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Deng Xiaoping and Economic reform of China
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Deng Xiaoping and Economic reform of China
Frank Li in Waterloo, Canada Last updated in Feb. 27, 2015
http://www.kwcg.ca/bbs/home.php?mod=space&uid=61910&do=blog&id=3808
Any social progress will be resisted by conservative forces, it does not matter in East or West. In China at the time of economic reform beginning were those who adhere to the socialist dogma. In current Canada is those who adhere to the excessive self-appreciated Values. To break such dogmatic ideology is very difficult, and it is the key for making a social progress.
The conservative forces are not entirely from those who are vested interests, but, also from those who are keen to make ridiculous fuss, and their life's mission is to oppose everything, by which to prove their un-ordinary.
--- Frank May 27 2013 in Waterloo, On. Canada
This article is a part that involved in the experience of the success of economic reform of China in my article To Make Possible from Impossible by Breaking the Shackles of Dogmatic.
Ezra F. Vogel, the Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard University, who cost about 10 years, visited many key figures and historical sites, mastered informative first-hand information, to have written Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China that published in 2011. In the book, he indicated that Deng’s formula for success was simple: “Don’t argue; try it. If it works, let it spread.”
I think that is the best understanding for the success of the economic reform of China - No templates, no prior design, but, explore and practice, worked out experience to promote. It certainly possesses universal significance. So, I post with a new independent title.
--- Frank May 26 2013 in Waterloo, On. Canada
6. Deng Xiaoping and Economic reform of China.
For facilitating the understanding to that of I am going to discuss, I think that, there is necessary to review the reflection of former Russian President Vladimir Putin on Russia's ridiculous experience in their socialist period.
In Dec. 30, 1999, Vladimir Putin made a speaking of Russia at the Turn of the Millennium and pointed out the Lessons that Russia have learnt:
“For almost three-fourths of the outgoing century Russia lived under the sign of the implementation of the communist doctrine. It would be a mistake not to see and, even more so, to deny the unquestionable achievements of those times. But it would be an even bigger mistake not to realize the outrageous price our country and its people had to pay for that Bolshevist experiment. What is more, /it would be a mistake/ not to understand its historic futility. Communism and the power of Soviets did not make Russia a prosperous country with a dynamically developing society and free people. Communism vividly demonstrated its in aptitude for sound self-development, dooming our country to a steady lag behind economically advanced countries. It was a road to a blind alley, which is far away from the mainstream of civilisation.”
As same as other socialist countries in former socialist camp, the experience of China is similar to that of Soviet Union. For almost three-fourths of the last century, China lived under the sign of the implementation of the communist doctrine. The dogmatists have directed many ridiculous farces with a little knowledge about the theory of Karl Marx without grasping the living soul of Marxism, which is to make a concrete analysis for specific situations, to solve specific problem by specific solution.
Now please go forward to read below. From the stories, in bit by bit, to feel the great of Deng Xiaoping as a great man, and to share the sorrow of the sadness and the joy of the happiness from the ordinary narrative and the ordinary comments of me as an ordinary man.
There were many reports about economic achievements of China; however most of them were looking at the appearances rather than dug into the substance in the level of philosophy. Such as that, the most of daily goods worldwide are made in China, and that China has made economic miracle, but no one answered about that why did it happen?
Ezra F. Vogel, the Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard University, who cost about 10 years, visited many key figure and historical sites, mastered informative first-hand information, to have written <Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China> that published in 2011. In the book, he indicated that Deng’s formula for success was simple: “Don’t argue; try it. If it works, let it spread.”
I think that is the best understanding for the success of the economic reform of China - No templates, no prior design, but, listen to the people, follow the people, explore and practice, worked out experience, to promote any good ideas. It certainly possesses universal significance.
“Don’t argue; try it. If it works, let it spread.” Whether the statement look, or sound is all very simple, but, it is hard to do so at the time of beginning of economic reform in China.
Firstly, that “Don’t argue” was impossible, because argue is the job or hobby of some people. If some of the socialist dogmatists considered something beyond the boundaries of socialism, even if "It works", they would not "let it spread." The aftereffect for the proposal providers or practitioners would be more than just argue, but a severe punishment. The creed of those dogmatists is: that would rather keep the socialist weed, but never adopt the capitalist seedling. In fact, the process of China’s economic reform was the process that broke the dogmatic shackles regarding the road of Socialism and Capitalism; it was called as political struggle of the two-line, and was considered as involved in alive or death of China.
That being the case seriously, then, how that China did broke the dogmatic shackle to make possible from impossible. Here I’d like to try to discuss it with some practical experiences of China.
At the beginning of China’s economic reform in three decades ago, most politicians and sociologists have objected strongly according to their dogmatic understanding for Socialism, Capitalism and Marxism.
Deng Xiaoping, an outstanding top leader in economic reform of China, he repulsed the useless dogmatic arguments with patient explanation that whether the share of planned economy is a little bit more or the share of market economy is a little bit more, it is not the essential difference for Socialism and Capitalism. That planned economy is not equivalent to Socialism, Capitalism also has plan, and market economy is not equivalent to Capitalism, Socialism also has market. The plan and the market are only the economic means that can help to develop economy.
He indicated that, if China does not reform to develop economy for improving the living of the people, any road would be a dead end. Poverty does not belong to Socialism. We need to build Socialist society with unique feature of China.
In China, officially called Deng Xiaoping as the chief architect of China's reform and opening up, however, Professor Ezra F. Vogel's findings were contrary. He calls Deng “the general manager” of China’s latest revolution. Due to that Deng was carefully not to get out in front of the economic reform, but used younger officials such as Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang for that. Even he did not involve in the decision-making to launch market-oriented special economic zones for capitalist-style experimentation.
In my view, in the process of China’s economic reform, the role of Deng Xiaoping is much significant than that of as a chief architect. As one of highest political leader with no dogmatic mind, Deng’s role was just as Bulldozers or Icebreaker to have successful excluded resistances for economic reform. I can say with certainty that, China, as a feudal imperial ideology deeply rooted country, if there was no strong political authority as Deng Xiaoping, the economic reform would never be able to achieve the outcomes today. Deng’s unique role, no one could replace.
Now, looking back the course of China’s economic reform, it had no previous theories or references in model or framework, there was no any prior design at all. It was just as Deng Xiaoping said: Wading across an unfamiliar river by feeling the rocks on the bottom of the river. It meant that the process of economic development was continuously adjusting the policy or direction according to the problems that emerged in the practice.
6.1. The initiation of economic reform
The proposals for the economic reform proposed one after another mainly from the grassroots, the ordinary people or Governors who were working in local Governments according to their personal experiences from the social root and approved by top Governors who were foresight without dogmatic mind and dared take the political risk personally, such as, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang and Deng Xiaoping, they played decisive role at different historical period. Then implemented from point to line and from the line to area, step by step, avoided big social shake that happened in many other former socialist countries. Follow is an example.
The break of dogmatic ideology
Any social progress will be resisted by conservative forces, it does not matter in East or West. In China at that time was those who adhere to the socialist dogma, in current Canada is those who adhere the inexplicable value of Canada. To break such dogmatic ideology is very difficult, and it is the key for making a social progress.
At that time China, the initiator to break down such dogma was an ordinary scholar Hu Fuming who was with strong social responsibility and was ready to be put in jail, even the lost of own life, with a rational mind that any social progresses need brave person to sacrifice for it.
September 1977, Hu Fuming, an associate professor at the Philosophy Department at Nanking University of China, who wrote a paper < Practice Is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth> to criticize the prevalent of Dogmatism. It challenged the absurd dogmatic argument of "two whatever" (which refers to the statements that "we will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions that Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions that Chairman Mao gave").”
However, at the start, no one dared publish it. Until 8 months later, in May 10, 1978, it was published after personal validation of Hu Yaobang who was the executive director of Central School of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Hu was one of the few outstanding top leaders in promoting economic reform of China. He was always solving the problem depending on the actual circumstances without dogmatic mind.
The paper was suffered strong criticize. It was condemned as “absurd in theory, reactionary in ideology, and the intention was to cut down the red flag of China.” Obviously, those dogmatists have neither talent nor morality because they never study to improve them selves. They are always making irrational response for any sound. They are born of persecuting with full energy against the people of integrity. The only fear for them is the peace of the world. This was the reason that Deng Xiaoping was ousted from his political position 3 times in his life long. The writer Hu Fuming himself has prepared into jail. As a socially responsible scholar, he learnt that social progress need brave person to sacrifice for it, even with the life.
Fortunately, in June 2, 1978, on a meeting, Deng Xiaoping publicly supported the view of the paper of Hu Fuming and severely criticized the dogmatism. He called to liberate the thoughts by breaking the spiritual shackles of Dogmatic. In December 1978, on the third Session of the Eleventh Plenary Meeting of CPC, the event of discussion regarding the criterion of truth was being highly valued. It has further eliminated the dogmatic poison regarding the Socialism and Capitalism.
“The article gave rise to a nationwide "Debate on Standards for Judging the Truth".” In a large extent reduced the poison of Dogmatism, and “ushered China into an era of reform and opening up.”
There was a paper that praises the contribution of the article of Hu Fuming, the title was <An article influences Chinese history>.
Before economic reform, China was a socialist society of public ownership and planned economy based on the guiding ideology from the theory of Marxism-Leninism. In deed, the dogmatic arguments related with the road of Socialist or Capitalist were never stop since the establishment of P. R. China in 1949. There were always some people to look at the tiny buds of Capitalism with a magnifying glass to disroot it.
In 1962’s China, there were some rural areas in response to famine and natural disasters, spontaneously generated some flexible production models without touching the bottom-line of the state-owned ownership. Such as, one of them was that took each family’s members as one production unit contracted to take the responsibility for a certain area of farmland to solve the thorny problems that some people did not work well when team-working in the production unit that the members were mixed together from different families. The selfish nature of mankind is inevitable; the key is how to well control it, how to turn the shortcoming to the strongpoint. Those new emerged production models were able to play this kind of role. They should have been a good thing with the function of improving the production efficiency, but were strictly prohibited by some dogmatists.
Only Deng Xiaoping supported them with his famous Cat Theory: “It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.” In other words, he did not worry too much about whether a production model was capitalism or socialism as long as it can improve the production efficiency. This was obviously a sensible comment, but, it became main reason that he was purged from his political poison first time. However, Mr. Deng laughed finally in decades later with the success of the economic reform under his way.
Before economic reform, there were a lot of people from China illegally went into Hong Kong to be captured and sent back by the police of Hong Kong, then they went back and were sent back, thus recycling. Those illegal immigrants were considered as traitors to be rudely treated.
Many illegal immigrants drown in the Gulf between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Made me tearful is that, until now, no accurate statistics of how many people have made the sacrifice to the Gulf by their lives on the way swimming toward a dreamed place where they might get a better life.
Here, I think of the stories of East Germans fled into West Germany risked their lives over the Berlin Wall during the period of Cold War, especially a 77-year-old lady who was attempting to jump to West Germany from a building of East Germany near the Berlin Wall, however, when she saw the height where she was standing, she was immediately scared of paralyzed sitting on the floor, but when she heard the sound of policemen was breaking the door behind her, she immediately stood up and jumped down toward West Germany.
Flight roads were imprinted with blood, Shenzhen was as so. East Germany was as similar. What was the reason to have forced those people on this dead road?
The reason was very simple: it was the poor.
People are senior animals that can create wealth positively. However, those socialist dogmatic politicians restricted them to do so by insisting on the backward model of economical and production. Poor forced some brave people to seek a better life through illegal immigration by venturing in the risk.
6.3. The test zone for economic reform
November 1977, when the leaders of Guangdong province were uneasily waiting for the instructions after they had reported to Deng Xiaoping about the event of more and more people fled to Hong Kong. Deng Xiaoping has been remarkably silent a while. He continuously smoked a couple of cigarettes, then slowly turned himself and calmly said that: "This caused by our improper policy and it could not be controlled by force." Deng Xiaoping stressed the significance of developing economy: only the life of the people improved, we can solve this problem. We must change the poor situation even on a blood road. His ambitious determination had further broken the shackles of the dogmatism regarding socialism that insisted on planned economy.
In 1980, Shenzhen, a small poor city closed to Hong Kong, with 300 thousand people, was set as a test zone for economic reform by central government through approved an application of Guangdong province, without any financial support besides the permission of making local policies independently:
1. Development based on absorbing foreign funds.
2. The economic models are Sino-foreign joint ventures, cooperative ventures and solely-foreign-oriented.
3. Products export-dominated.
4. Economic activities are market-regulated under the guidance of national plan.
At the same time, for the foreign investment in the test zone, provide special offers and conveniences in taxation, immigration employment and so on. The management model could be different from that of domestic. They may have greater power of autonomy following the international practice to tie closely to the international market.
Only several years, Shenzhen was developed as a modern city. Then the central government copied the experiences to another 14 coastal cities, and then much more.
A lot of people entered Shenzhen to seek opportunities from Hong Kong after the start of economic reform. At the end of 2006, there were more than 8.46 millions people in Shenzhen city; there more than one million were from Hong Kong among them. Now, the people in main land China are easily into Hong Kong legally no one illegally any more, which was pre-indicated by Deng Xiaoping.
Before disintegration of Soviet Union, a Russian governor who once visited Shenzhen and was impacted by that what he saw about the extensive economic reforms, which were totally contrary to the theory of Marxism and the socialist road that was insisting strictly by the countries in the international socialist camp, which supervised by the force of former Soviet Union. He talked to the top Governor of Shenzhen with somewhat scare: “you have placed your certificate of party member and even your head on shoulder to bet on economic reforms”. From the talks we would learn the political risk that was taking by those governors who were directing economic reforms.
From the perspective of today we would feel the absurdity that experienced in socialist countries. Those dogmatists who dogmatically comprehended the socialism, with good wish, but wrong way to have caused harm to human society. Today, although the socialist camp basically collapsed, but dogmatism did not go into its grave, it still widespread and endanger human society.
Apr 25, 2011 10:10 am EDT, there was a report on the website of Reuters <Analysis: Shandong postcard: big changes sweep rural China>. It described the new scene in rural area of China currently. “Nationwide, per capita rural incomes after inflation rose 14.3 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, double the increase in urban disposable income, thanks to higher farm prices and bigger remittances by migrant workers.”
World Bank reported that, in the past 25 years, the achievements in poverty reduction, there 67% were attributed to China.
It is a proven fact that economic reform of China was correct. China’s success in economic development in step by step has avoided mass bleeding that had happened in many other socialist countries during social political and economical transformation.
China's current economic model has mixed with the both models of Socialism and Capitalism, which good applied the both advantages from the planned economy and the market economy. The current economy is controlling by two kinds of hands, visible and invisible. The economic theory is a mixture from Marxism, Adam Smith, Keynesian and others. This is the why that China has been making economic miracle in decades, while other former socialist countries had fell into long-term languishing due to changed their political and economical system in a very short time without any preparation in advance. Only China outshines all of the others.
Now the clear fact is that, no matter socialism or capitalism, which can promote the production of social wealth, will be a good-ism. No matter socialist or capitalist, who can give people a happy life, will be a good-ist. Superstition of any side will be a harmful. Mr. Deng Xiaoping was a good player on that.
The valuable experience derived from the success of China should be that, due to the objective world is continuously changing we must solve the specific problems according to the specific circumstances and avoid to respond to all questions with a same formula or dead doctrine.
While reviewing for success of China’s economic reform, some people even said that, in this world, there is nothing impossible but only the things that are unimaginable.
Any theories have their historical limitations. Along with the social development, it will accumulate some new problems that need to be solved through updating old theories or launch new theories. Such new problems emerge and to be solved timely is the driving force to promote the progress of human civilization.
7. Some essential elements have contributed to the success of China
Here, there is a necessary to make some supplements. I think that they are important but have been ignored.
Every one knew that, in nowadays, most of daily goods are made in China, but people may feel hard to imagine the huge capacity of production in China. And some one said that China's success in rapid development is due to have enjoyed the demographic dividend, the views are certainly not comprehensive, because some other populous countries seem not able to enjoy the dividends yet besides poverty and blindness. Indeed, besides economic reform, there are also many other essential elements have contributed to the success of China.
7.1. Official designed language – Mandarin has made social communication easier and to have promoted the efficiency of social production.
China, there are 51 different races, it said that there are about hundreds local languages. Even is same language in different area, the pronunciation may be different. You will easily imagine that the result of without an effective communication tool between people. Besides many times to simplify the writing of Chinese characters, in 1958s, the government of China published the pinyin system by use of Roman alphabet to regulate the pronunciation of Chinese characters and put in use forced by law. Now in China, those people under 60 years old can easily communicate each other. It may be only official designed language worldwide.
I have talked with local Canadians; they agree that, in Canada, the people from British Colombia are not easy to understand what they said from the people of Newfoundland. Even the people of Newfoundland have their own special dictionary.
7.2. Rare poison of spiritual opium, this point should firstly thank for the thought of Karl Marx, which has been taking as social guiding ideology in socialist countries. And secondly should thank the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that had uprooted the superstitious beliefs in the society of China. It led the people of China full of pragmatic sense to strive for a better life by creating material wealth with hands busy, rather than making fantasy for the good life through praying with hands clasped. Most people of China never put their hope on next time.
7.3. The edification of Confucianism, people of China are easy well organized and disciplined. This point is very important for the production of large-scale collaboration. The admirable success of China 2008 Olympic Games is a good example. It was a sharp contrast with that of Commonwealth Games 2010 of India, which played an international joke. An Ambassador of India who works in China for three years, when he returned India and found an overpass that started to construct in three years ago is not completed yet. But, within the three years, in Beijing, he was seeing a lot of new overpasses have been put in use already.
Now, facing the difficult economic situation, we need the spirit of Keynes to question more about why and how, because it is very important to shake off the shackles of any dogmatism from time to time. It is essential to make more and more achievements by making possible from impossible according to own economic circumstances. No one will be an exception.
