Author: Evan Osnos Finished: April 7th, 2022

I want to use this as an example to implement Holden Karnofsky’s suggestion that you learn by refining hypotheses.

Summary

The book documents the complicated clash of aspiration and authoritarianism within China.

The party “shed [socialism’s] scripture, but held onto its saints.”

Notes

The book is broken down into three sections

Random notes:

• The diversity of Western influence in China is fascinating;
  • Michael Sandel, the Harvard ethics prof, is a superstar in China, filling stadiums with his lectures
  • Xi Jinping’s chief anticorruption czar is a big fan of Alexis de Tocqueville
• Perhaps the most important event that shaped the CCP’s consciousness was the fall of the Soviet Union
• Bobos were the aspiring middle class

Questions for recall

• The Chinese Communist Party is wrought by a tension in its philosophy, especially when it comes to socialism. How would you characterize the tension?
  • Marxism, at its core, was about allowing the peasant underclass to seize the means of production and realize equality. China was born out of Marxist ideals, but now is the largest purchaser of Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis at the same time that it attempts to ban the word luxury from its billboards. It no longer puts forth the ideal of equality, but instead emphasizes harmony
  • In the 1980 authoritative dictionary, individualism was “the heart of the Bourgeois worldview” - Thatcherist free market fundamentalism was greatly scorned by China in rhetoric (the term itself was too controversial to mutter for a state think tank researcher) yet was in principle often adopted: cracking down on trade unions, privatizing public services (first three decades after cultural revolution everything was govt owned), patriotism
  • The party was founded upon the principle of continuous revolution (the Museum of Revolutionary History, which since lost its name, used to be in Tianenmen square) but now the party in power was conservative and staid.
• What is the Washington consensus approach to economic reform?
  • Refers to strongly free market approaches
  • Privatize state owned enterprizes, deregulate industries, trade liberalization
• How is the CCP’s approach to the economy different from the Washington consensus?

Fortune

Talks about the rapid change in economic growth China’s economy has had an annual growth rate of 10% per year from 1978 to 2005, and has managed still to grow at ~5% since then. In 1949 life expectancy was 36 and literacy rate was 20%. In 2012 life expectancy was 75 and literacy was above 90%.

The growth was incredible, but led to a number of negative consequences: In 2003 China’s railway system was horrible, but they managed to build with $250 Billion, 10 km of railway — more than rest of the world combined. It was fast and mostly worked

• Melamine in baby formula
• Wenzhou crash killed 40 people
• Corruption - $120bn siphoned, 18k corrupt officials fled China

Lin Zhengyi, one of China’s most important economists, argued against the ‘shock therapy’ that was the Washington Consensus for much of 1960s - 2000s and instead favored the ‘gradualist tinkering’ approach. They heavily invested in

Truth

About the rise of censorship and authoritarianism

Chinese censorship is serious and horrible. Bloomberg reporter Stephen Engle was beaten just for showing up to a scheduled protest. People regularly vanish

When a fat man lost his freedom, you said, “It has nothing to do with me, because I am skinny”. When a beareded man lost his freedom, you said, “It has nothing to do with me, because I am not bearded.” When a man who sold sunflower seeds lost his freedom, you said “It has nothing to do with me, because I don’t sell sunflower seeds. but when they come for the skinny, beardless ones who never sold sunflower seeds, there will be nobody left to speak up for you.

Niemoller, reimagined.

The unbelievable bravery of people like Ai Weiwei, Liu Xiabo, Chen Guangchen

Chen Guangchen taught himself the local law and taught it to the forcibly aborted women and other outcasts in his village despite being beaten for it

![[China-articleLarge.webp]]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_08

Liu Xiabo jailed for years for his seven sentences ![[xiaobo-15154-portrait-medium.jpg]]

Faith

Massive unrest and unhappiness among middle class, also a big spiritual void

Sociologists survey of chinese middle class: initially farmers grateful to be off farms, but new generation unhappy with the comparison to wealthier peers.

The most violent supporters of Chinese nationalism (e.g. Tang Jie) are actually in some tension with the party — they worship China and not necessarily the current party