I am willing to make one prediction: the current situation is not a steady equilibrium. China can go more repressive, e.g. militaristic autocracy. Or government makes some concessions but this invites more demands. The latter is a Tocqueville moment feared by many autocrats.
Protests are rare in China because there is no coordination mechanism. In other societies religion, NGOs, and technology serve that coordinating function. One folly of COVIDZero is that it supplies a coordination mechanism across regions and socioeconomic classes. Irony is rich.
Maybe it is a balloon effect: Only half of the students who registered for my class on Chinese economy and business showed up on the first day of the class. I have seen decreasing enrollments over the years just at a time when the need to understand China rises exponentially.
A Chinese joke. Local officials got deadlocked on whether to upgrade a school or a prison, until someone said, “Do not think about where you came from; think about where you will go next.” Vote was unanimous: Money went to the prison project.
Premature to say that this is a 1989 minute. In 1989 top leadership was divided about student demonstrations and that split was a preexisting condition. The thing to watch out for is whether a split may emerge. But that is a black box and we don’t have a clue.
This is the source of funding that FBI is charging my MIT colleague, Gang Chen, of going to length to hide. I found the place where he hid it—a place called internet.
Spoiler alert: Bombay stock index increased by about 20 times since this article was published; the Shanghai Stock Exchange: 1.44 times. I think you should have followed the advice of the good professor, if not the investment advice but at least getting your facts right.
Many compare China’s Covid protest to 89. A more apt comparison is the April 5th movement in 1976. 89 was more aspirational and forward looking; 76 was protesting against oppression similar to the spirit of the protests today. Although not named, all knew Mao was real target.
A note to Chinese nationalists: direct your anger to Russia. Through Treat of Tianjin Russia took an equivalent of 10% of what is the PRC territory today. The Soviet troops pillaged China’s northeast. The least you can do is to do nationalism correctly.
South Korea, Japan and Taiwan debunk the whole idea that East Asian culture is incompatible with democracy. We can go further. A functioning democracy requires some self constraints, trust, and collectivity, traits sorely lacking in America, a source of our current dysfunctions.
Election day in Taiwan. I watched presidential and vice presidential debates. They were substantive, not empty shouting contests or gotcha moments. The ballot has details about candidates. This is how democracy ought to be. Freedom yes but also information and deliberations.
The changes that China has made since 1978 have been momentous but I have always felt that those changes are physical rather than chemical in nature. As physical changes they can be reversed and changed back. This is what is happening in China now.
The protests against lockdowns have sharply escalated. I think expectations changed. Before 20th Congress there was hope of policy change, but the leadership lineup of the Congress completely derailed this expectation, forcing people to take actions into their own hands.
One way to tell whether China will ease Covid controls is to watch out for unusual movements of stock price of Pfizer. Connected insiders in China will know before we—and protestors—know.
The framing should be the opposite. Truth has intrinsic value and should be compromised if there is a compelling social rationale. The right question: “What compelling rationale is served by suppression of truth?” May or may not be in this case but let’s get the question right.
There is a rational way to get out of this. Ease the controls which are so damaging economically and untenable in any case. Use formidable administrative tools China has to vaccinate elderly with vaccines of high efficacy. Call it a whole process democracy and declare victory.
Agree but I would go further. I would welcome China to criticize US human rights as the Chinese delegation did in Alaska. But that is an implicit acknowledgment that human rights are a legitimate issue for discussion in bilateral relations.
As Covid is taking its macabre toll in China, I would not be surprised if some blame it on the protesters rather than on the ineptitude of the government. “Government can do no wrong” has a deep root in China.
Election day in Taiwan. I watched presidential and vice presidential debates. They were substantive, not empty shouting contests or gotcha moments. The ballot has details about candidates. This is how democracy ought to be. Freedom yes but also information and deliberations.
Let’s be honest and direct: America is in no position to lecture other countries about sanctity of human life and human rights—the first one being that of existence—when it enables and empowers gun violence. All, including foreign countries, should call America out on this.
There is this basic confusion between censorship by state action (China) and censorship by private action (in democracies). We may think and criticize that private censorship has gone too far but to confuse the two is rather silly.
I love this . Ai Weiwei said that he cannot speak out in the West in his very act of speaking out in the West. By saying that censorship in West is the same as in China he shows that it is not same at all.
… via
@YouTube
My article in Foreign Affairs. While statism is viewed by some as the reason for China’s growth, I argue that it is its biggest obstacle. China’s success is in fact utterly conventional: the state retreated relative to market. Unfortunately China gave up on that approach.
The Chinese government has developed an increasingly statist view of economic growth—and Beijing’s approach is driving Chinese entrepreneurs, and their capital, out of the country, warns
@YashengHuang
.
Friday is the Chinese New Year. We should call upon President Biden on this occasion to explicitly repudiate the venomous language used by Trump such as “Chinese virus” or “Kung fu virus.”The virus origin is not an ethnic issue.
This is how VOA, funded by government and ultimately funded by tax payers like me, headlined the debate Mikes Yu and I had on engagement with China: “A Chinese traitor vs a Chinese spy.”By arguing for engagement I am labeled as a Chinese spy. Shame on VOA.
@VOANews
Here is a way to stop technology transfer to China: Stop producing technology altogether. By arresting professors, reducing H1Bs, cutting R&D spending, and stopping foreign students from coming here, we are half way there. Give credit where credit is due!
If I were a university leader in Canada or Europe, I would start a massive recruitment campaign now. This is THE moment to put my university on map. Not many Chinese American scientists would just go back to China like that but they may go to these countries.
Many Chinese language talk shows on podcast and YouTube are fiercely anti-CCP. But anti CCP is not necessarily pro democracy. How to tell the difference? By the way they treat Trump and modern GOP. Many of them are also devotees to Trump. They are closet autocrats (minus power).
The protests against inhuman—and irrational—lockdowns in Shanghai are all individual acts. The power of autocracy is its ability to decimate collective action. The state towers over individuals who stand forever alone.
I understand justifying locking down cities in China on the ground that healthcare facilities are not adequate. But you cannot turn around and then claim that this is evidence of the rise of the East and that the Chinese system is superior. The logic does not follow.
So many Chinese dissidents going full MAGA and for the modern authoritarian GOP is a fascinating sociological and, possibly psychological, phenomenon. It deserves more scholarly and media attention than it has received.
To me this episode is extremely concerning. The customs authority clearly did not act on specific information about specific individuals; they stopped the entire group of Chinese American scientists. A clear case of racial profiling.
#Opinion
@BrookingsInst
: The future of the U.S.-China competition for human capital
🗣️
@MITSloan
Professor
@YashengHuang
:
I know for a fact there are still investigations. Every Chinese-American scientist coming back [from a recent overseas conference] was stopped at customs.
One way to debunk the idea that somehow China and US are comparable in corruption is to compare the corruption that both systems explicitly disapprove of. Menendez: hundreds of thousands of dollars. Zhou Yongkang: 1.4 billion dollars. The assertion lacks basic plausibility.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is calling on Sen. Bob Menendez to resign immediately after he and his wife were indicted on bribery charges. According to the indictment, prosecutors found cash stuffed in a jacket bearing his name and gold bars wrapped in paper towels.
In this paper, Clair and I used micro data from the Ming dynasty to show how China's civil service examination system prolonged China's autocratic rule. It is a clever mechanism.
A Longevity Mechanism of Chinese Absolutism | The Journal of Politics
Let’s give President Biden every credit he deserves. There is no political upside to stabilize relations with China. Yet President Biden recognized the true existential risks if we did not stabilize that relationship. It took courage and vision. Thank you, President Biden!
Today, I'm announcing that the U.S. and PRC are resuming military-to-military communications.
Clear and open communication between our defense establishments is vital to avoid miscalculation by either side and prevent conflict.
The world expects this of responsible countries.
I showed how the leaders in the 1990s changed the development strategy from the 1980s--favoring urban areas and globalization at the expense of rural China. Many TVEs, which powered growth in the 1980s, collapsed (except in regions that did not change strategy, e.g. Wenzhou).
In my forthcoming book I criticize this approach. The right approach should condition the continued operation of the Confucius Institute on an agreement to allow Western think tanks to operate in China. You can then close the CIs after China explicitly rejects this proposal.
People say that 21st century belongs to G2, i.e. US and China. I worry by the end of the century we will run out of academics. One country is busy arresting social scientists; the other is busy arresting natural scientists.
Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo giving a comprehensive speech at MIT on US economic and competitiveness strategy. It is the best speech I have heard on the topic. 1/2
Then I asked them, “What do you talk about among yourselves in China?” They listed slow growth, regulatory crackdowns and aggressive foreign policy. There must be a disconnect somewhere.
Yan Mingfu was one of the most visionary and enlightened leaders in the 80s, emblematic of a hopeful bygone era. Had his visions—and those of Zhao Ziyang—prevailed, China would have been a more genuinely prosperous and humane society.
I love this . Ai Weiwei said that he cannot speak out in the West in his very act of speaking out in the West. By saying that censorship in West is the same as in China he shows that it is not same at all.
… via
@YouTube
It seems that Hamas purposely are trying to get Israel to attack Gaza, thereby inflicting heavy toll on the civilians. This is a terrorist act of nth degree, to kill Israeli civilians but also Muslim civilians in Gaza. I am amazed some people cheered Hamas for this hideous act.
Also a 20-year long debate, whether Shanghai can overtake Hong Kong as a finance center, is finally settled. Shanghai has done it and it has done it the easiest way—by turning Hong Kong into a Shanghai.
True joke from China.
“Never doubt the ability of China’s Communist Party. It took the U.S. 100 years to turn New York into a global financial center. But the Party has turned Singapore into a global financial center in just three years!”
I have never understood the argument that EVs made in China, subsidized as they are, are a threat. It is a gift from China and its overcapacity is a forcible mechanism to keep China globalized. Why is that a bad thing?
Here's two magazine covers by the
@TheEconomist
ten years apart, each depicting our Earth facing an existential threat.
In 2013, the threat was China's carbon emissions. In 2024, the new threat is China's lead in green technologies.
What will be the end game? The implications are massive. First and foremost is to avoid bloodshed. For that it is better to tone down rather than tone up the rhetoric. For the other it will be good to see some dialogue. Not easy and probably impossible given the amorphous nature
The long podcast I did with
@KaiserKuo
. I have done quite a few podcasts but this one went into the details of the book the most.
@KaiserKuo
really zeroed in deeply. Appreciate his careful reading.
#GoogleAlerts
Liu Yu, a Chinese writer, coined the term “everyday democracy” in her book about America. COVID0 imposes an “everyday autocracy” on China. It was not like this before. In economic and social spheres there used to be freedom and agency. Autocracy was not everyday nor everywhere.
The Nashville shooting is the 129th this year and we are still in March. For Congress, this may not be a compelling case to ban assault weapons. But don’t despair. They will go after TikTok.
Hong Kong routinely accounts for some 50 to 70 percent of FDI into China, of which a high proportion came from mainland Chinese firms. That way Chinese firms acquired a legal status in Hong Kong and accessed many of the market economy conditions of Hong Kong.
China is special not because it has cracked the code of state capitalism, but because its system has had an escape valve by way of Hong Kong, one of the most laissez-faire economies in the world, argues
@MIT
's
@YashengHuang
.
In my book, I argued that it is wrong to assert democracy as a “universal value.” It is not even a national value in America. Close to half of the electorate support a transparent autocrat. And we tell the rest of the world it is a universal value? Let’s be very honest here.
Trump: "China, many years ago, was being taken over by much smaller countries bc they were all drugged out on the poppy fields. The poppy. The drugs. Heroin. The nation was drugged out. And then along came a very powerful leader, you know who that is, and he said, 'no more.'"
My friends in Paris took me to a Chinese restaurant. Over a bowl of dumplings, in America we would chat about finance, AI and geopolitics. Here the topics are Hugo, Balzac and Zola. How refreshing! A throwback to the days when we memorized opening lines of Jean Christophe.
@YashengHuang
@YouTube
I think he actually means it is becoming like Mao’s China; look no further than DEI, ESG, and crackdowns on the Freedom Convoy in Canada, etc.
Furthermore, the cancel culture, particularly on campus. Xi Van Fleet and Yunmi Park have discussed these issues extensively.
In my conversations with Chinese academics and business people, they complained about biased coverage in the Western media about China, such as on slow growth, regulatory crackdowns and aggressive foreign policy. Okay, this is an understandable perspective.
This is one of few articles that got it right. China’s successes have been driven by collaborations. It is no different from scientific and technological achievements elsewhere.
FT op-ed: "Although China is keen to find a path to scientific self-reliance, in reality the country’s successes in science and technology are…a direct result of frequent exchanges and connectivity with the scientific community globally."
Why is China such a manufacturing hub? People jump on low labor costs as an explanation. Not wrong but it is incomplete. Little noted is that manufacturing, especially for export, tends to be located in high cost areas within China. Cluster economy is another crucial factor.
One interesting detail from Chris Miller's book: PRC created its first integrated circuit in 1965, just 5 years after Noyce and Kilby. Were it not for Mao, it would be a different debate today than the one on TSMC.
Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
Really sad. I just spoke at its conference and it was one of the best conferences ever. The podcasts by
@KaiserKuo
are deep and extraordinarily informative. This is something we have been discussing: just as the world needs more knowledge of China, we are producing less of it.
In this paper Clair Yang and I used micro data from Ming dynasty to show how the imperial exam system contributed to the longevity of imperial autocracy.
I noticed a difference between how scientists and national security scholars perceive China. Many US scientists have collaborated with their colleagues in China and they have Chinese students in their labs. They tend to perceive China from that person to person perspective.
Statism is not how China grew but amazingly many Chinese policy elites insisted that it was. When they cracked down on private sector they might not anticipate it would slow down growth to this extent. They had a different growth model in mind.
“Economic statism is not the savior of the Chinese economy—it is an existential threat to it.” Read
@YashengHuang
on why state interventionism is to blame for China’s slowing economic growth:
This is an absurd idea. What stops tyranny of the government is institutions, such as democracy, independent court, notions of rights and free press. Not guns. May I remind you that government has tanks, missiles and some have nuclear weapons?
She specifically recognized and praised the contributions by Chinese Americans and she denounced racism in all forms in strongest terms. I went up to her after her speech and thanked her for her remarks. 2/2
you are right although he didn’t support reform policies until Deng forced him in the early 90s. He then embraced it of course partly because his son was getting so rich from various deals
How did Israel become a technological superpower? Soviet Union. Soviet Union repressed its intellectuals, many of whom were Jewish. They migrated to Israel in 1970s creating a startup nation. Then Soviet Union itself collapsed. Persecute your intellectuals at your own risk.
In this talk I gave at Stanford, I propose four ways for the United States to engage with China more productively and without sacrificing principles on human rights and democracy.
US China Relations in the Age of Uncertainty with Yasheng Huang via
@YouTube
I remember reading research that Taiwanese people began to observe traffic regulations more after Taiwan became democratic. One interpretation is that people observe rules they feel they had a role in making and formulating more than observing the rules imposed on them.
Some may argue China has a lower death rate than democracies, even if we apply the highest mortality estimate. Let's be clear. Most deaths in China occurred after vaccines were invented, with ample knowledge about the virus and situational know-how.
History is written by winners, except the history of globalization. Many moan that advanced semiconductor manufacturing is in Asia,not in America. We forget America’s corporate malaise of the 70s and 80s. Morris Chang returned to Taiwan because executives of TI would not
I have never believed in the so-called autocratic edge in public health. I wrote this piece in Boston Review as early as April 2020, casting doubt on the Chinese approach.
I have long felt that universities allocate rather than defend free speech. The allocation is inversely correlated with power a group is perceived to have. Jews are viewed as powerful and thus are allocated less speech. Rungs down are Chinese. This is a terrible system!
The presidents of
@Harvard
,
@MIT
, and
@Penn
were all asked the following question under oath at today’s congressional hearing on antisemitism:
Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?
The…
Great to see
@YashengHuang
address a packed audience at
@AsiaGInstitute
in
@HKUniversity
. A riveting conversation addressing the past vs. present juxtaposition in China's state-political economy, and the perils of over-securitisation and -politicisation. Candid thoughts!
I am not clear how decimating Gaza hurts Hamas. They are militants and they are suicide bombers. How do you threaten death to someone who happily commits suicide for his cause? And you inflict a horrific toll on civilians who are not Hamas precisely because they value life.
I applaud this gesture. Viruses have no borders. Helping China is helping ourselves, not to mention the humanitarian considerations. I tweeted a similar idea a few weeks ago.
The U.S. is prepared to help China deal with a surge of Covid cases if Beijing requests assistance, the White House said. "We are prepared to help in any way they might find acceptable." Spokesman John Kirby said China has not requested help.
It seems that zero Covid measures have intensified rather than being relaxed after the 20th Congress. Maybe local leaders were as clueless as we were about the leadership lineup before the Congress but now there is not any ambiguity left.
You don’t usually want others to know you are spying. To choose this visible method, with dubious utility, maybe it is a civilian balloon, as claimed. Or, on the eve of Xi-Blinken meeting, visibility, and damage, might be the goal on the part of those who released the balloon.
Human Rights Watch should condemn the decision by the Supreme Court. Causing a loss of a right is as egregious as violating an existing right. No country is beyond reproach and should escape international scrutiny for its conduct and policy.
This is an absurd idea. What stops tyranny of the government is institutions, such as democracy, independent court, notions of rights and free press. Not guns. May I remind you that government has tanks, missiles and some have nuclear weapons?
I often point out to the Chinese supporters of GOP the following: You claim to value and care about your children and yet you vote for a party that perpetuates a policy that puts your children in constant danger. You are not even selfish in a right way.
Guns are now the No. 1 killer of children in the U.S., surpassing car crashes. Gun death rates for children have been rising for years, and in 2020 guns became the leading cause of death for those ages 1 to 18.
Once somebody explained to me that Harvard kids deserve high GPAs because they are clearly smart enough to get into Harvard. Okay, by this logic why do the athletes at Olympics still need to compete with each other? Why not give gold medals to all of them?
The Harvard I knew taught me analytics as well as an idea to see truth as separate from oneself. This students’ statement violates multiple lessons I learned there. Today an average Harvard grade is an A-. (I was told.) How does a student know his argument is weak, not strong?