What Is China?

Bob Reich tries to think about what China is:

China: Capitalism Doesn't Require Democracy : by Robert B. Reich: You may remember when the world was divided between communism and capitalism, and when the Chinese were communists. The Chinese still call themselves communists, but now they’re also capitalists. In fact, visit China today and you find the most dynamic capitalist nation in the world. In 2005, it had the distinction of being the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

China is the manufacturing hub of the globe. It’s is also moving quickly into the highest of high technologies. It already graduates more computer engineers every year than the United States. Its cities are booming. There are more building cranes in use today in China than in all of the United States. China’s super-highways are filled with modern cars. Its deep-water ports and airports are world class. Its research and development centers are state of the art. At the rate its growing, in three decades China will be the largest economy in the world.

Communist, as in communal? Are you kidding? The gap between China’s rich and poor is turning into a chasm. China’s innovators, investors, and captains of industry are richly rewarded. They live in luxury housing developments whose streets are lined with McMansions. The feed in fancy restaurants, and relax in five-star hotels and resorts. China’s poor live in a different world. Mao Tse Tung would turn in his grave. So where are the Chinese communists? They’re in government. The communist party is the only party there is. China doesn’t have freedom of speech or freedom of the press. It doesn’t tolerate dissent. Authorities can arrest and imprison people who threaten stability, as the party defines it. Any group that dares to protest is treated brutally. There are no civil liberties, no labor unions, no centers of political power outside the communist party.

China shows that when it comes to economics, the dividing line among the world’s nations is no longer between communism and capitalism. Capitalism has won hands down. The real dividing line is no longer economic. It’s political. And that divide is between democracy and authoritarianism. China is a capitalist economy with an authoritarian government.

For years, we’ve assumed that capitalism and democracy fit hand in glove. We took it as an article of faith that you can’t have one without the other. That’s why a key element of American policy toward China has been to encourage free trade, direct investment, and open markets. As China becomes more prosperous and integrated into the global market -- so American policy makers have thought -- China will also become more democratic. Well, maybe we’ve been a bit naive. It’s true that democracy needs capitalism. Try to come up with the name of a single democracy in the world that doesn’t have a capitalist economy. For democracy to function there must be centers of power outside of government. Capitalism decentralizes economic power, and thereby provides the private ground in which democracy can take root. But China shows that the reverse may not be true -- capitalism doesn’t need democracy. Capitalism’s wide diffusion of economic power offers enough incentive for investors to take risks with their money. But, as China shows, capitalism doesn’t necessarily provide enough protection for individuals to take risks with their opinions.

I am not sure that he is right. I need to think harder about the relationship between China's upper economic class and its upper political class.

Comments

[P O'Neill]

"I need to think harder about the relationship between China's upper economic class and its upper political class."

It's definitely different than the strained relationship between Russia's upper economic and political classes.

[bakho]

A failure of the FSU was lack of reward for innovation and high toleration for corruption. The FSU industrialized very rapidly in the period of only a few decades but became static with too little innovation and adoption of new technology. An economy must have innovation and lack of tolerance for corruption to expand and be healthy. Capitalism is not the only way to reward innovation and China could do this with a "Communist" government.

The US does OK with innovation, but the tolerance for corruption has increased in the last decade. The current corruption and toxic realtionship between Congress and K street are a drag on our economy that inhibits innovation.

[Jim M]

Two words: succession crisis. Capitalism does not like them. Democracy solves the problem--usually--and additionally offers lots of transparency about contenders for power, which is to say, what might follow the elections.

[Matt]

The recent history of development in areas influenced by Chinese culture (Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore) suggests that it's only a matter of time before economic and political issues get intertwined. But economically oriented analysts like Reich aren't going to have much to say about the 'long run' cultural stuff.

[dale]

The US is showing trends to authoritarianism. So perhaps China is teaching us that democracy is not essential to a successful capitalist society.

And really, we've known for ever that most of the linkage between capitalism and democracy was contingent and somewhat ideological.

[Roger Albin]

"Two words: succession crisis."

Don't hold your breath. How about a revolutionary government brought to power in large measure by peasant supported revolts. Over time, it becomes a relatively permeable oligarchy running an authoritarian state commited to nationalist economic modernization. The nationalist state does produce modernization to a large extent and while the economy eventually becomes stagnant, the single party running the state retains power for decades. This is Mexico under the PRI. Now suppose the PRI had instituted successful population control programs back in the 1950s and/or invested a lot more in higher education? With decent leadership, the one party state in China could be as durable and perhaps even more successful than the PRI.

[dryfly]

Capitalism doesn't need Democracy if we are all going to be rich.

We ARE all going to be rich, right?

[John Emerson]

It's never been certain which way the influence will flow. Will the US become more like Brazil, or Brazil more like the US? What about Singapore?

Quite some time ago Singapore, which was already fully developed on the capitalist model, stated their intention of not democratizing or liberalizing. They've stuck to it, as far as I know, and my be furnishing an expample for a lot of other nations.

[Rich C]

As Rueschmeyer, Stephens, and Stephens argue in their very persuasive 1992 book Capitalist Development and Democracy, the key link between capitalism and democratization has typically been the emergence of a national labor movement. It is workers, rather than capitalists, who have an interest in democractization, and the ability of (relatively) small groups of workers to shut down key industries has provided the essential weapon against authoritarian regimes. The ironies abound when one considers China, since unions that actually function like unions are effectively banned, but unions that don't really do anything have an official position and get lots of lip service from the Party. Moreover, the character of trade agreements - which put much emphasis on the rights of businesses and little to none on the rights of workers, helps to ensure that countries like China face few incentives toward the sorts of structural change (ie: the organization of a labor movement) that would spur democratization.

I would note that India for most of the period from 1962 to 1991, at the very least, was a democracy with a very large state owned sector and a lot of planning. It was very close to being a socialist economy (certainly its critics called it one), and hence an example of democratic socialism.

[Scott Martens]

You're thinking of it in the wrong terms. Go get a copy of Ambrose King's "Administrative Absorption of Politics in Hong Kong" and Fairbank's "Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast". The Party is not a synonym for the upper economic class. Instead, the Party enables the upper class, in return for accepting the rule of the Party.

[Will Hutchinson]

Perhaps the key issue isn't just Capitalism but specifically wealth distribution in a Capitalist system. Great centralization of wealth in a Capitalist system narrows the diffusion of power needed for more Democratic government.

Hence China, Singapore, and some others (and the US drifting in this direction) can result in a kind of Capitalist economy under an Authoritarian government, whereas countries that show a more robust middle class also happen to be countries with less Authoritarian political influence.

[Peter]

In an information-based economy, information has to flow freely, or else the economy suffers. For this reason alone (ie, in addition to any moral arguments), late capitalism requires democracy.

When Barings Bank collapsed due to the rogue trading of Nick Leeson in Singapore, the Economist magazine argued that such trading activities could only have happened in a less-than-democratic country such as that of Singapore. Financial market gossiping had been curtailed prior to Leeson's trades through harsh punishment by the Singapore Government of people sharing market information. If gossip had not been so curtailed, Leeson's bosses would most likely have learnt much sooner of his excess trading positions, and so been in a position to end them sooner.

[Alan]

A big percentage of my company's forward growth will be in selling stuff to China. The attitude of most of the businesspeople there is that they were never more communist that I am a Bush Republican. That's for the people that in government. The "merchant class" works within the government's rules to make business work. They wish taxes would be lower and profits easier to get just like we do.

Note, though that 51% of all the competing mega-companies we seek to sell to are outright owned by the government. They have full control over their corporations and it is impossible for an outsider to see exactly how much control the exert in practice. It could be none; it could be everything.

One thing for sure, whatever else they are doing they are building a huge and prosperous middle class.

[Matt]

Right now, the political class in China is much more worried about discontent among the left-out poor--there are dozens of civil disturbances every day--than they are about demands for more political freedoms among the economic elite. (Here I mean the often or usually uncorrupt top of the political class. The lower orders are, often, mostly concerned with lining their pockets.)

That said, I continue to think that democracy will develop when the middle class gets large enough. China remains at a much lower level of development (in PPP per capita terms) than countries elsewhere in Asia when they turned toward democracy.

[sm]

Chairman Mao wanted to live in a palace, and he ended up in a palace. He'd do anything to live in a palace. He wouldn't be turning in his grave.

[Saam Barrager]

I think the notion of a corrolation between diffusion of political power and economic power is correct and true.

But I think this is the wrong approach to take in thinking about contemporary China.

The Chinese have to provide legal protection to capital in order to maintain growth. Having established a legal system, private parties are now able to litigate eachother - a legal diffusion of power. The central government steps in here and there to put the brakes on certain types of litigation, but the overall effect is that the legal system has empowered individuals like never before.

I don't dispute the causal chain that leads from capitalism to democracy. The Chinese seem to be fleshing out their legal system for short-term commerce gain, but in the end that legal system will be necessary were China to develop into a democratic state.

(As a side note, it doesn't hurt that Chinese leadership are sensitive to national needs. China is run by technocrats. They are working feverishly to reduce air pollution in the major cities, improve mine safety, and so forth. Don't mean to be Pollyana about it, but they are not a country that gets the guns out anytime people seem restless.)

[monkyboy]

Matt,

China's middle class is bigger than America's middle class right now.

Chinese workers save almost 40% of their income. American workers are now spending more than they earn.

Yet China's economy is growing three times faster than America's.

As GDP is largely a measure of how much the citizens of a country are consuming...

China's 11% growth rate is sustainable because of the level of their savings.

America's anemic 3.5% growth rate is not for the same reason...

[Arne]

Capitalism without democracy? That's what used to be called fascism.

[marie]

To Saam Barrager: you don't know what you are talking about.

To Arne: you are exactly right.

[andres]

"I am not sure that he is right. I need to think harder about the relationship between China's upper economic class and its upper political class."

{Time for a long discourse, as political economy is to me what birds are to anne. And no, I haven't done any research while writing up this post; it's simply a byproduct of previous reading/thinking. Those readers who dislike preaching should feel free to tune out...}

Brad, I doubt that it's different from the other relationship between any country's upper economic class and its upper political class. Just recall Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations on mercantilist regulations, and on the relationship between the large trading companies such as the East India Company and the government (which also led the American colonies to repudiate the whole system), and you'll have a good idea the relationship between China's ruling economic and political classes.

Many of China's policies including EPZs, capital controls, the undervalued Yuan, the propping up of US deficits, and now its investment in strategic industries such as petroleum are mercantilist in the extreme: designed to boost economic growth from the top down by favoring large corporations and their foreign partners. Little thought is given either to income distribution or to the welfare of Chinese consumers _overall_ (as opposed to those who are simply fortunate enough to work directly or indirectly for the export industries, ie in the major cities).

China needs its own Adam Smith, but I doubt the CPC will pay any attention to such a writer unless it suffers an American Revolution-type catastrophe. Mercantilist authoritarianism is always deeply entrenched and always difficult to pry loose.

Which is also a reason by the way, that the commonly perceived link capitalism --> democracy, described by Peter and others, is determinist bunk. It puts the cart before the horse given that democracy --> capitalism, though still simplistic and often false, is a more accurate description. Pre-capitalist nation states were non-capitalist precisely because the idea of government was either a direct command hierarchy or a feudal system of interlocking allegiances: if all human affairs are run in this manner, then there are no equal rights and by definition no markets either.

Capitalist economic systems, however, are both decentralized and authoritarian in the internal dimension, functioning according to a strict command hierarchy within the firm which can only be escaped by leaving the firm itself. A capitalist, authoritarian nation such as China is still not as authoritarian as the China of the emperors, given that individuals still have economic rights, aka private property, that cannot be violated if the system is to work. At the same time though, there is nothing in China's current class or economic profile that militates towards democracy.

In many cases, anti-authoritarian revolutions precede capitalist development, eg the 1649-1688 transition preceded the Industrial Revolution in England, the French Revolution preceded capitalist development in France, Italy and Spain had to get rid of their absolute monarchies before they could start growing, etc. This does _not_ rule out an authoritarian system such as Hohenzollern Germany, post-Communist Russia, and Communist China from independently deciding that unless they permit economic decentralization and the growth of capitalism, a violent revolution will take place and so it's better to bite the bullet.

Either type of transformation will lead to much-needed growth and poverty reduction; but definitely neither will lead to the type of democratic free market utopia that libertarians believe will occur if you just zap government out of existence. Capitalist economies are still authoritarian command economies at the level of the firm and are therefore still stratified and elitist on a class basis. Furthermore, since capitalist economies arise from previously existing stratified systems as well as from primitive accumulation (looting), it is highly unlikely that ownership and control over capitalist firms will be anything but highly concentrated.

The concentration of wealth arising from the concentration of ownership and corporate control naturally leads to the concentration of political power. Under-the-table corruption is bad because it generates uncertainty and hidden costs, but formalized/legalized corruption, which occurs through the financing of political processes, is the modus operandi of modern capitalist economies that have yet to be "tainted" by social democracy.

In this manner, capitalism as an economic system, which may very well arise from a democratic political setup, gradually begins to undermine democracy itself and to revert to authoritarianism. Furthermore, it has no strong mechanisms by which to turn already existing authoritarian societies such as pre-WWI Germany or Communist China into democracies.

The push towards democracy comes not from _established_ capitalism (merchants/ capitalists don't really give a damn about democracy or elections provided they are sure their hard-earned property won't be expropriated or taxed excessively; this strong motive may have pushed forward 17th-18th century democratic revolutions, but is today more likely to generate military coups and fascism), but from class conflict and the desire for a more equitable and just distribution of income/output.

The true spirit of any government's political policy becomes evident when a large portion of the economy's workers go on strike, or less frequently, when its students go on strike to protest the lack of democracy. Calling in the troops to deal with the strikers as violently as possible, Pullman or Tiananmen-style, shows a government's commitment to capitalism rather than democracy. On the contrary, any approach that attempts to meet the strikers' demand halfway is an indication that those in power value the stability that comes from democracy more than they value the short-term profits created when labor resistance is not an impediment; this outlook is social democracy, not socialism.

Wheh. None of the above sermon is in any way original. What is depressing is that it is not self-evident to many people, and that many tr-, er, libertarians, will probably comment that the above is arrant nonsense. Oh well; a happy society argues about arts and scientific theories and sports; angry arguments about political economy only indicate that something's not healthy in the social psyche.

[Barry]

Peter - Enron, WorldCom, etc.

[anne]

http://www.calvorn.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=6709&u=96|3|...

Green Heron Chicks Being Fed
New York City--Central Park, The Ramble.

Andres, you are always a pleasure to read and, yes, you are adept at political economic analysis and argument.

[anne]

Though Chinese development has been astonishing in rate and smoothness, there is always a possibility of set-backs in a development path. Even so, the Chinese model has been a success on a level so sweeping that China alone has set to rest the pessimism about development that grew all through the year from 1945 to 1995, for by 1995 what was happening in China was finally being properly noticed. Infrastructure development, notably including education; insistence on technology transfer in return for trade and investment right; currency controls no matter the initial commendations and later complaints; learning from Chinese needs and not international prescriptions.

[rev]

China is a far cry from Singapore. While it is true that Singapore has, for all practical purposes, one-party rule, the PAP has maintained its monopoly on power without need to resort to election-rigging (unlike, say, the PRI in Mexico). Also, the government is relatively uncorrupt. There is certainly none of the petty corruption so common in other Asian countries, and no systemic not-so-petty corruption as found in many African countries.
As for liberalization, in the last 10 to 15 years, there has actually been a liberalization in social and artistic expression in Singapore (e.g., with respect to film censorship, greater openness about homosexuality), although on matters of politics, there is still self-censorship on the part of the mass media.

[Former Republican]

China is capitalist? Depends on how you define capitalism. I don't think you can have capitalism without a robust rule of law, which China doesn't have. Also, to call something "capitalism," capitalists ought to have a dominant role in the political structure.

The syllogism seems to be: "Only capitalist economies are successful. China's economy is successful. Therefore, China must have a capitalist economy." This is the kind of logic the Wall Street Journal likes. It has been amazingly successful in channeling people's thinking.

China's regime does bear some resemblence to the authoritarian regimes of the last century in Spain, Portugal, South Korea and lots of Latin America. Notwithstanding the weakness of the rule of law, the importance of state-owned enterprises, and the strength of Chinese capital controls, you can call China capitalist if you like. As for me, I think China's not capitalist and also not not-capitalist. It's something new a-borning. It's sui generis and trying to squeeze it into a pre-existing category probably won't work very well.

Because it's sui generis, I don't see any good reason to believe China will ever develop into a democracy.

[John Emerson]

When I was in Taiwan there were government monopolies on energy, rice, tobacco, alcohol, and much of transport, and 200% import duties on luxury consumption items such as coffee. The government was explicit that they were practicing a "French model" mixed economy. Their method seemed to work, and they are now among the heros of capitalist development.

As far as I know, their successful method was completely at odds with the free-market / free-trade orthodoxy advocated by freemarketers and libertarians and imposed by the IMF. And as I understand, the IMF model hasn't usually worked too well. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

[Doctor Jay]

I see Former Republican has already remarked on rule of law. Rule of Law is a prerequisite to democracy, though having rule of law doesn't imply that you have democracy. I think this area is very weak still in China. On my trip there this spring, business seemed to be conducted on a personal relationship basis, even when we visited government-run sites.

This isn't rule of law, exactly, but the notion that everybody who walks in the door gets the same deal is something that's very weak there, too. They want to negotiate everything, because the one thing that they have lots of is time. We don't have any time, because, as a consequence of our labor being so productive, our time is extremely valuable. So we prefer fixed-price schemes.

A business friend of mine said of negotiations with Chinese: "It's never over."

The point being, this tends to undermine rule of law if every deal, every relationship, ever dealing with the government is something that is expected to be negotiated. Which is an open door for corruption.

As their time gets more valuable, they will start to prefer fixed-price schemes. I think that one way to start democratization is locally, to address corruption.

[s9]

"I need to think harder about the relationship between China's upper economic class and its upper political class."

I'm really looking forward to seeing the outcome of this cogitation.

[anne]

John Emerson:

'When I was in Taiwan there were government monopolies on energy, rice, tobacco, alcohol, and much of transport, and 200% import duties on luxury consumption items such as coffee. The government was explicit that they were practicing a "French model" mixed economy. Their method seemed to work, and they are now among the heroes of capitalist development.'

The Chinese know well how to watch and learn and borrow. Nicely noticed.

[Movie Guy]

China doesn't employ its five year plans just for exercise.

It still has a command economy, juiced with a few carrots.

[christofay]

Taiwan hasn't had high import taxes since the 1980s. The greatest step the Taiwan govt did was get out of peoples' ways. The refugees from the Chinese civil war filled the govt bureaucrat/bottleneck jobs and freed up the economy enough so that the local people, if so inclined, went into business for themselves guided by the educated under the Japanese system class. U. S. AID helped. The Japanese export model help, the govt bureaucracy taxed heavily and imposed their rules ponderously but not enough to slow down man's fate as it were.

China is following a similar path. They have freed up the economy along the coastal zones so export platforms can be set up. We are into the 2nd generation of that so local Chinese are now owning and operating some of these platforms, light industry for export. Fortune 500 type companies and American promoters are having a field day too. Business is booming enough so there's plenty of graft for the Chinese bureaucrats and still get growth. Jeb's and W's brother even got a job due to Chinese graft. What the true economic numbers are nobody knows. Look at them as approximations just as our own American stats are funny.

[andres]

Former Republican: the existence of capitalism is in the eye of the beholder. The _broadest_ definition in use in political economy is any economic system where te majority of laborers are free individuals tied neither to their owners as slaves or to the land as serfs, and who therefore have to sell their labor for a portion of society's output. This definition by itself yields a fantastically huge array of capitalisms, from free market "utopia" under Pinochet's Chile to state-run capitalism as in the former Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, many observers believe that you need a more specific and conditional definition of capitalism. The problem is that the more specific definition you have, the less universally applicable is the theory that you use to explain the workings of such a system.

The rule of law is one such additional axis, but I too think that it discriminates too much. There were many portions of the 19th century US economy where the rule of law was missing altogether (you know, all those western towns which were the raw materials for so many Hollywood movies, not to mention the tendency of many capitalists to use violence and extortion as weapons in competition), and yet to describe the 19th century US (other than the antebellum South) as being a non-capitalist or pre-capitalist economy is a major misstep. A comparison of different social systems requires that the definitions one uses have to be at a large level of abstraction in order to find even the smallest common ground.

[Former Republican]

Andres: Thank you for your post, which clarified my thinking somewhat.

The conceptual connection between capitalism and the rule of law is tight: the capitalists need law to protect property rights. The big capitalists were able to get the sanction of law for their violence, generally speaking, through judicial injunctions, deputization of Pinkertons, etc. The fact that the capitalists were able to get the aid of the government is strong evidence that late 19th Century US was capitalist. (See Karl Marx.) As for the Wild West, I think that a lot of myth surrounds the kernal of truth about the lawlessness there. I know a little something about this (a great-grandfather of mine was killed in the course of his duties as a deputy marshall in what is now Oklahoma), but I'm not a historian, so I can't insist I'm right. I have some patches of knowledge scattered over a wide field of ignorance. You may well be right.

I agree with your more general point that capitalism is in the eye of the beholder. The point of my post was that China's status as "capitalist" is too mushy -- China is too different -- to allow any confident prediction that it will evolve into a democracy. What's your view on that?

[Steve S.]

I believe pre-WWII Germany, under the rising fascists, nurtured industry in a capitalistic way.

While "all for the state" was the ultimate goal, the increasingly authoritarian government recognized it needed the productive power of business (in a way that Russia did not) to reach it's goals.

That seems somewhat akin to the Chinese model in many important respects. Oh, and it did not turn out so well for democracy.

[Peter]

Barry: Thanks for the examples of failed companies in the USA, a country with both capitalism AND democracy. These examples support my argument that, for capitalism to survive in an information-based economy, democracy is necessary.

We know about the failings of Enron precisely because the US has freedom of speech -- several people, initially a minority, asked critical questions about Enron when it was still Wall Street's darling, questions which would not have been permitted of a national corporate champion in a country such as present-day China or Suharto's Indonesia. If the US Constitution did not guarantee freedom of speech, you can be sure Enron would have sued the pants off anyone who criticized its finances in the late 1990s.

[vtcodger]

Many of the comments are insightful, but it is curious that no one has brought up the country that may most resemble China -- Japan. I think that is because few Americans actually know much about either country. (It's odd that we don't seem to have a Juan Cole equivalent for East Asia).

I suspect -- have no way of knowing for sure -- that China's post 1980 course has been plotted by people who studied how Japan went about Westernizing a Century earlier. At the time of the American Civil War, Japan was a feudal backwater with guys wandering the streets with swords who could if they so desired lop your head off if you offended them. A futurist at the time would probably have ranked Japan about 60th on the list of countries that would rise to challenge Europe and the US. Thirty years later, Japan had industrialized, built warships and defeated a fleet of European (Russian) warships in the Tsujima Strait. By 1940, Japan was clearly a developed country -- the world's only industrially developed non-European culture.

Studying and learning from Japan in no way indicates a Chinese affection for Japan I suspect, just a willingness to learn from success.

The salient point is that prior to World War II, Japan had a number of types of government few of which much resembled a Western democracy. In view of the post WWII dominance of the LDP in Japan, I'm not too sure that they've ever actually had a real American style democracy in the sense that we Americans think of as a democracy. It doesn't seem to much matter.

In practice, the Japanese have their own way of dealing with contentious issues. It often works for them even though mechanically similar processes would probably fail spectacularly in the US. I think that the same holds true in China.

I suspect that there may not be a lot of common ground between a Chinese Communist Party member, A 1930s American Communist, and Fidel Castro. I further suspect that what common ground there is may have little to do with anything Lenin would recognize as Communism. I also think it should come as little suprise that the Chinese have embraced capitalism. However, it may be a mistake to think that a Chinese capitalist thinks and acts exactly like Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates, Charles Keating or (God help us all) Donald Trump.

[Peter]

"At the time of the American Civil War, Japan was a feudal backwater with guys wandering the streets with swords who could if they so desired lop your head off if you offended them."

So was the American West, if you replace swords with guns.

"A futurist at the time would probably have ranked Japan about 60th on the list of countries that would rise to challenge Europe and the US."

Only a futurist with no appreciation of non-western societies or their history. Although Japan was not industrialised in 1868, their material culture was not greatly different from that of the non-industrial parts of countries which were industrialized -- eg, rural Britain, rural America, or indeed most of colonial Australia at the time. The Japanese continued to trade with the West throughout the period before the so-called "opening" in 1868, and their culture was highly advanced in many respects.

A key reason that Japanese modernization seems surprising is because we have so many unfounded myths about other cultures.

[anne]

Peter:

'Although Japan was not industrialised in 1868, their material culture was not greatly different from that of the non-industrial parts of countries which were industrialized -- eg, rural Britain, rural America, or indeed most of colonial Australia at the time. The Japanese continued to trade with the West throughout the period before the so-called "opening" in 1868, and their culture was highly advanced in many respects.'

Nicely done :)

[anne]

"What is China?" A country vast and varied in geography and population, with a studied history extending thousands of years and everywhere present in legacy of thought, a country that ever presents that possibility of flying apart but with a governing party in the past always considering how to create cohesion and impress mandates, and a governing party now preoccupied with cohesion and development on a scale never seen before.

[anne]

Thinking of cowboys (girls) :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/world/asia/25nomads.html?ex=1311480000&en=d36914c7e23708d9&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

July 25, 2006

China's Nomads Trade Up for an Easier Ride on the Range
By JIM YARDLEY

MADOI, China — At the Doulong Store, the musty shelves are stocked with the necessities for Tibetan nomads. There are kettles for yak butter tea and bolts of colorful fabric for traditional Tibetan robes and clothing. A nomad affluent enough to use a light bulb in his tent can buy an electric generator.

But an unexpected necessity here in the immense grasslands of the Tibetan plateau are the six motorcycles on display, including the ASIAHERO 150-7 bought by a nomad named Trashi Dorjay. He had traveled almost 200 miles to the store from his tent because he wanted a bike to herd his sheep and yaks.

"I used to ride a horse," he explained. "A motorcycle is faster."

At altitudes of 14,000 feet or higher, the mountainous grasslands here in Qinghai Province, in western China, have become motorcycle country. With a motorcycle now sometimes cheaper than a horse, ethnic Tibetan nomads scattered across the region are buying them out of necessity, but also as status symbols. The dingy truck-stop towns along the highway are swarming with Tibetans on motorcycles.

"You're only a real nomad if you ride a horse," said one nomad, Tsendo, as he sat in a hillside tent situated a two-hour drive from the nearest town. Then, glancing at a motorcycle parked inside the tent, he laughed and added, "But this is our horse."

The trend began a few years ago and reflects the subtle changes under way in this isolated region of Qinghai, where most residents are ethnic Tibetans. Nomad families still live in tents and move their herds of yaks and sheep between winter and summer grazing pastures. Yak milk is still used to make tea, yogurt and butter, while yak hair is sometimes used to weave tents. Even yak dung is a commodity; it is flattened, dried in the sun and burned for heat.

But some nomads, unable to subsist any longer on the land, are beginning to move into relocation centers built by local governments. Pilot projects with solar energy have brought electricity to at least one remote grazing area and with it the beginnings of contact with the wider world. Even nomads who live in the most isolated high country mountains make occasional trips into small cities like Madoi to buy supplies.

This deepening interaction has made the motorcycle an essential possession. "We mostly use it for transportation to go to town," said one nomad, Tupten Jikmay, 29. He said that wealthier nomad families began buying motorcycles five years ago but that he and his two brothers had just managed to buy their first, a used model.

"It used to take two days on horseback to go to Madoi," he added. "Now it is much faster."

Many nomads credit China's economic changes for the arrival of the motorcycle....

[vtcodger]

***Although Japan was not industrialised in 1868, their material culture was not greatly different from that of the non-industrial parts of countries which were industrialized -- eg, rural Britain, rural America, or indeed most of colonial Australia at the time. The Japanese continued to trade with the West throughout the period before the so-called "opening" in 1868, and their culture was highly advanced in many respects.***

No offense, but I believe sincerely that is more or less complete hogwash. Japan's contact with the West between the ejection of the Portuguese in 1638 and the arrival of Perry's fleet in 1854 was deliberately limited to a single trading post operated by the Dutch East India Company. The trading post was (again deliberately) located in the a remote part of the archipelago -- an island in Nagasaki Bay on a different island and hundreds of kilometers away from the cultural centers of Osaka, Kyoto, and Edo. Most western innovations including firearms were banned as was christianity.

In point of fact, the Tokagawa shogunate opted consciously to close Japan off from the Western world and its works -- presumably because they feared that European technology, philosophy, and religion would be enormously destabilizing ... as, in fact, they proved to be just about everyplace else on the planet. In 1721 the "Law for New Items" was promulgated for the express purpose of ensuring that no new types of products would be manufactured in Japan.

The Japanese did have a cohesive culture, a written language, a long history, and but no more so than the Aztecs, Incas and many other empires that disintigrated more or less completely when confronted with Western civilization.

I really think that the idea that Japanese material culture resembled that of 19th Century Europe or America isn't correct. The people weren't starving and there was an orderly society. But, the vast majority of Japanese prior to the Mejii restoration were serfs with few rights although they were presumably protected to a great extent by custom and convention. If I recall correctly, most of them didn't even have given names until around 1880.

I'll grant you that the real situation is probably more complex than what I've outlined. Almost everything about Japan is complex from a Western point of view even if it makes sense to the Nihonjin. But overall, I don't think for a moment that Japan in 1864 looked like a land with a great future or was in any way comperable to Europe, the US or Canada.

[vtcodger]

***No offense, but I believe sincerely that is more or less complete hogwash.***

Let me retract that and go with Japanese in general were not as well off as Europeans and Americans, but they did have something going for them that most other countries didn't a base of literacy. I got to wondering how Japan could ramp up literacy so quickly in the late 19th Century. You need literate teachers to teach reading and writing, and you aren't going to find significant numbers of Japanese speaking teachers in the 1860s anywhere but in Japan. Turns out the Tokugawa shogunate was teaching some commoners basic arithmetic and reading of Confucian texts. So that Japan in reportedly had a reasonable level of literacy even in rural areas going into the Meiji restoration. It's not clear how much since there were essentially no non-Japanese observers, and the people running the country apparently weren't very interested in documenting the lives of commoners. In the context of the times, that would presumably be a substantial advantage in industrialization.

On the subject of how well off Japanese were materially, I'd suggest Isabella Bird, "Unbeaten Tracks In Japan", There's a copy on-line at http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/bird/isabella/japan/index.html

On the subject of knowledge of the West, it appears that the Tokugawas were sort of like modern North Korea or Ceausescu's Albania on steroids. They didn't want Western influences in Japan. Without the equivalent of shortwave radios or access to Italian TV, it's difficult to see how knowledge could leak in. Especially since few Japanese could read a European language. And many of that few would presumably be Christians. Christianity was somewhere between banned and very strongly discouraged in Japan from 1614 until 1860 or so. I suppose that some knowledge of the European culture might have filtered in from China, but probably not a lot as the Tokugawas didn't permit much trade with China either. I believe that a small amount of Western material was allowed to be translated in the 18th and 19th centuries, but not a lot, and you can safely bet very little that was likely to rock the boat.

The Japanese leadership quickly changed their point of view on learning about the West after Perry showed up. Some of them wanted to learn more about Western ways, and many of those who didn't seem to have figured that the best way to get the Gaijin to go away was to pick up enough Western technology to force the foreign devils out.

[wkwillis]

The rulers had a library of imported western books. Probably so the rulers could keep up with what was happening overseas and adjust to changes in circumstances in trade, etc.
This came in usefull when they needed to modernize.

[anne]

VTCodger, thank you for clarifying and in coming days I will read back some nineteenth century Japanese history. My sense was both that Japan had traded through the century through the Portuguese and had a sense of "western" society before 1868 even through the limited Portuguese contact. You indicate the most limited western contact and knowledge. But, you and I agree thoroughly on how quickly Japan was able to catch the west after 1868 and you emphasize education in this regard. I realize I had not given this much thought before your fine comments. Now, I have to read on Japan again.

[anne]

Likely, I placed too much emphasis on Japanese-Christian contacts before 1868 even though I know Christianity was repeatedly and severely restricted in Japan. I never had a sense that Chinese contacts gave the Japanese much of a sense of the west. Thank you so much for essentially reminding me of a need to read back Japanese history and find how much of a shock the "opening" of Japan in 1868 really was.

[Peter]

VTCodger --

I don't accept all your arguments about Japan's alleged relative backwardness before Perry, but I only have time to respond to one. You wrote:

"Turns out the Tokugawa shogunate was teaching some commoners basic arithmetic and reading of Confucian texts."

Commoners were doing much more than basic arithmetic. According to an article in "Scientific American" in 1988, the practice of sangaku, the solving of advanced geometry problems, was widespread among ordinary Japanese people. See: T. Rothman and H. Fukagawa [1988]: "Japanese temple geometry." Scientific American, May 1988, pp. 63-69.

Without meaning to be personal, I think your comment is a neat illustration of our general western ignorance of pre-1868 Japanese society and culture, both then and now.