China

Description: China in a flat world.

Transcript:

I don’t think so, because I think the . . .  China I think is . . . is a big problematic area right now for itself in the sense that its capitalist economics is okay; but its communist politics is . . . is a big question mark.  First it’s exp . . . A lot of its growth is export oriented.  When you run a communist system with lack of human rights in all sorts of areas, you become immediately vulnerable to people saying, “This is not kosher,” alright?  So to . . .  Because it’s a communist system, it exaggerates the . . . the occurrence of things like we have seen recently, namely __________ of all possible safety and other requirements.  Because there is no countervailing power in the system at all.  There are four elements of a democracy which really help countries like India, and whose absence really hurts China in things like environment damage, safety conditions . . . I mean all of the things which really are necessary for good governance and growth.  One, to have NGOs who take up your cause when something is going on.  Two, you could have opposition parties who can also, you know, bring things simply because they ____________.  Three, an independent judiciary.  And fourth, an independent media.  They don’t have anything like that.  So anytime any dissent occurs, which is beginning to happen in China, they just take to the streets.  And how it’s going to develop is very, very problematic.  I talked to a very important CEO who is in both India and China, and he said . . .  He was being asked the usual question.  I can’t identify him, but you know . . . because I . . .  Or maybe I can.  It was Jeffrey Immelt of GE.  And he said of General Electric – I’ve heard this from so many CEOs – that for the next 10 years, China is a great opportunity.  After that India.  So the reason being exactly that you’ve got rule of law.  You’ve got all these different elements for democracy.  Maybe it goes slower in terms of change and so on.  It’ll have its ups and downs, but nothing quite so dramatic.  This huge question mark of what China’s going to do. 

 I mean I remember – my wife is a Russian expert – being asked way back on India and China comparison about 30 years ago or something just when Mao and ________ were both alive.  And she was asked, you know, what was going to happen to China.  And she said, “It depends on whether __________ dies first or Mao dies first.”  Now that’s _________ we are dealing with, much like in the Soviet Union, right?  Who was going to take over the Soviet Union after Stalin?  If ________ had taken over, it would have been far different than when Krushchev took over, right?  And so on.  So I think that is something we don’t have in our systems – democratic systems.  So I think the . . .  I’m betting on India for that reason.  If China manages to make the transition instead of erupt . . . erupting into authoritarianism, repression and so on as the destructions and demands develop, then of course they’ll . . . they’ll be tough competitors.  So . . .  But at the moment, I see nothing really to worry very much about it.

And the Chinese fundamentally are still into manufacturers.  They’re not into services in any big way.  Right now they’re going through exactly the kind of thing which the Japanese did with their huge accumulation of reserves.  They had started buying up things which are going kaput, just like the Japanese bought up Empire State and all sorts of things.  And they lost lots . . . tons of money.  And the investors in Hollywood (55:38) didn’t understand at all, and we took them for a ride on that one.  And the latest one in China, which was when they bought up Blackstone of Pete Peterson and so on.  So Pete Peterson turned into a billionaire from a millionaire, and the Chinese were left with, you know, a can of worms.  So they are worried about it now.  But this is going to be their problem, and not very much our problem in the sense that they will have to sort out what they are going to do with the reserves.  Because it would be foolish on the part of people accumulating those reserves, because it doesn’t produce anything very much for them.  And my suspicions will gradually wind down because they will spend their monies basically on building infrastructure and so on; building up, therefore, demands for all kinds of things from us – cement and construction contracts and so on and so forth.  They will . . .  The very fact of it accumulates so much __________ reserves, it serves as a guarantee that they can’t do anything with it except bring it down in ways which will build, you know . . . which their system requires ________ infrastructure and so on.  And who are the people who can really do great things like that – and including the better service sector and financial services and so on – except us, right?  So we have a very good state, provided we don’t panic.  Provided we don’t panic.  So I’m not worried about China.  And one other thing, you see.

Supposing . . .  Tom Freidman, etc. always said that the Chinese will take over even our . . .  They will start producing the sorts of things which you and I will produce, you know.  Because they’ll have more people like you and me, because they’ll produce more skills.  But this is a . . .  And therefore they’ll drive down the prices of what we are producing right now, right?  Because we’re exporting all sorts of stuff which they will start producing, and therefore push down our prices; and thereby put our, you know, economy . . .  What they forget that as countries grow more similar in an endowments – meaning they have more engineers.  They have more computer scientists.  They have more doctors.  They have more . . . you know, all sorts of people, you know, like us.  In that sense they are getting more like us, right?  In . . . The economists call it “endowments”.  So that . . .  Does that mean that is going to happen?  Our welfare is going to go down?  I would say no, because economics now has a new theory in international trade.  We talk of trade in similar products.  And if you just walk down . . . at least for those people who are going to watch this in the United States.  In New York you walk down Madison Avenue and you see all these men’s fashions.  You see Giorgio Armani.  You see Calvin Klein, right?  Our own indigenous guy.  You see Pierre Cardin, French.  You see __________, though he’s moved now to Chelsea.  But you used to see him.  Japanese settle in Paris.  You see all kinds of people as you go down.  They are all __________.  They’re all in the same industry, producing the same basic products like suits and jackets and so on.  But they compete.  So they’re specialized in similar products, each with little niche markets.  So what you get is a tremendous increase in variety – trade and variety.  So as countries get more similar, they become . . . they trade in similar products.  So one of my students, Robert Feenstra, has actually, you know, calculated using the new theory of trade in similar products.  The gains to trade . . . from trade in similar products in post-war . . . with a post-war rise of Europe . . . because we put Europe back on its feet and made it more similar to us.  We could have kept them down, right?  But we didn’t.  We didn’t do that with Japan.  And really, several billions of dollars annually of gain from trade in similar products.

Description: Iweala talks about why this issue may be misunderstood, as well as the dangers China may present.

Transcript: It’s funny. Everybody is talk . . . everybody talks about China so much, and . . . China and Africa. And the fact that, you know, “Africans” or, you know, the different people in the different countries in Africa should be aware because China has such a bad human rights record. And like the way I see it honestly, I mean like it’s not like dealing with the west has been that great, you know what I’m saying? So you know like why should we be taking . . . You know why should people . . . And I feel like . . . I mean I feel like it’s not Africans who are afraid of China’s rise in Africa. It’s the west that’s afraid of China’s rise in Africa. Like for . . . for Africans it’s a double-edged sword as is any interaction. There are a lot of positives and there are a lot of negatives. I mean I think the hope is that with more players in the game; with more . . . more resources; with more sources of capital, right; and with more sources of ideas; if you are a leader with a vision in any one of the African countries, now is the time that you can actually . . . you can maximize, right? Now is the time that you have access to this set of . . . you know these set of people who are willing to work on these projects. You have access to these . . . Like now is the time to really leverage your . . . your . . . your resources to really . . . to really bargain while you have a chance to. Before you couldn’t do that, and I think that’s a good thing. At the same time one has to be very careful, because it’s very clear that Chinese involvement is not all positive. I mean you look at the Chinese in Sudan, right? That’s definitely not positive. But you look at, for example, the projects that China is willing to work on. And a lot of the things that the west won’t touch, the Chinese are ready to do. Infrastructure development, the west has been about . . . has been about extraction. The Chinese, yeah, they want oil. That’s true and no one is going to deny it. But at the same time, like the projects that they’ll work on are . . . are projects that . . . They need it to happen. Like the roads need to be built, right? Railroads need to be built. And if it’s this set of people who has that skill, and who have those resources, and who have that ability, then I don’t see why we shouldn’t be talking to them, right? And you know the . . . You can bring up human rights all you want. And I think what we need to do as Africans in our various countries is to make sure that our leaders are . . . are paying attention to that, and are trying to make sure we’re not exploited in that way. But I don’t necessarily think that it’s . . . that . . . that Europe or the United States has really any right to say that these people don’t respect human rights when the track record is just not very great on . . . on their side. The track record isn’t great on either side, so it’s up to us as Africans to make sure that that track record changes. And you know whether that’s with the Chinese, or whether that’s with Great Britain, or with the United States, it’s up to us to do that. And that’s maybe where we’re not pulling our weight. But as for the Chinese in Africa, I say if they are ready and willing to come in, then that connection should be developed – just responsibly.

Recorded on: 10/7/07

Description: While there has been evolution in China, tremendous growth is needed.

Transcript:  China represents an enormous human rights challenge in part through its domestic practices.  Because it still is doing everything it can to prevent the emergence of any kind of organized political opposition.  So while there’s been tremendous evolution in China, and tremendous growth in what you might call “personal freedom”, today people do have the right to choose where they work, where they live, where they send their kids to school.  There’s much greater personal freedom; but when it comes to political freedom, there still is very little.  You can speak out in certain circumstances; but anything you do that begins to look like organized opposition is likely to face a government reaction.  So expanding the scope of civil society in China is an enormous challenge.  And because China is so big, and thus so immune to some of the traditional forms of pressure, it’s a particular challenge.  But the other challenge that China presents is in its foreign policy, because China today is looking foremost for natural resources to fuel its economic growth.  And it . . . because it is so sensitive about people interfering in its domestic affairs, it has adopted an ideology in its dealings with other countries of non-interference.  So it will enter into contracts to purchase oil, or to explore for minerals with so called “no strings attached”.  It will make these purchases or enter into contracts without regard to the conduct of its partner government.  And the result of that is it tends to (01:03:04) undermine pressure being exerted by the World Bank, or the IMF, or western governments to try to improve the practices of some of these governments – whether it’s in the area of corruption, or in the area of repression.  And so you take a country like Sudan where China has been the principle purchaser of Sudanese oil.  And while western governments have slowly pulled out of Sudan because they don’t want to be underwriting the slaughter in Darfur, China has gone in and bought away, and indeed for a long time was fighting off pressure to . . . being put on Khartoum to stop the murder in Darfur.  Now that has slowly begun to change, and this is one place where I am guardedly optimistic.  Because China seems increasingly not to want to be seen as the supporter of thugs and murderers around the world.  It wants to be seen, it appears, as a responsible global citizen.  And it increasingly was getting a black eye.  Its reputation is getting tarnished because of its behavior in places like Sudan, or Burma, or Zimbabwe, or Angola.  And particularly with the Olympics approaching – a particularly sensitive moment for China in public relations terms – we’ve begun to see some modest changes – foremost in Darfur where the Chinese government has begun to play a useful role in convincing Khartoum to consent to the deployment of a hybrid, United Nations, African Union Peacekeeping Force in Darfur.  A year ago, say in . . . in 2006, China was resisting that kind of pressure.  But beginning in roughly December 2006 and on throughout 2007, China has been playing a modest but useful role in convincing Khartoum to allow this peacekeeping force to go forward.  And I think the reason for that is simply that China didn’t like the tarnishing of its reputation because of its tacit support for this mass murder.  And indeed there’s no reason for China to be indifferent to mass murder.  You don’t expect China to be actively supporting civil society or the rule of law around the world when these are not rights that are respected at home.  But at least since Tiananmen Square, China is not in the business of committing mass murder.  And so it can quite safely oppose mass murder around the world without . . . for fear of . . . of this, you know, boomeranging back and somehow impinging on its own latitude at home.  And so this is an area where I think we can get China operating on a more constructive level.  But any dealing with China is . . . is slow, long term and challenging.

Recorded on: 8/14/07

Description: Chinese art, before and after Tiananmen.

Transcript: I think the impact of this is that you’re always seeking to tell another story about Asia . . . a story that people are less familiar with. And in this way, some of the curated exhibitions that we take on may work with a pre-conceived assumption. For example, I curated an exhibition some years ago about art from the Pacific Islands. And most people’s assumptions of the Pacific Islands is a notion of paradise. And so all of the works that I selected from of these artists was all about kind of pushing this idea of paradise further, or kind of wanting to disavow an idea of paradise. So I think that what we really wanna do is tell a different kind of story with the one that you might otherwise associate with Asia.

I think one of the most interesting things to say about Chinese contemporary art is that it really has this 30 year history. And when I talk about it, we . . . we often cite the most important kind of birth date, if you like, as 1979 when _______ declared his open door policy in China, which allowed the opening up of China. Artists in China at that time were allowed to engage with western art history in a way that they hadn’t been able to before. And there are these important moments within Chinese contemporary art that allow us to identify three main phases defined by decades. Mostly throughout the 1980s you saw this kind of frenetic energy and engagement with western ideas. And that is often cited as the kind of most experimental period. And then throughout the 1990s after Tieneman on June 4, 1989, we saw a restriction of activities that artists were able to stage. They were shut out of galleries . . . any galleries and museums. They couldn’t show their work in the public sphere. And during this decade we also saw the internationalization of Chinese contemporary art; that on the one had Chinese artists were prevented from showing their work inside China; but around the time of the mid-1990s, there was much curatorial interest, especially in Europe and places like Australia. And there were many international opportunities for Chinese artists to show their work outside. And then of course, everything changed in 2000. There was a real opening up of China. And the Chinese government itself had a different kind of relationship with experimental artists. They decided that it was okay for Chinese artists to show their work in museums. And we have since seen the Chinese government take on experimental artists at, you know, kind of national representation such as at the ______ premier . . . kind of a contemporary art event that happens every two years in Venice.

I think that we haven’t yet seen a . . . I mean we’ve seen styles developed in China that are peculiar to China, and have a resonance in China, and tell a particular story about China; but I think that the way that our production is at the moment is that it’s often harder to export those styles. We haven’t I seen that happen yet. In fact, one might identify other kinds of influences going into China at the moment. I think that certainly when we see Chinese styles – home-grown stuff – exported, then we’ll really know that New York is no longer the center of the art world, but that it resides somewhere else

I think there are two artists that I would identify. Both of them are, in some ways, from the younger generation. The first would be _______ who is a young woman who lives in Beijing. And I think that her project for the Venice ______ involving second life is really a great introduction, I think, for us in terms of ways that art and technology can work together. And certainly the avatar that she created – in her own likeness of course – but I think also ways in which she has in other works – such as her photographs where she has shown people actually in the factories in China – has been one of the few occasions we have seen artists engage with China’s factories. You know that’s one of the funny things about Chinese contemporary art; that although you have this whole, huge country devoted to manufacturing, in many cases it’s something that you haven’t seen appearing in Chinese artists’ work.

And the other artist I would mention is _________, who primarily works in video. And he, I think, creates these quite extraordinary films that have . . . that speak in two ways or two sides. There are two sides to them. On the one . . . on the one hand they are very much about the nostalgia of Shanghai as a wonderful place in the early 20th Century where it was very much a cosmopolitan century. It was often referred to as a Paris of the east. And he’s able to conjure up that kind of sensibility in his black and white films. And on the other hand it speaks very much to Shanghai’s emergence as a major financial center in the region. And he, in some of his video works/films, really shows that emergence of this young, urban, middle class – or yuppies if you like. So both of these artists show in different ways the kind of changes that are going on in China, but in very unique ways.

I think that at one time, especially if we look to China’s more recent history in the 20th Century when the Cultural Revolution occurred, and there was a desire to kind of destroy the _____, to wipe the slate clean and start again with what were kind of more scientific models and approaches to art making. However, I think that this younger generation of artists . . . I think that they look to history in different ways. And in fact, in many cases they’re going back to the classics and reusing them in very different ways. For example, one artist called _______ has taken a very important Chinese scroll painting, and he has inserted contemporary figures into that scroll painting. And so it’s a real bringing together of traditional form and contemporary, everyday life. So I think that that’s one kind of use of the classics; but I think we must also be mindful that Chinese visual traditions continue on. And in fact there is a very lively ink painting seen in China that’s a very lively calligraphy seen through associations as well as at the art academies. And that’s one of the important things to remember about Chinese contemporary art; that there are these parallel worlds that sometimes intermingle and intersect. But we have on the one hand the experimental contemporary art scene that I’ve been speaking to. And we also have this classical continuation of tradition through, obviously, mediums like ink. And that’s an important thing to remember about Chinese culture.

I think that on the one hand, these . . . this younger generation is given a voice; but I think what is . . . what is also interesting to note about China right now is that the generation of artists who are mostly in their 50s right now, a lot of them left China around . . . _____ the time of ’89. And they ______ different art centers around the world, most likely Paris and New York, in fact. And what’s really interesting about this is that there has been a huge return to the homeland. And many of these artists, even if they still continue to reside outside of China, have come to work at a high level with either business or government policy figures to actually influence China. And so I would say that certainly that generation who are in their 50s now have come of age. And they have a great deal of importance . . . important roles to play within society . . . within Chinese society. But what’s interesting about the diaspora population is that they obviously bring to China a different set of values that has been changed by their living outside of China for over a decade now.

Recorded on: 7/11/07

Description: Is China a security partner or security threat?

Question: Is China a security partner or security threat?

Transcript: China is not a direct security threat to the United States, and on many issues, it has been a security partner. On the issues that are most pressing to America now, they are mostly a security partner, so for example, we’re never gonna roll back North Korea’s nuclear program if China is not right with us, twisting arms, you know, right along with us in Pyongyang. And there are places where our policies certainly have the- you know, have the potential for clashing over Taiwan, for example, or over Sudan, or yeah, in Myanmar, in Burma. We don’t see eye-to-eye on some issues, but the fact is that with the right combination of pressure, China will move in the right direction. And the fact is that we have to work with them on some of these issues in order to actually make progress. But on the real core security interests of the United States, terrorism and disease and North Korea and Iran- they are more of a security partner.

I mean, you can’t discount the possibility that fifty years from now, there could be some sort of military clash with China. But the fact is that we are both nuclear powers, and that in and of itself provides a very strong deterrent to any sort of direct clash. We- our economies are wholly interdependent, and that’s not gonna change, I don’t think- and so that also provides a deterrent. I mean, the fact is it’s hard to imagine what China and the United States would get out of a direct clash. It’s not as if it would help to conquer each other on economic terms the way it might have- you know, two hundred years ago- but we live in a totally different economy now. I mean, that’s not to say that there couldn’t be some sort of proxy war somewhere over Taiwan or Africa or whatever, but that’s really not in the interest of either country, and right now, we are both very much in needing and wanting a global stability. That’s what China wants, that’s what America wants. We want open markets and we want stability. And so, I think on a lot of issues, we can agree. I mean, I do think it’s smart that we ought to, you know, we ought to have in mind the possibility that thirty or fifty years from now, there could be a clash, and we ought to prepare militarily for that possibility, without doing anything overt to antagonize China, because then that’s the self-perpetuating cycle, you know, of arms buildup. But I just don’t think it’s a likely- it’s not something you can bet on in any way. I mean, we have a terrible history of trying to predict who’s gonna be the big power thirty years from now. We might all be living in houseboats by then because of global warming- we just don’t know what’s gonna happen.

Recorded on: 5/14/08

Description: It all goes back to the policy decisions of the 1970s, Khanna says.

Transcript: China’s rise has been so successful not only because of the smart policy decisions that they took from 1970 onwards in terms of opening to the global economy, in the way in which they have directed resources towards production and export. But its also that global economy itself that has catapulted and butter raised china’s rise, because china is the globalize super power without globalization it wouldn’t be able to harness or achieve that kind of revenues that it has from the global market place. So china is poster child for global economic integration leading to greater national power. And that is the #1 reason why China is rising.

Recorded on: 3/3/08

Description: How much economic influence does China have?

Question: What does China’s ascendance mean for the world order?

Transcript: Well we have to remember of course that for 15 of the last 18 centuries, China was the largest economy in the world.  In the 1700s it went down a bit, and it’s now only beginning to recover what’s regarded as its rightful position in the world.  I think we have to recognize that two-thirds of the population of the world really lives in Asia or the Asian subcontinent.  And in the end that population mass is so significant that the world’s economic wealth is gonna drift to that region.  And I think also the world’s political power will drift to that region in time.  It’s hard to believe that at the beginning of the 20th century, that the United States would have become as powerful as it ultimately became.  In the year 1900, nobody would have thought the United States would have dominated the world as it did for the latter part of the 20th century.  At the beginning of the 21st century, it’s obviously hard to predict what’s gonna happen in the year 2021 . . . or 2100.  But it’d be my belief that by the end of this century, you will see China and India as the most important countries probably in the world.

Question: How much economic influence does China have?

Transcript: Well the U.S. economy is the largest economy in the world, and it will be for at least another decade or so, perhaps two decades.  So I think China will probably pass the U.S. in maybe two decades or so.  But right now China has about $1.2 trillion in foreign reserves – the largest foreign reserve level anywhere in the world.  At some point China will begin to exercise the power that comes with that kind of foreign reserve, and they will begin to invest around the world and buy things around the world.  They won’t only buy U.S. Treasury bills where a lot of that money has gone.  And so as China begins to assert itself a bit more, I think China will have more political and economic and military power around the world.  It’s inevitable.  I think the United States has to recognize that you can’t borrow all the time and continuously have a lifestyle that you wanna have.  Right now we are about $10 trillion in debt.  In other words if you add up all the debt in the United States, about $10 trillion.  At some point we have to recognize we have to pay off that debt or reduce our lifestyle.  And when people stop buying our Treasury bills or demand much greater terms for our Treasury bills, it will begin to squeeze or lifestyle even more.  So I think the United States has lived a very, very good life, and people here in my generation have lived quite well.  But I’m worried that my children and my grandchildren will not have as nice a lifestyle, because inevitably we’re gonna be paying off debt for many years into the future.  And our ability to sustain the kind of lifestyle we want will be diminished.

Recorded on: 9/13/07

Description: Is China getting there first?

Transcript: It’s a mixed bag. As I read it now, some of the African states are a little leery of sort of the ___________ of the Chinese. I think they’d be somewhat more conscious and comfortable with us. And I know a lot of our investment capital and our venture capital from the United States is going into Africa now – telecom and things of that nature – because the markets are growing rapidly.

Recorded on: 9/14/07