Under the turbulent situation across the Taiwan Strait, the heads of state of China and the United States spoke on the phone again on the evening of July 28. The conversation between the two was not only a part of the game between great powers, but also symbolized their respective path choices and values.
The picture unfolding before the world is not only the United States, which is full of internal drawbacks and trying to keep the afterglow of its empire, but also China, which is full of confidence and wants to actively strive for the right to speak in the world.
In an exclusive interview with Hong Kong 01, a senior media commentator from Taiwan pointed out that the voice of the "China threat theory" has faded away, and even Western elites are adjusting their views on China. The governance advantages of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" will take time. accumulation to prove.
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Shi Qiping, who used to teach economics at a university in Taiwan for many years, worked in Taiwan's SEF in the early 1990s, and witnessed the resumption of contact and negotiation between the two sides of the strait. He is now a senior commentator on Hong Kong's Phoenix Satellite TV. In the overall situation, we are quite optimistic about the situation of "rising in the east and falling in the west" under the "hundred-year change".
He published a long article "From "Global (Right)" to "Global (Left)" in the latest issue of Taiwan's "Straits Review" magazine: Looking at the times and fortunes of China's rise in the century China should be the only country that can provide this public good to the world at the moment.
However, in the face of the sudden attack of the epidemic and the changes in the power structure of the United States to regroup its allies after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, China is also facing economic development pressure, and even the recent outbreak of "unfinished buildings" and bank loans and other storms, resulting in It is magnified and viewed in the Western world and in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
This shows that the "modernization of governance system and governance capacity" officially advocated by mainland China still has many obstacles to overcome before it is possible for the world to see that mainland China's governance advantages surpass those of Western democracies and be accepted as a viable option. Program.
Shi Qiping, a senior commentator of Phoenix Satellite TV, accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from Hong Kong 01 in Taipei. He believed that mainland scholars should better explain the advantages of the "socialist market economy", so as to use this as a basis to build it into the international community. "public product".
(Photo by Zhang Junkai)
Only socialism cares about the weak
In this regard, Shi Qiping admitted to the reporter of "Hong Kong 01" that whether China's governance superiority can be highlighted depends on the efforts of two directions.
The first is that "socialism with Chinese characteristics" proves to be a really good thing for the people of the mainland or the rest of the world, and it takes time to accumulate.
However, at least compared to 20 years ago, there have been some achievements now. The voice of the "China threat theory" 30 or 40 years ago has gradually become smaller, and even Francis Fukuyama had to reluctantly correct and adjust his views on China. system observation.
Secondly, Shi Qiping believes that the efforts of Chinese theoretical experts are still needed, especially the key points. The most important one is the eight words "socialist market economy".
Looking back on history, the contradiction between capitalism and socialism has a long history, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Since the industrial revolution, the explosion of Western productivity and capitalism have brought about a very serious gap between the rich and the poor. Karl Marx proposed his Correction program, that is, socialism.
In Shi Qiping's eyes, Marx stood on the moral high ground and paid attention to the disadvantaged, "it is absolutely correct to propose socialism."
In contrast to the capitalist society in which capital interest groups are rampant in the United States, "who cares about the weak?" In Shi Qiping's historical interpretation, the Soviet Union established after the "October Revolution" in 1917 and the Chinese mainland after 1949, "misunderstood that Taking care of the disadvantaged by socialism is an absolute fairness and absolute justice, so we must use a planned economy to achieve fairness, and a totalitarian political method to achieve a public system.” The result, regardless of the result, appears to be a lack of efficiency and productivity. "Of course it won't work".
Marx once called the social division of labor after the Industrial Revolution a kind of "alienation": "The common activity of different individuals, conditioned by the division of labor, has produced a social force that now experiences a series of unique, not only different, Relying on people's will and behavior instead dominates the development stage of people's will and behavior." This is the result that laborers have to accept.
(Wikipedia)
The road of reform and opening up is not easy
At this time, Deng Xiaoping honestly proposed "crossing the river by feeling the stones." Shi Qiping recalled China's "reform and opening up" road with emotion.
Shi Qiping said, don't look at the fact that the Chinese mainland is so catchy about the word "market economy", but at the beginning, the ideological burden also believed that anything related to capitalism was evil, and tried every means to use the term "commodity economy" to describe it. Replaces "market economy".
On a private trip in 1992, Shi Qiping went to Beijing to attend a seminar, and the organizer arranged for Fang Sheng, a well-known economist, to comment on his article.
Fang Sheng was admitted to the Department of Agricultural Economics of National Taiwan University in 1946. He was the chairman of the National Taiwan University Federation and participated in the February 28 Incident. Later, he was wanted by the Kuomintang government to leave Taiwan and transfer to the mainland via Hong Kong; he taught at Renmin University of China before and after the reform and opening up. Fang Sheng, whose theory has caused repercussions at home and abroad, has the title of "Fang Kaikai".
During the intermission of the seminar, after a few polite remarks, Fang Sheng asked Shi Qiping, "What exactly do you mean by 'market economy' in your article?" Shi Qiping replied, "With your The 'commodity economy' is basically the same thing."
The reason why Shi Qiping recalled this story is to emphasize that in 1992, economists in mainland China still lacked understanding of the "market economy" and did not dare to touch it.
Until Deng Xiaoping's southern tour, the 14th National Congress at the end of the year officially included the market economy.
"So it's really not easy to walk the road in mainland China, because every step involves the liberation of the mind." Shi Qiping commented.
In 1992, Deng Xiaoping made a southern tour to re-establish the direction of reform and opening up.
(file picture)
China's public goods to the world
After solving the problem of the market economy, socialism is the foundation of the Communist Party and cannot be abandoned.
Shi Qiping, who was trained in economics at National Taiwan University, said that at that time, Western and Taiwanese economists could hardly understand how the two concepts of "socialism" and "market economy" could be put together. Socialism is not necessarily antagonistic. For example, Germany or some Nordic countries will not be so repulsive of the "socialist market economy".
In order to distinguish itself from the existing understanding of the "planned economy" of socialism in mainland China in the past, but also to highlight the differences from the socialism that the general public understands in the world, this socialism combined with the market economy has "Chinese characteristics".
Shi Qiping emphasized that starting from taking care of the disadvantaged such as farmers and workers, socialism has always been the essence of the Communist Party or communism. The so-called "not forgetting the original intention" means that no matter how far the Communist Party develops, it must "serve the people".
Shi Qiping gave an example. Of the more than 200 countries in the world, only mainland China holds high the banner of "poverty alleviation" and "realization of a moderately prosperous society." This is socialism.
Compared with the market economy in the West, which is only controlled by capitalists, China has both the advantages of a market economy and a socialist government led by the government, and the two go hand in hand.
Socialist practices such as poverty alleviation still require government policies and state-owned enterprises.
"This is the advantage of mainland China's system today," Shi Qiping said.
Shi Qiping believes that "not forgetting the original intention" is "serving the people".
The picture shows that on January 8, 2020, the Communist Party of China held an education summary conference on the theme of "not forgetting the original intention and remembering the mission" in Beijing. Xi Jinping attended the conference and delivered a speech.
(Xinhua News Agency)
This practice also extends to global governance. Shi Qiping said that China's public goods to the world are based on this concept. Unlike Western countries, helping poor countries rely more on infrastructure construction, which is also a manifestation of socialism.
As for the United States and other Western countries, Shi Qiping pointed out that they are discriminatory against and hostile to socialism, treating socialism as a viper and beast, like Bernie Sanders who finally came out with the banner of socialism, but the result will never be climatic. .
The hurdles that governance capacity needs to overcome
Regarding the optimism about the overall situation and trend of China's development, how does Shi Qiping view the serious problems of bureaucracy and formalism that still exist in the grass-roots government in mainland China?
How to overcome these "hurdles" in order to realize the "modernization of governance system and governance capacity"?
Shi Qiping agrees with the existence of these problems, and also believes that the above-mentioned "Hump" is the key to the governance capacity of the state and government.
Mainland China has a population of 1.4 billion, more than 30 provinces and municipalities, and thousands of county-level administrative regions alone. "If I were Xi Jinping today, the focus would be on education, thorough education."
Shi Qiping suggested that the ideology of the party schools in the mainland should be as small as possible, and the useful governance capabilities should be as much as possible. This is what works. If you really train in this way, it will basically be effective in five or ten years.
As for the assessment, it depends on the level of trained local officials, whether they can grasp the essence of the socialist market economy, "What should the government manage? What should not be managed? How should it be managed when it should be managed?"
As far as Shi Qiping's overall thinking is concerned, he believes that mainland political and economic scholars still need to figure out the crux of the problem and figure out the advantages of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" compared to the West.
Shi Qiping concluded, "The focus is still on theory. We must first have a theory, and then support it with propaganda. Propaganda will do more with less."
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