BOOK REVIEW
New and old China's Megatrends by John Naisbitt and Doris Naisbitt
Reviewed by Benjamin A Shobert
Given the overwhelming direction and tenor of recent books on China - those
that predict its economic or nationalistic political implosion, others which
shrilly warn of the country's regional aspirations or of the fundamental
incompatibilities between China's autocrats and America's capitalists - much of
John and Doris Naisbitt's most recent book China's Megatrends: the 8 Pillars of
a New Society is a worthy reminder of what the country and its
leadership has done, and continues to, do well.
Perhaps most importantly, the Naisbitt's book presents to American readers a
very China-centric perspective on the political
and policy agenda. While this is the book's greatest strength, it is equally
its greatest weakness.
John Naisbitt's most famous work is his 1982 book Megatrends: Ten New Directions
Transforming our Lives, in which he made 10 predictions (some
admittedly more bold than others), several of which have proven to be
remarkably accurate. Specifically, in the 1982 book he identified the
transition the American economy would make from industry and manufacturing to
information technology.
In addition, Naisbitt saw the early contours of what we would come to call
globalization but which was, when Megatrends was first written, not a
commonly understood idea. Having turned his attention to China, the recently
released China's Megatrends makes a similar effort to peer into China's
future and identify what the Naisbitts believe are the primary components of
the Chinese cultural and political landscape which have to be understood if we
are to continue engaging in a productive relationship with China.
The Naisbitts begin their book with what they call the "8 Pillars of a New
Society". Respectively, these include "emancipation of the mind, balancing
top-down and bottom-up, framing the forest and letting the trees grow, crossing
the river by feeling the stones, artistic and intellectual ferment, joining the
world, freedom and fairness and from Olympic medals to Nobel prizes". (pg xii)
Several of these pillars obviously build off of slogans widely known inside and
out of China that have come to well-represent the important and substantive
changes the country has made; unfortunately, others seem to have been handed
off directly from Xinhua and seem tinged with over-enthusiasm and what can come
across like propaganda.
Early in China's Megatrends, the Naisbitts work to make what they, and
other advocates of China's decades of reform, believe is a particularly
important point: that whatever concerns we might have about China's political
reforms, at the end of the day what matters is that China is delivering an
improving standard of living for its people, and that this is what the people
living in China care about most.
Further discussing Western frustration and understandably framing it as a
misunderstanding by Westerners, the Naisbitts write, "Westerners like to focus
on what China's 'reforms and opening up' mean in terms of Western thinking -
with the conviction that the Western model is the best form of government. That
approach will lead to disappointment and unrealistic expectations. The real
answer lies not in ideology but in performance." (pg 4 - emphasis by
reviewer) Such economic determinism (that politics follows economics) is easy
enough to agree on, but the Naisbitts do not always draw out the potential
limitations to a political system built entirely on economic advancement with
truncated personal freedoms.
This Naisbitts' point is important because it tends to be poorly understood and
appreciated by China's critics. After all, emerging from the historical misery
the country was fighting to leave behind as it opened itself to the West, an
embrace from Beijing of pragmatic economic and political reform, with the
particular emphasis on improving quality of life, is a reasonable and important
goal.
Equally important is the seed the Naisbitts plant distinguishing between
Western cultures, which tend to be "individualistic", versus Eastern cultures,
which are more "group-oriented" (pg 29). They write of this in more detail when
they state:
The United States as the flag carrier of individual freedom
in the world, and Europe as flag carrier for humanism, therefore feel the
responsibility to admonish those countries and societies that do not live up to
the universal values by which all individuals should abide. However, if you are
from a group-oriented society, where loyalty is first to the group and then to
the individual, you of course would believe that your way is the right way for
you ... (pg 29)
This is a critical distinction, and one
sometimes glossed over by critics of China.
However, these same critics have a deeper question that the Naisbitts' analysis
treats in a fashion that is not entirely satisfactory: if a political system
derives its legitimacy by delivering economic results but making individual
freedoms secondary, what happens when an economic or other national crisis
emerges? What happens when the banking system teeters, or the economy becomes
recessionary? Would such events create social turbulence that could get out of
hand and destabilize the path forward that thinkers such as the Naisbitts
envision for China?
And is this approach really a long-term strategy, or does it impose constraints
that are incompatible with the human condition? Overall, the Naisbitts book
does a good job reminding the reader of how far China's leaders have come and
how much they believe future economic growth will continue to legitimize their
rule, but if we reflect back on history, might we suggest that somewhere in the
not-too-distant future, China's domestic politics may transcend its cultural
confines and be forced to embrace more universal human desires for freedom and
a desire to be individually recognized?
Here the Naisbitts would likely agree, and recognizing the intellectual need to
pre-empt such concerns, point towards their second pillar, "Balancing Top-Down
and Bottom-Up" as a means of explaining what Chinese mean when they think about
individual freedom:
For Americans, freedom means the opportunity to
determine how they live, unfettered by arbitrary actions of others. This view
is shared in most of the Western world, where the rights of the individual are
a major pillar of society. But freedom means different things to different
people. Chinese thinking is very much influenced by two fundamental
requirements: social order and harmony. (pg 41 - emphasis by reviewer)
The Naisbitts do an adequate job of presenting the argument that the Chinese
elevate these two characteristics above that of other conceptions, namely
personal freedom, that Western cultures believe are most important.
Many sociologists have made exhaustive attempts to categorize the differences
between East and West, with the hope of explaining how they are either mutually
incompatible or may someday blend into a political ideal that is the best of
both worlds. Regardless of the reader's position on the question of whether
human freedom can be understood as cultural or universal, it seems reasonable
enough to suggest that the Naisbitts may not provide adequate analysis of the
downsides to the particular group dynamics of the Chinese.
While the China model stands today as a provocative idea of how to build a
national economy, many of these same cultural characteristics that the
Naisbitts point towards were also in place during the disaster of Mao Zedong's
leadership. On balance, in matters such as these, China's Megatrends does
a very good job elevating the Chinese perspective and context, but in its
excitement over China's recent growth, overlooks many downside risks that the
reader would do well to understand.
In this spirit, the Naisbitts' treatment of freedom of speech is difficult to
fully commend. On this, the Naisbitts write, "One frame that took quite long to
widen was freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In a society where being
connected is of more value than being an individual, the harmony of the whole
is of great importance. Anything that would disturb this harmony would be
silenced for the benefit of the whole." (pg 85)
This is a backwards-looking justification of why China puts forward media
restrictions. Yes, China practices certain freedom of speech restrictions in
line with a cultural value system that does not want the boat rocked; however,
this overlooks the very real legitimacy of such restrictions which stem from
events like the Cultural Revolution, or the many other aborted attempts by
dissidents within China who wanted to critique Mao's rule.
On balance, the reader is left wishing the Naisbitts would incorporate a little
more historical perspective that acknowledges the unique cultural values China
possesses but does not wholly overlook where some of the country's political
values have arisen from a very checkered history of repression and choked
voices of dissent.
The Naisbitts understand the difficulties presented by their somewhat
single-minded emphasis of what China is doing well, and their well-intentioned
desire to properly contextualize China for Western readers. But some of their
attempts to do this go too far, and in doing so, de-legitimize much of their
argument. A good example is their sub-section titled "Censorship is not a
Chinese invention" (pg 102).
In this, the Naisbitts point towards examples of the US censoring controversial
books as well as Joseph McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American
Activities as moments when the US exhibited much the same suppression of
dissent as China is now guilty of. As presented, the Naisbitts would have the
reader believe these are much the same thing, when they are not.
The Chinese government's transition towards its current form has been marked by
changes that 30 years ago would have been unbelievable; however, the Chinese
system still has its own legacy to deal with, and that legacy is not predicated
wholly on unique characteristics of their culture - as the Naisbitts would have
you believe - it owes a certain debt to the particularly insidious form of
communism Mao practiced.
Among these is how the country's political leaders view individual freedom and
property rights, and the role of dissent in society. By pointing back towards
moments in US history when we made our own clumsy, ham-handed and seemingly
autocratic policies, the Naisbitts would have the reader believe China's issues
are transitional only, when they may be something much deeper. While such
disagreements may not present incompatibilities the two countries cannot work
through, glossing over them does nothing to move the conversation forward -
either within China or Washington.
On the whole, the Naisbitts most recent book does make a contribution to
current US-China thought by reminding us of China's perspective on the changes
they have made, and those that still remain unresolved. Our own economic
insecurities have led us to see more problems with this relationship than the
good it has done us, China and the world around.
But the Naisbitts' book at times smells too strongly of a proselytizing tract,
with too little attention paid to China's problems, specifically the limits of
its approach to domestic politics. The most important point that wrestling with China's
Megatrends provides may be the realization that whatever form China's
next political phase takes, it is unlikely to be a model fully recognizable by
Americans.
China's Megatrends: The 8 Pillars of a New Society by John Naisbitt and
Doris Naisbitt. HarperBusiness (January 5, 2010). ISBN-10: 0061859443. Price
US$27.99, 272 pages.
Benjamin A Shobert is the managing director of Teleos Inc
(www.teleos-inc.com), a consulting firm dedicated to helping Asian businesses
bring innovative technologies into the North American market.
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