius. In 1919, young college students went to street in Beijing to protest the re-allocation of foreign benefits in China in spite of the role of China as a winner country in the World war I. This is known as the May Fourth Movement. An extreme anti-tradition thoughts appeared with May Fourth Movement. It tried to give up Confucius completely. Two famous slogans in this movement, "crash the shop of Confucius" and "democratic and science", was spread widely.
The kernel of Chinese culture is Empiricism. It values the change and practice. Yijing, an important classic of Confucianism, demonstrated the forms of changes in abstract concepts. Whatever you like Confucianism or not, it has became a part of the culture. Even in the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976) which tried to destroy and wipe out the Confucianism, it didn't succeed. When China intellectuals chose the socialism, they believed the socialism was able to resolve the problem of China. But the Chinese socialism is not the original socialism which was created by Carl Max. It is changed a lot to fit the circumstance of China. The reformation led by Deng Xiaoping was welcomed and accepted in China; although, it was not consistent with traditional socialism doctrine. A well-known words by Deng Xiaoping is "pass through the river by toughing the stone in it." This is a vivid depiction of current policy in China.
The Chinese character (Chinese written language) is very important to maintain the unity of the country. Because the Chinese character doesn't indicate the pronunciation of spoken language but its meaning, people can communicate each other through it. Maybe people can not communicate directly with their different dialects, they always can share the thoughts and feeling from the history and culture. It is also possible for Chinese to read the classic works which was created 2000 years ago. So it is just like a miracle in world civilization history. When people know more about their history and culture, as a natural result, they are proud for their country. Therefore, patriotism occupies an important position in the Chinese culture. Relying on the patriotism from the ordinary people, China spent the hard time and survived in World war II. On the other hand, Chinese is not a fanaticism ethnic group. There is no market for fanaticism in China. In history, Chinese had no many interest for military march in other countries. They just satisfied with the admiration from the other countries.
The second character of the book is that the author put the objective facts prior to his standpoint. The most easily mistakes committed by western world is to guess China from the political and ideological view. Someone just imagines China through their political glasses. They satisfy with their imagination and refuse to accept the true situation. They can't get the facts of China. The author of this book, James McGregor, is not such person.
The author lived in China for about 20 years. He experienced the changes of China. He is so sensitive that sometimes from his description I can remember some living scenes many years ago. He stated that at the beginning of reformation, the only vegetable in Winter was Chinese cabbage. In the whole Winter, you only had cabbage on your dinning table. But now the living conditions is greatly improved. Not only in economy, but also in the social life many changes happened. He gave a story about Mr. Hu Shuli, an editor who tried to create an more independent magazine to discuss the social and economic problems.
In his book, the author also observed that China officials are practical and realistic. Comprising with political affairs, they have more interest on economic affairs. They want to get a beneficial position in negotiation and collaboration with foreign companies. Economist Steven N. S. Cheung thought the reason of fast development in China is based on the competition between the different place of China. He said, such competition made China into the most welcomed area for foreign investments. His conclusion can be proved even in my home town, a small town in Xinjiang. The officials of local government always tried to draw more investments from the outside. The investor got the best treatment from the local government. Some policy limitation of central government also was adjusted by the local government. The operation of local government sometimes looks like a big company.
Deng Xiaoping, the creator of reformation and open policy of current China, is called the general designer of this policy. But even for Deng himself, he had no clear thoughts about the final target. In fact, the policy in China has a great flexibility. Many policies and ideas were tested in some certain area. If the test is successful, then that new policy will be promoted in the whole country. If the policy was proved improper, it will be suspended. The changes is so great and fast that most Chinese had no prediction at 20 years or 10 years ago. In the beginning of reformation, there is almost no any private enterprise in China; today the biggest privatization in the world happens in China. I can remember when I was a student in high school, my political teacher once complained that sometimes he didn't know how to explain the current economic policy to his students because it changed so frequently. For some economist, China is a big proving ground for their economics theory. They tried to promote their theory to Chinese government.
It is the process of learning from western world for China. Socialism was the part of this process; market economy is also the part of this process. Of course, there are a lot of problems and difficulties in this process. Just like Miss Wang said in the end of her book review, the author always concerned the negative examples of doing business in China. But the author really touched the problems of China. In my opinion, a severe problem in China is the imbalance of development between different part and different group. If you went to Shanghai, you see you are in a modern metropolis. But if you traveled to some rural area in west, the time seems stopped 50 years ago. The increasingly income gap between different social groups also brings problems. In addition, the environment is severely damaged.
All of these problems is not easily resolved. However, they are the problems happened in the process of reformation. Chinese prepare to resolve these problems in the process of development. We have no clear answers for them, but we know China won't stop and we will continue to go. This confidence originated from our culture. We expect that China does not only make a great development in the economy but also in the culture. We expect to last the glory from the ancestor. The most important is, you should know, China is in the process of changing and developing.
乱翻书 (04/18/2008)
读后感？
xiaoyong (04/19/2008)
是的，作为国际贸易这门课布置的书评的评论，写给学校的美国同学和老师，为现在的时势有感而发，只是我的英语很糟糕，但我尽力说出一个中国人想说的话。
lovelywcm (05/05/2008)
支持一下。
中国正在发展是毫无疑问的。
我们一方面希望更多年轻有胆略的领导者引领中国更加开放，
另一方面也希望这种发展足够的稳健，毕竟国际风云，皆非善类。