The treasonous AFR is at it again. You would think that the one notion that the paper would defend is liberalism. Yet it is the one thing that it is determined to kill.
On the one hand, it promotes every vested interest it can. On the other hand, it just loves Chinese propaganda.
Here’s its free kick to Keyu Jin, London School of Economics academic and author of The New China Playbook.
As someone with a foot in both worlds – she is a Western-trained economist but her father Jin Liqun is a former deputy finance minister in Beijing, who now heads the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – she found this not only puzzling and frustrating, but also potentially dangerous.
…The result is The New China Playbook. She describes a polity with under-reported mechanisms to respond to popular discontent – creating a form of accountability, if not of the democratic kind. And its administrative system incentivises and empowers lower tiers of government to experiment and adapt their policy settings to develop their local economies.
The aim is to create an economy and polity that is built neither on the Western market-liberal model nor on Beijing’s former growth-at-any-price, command-and-control model. Instead, it has to be distinctively and authentically Chinese.
“It’s a new playbook that is now in motion, but we haven’t seen the fruits of it yet,” she says. “It’s a new era. There’s still a lot of room to change and to improve in all kinds of dimensions.”
She also sees dynamic and pretty autonomous local governments enabling businesses to flourish, and argues that the private and public sectors are in almost a yin-yang relationship – a structure that is allowing a pivot to higher-quality growth.
…On the social and political front, she argues that although younger people can be frustrated with the lack of business and employment opportunities, they do not necessarily yearn for the kind of political freedoms or unfettered economies of the West.
…Chinese people are rooted in an enduring, paternalistic Confucian culture that values stability and security, and respect for authority. But the authorities often sense how far they can push.
“Accountability is also the ultimate reason why there’s legitimacy for the party. And the leaders are very clear on that,” she says.
…“Displacing the US, there’s no desire for that. With that comes a lot of responsibilities. And it’s not even feasible. I think most Chinese people recognise that,” she says.
I’ve been hearing this tripe from China grovellers for decades.
- ‘Non-Chinese can’t understand the Chinese’ is the same old “mysterious east” racism misused on both sides.
- There is no special model that combines public and private in a dynamic partnership. It is corruption and waste wherever you go.
- We are seeing the ‘fruits of the model’. The economy is dying.
- Local governments are very dynamic at corruption, yes.
- I love this old chestnut: the Chinese don’t want freedom! Tiananman didn’t happen.
- Panicked policy responses and suppression are the hallmarks of tyranny.
- Why is China issuing Australia the 14 conditions to end democracy if it does not want to be a hegemon?
In short, this article is the usual toxic brew of Western self-hatred, racism and CCP propaganda that gave us enduring ‘China’s peaceful rise’ claptrap.
