If I were ever going to write a book about my 10 years in China, this might be the first chapter, because I believe my American friends need some background about what life in China was all about — a frame of reference, if you will.
I was working for The Paducah Sun in Kentucky when I got a little restless in 1997. I saw a classified ad in a trade magazine called Editor & Publisher looking for editors to work for one year at China Daily in Beijing. I applied and was surprised to get an invitation to work from late June 1997 to late June 1998. China Daily provided apartments to its “foreign experts” — a group of about 12 native English speakers whose job it was to “polish” the reports written by the Chinese staff reporters until they were fluent for publication. The newspaper was owned and operated by the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China.
Yes, I’m sure there’s a CIA dossier with my name on it somewhere.
Actually, under the old Chinese communist system, all workers had their apartments provided for them. Technically, they did have to pay rent, but it was minimal, and of course, everything belonged to the state. The pay was minimal, too. But the center of life in China at that time was the work unit, whether it was a factory or a restaurant or a newspaper. Everyone knew everyone, and each company also had a party representative who outranked even the president of the company.
As a result of that arrangement, the party always had its spies out. If something unusual happened — let’s say a family whose wife became pregnant with a second child, which was illegal at the time — it wasn’t long before the authorities were informed and proper steps taken to remedy the problem (in this case, a forced abortion).
Let’s take a step back for a moment. Under the leadership of Mao Zedong (it used to be spelled Mao Tse-tung), the Communists ran the Nationalists off to Taiwan and established the “People’s Republic of China” in 1949. Mao lived until 1976, after which there was a period of uncertainty regarding leadership within the party. Mao had hand-picked a successor, who was regarded as a man of high character but couldn’t form any kind of coalition to run things. Then came Deng Xiaoping, who was in charge from roughly 1978 until he retired just after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
After Deng — who is revered as the number two leader in Chinese history after the People’s Republic was established — came Jiang Zemin, a powerful leader from the Shanghai faction of the party. He became general secretary after Deng stepped down and held the position until 2002. One of the other leaders at the same time was Zhu Rongji, who became premier (the number two) under Jiang in 1998 and served only one five-year term. But one thing Zhu did changed life in China forever.
Basically, under Zhu, the communist work unit’s structure — which had been in place for almost 50 years — was broken down. He told the people, “We’re going to pay you more to work, but now you have to pay proper rent.” The people were going to have to take charge of their own lives and buy long-term leases (the state still owns everything), and that turned out to be a hallmark. Zhu and Jiang didn’t get along in many ways, and perhaps Zhu — who was famous for his work ethic — doesn’t get the credit I think he deserves for paving the way for the other major event in modern China’s economic history — joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.
Once China joined the WTO, it had to play by the same trade rules as all the other countries in the world. It was a bit of a struggle at first, but as of 2016, China surpassed Japan and is ranked as the number two economy in the world, after the United States.
But Zhu’s putting Chinese people in charge of their own destinies, economically speaking, had far-reaching effects on workers’ attitudes. Under the communist scheme, workers couldn’t have cared less about their jobs. Pride in a job well done meant nothing because promotions were usually based on political criteria, not performance. Even the apartments were drab because they belonged to the state, so who cared how they looked? Besides, it’s always been part of the Chinese mindset not to stand out. No person is more important than the group. Individuality was not important, and to a large extent, it’s still true. It’s just part of Chinese culture — just the opposite of how we think in the West.
To give you an idea about that, the Chinese loved NBA basketball while I was there. They highly respected Michael Jordan because of his work ethic on behalf of the Chicago Bulls, and the six championships spoke for themselves. Compare that with Dennis Rodman — the tattoos, the “look at me” attitude, even the dressing up in a bridal gown. The Chinese had zero regard for him.
Now, China’s rise on the world economic stage has its downside. Chinese people now have more money than they’ve ever had — if they’re willing to work for it. But now there’s a certain arrogance that comes with it. More and more headlines pop up in Asian newspapers about Chinese overseas travelers who have a sense of entitlement just because they’re Chinese. And the government even promotes that attitude, intentionally or not, with the way it deals with its neighbors over — for example — which islands belong to China in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. It acts like a 3-year-old: ‘Every toy is mine!”
Yet in a way, China’s standing up for itself is understandable. The country has a long history of being beaten down by England or France or — in the 20th century — Japan. Finally, the Chinese have the economic power to say, “Enough!” It’s just that now they sometimes carry that self-confidence a bit too far.
When China opened its doors to the world in 1979 and American and European companies sent senior executives to live there and teach the Chinese lessons in how to do “joint ventures,” nobody knew how much China could grow. Now we do. In a few years, China’s economy will surpass that of the United States and be number one.
But quantity does not necessarily equal quality. China still has a long way to go in producing dependable products that it can export to other countries. There are very few brand names that the world recognizes as Chinese, let alone respects them. The only reason so many things marked “made in China” are of any quality at all is that the Western companies that employ the Chinese workforce send inspectors to make sure the quality of the products matches the reputation of the brand name.
The Chinese and U.S. economies are now forever tied together. China is richer than ever before. I still remember when I first arrived in Beijing in 1997, Chinese TV still showed reruns of Dallas and Dynasty. The Chinese thought all Americans lived like the Ewings and the Carringtons. In only 40 years, they have begun to carve their own dynasties, which have nothing to do with emperors and military power.
Napoleon was once quoted as saying, “Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.” Two centuries later, I guess he was right.
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