大象传媒

Why are the human rights abuses of China so consistently ignored by the media, and other institutions which discuss its economic miracle? It is only a miracle in that its transformation from a pre-industrial society invaded willy-nilly by the west, to an economic power in the modern world providing just-in-time services globally has been achieved through mass murder, (indirect through famine and explicit through annexation eg. Tibet), extortion, corruption and single-party authoritarianism. China regularly vetoes UN sanctions against Iran or Sudan and other human rights violaters, because these countries provide its energy. How did the IOC ever agree to host the Olympics there? Was it some naieve hope that the presence of thousands of journalists and tourists would force it to reform? Lets compare the economic miracle of China with that of India, where international companies can conduct business as they wish to do, and where although there is a serious problem with corruption at all levels of government, the free market operates in a real democracy, with a rich and functional media, and freedom of religion. Is the focus on China's economy, rather than its culture, at the behest of editors? Take for example last year's China week on 大象传媒 Radio. If Iraq was worth invading for the crimes of its ruler, is the media focus on China's economic power a tacit justification for our unwillingness to condemn its tyranny? Do we believe that system is sustainable? It will only be so long before the contradictions in the CCP system tear China apart at the cultural seams (compared to India's stability: we ought all to invest in the Delh-e-revolution) and we might have some hope of a Tibetan state ruled by the Dalai Lama, as well as autonomy for Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.

How on earth did Will Hutton get another book deal???

Tell us about the state we're (they're) in Will

Why there are still people worried about China's human rights? Do these people live on Mars and don't buy anything made in China? Do as Lord Powell, go to China and study the country then come here and tell us what do you think!

i agree the debate over the topic of China, but i do not believe any debate or research will give the public any conclusion or any kind of assurance, only time will tell.

The economic achievements come with a cost, eg,hard work for workers, acused by the west about the polution of the air... it's not easy to achieve, but it's also seen as a threat by the west. in fact, all of this is not enough to bring all the people from poverty yet.

and also it's not going to help when tiding up political policy with economics. i do not think there is going to be a change in the politic system. the simple reason is that China is to big to be under democratic, too many people with different points of view/goal/objective, so almost impossible to agree anything with each other on any policy. it is just like european union members do not agree with each other on certain issues.

but also if there is a change in politics, there is almost certain that there is going to be a battle or even a war. i do seriously believe that no one like that to happen, neither chinese people or westen people. we do not like another war anywhere, that is the most simple reason.

but in fact, chinese people are no longer interest in politics, eg.which party or system should be in China. because first of all, everyone needs to make a living for their own family. politicis will not help with it in people's normal daily life.

i am chinese student in england,just watched the newsnight.
very pity, it's another so-call expert talk about China. Mr Will Hutton thought he knows China, but i think he does not know what is going on China, what is chinese thinking? same as most of english.
i watch tv and read newspaper everyday. and i want to say communist always lies and west media always lies as well.

I have to agree with Bruno Lacey. The first question is why has China been doing so well economically. The answer is that the US government wants it to. This decision was made around 1973 by President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger because a nation with the hydrogen bomb and a billion starving people was just too dangerous to be allowed to continue that way. At the end of the cold war, America's economic hothouse was moved from Europe to China. China enjoys well over a 100 billion dollar a year trade surplus with the US. China now has a vested interest in not engaging in a nuclear war with the US.

But the current rate of growth is unsustainable for many reasons. An aging population, huge trade imbalances resulting in a backlash in its market nations due to job losses, widespread local ecological catastrophes and consequences of global warming, overtaxing of the earth's resources especially oil, are but a few. Unrealizable expectations of nearly a billion poor in China could lead to widespread social unrest, even upheaval. The future for China actually seems to me to be rather bleak. This doesn't let Europe off the hook though. Most Western European economies (Britain may be an exception thanks to Margaret Thatcher) are no longer viable and could crack like eggs. War in the Middle east could shoot oil to $150 to $200 a barrel bankrupting Europe. A recession in the US would marginally reduce exports of already weak economies with disasterous results. A precipitous fall in the US dollar would only make matters worse. And Europe has it own demographic time bombs ticking away.

Why doesn't the Western media say anything about the truth of China? Because to anger the Chinese government with negative talk gets you thrown out on your ear, so they kiss up, 大象传媒 included.

Should the West try to "push" China into changing its governance? No way. The West has generally made a mess of things all over the world from Argentina to Iraq when it's tried. The Chinese should be left to create their own social disaster so that they have only themselves to blame. We certainly won't be able to fix it when it happens.

suppose even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while, but Will Hutton has an almost perfect record as a countra-indicator. In the seventies and eighties he was arguing that Maggie's liberalization of the UK economy was a disaster, and that what the UK needed was Japan-style guided development. Japan then entered a recession they still have not recovered from. Then he claimed that the UK and British economies would suffer from wage competition from Mexico. The Mexican economy and currency went into free-fall shortly after. Five years ago he was arguing that for the UK not to enter the Euro would ensure that all FDI to the UK would dry up. They didn't enter, and FDI is now at record levels.

I've always been impressed that someone who gets things wrong so consistently still manages to be widely published and has even managed to get funding for his own economic think-tank.

It's a mistake to define "the West" as one economic unit. The US economy is no longer linked to Europe's in the way it once was. Europe could and just might go broke without much interruption to the US. America can easily find alternate suppliers for almost anything Europe now ships to it that it really needs. America is a net importer from Europe. Europe and America are on a collision course for a trade war anyway. When it comes, Europe will find America a formidable opponent.

At least I will not buy this book. The author who talk on the book club, was so innorcent--He know so little about China and Chinese enconomy even Chinese government.I felt shame for him when I watch this programme. All what he wrote should be nosense and misleading.

I may now be behind on the latest peer reviewed publications, but my knowledge of the literature is the opposite to Hutton's central point:- that democracy is requisite for growth and increased (economic) welfare.

All the work I have seen on growth theory finds no causality from deomcratic structures to income per capita or growth in income per capita.

Just think of the contra anecdotes - Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia etc. no real or effective democracy in these or other conuntries.

Hutton would be on a better course of study by investigating democracy as a good with in a traditional sense with a positive income elasticity. As China becomes more wealthy people will gradually desire more democratic structures and so they will be delivered in a gradual and evolutionary way. In fact that is what we have seen over the last 20 years and are seeing today - an hypothesis with a much great correllation with the stylised facts than Hutton's constructs.

I must agree with earlier posters here. There is little Will Hutton brings to the debate, except for discussing what almost certainly will NOT happen.

And the contribution from some Chinese posters here is telling. I could well believe that Hutton is completely out of his depth in Chinese social and cultural understanding (even more so than his poor economics). From my very limited understanding, China and the Chinese are like an ice berg. So much hidden from view.

Having been working in China for 20 years and having read the book (in Hong Kong), i think its a pretty robust thesis - one whose complexity cannot be captured in a stylised, banal and effective PR film. Read it and engage with the whole thesis - both how it relates to CHina but also the US, globalisation and the relationship between markets and democracy (though the book doesnt couch the relationship in those blunt terms. But if you're interested in work on democracy and development, check work by Rodrik, Lindert and Halperin, Siegle and Weinstein's "The Democracy Advantage"). However, what's most symbolic and striking is how the CHinese posters here resort to customary ad hominem attacks. Nobody has a monopoly on the truth and lack of self-knowledge, especially of history knows no national boundaries.

nathan taylor #11
The ad hominem attacks by Chinese posters is to be expected. Most will have neither the perspective nor sophisticaton we in the West have about basic concepts such as human rights and it is natural for them to be defensive when it comes to criticism of their country no matter how justified we feel those criticisms may be. It will take time for Chinese intellectuals and the wider Chinese public to understand and come to grips with these issues but it will happen eventually in their own good time and in their own way. We need to be patient with them. They've come a very long way in a very short time already.

The current conditions in China today bear a remarkable resemblance to the United States around the 1880s with its robber baron industrialists, corruption, exploited workers who toil under inhuman conditions at subsistance wages, air and water polution, rural poverty but that is a far cry from where they were just 25 years ago, a remarkable achievement. Let's see where they get to in the next 25 years. Their most important goal should be to stay out of wars.

I find his ideas on China laughable. Another Westerner thinking they know so much about China when all they ever knew is left over from the colonial period and when Britain ruled the waves so to speak. China can manage quite nicely on its own - even if the US or Britain never buy one thing from it again - don't forget China has a massive influence in Africa and South America. Many people on this blog are typically spouting off a very imperialistic interpretation of China and the way it conducts itself. No wonder China sits back and laughs at us - I know because I am married to a Mainland Chinese and travel there frequently. It may surprise Britain that this massive country with a fifth of the world's population puts Britain very far down its list as far as having to listen to someone like Mr Hutton. It just isn't worth their while - they have too many other things to think about like making sure 1.5 billion people have enough food (which happens).

It is no surprise that some of the posters are so ignorant about China, such as (Bruno Lacey) as Mrs MacLeod said, another Westerner who thinks he is so knowledgeable to comment on Chinese affairs.
Dalai Lama is a self-serving, self-promoting phoney, I always wonder why nobody in the west see through his mask. As for whether China has annexed Tibet, it is down to which version of the Chinese history you read.
I was born and bred in Hong Kong, I know too well that history is not what it seems. In the west, you have history of the victors, in China, we have history by the KMT and the Mainland version. Please do not call the Chinese government a Communist government, Karl Marx will be turning in his grave if he ever knew his manifesto is being used by all these dictators - Lenin, Moa and all the rest of the dictators who claimed to be communists.
What Jack and Mark said was correct, political change is not going to help the daily life of the people in China, the main objective is to keep the country stable and to feed the population. The iliteracy rate in China is at least 60%, I cannot even begin to envisage what a democractic election would bring under such condition. The s0-called democracy Bruno Lacey wanted would only bring more chaos and corruption.
Let's not forget, corruption happens everywhere, in HK during the British colonial days, the corruption in the police was so wide spread that when the government finally set the anti-corruption agency in the 70's, the entire polic force went on the street to protest and negotiated a settlement with the government that a few of the chiefs were prosecuted as scapegoats and the rest of the police force went back to work. One of the British officers is now living in Spain on his money made from his corruption days. So don't be too righteous when it comes to corruption.
As Bruno Lacey's comparison of Chinese economy and Indian economy is laughable. He obviously has no knowledge of either country, go and visit these two country before you pass any judgment.
China will develop her own brand of political system which will suit her people and the west do not have to worry about her. To bring democracy forcefully to a country as big as China will only bring about civil war, or maybe that is what some people want, after all, the west has a very good track record of splitting up countries, Korea, Vietnam, and even Germany :)
When will the west learn not to interfer with other countries' affairs?

One day China may became competitive country, if they open there bureaucracy power and more flexible with themselves chinese. And also turn over to observe human rigths. I born in Brazi, but my ancestors are from Taiwan/China.

Well, the political system of China today is complicated, influenced by its ancient culture and interaction with global political power development in the past century. Democracy is such a difficult thing in reality to the country under its current structure. To be fair, the issues with China today can be traced back to the tragic role of her people in the two world wars, more recently civil war between two power-rivaling political parties, and the influence by certain timely, inadvertent ideologies from the west. And perhaps industrailization in England had started the race for productivity before we were concerned about sustainability. Mr Hutton has a good point though - we are the stakeholders of this world together to mitigate such interconnected problems between China and the rest of the world, but it would really take transformation of the current governance system to a more effective and dynamic one.

In 2003, French president Chirac said that the most important human right is the right to be fed, right to be educated, right to have a job and right to affordable medical care -- This is such a simple definition yet such a high standard that no country on earth has achieved.
Judging by Chirac's standard, China certainly came a long way in the last 26 years - double digit economic growth and near zero inflation. Various versions of "Uncle Sam knows best" are certainly laughable not only to the CCP party leaders also to common Chinese people.
Chinese will eventualy reach where they want to go - on their own time table.A lot westerners preach humanitarian gospels to the Chinese yet reamin remarkably cold to the African AIDS crisis and food shortage even to the point of violating UN resolutions - the developed nations' obligatory contribution. So strange.

One has to remember (Laura Macleod) that Hutton has done extensive reading on the topic. Obviously he is not going to hit Chinese affairs perfectly - who would?. But then how can we say that his comments are laughable (A incredibly subjective/bias word)? Are we saying that all authors who are not native to their land of origin are barking up the wrong tree?

Europeans must understand importance of loss of face in Chinese business.Cannot do deal with Europeans unless Chinese businessman given face.This is our Chinese way -too much quick business does not lay golden egg.

There is no doubt that China is stepping up its role considerably in the textile world economy.The massive influx of Chinese cashmere into the British high street has meant that a hitherto luxury material is now within the reach of even the most modest purse.This is one very visible impact of new trading agreements between America,China and the West.Some people might say that cashmere is the new denim,although that might be a bridge too far.

if the US wants China to do so well then why are they not helping China to get Taiwan back????? huh....think they might be afraid of China because after taking Taiwan back China can catch up with US and might be NO.1 in d world.