From Chairman Mao to Xi Jin Ping....Has China Changed?
Now whether you like China or not, there is one thing that everyone can agree on, China’s infrastructure and the opportunities for Chinese to create wealth have all changed tremendously over the past 50 years. But despite the economic success, many Westerners claim China’s government has never changed and as a result, Chinese citizens are slaves lacking human rights and basic freedoms.
2021 is an important year for China. The Communist Party celebrates its 100-year anniversary this July, and while it’s true Chinese citizens have not seen any changes in political freedom, Chinese citizens have seen an EXPLOSION of personal freedom over the past 3 decades. None of that would be possible without the Chinese government making significant change along the way.
Fifty years ago, when the United States established international relations with communist China, China had an economy that no foreigner would ever consider investing in or even collaborating cross-border. Its economy was lethargic, run down, and completely backwards to anything of growing and prosperous nation. To give everyone some perspective, 50 years ago in China, the government did not allow its citizens to use currency to purchase goods.
Citizens instead received ration coupons from the government to redeem for rice, oil, and flour. People in China were not allowed to open a business of any kind, almost everyone had their jobs assigned to them from the government. Having an education was looked down upon as citizens only job was to be a worker for the party and fit inside the system.
50 years later, everything has changed in China. China continues to be one of the most valuable overseas markets in the world for international investors. In 2020, as China successfully controlled the Covid 19 pandemic and saw its economy expand instead of contract, it surpassed the United States and became the world’s leading destination for direct foreign investment.
As Western governments around the world are calling for a “decoupling” from China, the world’s most successful companies, Apple, Disney, Tesla, Starbucks, Nike, Adidas to name a few are actually doing the complete opposite, they are expanding their operations and marketing efforts inside the middle kingdom.
Fast forward to today and entrepreneurship is not only encouraged in China but supported from the government. The small fishing village of Shenzhen has been the fastest growing city on the planet the past 40 years. Chinese citizens from every corner of the country flock to Shenzhen, nicknamed the “Silicon Valley of China” with dreams of starting a company, raising seed capital, and expanding internationally. To increase its competitiveness in the tech space, the local government in Shenzhen announced it would reduce the income tax for high end scientific and technological talent from 45% to 15%. The difference of this tax amount will be supplemented by the local Shenzhen government. This is how China is growing faster and becoming more technologically advanced than any other country in the world!
Having an education was once considered taboo inside the country of China, now it is your most valuable resource and in the eyes of China’s government one of the key methods used to reduce poverty alleviation across the country. If there is one key message that I want everyone to remember from this article it’s this:
The China of today has evolved profoundly and is now closer to a Western set of values than ever before in history.
Now some people have challenged me on this thought. Critics argue with me, China’s economic growth is a result of the strong will and hard work ethic of the Chinese people, it has nothing to do with the government. But is that true?
Many people don’t know the true history behind Chairman Mao’s vision for China and how he wanted to work directly with the United States to achieve a modern and prosperous China.
The gentleman at the center of the above photo is John Service, an American diplomat who served in the foreign service in China. He was born in 1909 in Chengdu to missionary parents and by the age of 7 had mastered the Chinese language. John Service would go on to spend a significant amount of time with Chairman Mao, in fact he was invited into Mao’s cave home and the two men talked for 8 hours with a break for dinner cooked by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing. When John Service met with Mao in 1944, he would have more substantial conversations with Mao than any other American government official would have for the next quarter century. This is one of the key takeaways from Mao’s conversation with John Service:
"China must industrialize. This can be done in China only by free enterprise and with the aid of foreign capital. Chinese and American interests are correlated and similar. We can and must work together...we will be interested in the most rapid possible development of the country on constructive and productive lines. America does not need to fear that we will not be cooperative. We must cooperate and we must have American help...we cannot risk crossing you...cannot risk any conflict with you".
Ultimately Chairman Mao’s message would never reach the American President Franklin Roosevelt, and Mao’s vision of China working together would not come to fruition until Deng Xiao Ping began opening up China in the late 1970s.
As China built a fruitful relationship with the United States, one in which both America and China both benefited from tremendously. Chinese citizens saw the expansion of more and more personal freedoms as a result. Venture capitalist Eric Xi Li famously states in his groundbreaking TED Talk that:
In China you can’t change the party but can change the policies, and in America you can change the party, but you can’t change the policies
But let’s fast forward to today. What are some real examples of how China’s government is changing? Earlier this year, the Chinese government announced 13 new laws that went into effect on March 1st, 2021. Let me highlight a handful of them to give you some insights:
Over the past two years, several child molestation cases have been brought to light. The public demanded harsher sentences for such heinous crimes and that call has been answered.
In recent years, there have been incidents where passengers got into arguments with bus drivers and assaulted them or tried to interfere with the driving of the bus. This is now classified as a criminal activity.
In the past couple of years, several scandals broke out with people stealing others’ identities during the famous “Gao Kao” which is China’s College Entry Examination. These scandals typically involved corrupt local high school officials. This has always been illegal, but it now will be more severely punished.
Last December, several prominent writers were involved in plagiarism scandals and came out to apologize for betraying the public’s trust. Chinese citizens demanded stronger copyright protection laws, and this has been passed.
Finally, the pharmaceutical industry has been tightening in China for several years now and the price of most essential medicine & medical procedures are regulated by the government, so the hospitals & pharmaceutical companies cannot price gouge.
The amazing thing about these 13 new laws that went into effect on March 1st, 2021 is that almost all of them are the direct result of public outcry following several high profile legal cases in China.
Most Westerners would never believe Chinese citizens have an opportunity to voice their opinion and express their desire for change. Chinese citizens do exactly that and here is the interesting part…the Chinese government listens and sometimes (not always) makes changes.
To further illustrate my point, consider this: In 2020, Bilibili (China’s equivalent to YouTube) most Popular Content Creator of the Year Award went to Luo Xiang, a law professor whose channel focuses on sharing legal knowledge. He often uses high profile cases to point out loopholes in the existing criminal code.
Imagine that, China’s #1 social media content creator in 2020 was a law professor who publicly points out loopholes in China’s legal system, and how does China’s government respond? By changing.
In conclusion I want to end this video with one final thought. Many people say to me. Cyrus, we don’t judge Germany’s difficult past with Hitler and Nazi party because quite simply the Nazi party is no longer in power in Germany. However, we cannot accept China’s one-party state, it is the same political party of Chairman Mao and therefore it must end!
To give everyone some valuable perspective, I want to introduce you to former US President Woodrow Wilson, who was an avid supporter of the Ku Klux Klan and passed laws to segregate blacks from whites in America. Here is the interesting catch…. President Wilson was a proud member of the Democratic Party, the exact same party that is ruling the White House today. Now are we going to judge President Joe Biden for being a Democrat and having the same policies of a racist Woodrow Wilson? Of course not, because just like China’s one-party state, the democratic party in America has changed significantly over the past 70 years!