In recent days, Professor Zhang Weiying, vice dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, has written an article entitled "The unfriendly international environment we are facing today is not unrelated to the misinterpretation of China's achievements in the past 40 years by some economists", which has attracted a lot of attention. However, the article is full of superficial interpretations that apply liberal economic theory, which eventually lead to fallacies.
Zhang Weiying's article is basically such a logic. "In addition to the relationship of interests between countries, there are also value relations", the values of the West are human rights, racial equality and advanced help to move backward, while the three cornerstones of world peace are trade, democracy and international organizations. The failure of the advocates of the Chinese model to china's 40 years of reform is not correctly attributed to marketization, entrepreneurship and three hundred years of western technological accumulation, and they have created a "Chinese model", which in turn has brought about the international environment that is now unfriendly.
There are five fallacies in his statement.
one of the fallacies > < h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right": international relations interests are no longer considered</h1>
"In modern times, especially after World War II, the newly established international relations have changed, and in addition to the relationship of interests between countries, there are also value relations", this sentence is a completely superficial summary, and what he implies is that "Sino-US relations" have become what they are now because of China's "injustice in value". This reflects Zhang Weiying's own superficial understanding of U.S. diplomacy and world politics. Values themselves do not work independently, and the United States does place great emphasis on human rights, democracy, and freedom, and does believe in them, but policy at the diplomatic level is another matter, and it needs to be practically useful. Values are not merely instruments of interest, but they do not alone lead to political action at the national level.
Zhang Weiying's observation clearly ignores the multiple behaviors of the United States on a global scale, and his conclusions do not correspond to the experience of facts. The United States sits back and watches the fall of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and the pillar of the US Middle East policy is precisely the pre-modern Saudi kingdom that is more authoritarian and the political system is far more than that of Egypt and Iran, and the United States firmly supports Saudi Arabia and is hostile to Iran to let Egypt go, even after the bad political murder of the Khashoggi case, the United States has no substantive accusations, and the logic behind this Zhang Weiying is afraid that he does not understand at all. Similarly, whether it is Carter's human rights diplomacy in 1979 or the "responsibility to protect" in recent years, the United States has considered and acted at the level of realpolitik at the global level, and the motivation for pursuing profit has never changed.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > fallacy two: values, economies can guarantee peace</h1>
As for the Western values of human rights, racial equality and advanced help, this is also nonsense. Western society respects human rights, but Western human rights are often based on the destruction of human rights in other developing countries, the Western colonial system still plays a huge role today, often becoming the cause of human rights problems in developing countries, the Rwandan massacre in 1994, the Myanmar civil war that continues to this day, are closely related to the legacy of the colonial system. There are still large areas of backward countries in Africa, West Asia, and South Asia, so why does U.S. capital not provide any substantial help but just keeps teaching people to fish instead of teaching people to fish? As for racial equality, it is precisely the white supremacism that is still strong in the West that gives birth to the demand for racial equality, that is, the racial inequality in Western history has derived racial equality, but now, especially in the United States, racial equality is often a slogan, and racial inequality is even expanding as a result. When it comes to racial equality, a country like China, which has never colonized any place, is more qualified than the West. These values are too different from reality than between the West and the reality that the West wants the outside world to believe that this is reality.
Nor is the claim that trade, democracy and international organization are the three cornerstones of world peace sufficiently theoretical and factual. Interdependence does not deduce the inevitability of peace, but rather political peace deduces interdependence. Commerce did not automatically bring peace, not during the Anglo-Dutch War, not during the Napoleonic Wars, not in the First World War, and before the outbreak of these wars there was a great deal of commerce between the warring parties, and not once did the peace be maintained, and politics preceded the economy. International organizations are not the cause of world peace but the result of a specific peace order, international organizations should reflect the power structure of the time, just like law and government are the products of political order, international organizations can not decide whether to be peaceful, Zhang Weiying only saw the United Nations but did not see the incompetence of its predecessors, the League of Nations, in dealing with Nazism and militarism.
In particular, it should be pointed out that the theory of democratic peace has an influence in the West, but in fact, the method of explaining peace based on the nature of the political system itself has a narrow vision and ignores the institutional pressure outside the state. At the same time, the definition of a democratic state by democratic peace theory itself is quite flawed. Historically, the game between Venice and Genoa in the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas, the Anglo-Dutch War, and the two Anglo-American wars are counterexamples. The worst part of democratic peace theory is that it gives Western countries a reason to be exempt from liability for war, and it is logical to create more wars.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > fallacy number three: the Chinese model does not exist</h1>
It is even more absurd to further deduce that the so-called "Chinese model theory" does not exist. He attributed China's development to marketization, entrepreneurship and three hundred years of western technology accumulation. As a result, how many countries have the scale of China's development? Who is to blame for the fact that so many developing countries in the world are still poor and backward under the accumulation of marketization, entrepreneurship and three hundred years of western technology accumulation? These three points are in fact the result of the shaping of the neoliberal order, and what we can see is that the speed at which developing countries accumulate economic surpluses in full accordance with liberal theory is very slow, and it is essentially difficult for industries to upgrade in the market environment, and they will also face the harvest of cyclical financial crises of international financial capital. Labor-intensive industries that absorb tens of millions of Chinese industrial workers actually contribute only 5 percent of GDP. If it is completely based on the neoliberal model of international division of labor, there will be nothing left in the developing countries.
Therefore, the Chinese model exists, which is determined by the historical fact that it has grown backwards in the hidden exploitation under the ideal state of the neoliberal order. The Chinese model is not a concept created by Chinese scholars, which is summed up in a series of practices.
The impetus for China's development stems from the flexible use of national capacities. Whether it is the "market for technology" or some anti-market state-owned systems, these are in fact playing a role in intercepting the economic surplus. A complete free market only means the flow of resources to the strong, and as a latecomer, part of the anti-market is precisely necessary. The constant attack on China by the United States shows that this anti-market sector has its own value. The symbiosis of the market and the anti-market is a very important part of the Chinese model.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > fallacy four: the root cause of the deterioration of Sino-US relations lies with China</h1>
Since China has a model and can indeed allow China to develop, is China responsible for the deterioration of Sino-US relations now? Behind the internal rift in addition to the internal rift behind the united country's active deterioration of relations with China is the fear of China's growing power, that is, development. This concern stems precisely from the pressures of anarchic international system. The idea that China needs to shoulder the responsibility for the deterioration of Sino-US relations is essentially a disqualification of China's development, which is absolutely unacceptable to the people of Chinese.
It is precisely this that we should also see that there are huge differences between the societies of China and the United States. The reason why some people in the United States tend to be closed is that the cost of hegemony borne by the United States is different from the income group, and this structural imbalance is the key factor that leads to the division and closure of American society. Simply put, the poor in the United States bear the unemployment and poverty brought about by globalization, while the rich continue to draw wealth from the world. Although there is also a gap between the rich and the poor, but the manufacturing industry provides rich employment for the people, coupled with a partial anti-market structure of multiple strategies, China can intercept the economic surplus as a booster for further development.
In other words, China has not changed, it is still a beneficiary of the neoliberal global order, and it is the United States that has changed. To be precise, it is the Part of the United States that has been stripped away by globalization.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > fallacy number five: China's development momentum comes from good Sino-US relations</h1>
In the final analysis, the fundamental proposition that Professor Zhang Weiying thinks of is to "think of the source of drinking water" for reform and opening up, but this source is completely deviated from the trajectory of history.
China's reform and opening up can be smoothly implemented, and the normalization of Sino-US relations is an important condition. Crucial in normalizing relations with the United States is that the normalization of China's relations with hegemonic powers can achieve basic security, thus providing a reliable environment for attracting capital. However, the final decision on reform and opening up was made by the second generation of leaders, which was a strategic judgment based on the lessons of the past, and the strong reform consensus in China at that time was the real motivation. So even without normal official relations with the United States, China will seek deeper ties with Japan and Europe to gain support for openness.
Ignoring this point, we will find that Professor Zhang Weiying's "China's opening up originated from the United States" is not established at all, and the United States has certain needs for China in some specific policies and technologies, but China's willingness to open up is the real motivation. Moreover, the really important role played in the international capital attracted by China in the 1980s was the capital of overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese, who were both linked to their home countries and had stronger market sensitivity. The large-scale entry of US capital is actually after China's accession to the WTO, and the scale of the previous entry is actually not as large as it seems, but China has exported a lot of crucial talents to the United States.
The Chinese government is very sober-minded, and even under external pressure, China's direction is still clear, that is, to continue to maintain stable reform and opening up, which is the fundamental way to deal with external pressure. China's policy of opening up to the outside world has not changed at all, the endogenous impetus for opening up is far more powerful than in 1979, and blind belief in liberalism is not suitable for a country like China that needs to solve development problems. And many liberals superficially understand the West very well, but in fact they are parrots, and it is really regrettable that they are so unfamiliar with the Chinese state and society, and the alarmist arguments continue to appear.
The person who really misinterpreted China's development achievements in the past four decades is probably Professor Zhang, and even his interpretation of Western civilization is wrong.