People who are accustomed to thinking of binary opposition in economics or politics can easily fall into the "trap" of choosing one or the other when observing China.
In recent years, many people have said that "adhering to economic construction as the center" has been the practice since Deng Xiaoping initiated the reform and opening up. However, this situation has changed in recent years, and this sentence rarely appears in official documents. .
And when the Central Economic Work Conference at the end of last year reiterated that "economic development is the central requirement of the party's basic line", it received widespread attention, and it was considered a major correction.
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In fact, as early as 2017, before the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the People's Daily published an article that clearly stated: "Politics is the unswerving political character and consistent practical logic of the Communist Party of China." Scientific judgment of the historical position of Chinese society and the Communist Party of China, our party insists on economic construction as the center, and emphasizes it as an important part of the party's basic line. It doesn't mean that talking about politics should give way to focusing on the economy. "Adhering to economic construction as the center is itself a political choice."
According to the CCP's words: "'Focus on economic reality and talk about politics' is a misunderstanding." This is true; according to the general public opinion: "Don't let the economic struggle give way to the political talk", which is also hard.
So, how to understand?
Is China's economic downturn due to "economics giving way to politics"?
On September 8, Li Keqiang, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Premier of the State Council, presided over a special meeting of the State Council in Beijing to listen to reports on the work of local supervision and service to stabilize the economy, and study the next steps.
Han Zheng, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, attended the meeting.
( Xinhua News Agency )
Why is "Economic Construction as the Center" mentioned again?
For decades after the reform and opening up, "focusing on economic construction" has been the center of the CCP's basic line in the primary stage of socialism.
The main social contradiction at this stage is "the contradiction between the people's growing material and cultural needs and the backward social production."
In the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, a major political conclusion was made that socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and the main social contradiction has been transformed into the contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and insufficient development.
Some people in the media can't help but discuss whether "focusing on economic construction" is still the center of the basic line of the new era.
There are also statistics. After China's economic growth entered the "6 eras" in 2016, the five-year Central Economic Work Conference only mentioned "adhering to economic construction as the center" in 2018, and this reference was not mentioned in other years. and.
Until the Central Economic Work Conference in 2021, it reappeared: "We must adhere to high-quality development, and adhere to the requirements of the party's basic line of focusing on economic construction." It also requires that the economic work in 2022 should be at the forefront and make progress while maintaining stability. , the full text of the press release mentioned "stability" 25 times.
Some analysts believe that the reason for such emphasis on "stability" is that the current economy is "unstable".
Reuters said that in the year of the CCP's reelection, "stability" is not only an economic issue, but also a political issue.
Indeed, some important judgments were made at the Central Economic Conference at the end of last year (2021): "Economic construction as the center is the basic line requirement of the party"; Facing the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shock, and weakening expectations”, all these prove that China’s economy is under tremendous growth pressure.
From December 8 to 10, 2021, the Central Economic Work Conference will be held in Beijing.
General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, President of the State, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission Xi Jinping attended the meeting and delivered a speech.
(Xinhua News Agency)
The severe economic situation in China is the result of multiple factors.
According to official economic experts, first of all, the epidemic has hit demand, and consumption and investment have been greatly affected by the epidemic, especially the living service industry, individual industrial and commercial households, etc., which are still shrinking sharply.
Both consumption and investment data showed weakness.
Secondly, the United States restricts and suppresses China in the three dimensions of supply chain, market and technology, resulting in supply chain interruption and supply shortage.
Third, the spillover effect of quantitative easing policies in the West, especially the United States, together with the rise in international energy and commodity prices, has triggered China's imported inflation, while domestic coal-electricity conflicts and power outages have also affected prices and impacted supply.
Finally, the vigorous rectification of the education and training industry in the previous stage and the strengthening of anti-monopoly supervision of the platform economy have also greatly hit enterprises. Enterprises are worried about suppressing capital. All these have caused uncertainty and risk to rise.
This is known as "expected weakening".
The actual weakness of China's economy is not only the consensus of economic experts, including official scholars, but also the consensus of society.
In the first half of 2022, China's GDP will grow by 2.5% year-on-year, and in the second quarter, it will grow by 0.4% year-on-year.
This is a lower-than-expected figure.
It is very difficult to achieve the economic growth target of 5.5% of GDP for the whole year.
Although I believe that April-May is the darkest time for China's macro economy, I believe it will also be the bottom of the economy. In the second half of the year, China's economy will definitely climb out of the deep pit and recover relatively mildly.
However, in the second half of the year, it will be difficult to achieve the economic growth target of 5.5% of GDP for the whole year.
In other words, this year may be the first time in history that China has failed to achieve its economic growth target, which will be a landmark inflection point.
More attention to anomalies in the economy
Compared with the sluggish economic growth rate, what really makes people vigilant should be the many anomalies in the current Chinese economic data.
With the emergence of these anomalies, it seems that the law of China's economic operation over the past few years is being broken, making it difficult to form clear expectations and strong confidence in the economic outlook.
China's obviously low import growth rate, obvious deflationary pressure in the downstream terminal market, rare initiative to reduce inventory in the domestic production industry, obvious tightening financing bottleneck in the real estate industry, lack of real estate control policies on the supply side, "liquidity barrier lake" "Recurrences are all anomalies where the current economic operation deviates from past experience.
Without citing more economic anomalies, it can be seen that the current operation of China's economy has significantly deviated from the operating laws of the past decade or so.
According to past experience, when the economy faces the current downward pressure, it can be expected that the macro policy will quickly and forcefully take action to effectively underpin the economy, and the economic growth rate can quickly bottom out and pick up.
But obviously, not right now.
If the past experience is no longer valid, the economic prospects will be difficult to predict, and it will be difficult to form good economic expectations - this is the core reason for the current "weak expectations" of various economic entities.
Affected by the epidemic, the downward pressure on China's economy has further increased.
(Xinhua News Agency)
In fact, the downturn in economic data was not terrible at all.
For a country like China with abundant savings and sufficient production capacity, the government's ability to regulate the macro economy is very strong.
Especially in the face of insufficient domestic demand, there is a lot of room for macroeconomic policies to create demand.
In other words, as long as the policy is properly controlled, the anomalies in the current macro data can be quickly eliminated.
However, due to various reasons, the current macro-policy seems to be unable to take appropriate measures against the main contradiction.
This anomaly in macro policy responses is a deeper reason for the anomalies in economic data.
Of course, it can still be expected that the current anomalies in China's economic operation may only be short-term phenomena caused by the epidemic and some other special circumstances.
As in the first issue of 2022, "Liaowang" Newsweek published an article "Stabilizing the macro economy is not only an economic issue, but also a political issue" written by Han Wenxiu, deputy director of the Office of the Central Finance and Economics Commission in charge of daily work.
The article reads: "Economic and social development is an interrelated and complex system. It is necessary to prevent the fallacy of synthesis, not to change the division of forces into self-concern and less than others, and to avoid the superposition of partial rational policies to cause negative effects; and to prevent the fallacy of decomposition, and to avoid putting them together. The overall task is simple and divided into parts, let alone adding weights layer by layer, making it unbearable for the grassroots. To formulate and implement policies, we must adhere to systematic concepts and practical standards, follow economic laws, and test the success or failure of policies with practical results.”
That's right, the more complex changes it is, the more it is necessary to stay still, "prevent the fallacy of decomposition", "avoid negative effects caused by the superposition of partial rational policies", and adhere to "practice is the only criterion for testing truth" and seek truth from facts.
It is believed that macroeconomic policies can eventually find a direction and a force point that is suitable for the actual economic situation, and then stabilize the domestic economy.
But to turn this confidence into reality, it still needs the proper implementation of macro policies.
Until then, the market will remain on the sidelines.
In 2021, Chinese regulators have stepped up efforts to overhaul the platform economy.
(Xinhua News Agency)
The "crooked monk recites the crooked scriptures" of "talking about politics"
As the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China approached, Western media began to report on "How Has China Changed During the 10 Years of Chinese President Xi Jinping's Rule?"
", "Economic Development and Social Control Dilemma: Does Xi Jinping Want Power or Money?
” and other articles, written in the West, all mention a phenomenon: In the past 10 years, China’s economy has not only experienced a decline in GDP growth, but also in consumption and investment growth, corporate revenue, and government revenue.
Especially in the past two years, the situation was special. Due to the impact of the epidemic, the overall economic situation was even more under pressure.
And these 10 years just overlapped with Xi Jinping's reign.
Under the words of Western public opinion, they believe that this overlap in time also shows that there is a significant synchronization relationship between the decline in economic growth and the governance policies adopted by Xi, that is, whether it is anti-corruption, strengthening the party's control over the economy and society , or to suppress capital, all at the cost of a decline in economic growth.
One article wrote: The lack of horizontal linkages within the Chinese government is to blame for the string of reforms that ignored the economic shock.
Since Xi Jinping came to power, on the one hand, he has severely cracked down on corruption and cleaned up the public service team, resulting in the rise of official self-centeredness.
Officials focus only on the hard targets they want to achieve, not the economic shocks that come with them.
On the other hand, Xi Jinping's model of "governing the country in small groups" emphasizes the leadership of the party and weakens the system of the State Council. As a result, technocrats specializing in economics do not have a strong voice, and party cadres often have political considerations over professional judgments, which exacerbates the problem. severity.
That is, the "accusation" that points to "economics giving way to politics".
But in fact, China's rapid economic growth for more than 40 years since its reform and opening up has been called the "China Miracle".
Some explanations for the "China miracle" attribute the reason to the institutional transition towards marketization and the recognition of the role of property rights since the reform and opening up; some believe that it is due to the fact that under the premise of giving full play to the role of the market system in allocating resources, the Chinese government has adopted measures related to resource endowment. Various types of policies that are adapted to match the implementation of the comparative advantage strategy ensure continuous technological diffusion, industrial upgrading and economic growth; there is an effective incentive structure generated by the institutional arrangement that attributes uniqueness to the relationship between the central and local governments, which stimulates various industries. The bottom-up policy innovation, market protection and economic competition of the governments at different levels are just like the blind man feeling the elephant, all of which have hit a certain part.
Regrettably, the above explanations focus more on how reforms have provided an effective economic system for China's high-growth miracle, while lacking attention to the interaction of political and economic systems that ensure effective systems, leading to a lack of understanding of how to choose, build, and reform reform paths. There is a lack of theoretical support for an effective institutional environment, preventing power opportunism, and securing credible commitments to reform, which are crucial to the creation of the "Chinese miracle."
These are actually "speaking politics", but they are not the so-called "speaking politics" in Western parlance.
In addition, the progress of economic research in recent years has shown that it is not uncommon for an economy to experience high growth for a period of time, whether it is historical or national experience, and the differences in long-term economic performance between economies do not mainly depend on high growth, but more It depends on the political and economic interaction and order stability in institutional changes.
Indeed, from the data point of view, since Xi Jinping took office at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it has dropped to the range of 7%-8% since 2012, and the "7 eras" lasted for four years.
In 2015, China's economic growth rate will fall below the new watershed of 7%. In 2016, it will further decelerate into the "6 era", and then the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in 2020 will cause greater development pressure.
Not to mention the impact of the epidemic, after 40 years of rapid development in China, the endogenous upward momentum of the economy itself will weaken. This is the law of economic development.
Low growth is likely to become a norm during Xi's presidency. This is a "new pattern", but this is due to the economic cycle theory, and all economies have gone through this stage.
Low growth is likely to become the norm under Xi Jinping, a "new pattern".
(Xinhua News Agency)
Some Western analysts believe that the CCP's series of purges, with clear political goals, are aimed at "speaking about politics" at the expense of short-term economic interests.
This statement is clearly incorrect.
The core here is the understanding of "speaking politics".
Western public opinion simply alienates "speaking about politics" as the center in order to consolidate power.
This "talking about politics" is not the other "talking about politics".
Over the years, the organization has emphasized strengthening the authority of the Party Central Committee, emphasizing that "senior cadres must speak politics", which is a political tradition.
However, the aim is to reduce intervention and strengthen regulation through institutional reforms. While continuing to give local control over personnel, approval and resources, the central government’s control capability has been strengthened through the selection, establishment, civil service system, target management, and tax-sharing reform of leading party and government cadres. .
"Strictly governing the party" is to ensure cohesion and unity within the party.
At the system and mechanism level, the construction of party ideology, politics, organization, work style and anti-corruption, and even the promotion of the decoupling of the military, the armed police force, the political and legal organs and the operating companies, are all efforts to prevent some people from using the state's public tools to compete with the people. Profit, and local competition.
This is "talking about politics", not "talking about politics" in Western terms.
But obviously, this "talking about politics" is for the orderly advancement of economic operation.
"Talking about politics" is not the ultra-leftist politics of the Cultural Revolution. It is not that China once had politics in command, and it is not "class struggle as the key link." Those are all wrong.
The overall goal of China's reforms has gradually shifted from the growth of the total economy to meeting the diverse needs of the people.
Continuously expand the institutionalized participation channels of different groups, deal with increasingly diverse and complex interest demands, and gradually form a participation and response system that combines the political party system, the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the administrative system, and public opinion.
In this complex system, there are bound to be mistakes in "speaking politics".
This must be vigilant.
Anti-corruption, the political assessment and rectification of officials, does not mean that officials at all levels should spend their time and energy on how to deal with the various political tasks deployed above and political prevention among colleagues, and it is not to restrict the enthusiasm of officials and create space. .
However, in the past, it has indeed appeared that some officials have a mentality of "one more thing is worse than one less thing", and there are signs of the bureaucratic system's laxity and laxity, which will have far-reaching effects.
The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is approaching, and personnel will enter a period of intensive adjustment.
Some people view "speaking politics" in isolation and mechanically, thinking that "speaking about politics" is "Left"; some talk about "speaking about politics", and still go their own way in the audience; "Let's take it", talk about it when necessary, and pretend... "Speaking about politics" in this way is all a crooked monk reciting crooked scriptures.
Of course, "speaking about politics" and "striking for economics" are not a pair of opposing concepts. To talk about the two in a binary opposition is narrow.
But we need to be wary of "crooked monks reciting crooked scriptures" who "speak politics".
Just as at the Party Building Work Conference of the Central and State Organs, Xi Jinping gave portraits of four categories of people: faint officials, lazy officials, mediocre officials and corrupt officials. , with a strong practical relevance.
Top 20 Task List | Starting from "closing the country" and seeking "stability" is still a consensus Top 20 Task List | "Tacitus Trap" is not an alarmist Top 20 Task List | Respecting science and professionalism must keep the alarm bells ringing 20 Big Task List | Top 20 Task Lists for the Worrying Unemployment Crisis under the Epidemic | How Public Power Holds the Bottom Line of the Rule of Law
