China And The Development Conundrum

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31047, 30 April 1966, Page 4

China And The Development Conundrum

The Chinese Model. Edited by Werner Klatt. Hong Kong University Press. 220 pp. Index.

The under-developed world has made the painful discovery that independence does not automatically mean progress, and growth to nationhood is a difficult and painful process. But where social scientists in the West hesitate to offer glib replies to young men in a hurry, in Africa, Latin America and Asia, who seek rapid industrialisation for their backward countries, the Communists claim to have found solutions to the development conundrum which are applicable everywhere. And where once there was one Communist model for rapid development, now there are two. Today the leaders of China claim they are better qualified than the Russians to provide the ultimate advice; they say conditions in the “third world” are much closer to those China has faced than to anything in Russia. In one major sense they are right. China was and still is a predominantly rural country. Russia in 1917, though backward by European standards, was far in advance of China in 1949 in the size of her urban proletariat in the industrial base she had to work from. In

15 years the Chinese people, tied to the soil for three millenia, have moved with great speed from a frozen society to a nation attempting to industrialise itself. Such development only begins when traditional ties give way to economic relations and the process is complex and painful. This book, produced by the Institute of Modern Asian Studies in the University of Hong Kong, sets out to examine China's successes and failures in the last 15 years. Through a collection of 14 essays by Western sociologists, political scientists and economists it offers, as its title suggests, a critical appraisal of the relevance of Chinese experience to other nations, particularly in Asia. By implication it is also a commentary on two of the great problems of modern Chinese studies: sufficient reliable information is hard to come by, though the bibliographies included here show more is available than is realised; and even more important, methods of analysis and interpretation relevant to China are still far from adequate. China, more than any other society, is still an alien land to Western observers. One great problem touched on here is the extent to which Classical Chinese thought and attitudes continue to play a major part, even under the orthodoxy of the “western” creed of com-

munism. Confucius still outweighs Lenin in basic Chinese thinking, whatever the official party line may say. Yet within its limitations “The Chinese Model” is a valuable symposium. Four of its essays deal with the break with the past, four with economic planning, and the remainder discuss the political context, the treatment of minority peoples and the emergence of a new Communist ruling class. One of the most valuable articles is that by Hugh Howse, of the 8.8. C., on “The Role of Mass Media in China.” The author finds propaganda being used on a scale Dr. Goebbels hardly dreamed of. Radio has become the means of imposing a uniformity in thought which reflects itself in contemporary Chinese culture, its dullness and lack of creativity. “Communist China is still without a film, a play, a novel or a poem of real artistic or literary merit.” Peking University students are quoted as describing the largest newspaper, the Peking “Peoples Daily,”’ as “the Great Wall sealing off the truth,” and as saying newspaper editors and reporters have two duties: “One is to publish quickly, the other is to suppress.” The conclusions of this very good collection are not encouraging. China certainly, on the surface, appears to offer a valuable model for

under-developed countries. The leaders speak the stirring language of revolution. But the colossal failures of Chinese agricultural policy, the humiliating anti-climax of “the Great Leap Forward,” suggest that Marxism, Chinese-style, has inherent flaws which other countries would do well to avoid. In spite of its rural base in the revolutionary war years, Chinese communism is still the product of an urban intelligensia, inherently opposed to the countryside. The mystique of Maoism is powerful in maintaining jungle guerrillas, but on the assessment presented in this volume—and it is as fair and searching as the information allows—China has produced no body of absolute knowledge able to justify its totalitarian system with its terrible repressions of those who refused to fit into the approved social categories. Nor has it furnished a workable solution to the problem of developing retarded nations.

China's is essentially a creed and a plan for a situation of “perpetual crisis.” Only thus can the inherent weaknesses of total control over such a vast society be kept at a manageable level. The Chinese model is fundamentally opposed to an environment of “peace.” For China’s neighbours the prospect is far from pleasant.