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Globalization and development: Learning from debates in China James H. Mittelman a a American University, Washington, DC
Online Publication Date: 01 September 2006 To cite this Article: Mittelman, James H. (2006) 'Globalization and development: Learning from debates in China', Globalizations, 3:3, 377 - 391 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/14747730600870241 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14747730600870241
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Globalization and Development: Learning from Debates
in China
JAMES H. MITTELMAN
American University, Washington, DC
ABSTRACT How can a developing country capture the advantages of globalization? In
grappling with this question, China has played to its strengths and picked itself up by the
bootstraps, though not without mounting signs of apprehension. This case offers clues to what
vaults development forward in globalization. Largely overlooked in this search for a key is the
range of China’s internal debates. This creative dialogue could help overcome the despair of
antidevelopment, a multipronged attack on the whole developmentalist paradigm. Although
China’s encounter with globalization is problematic and does not offer a model to be copied,
it is a compelling case of a home-grown strategy of transformation, hope and self-confidence,
and a large measure of self-determination. In other contexts, the Chinese narrative prompts
the question of how to write a fresh script for development within the compass of neoliberal
globalization.
How can a developing country capture the advantages of globalization? In grappling with this
question, China has played to its strengths and picked itself up by the bootstraps, though not
without mounting signs of apprehension. Indeed, many observers are looking to China to find
clues to what spurs development in the context of globalization. Largely overlooked in this
search is the range of China’s internal debates. This creative dialogue, an interrogation of
globalization, could have an exhilarating impact on development studies.
China is surely a special case, but which case is not distinctive? Or free from structural
conditions in the global environment? Besides, how could one understand leapfrogging in
globalization and development if the largest and foremost national experience with maintaining
high-speed economic growth is not taken into account?
Specifically, it is worth turning to China for three reasons: the possibility of resuming its
historic pattern as world leader circa AD 500 – 1000; the immense impact of its political
Correspondence Address: James H. Mittelman, School of International Service, American University, 4400 Massachu-
setts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016-8071, USA. Email: [email protected]
1474-7731 Print=1474-774X Online/06=030377 – 15 # 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080=14747730600870241
Globalizations
September 2006, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 377 – 391
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economy on other regions as well as globalization itself; and the broad implications of the
internal debates even for small and less powerful actors.
A developing country that astutely navigates the currents of globalization, China has sus-
tained an annual growth rate above 9% in gross domestic product (GDP) for the last two
decades, the highest in the world, and has achieved improved living standards for the majority
of its people. In embracing globalization, China, of course, commands unique assets, including
26% of the world’s population (more than the combined total of Latin America and
sub-Saharan Africa) and thus a massive domestic market, a sizable domestic savings rate,
large-scale foreign investment, a hard-working and inexpensive labor force, and substantial
cultural resources. Whereas nearly all studies project that the Chinese economy will surpass
that of the United States as the biggest in the world in about 2020, as calculated in purchasing
power parity, Chinese government sources indicate that the country’s real per capita GDP is
less than US $1,000 (as cited in Ye, 2002, p. 64). According to The Financial Times (London),
the real income per head is 15% of the US level (Wolf, 2005, p. 13). 1
Yet, as will be shown in
the ensuing pages, severe weaknesses and uncertainties about how to adjust to a changing
world order abound.
What then are China’s internal debates over globalization? Buried in this question are more
specific issues:
1. Are the globalization debates in China, with its strong economic engine and authoritarian
regime, entirely focused on economic globalization, as many outside observers believe?
2. Do the country’s policymakers, academic intellectuals, and nascent civil-society groups share
outsiders’ worry about China’s emergence, or ‘peaceful rise’?
3. Insofar as politics in China is dominated by the discursive power of the state, are globaliza-
tion debates there confined to official transcripts? 2
4. Thus, are China’s internal debates about globalization really distinctive?
In addressing these questions, it is important to note that with Beijing’s official portrayal of
globalization as a win/win situation for building a ‘harmonious society’, China has its own brand of political correctness. Yet authoritarian politics is not fixed and invariant. Although
there is increasing freedom of expression in China—apparent, for example, in criticism
voiced by academic intellectuals at universities—it is accompanied by stringent restrictions
on written dissent. The sharp debates among China’s power holders and the populace are
often masked, partly by design and partly neglect or perhaps due to blinders on the outside.
Hence, the main objective in this article is to bring forth voices in the debates prompted by the
embedding of globalization in China. Insofar as voicelessness hinders comprehending globali-
zation and jump-starting development, attention should be given to unofficial transcripts that
extend beyond state narratives.
This approach is designed to help decenter globalization research, most often produced in the
West and then disseminated in the form of traveling paradigms, a major aspect of the reproduc-
tion of established ways of thinking. To ferret out the subtleties in evolving processes, emphasis
is placed on the interplay of the manifest and latent content of the transcripts, China’s globaliz-
ing text and its subtext, as well as between the political elite, dominated by authoritarian
conservatives, and a burgeoning political culture.
Another goal here is to stimulate critical responses from other analysts engaged in these
debates, thus advancing inquiry into the variability and intricacies of globalization. My aim is
to encourage specialists to articulate the specific debates on globalization formulated in multiple
378 J. H. Mittelman
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contexts. Researchers could then compare how diverse nodes and their prevailing discourses are
similar to and differ from those in China.
Toward these ends, I will draw on my five visits to China (1986, 1988, 2000, 2002, and 2005),
one as a guest of the government of the People’s Republic invited to observe and discuss market
reforms; the others involved teaching at three universities (Nankai, Fudan, and China Foreign
Affairs), lecturing in various venues, and carrying out research. Now, I will summarize—for
obvious reasons, without attribution—interviews and discussions (either with assistance by
interpreters or in English) with hundreds of people in China: government officials, representa-
tives of international organizations, students and colleagues at universities and research insti-
tutes, managers and workers in industry, and internal migrants. I will offer my own
understanding of these discourses, and clearly do not have license to represent others.
It will be shown how debates are framed in light of specific processes within the ambit of what
I call the ‘globalization syndrome’—that is, in regard to its constitutive elements and rarely the
whole structure, which, after all, is a large, abstract force. 3
The debates may thus be directly or
indirectly tethered to globalization: for example, although not the ostensible purpose, reshuffling
local – national relations definitely is a strategy for reaping globalization’s benefits. Furthermore,
aspects of China’s globalization debates overlap with one another but are not identical. They are
dynamic and their fluidity marks an indigenous discourse. Yet endogenous features are inter-
laced with exogenous ones—there can be no stark separation between the internal and external
components.
The advent of these framing arrangements in China takes place against a backdrop of anti-
development: the multipronged attack on the basis of the whole developmentalist paradigm.
In this context, the debates may be divided into three domains: material power, institutions,
and ideology. In the first, the frame concerns the interactions between inclusiveness and exclu-
siveness; the second, the nexus of status and identity; and the third, globalism and nationalisms.
After taking into account calls for a retreat from developmentalism, let us examine a turn toward
another way of conceptualizing the issues, in this case grounded in China. Finally, I want to
reflect on the extent to which the framing discourses are interrelated and on the openings that
the Chinese narrative may provide.
Antidevelopment
Development theory has come on hard times. This field arose at a particular historical moment,
the onset of the Cold War, and soon became a growth industry. A motivating force was to know
the terrain of the presumed enemy, including in newly decolonized countries. Amply funded, the
outpourings of development studies from think-tanks, universities, and governmental and inter-
governmental agencies have been massive. To fast-forward the story, the end of the Cold War
meant that development theory lost its original raison d’être. The halcyon times came to a halt
by 1989. Historically constituted, development theory reached a cul de sac.
Many policymakers and policy intellectuals have found successive theories—modernization,
dependency, Marxism, and so on—too abstract and too formulaic to be useful. This mood
coincides with the postmodern deconstruction of grand theory, pilloried for preaching about
universalisms, including narratives about the structured process of development. So, too, post-
colonial sensibilities draw attention to differences and bolster reservations about building
models of development.
Numerous intellectuals specializing in development have become atheoretical, preferring to
just get on with it. They either migrate to other fields of study or seek to disaggregate
Globalization and Development: Debates in China 379
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development, focusing on single problems such as privatization, or simply ‘projects’ like
housing or water in a particular locale. This move entails prescribing piecemeal solutions and
conceptualizing the structural challenges of development as matters of sheer management.
Closely related is a displacement toward the kind of institutionalist analysis that seeks to fix
problems while paying scant attention to the foundations that underpin them. In some cases,
the problematic is shifting toward security and the concrete institutions that would underwrite
it, for development requires peace and a measure of stability (Duffield, 2001).
Feeding into this current is disillusionment with the stagnation and corruption in the Third
World, much of it tied to interests in the West and its perspectives on development. Mindful
of this tendency, some cultural theorists regard development as an ideology of domination
and call for more critical reflection on the production of knowledge (Escobar, 1995, p. 216
and passim; Eagleton, 2004). And as the late Claude Ake, one of Africa’s leading political econ-
omists, put it: ‘[Development] . . . was the ideology by which the political elite hoped to survive and reproduce its domination’ (Ake, 1996, p. 7). He traced this ideology to ‘the former colonial
masters’, who also promoted development and invented concepts such as partners in develop-
ment (Ake, 1996, p. 8).
In addition, development theory has been faulted, if not jettisoned, because it sidelined patri-
archy. Subsequent efforts have sought to disclose the gendered division of labor, including its
global dimensions: a key stratification system that places women in subordinate positions. More-
over, there is a focus on the changing role of the national vector in relation to globalizing pro-
cesses. In one conceptualization, it is argued that the ‘globalization project’ is superseding
national development and that individual states are helping to install a global enterprise in
their locale (McMichael, 2004). From this standpoint, notwithstanding the enormous contextual
differences in the magnitude of state power, the role of the state in the developing world is
becoming that of administrative coordination of flows as they penetrate national nodes in the
global economy. The state is said to exercise reduced control, leading to a growing sense of
powerlessness. As in Europe with the European Union, slices of sovereignty are being stripped
away or surrendered: surrendered perhaps as a defensive measure to preserve the state.
However, developmentalism—the ideology of development—survives this structural shift. It
was part of the Washington Consensus, a global template of neoliberal ideas and a policy frame-
work centered on deregulation, liberalization, and privatization, that organizing institutions such
as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sought to universalize. Their one-
size-fits-all modus operandi ran aground on the shoals of ‘shock therapy’, market reforms in the
former Soviet Union and parts of Eastern Europe, spectacularly in the 1997 – 98 Asian economic
crisis, and the 2001 Argentine debacle.
After the discrediting of the Washington Consensus, there followed several efforts to forge a
new consensus, including, intriguingly, the Beijing Consensus. Delimited by Joshua Cooper
Ramo, a former journalist and now a lecturer at Tsinghua University, this consensus is
thought to consist of an emphasis on ‘bleeding-edge’ innovation (such as fiber optic) to start
change more quickly than the emergence of problems caused by change; avoidance of large-
scale contradictions by stressing contemporary quality-of-life concerns and chaos management;
and new security priorities to avert the ill effects of hegemonic power (Ramo, 2004, pp. 11 – 12).
Careful observers may disagree about what constitutes a Beijing model and the degree to
which groups outside China are adopting it. Implicit in Ramo’s construction is a national frame-
work for development. In seeking to conceptualize it, Ramo fails to offer insight into the pro-
cesses and mechanisms of consensus-building. He does not delve into the fragmentation of
discourses or note competing policy agendas in China and the extent of infighting. Moreover,
380 J. H. Mittelman
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with authoritarian politics, consent may not be as high as Ramo posits. In the Gramscian under-
standing, consensus itself can reduce political space, for it is the major component of hegemony,
with coercion always being part of the mix. From this perspective, consensus-making could be a
means of exclusion. In this sense, the goals of development may be better served by rejecting a
pensée unique, a singular way of thinking that its champions trumpet as a consensus; by going
beyond the work of commissions on ‘North – South’ development and decommissioning
development; and by invoking a series of debates internal to local encounters with the global.
If antidevelopment leads in this direction, it becomes developmentally interesting. The
Chinese case is a venue for exploring this proposition.
Inclusiveness and Exclusiveness
Since the onset of market reforms in China in 1978, there have been many debates about how to
enhance material power and the route to it: what is a ‘socialist market economy’? How far to
extend the market and reduce the role of the state in the economy? And how fast to hasten
this process? The importance of ‘patience’, especially after a long period of feudalism and
then a planned economy, is stressed. Compared to ‘shock therapy’ in Russia and elsewhere,
the opening to the market in China is a gradual one. This strategy is related to the conundrum
of how to engage global competition. And with the advantages mentioned above—a labor-
intensive economy, cheap wages, and an enormous home market—what are the best ways to
gain a competitive edge?
In China, there is self-confidence in the ability to direct global flows as they meet local con-
ditions. This assurance is linked to ample investment in infrastructure, provision of basic edu-
cation for all citizens, and extensive industrialization. Just as countries in Europe and Canada
have sought to restrict the amount of foreign content in television and films, so Chinese auth-
orities have regulated the quantity of imported television programs, which convey global
flows. Similarly, the state protects indigenous culture by subsidizing the Beijing opera, crafts,
and artifacts for festivals.
In state – market relations, democratization is presented as a goal. Whereas the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) seeks to build legitimacy through its notion of ‘socialist democracy’,
the Beijing leadership does not define democracy in terms of constitutional protections for
liberty or competitive elections with a formal opposition and other institutional arrangements
such as a separation of powers. Rather, democracy in China today is regarded as a way to
resolve problems and to make adjustments in politics. Not easily amenable to an abstract theor-
etical model, the content of democracy in China is an ongoing negotiation while the regime
strives for legitimacy and other actors seek political space (Sun, 2005, pp. 63 – 64). As many
of my interviewees attest, now there is slightly more freedom in daily life than a decade ago,
or, as Robert A. Scalapino puts it, a move from the ‘hard authoritarianism characteristic of
the Mao era to what might be described as authoritarian pluralism’ (2005, p. 50; for a competing
interpretation, cf. Pei, 2006). Within limits, criticism is expressed. Political disagreements
surface, though, without the right to organize alternative power structures.
In foreign policy, democracy serves as a contentious issue, especially in regard to Taiwan and
thus with the United States. Many Chinese strategic thinkers contend that globalization can
be used to democratize US hegemony by restraining its unilateralist policies and making
Washington more reliant on sources of legitimate authority. Thus, if the interests of more
countries, including a strong China, are more tightly interlocked, globalization may serve as
an affirmative force in democratizing US-dominated world order. Pursuing this logic, Chinese
Globalization and Development: Debates in China 381
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think-tank and other policy analysts argue that globalization heightens competition in a positive-
sum game: different actors may win though not equally through multipolarization (Deng and
Moore, 2004).
A key factor is migration from the United States, traditionally a receiving country, which sends
mobile Chinese who bring investment, technology, corporate culture and business acumen that
differ from the skills of local tycoons, as they are known in China. There are other streams of
migrants, such as North Koreans who are less welcome; in some cases, they have been expelled
or are not granted entry. Moreover, internal migration is a marked pattern. China has a vast float-
ing population numbering 130 million people, and the state is considering moving 400 million
more, roughly equivalent to the size of Europe’s population.
In comparison to the EU, whose Schengen zone provides for the free movement of people and
security cooperation among its members, the construction of a regional order in Asia remains
more problematic. Regionalism presents risks, as in the 1997 – 98 Asian financial crisis, and
opportunities. For China, the questions are: which Asia? The Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan, and Korea? Or East Asia? Or Pacific Asia? Would the
latter extend Cold War measures, with a heavy US military presence? Surely the Cold War
lingers in East Asia, and the Realist lens of a state-centered world is used to view international
relations, albeit represented as ‘Realism with Chinese characteristics’.
From this perspective, China seeks to improve coordination in Asia and become even more of
an epicenter of globalization. Its competitive landscape, booming markets, and world-class
scientists follow the prosperity achieved by Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan
after World War II. While China’s transformation, with its vast scale, is undoubtedly shaping
globalization, the dynamics of intra-Asian relations are also striking. For example, in developing
Asia, India, the world’s largest democracy, maintains an advantage in tradable services. More-
over, the complexity of manufacturing supply chains upsets wobbly formulations in policy
circles in the West about trade and currency imbalances with China. Whereas Beijing maintains
a $200 billion trade surplus with the United States, it has a $137 billion trade deficit with the rest
of Asia. Yet, although up-to-date, reliable data on the movement of goods and money to and
from China are lacking, it is reported that most profit from manufacturing supply chains in
China goes to American and other overseas firms (Barboza, 2006).
While Asia’s macroregionalism and impact on globalization are manifest, many underlying
issues about coordination within the region persist: to what degree to enhance the activities of
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries in Central Asia? What is the concrete form
that subregionalism, in dialogue with the ASEAN 10, should take? A primarily economic, mili-
tary-strategic, or sociocultural constellation? In addition, microregionalism occurs within China
and is expanding, as in plans to partner Beijing and the industrial city Tianjin so as to increase
their competitiveness. Meanwhile, cities, such as Shanghai, a financial power and trading center,
are hooking out into the global economy and becoming major players in their own right.
To discuss the region’s future, China’s Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) is an alternative to the
annual World Economic Forum usually held in Davos, Switzerland. Adopted in 2001, the
Declaration of the BFA provides for a yearly conference, a platform for an exchange of
views among more than 1,000 senior government officials, business leaders, and researchers.
But with the enormous diversity and many conflicts in East Asia, how can strategic trust
be established? Notwithstanding the rhetoric about Asian values, what norms are held in
common? And are civil-society organizations, increasingly emergent in China, included
in regionalism? This is part of the identity question, which, in China, is tied to its status in
the world.
382 J. H. Mittelman
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Status and Identity
China’s attempt to attain world status befitting a major power involves a strategy of multi-
lateralism and building military might. Yet these issues ignite trying debates in China. Follow-
ing the Mao period, China inserted itself in the global arena by joining the United Nations as a
permanent member of the Security Council. Along with China’s accession to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) in 2001, and its membership in the IMF and World Bank, Beijing has
increasingly participated in UN peacekeeping activities, its role raising questions about the
People’s Republic’s own dedication to maintaining peace in its neighborhood. 4
International
crises, especially the 1999 US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and a 2001
crash involving an American spy plane and Chinese aircraft near Hainan Island, have compli-
cated this issue (Pang, 2005). But, on balance, the Chinese authorities find international organ-
izations to be useful instruments for enhancing status and employing the symbolic power of
serving as a leader in the developing world.
Emblematic of improving its image in the global arena, the watchword in China is ‘respon-
sible country’. The principle of responsibility means not only meeting obligations but also safe-
guarding sovereignty. The options include choosing among numerous security forums and
multiple meanings: national security, regional security, human security, comprehensive security,
and global security, some of which take into account nontraditional threats such as environ-
mental harms. Beginning in 1996, the Chinese authorities and state-controlled media have
favored what they call the ‘new security concept’: a positive attitude extending beyond the his-
torical weight of being victimized by outside powers to ‘pragmatism’ in international affairs
(Xia, 2004; Jin, 2005).
In practice, pragmatism signifies an increase in military expenditure and, also, a means to
establish space for endogenous development. Military spending is deemed necessary in that
some influential Western liberals and Realists, such as John J. Mearsheimer (2005), contend
that China’s rise requires pursuing national interests, which will inevitably collide with those
of the United States and thus constitute a threat. 5
From their perspective, Chinese policymakers
and scholars believe that it is imperative to achieve rising status suitable for a global power, but
it need not threaten others (Yu, 2004).
The trope ‘peaceful rise’, widely employed by China’s leaders until early 2004, is no longer in
vogue. An undercurrent in China is that without wanting to appear hostile, surely political auth-
orities are not willing to relinquish a sovereign state’s prerogative to use force, as in hotspots like
Taiwan or in territorial disputes with neighbors. Whereas the debates in China do not altogether
discard the word ‘peaceful’, the other component of the phrase ‘peaceful rise’, fails to resonate
in Mandarin, for ‘rise’ translates as ‘surge’, which would be an abrupt phenomenon. In a nation
that values stability and order, the implication of a rupture is to be avoided. Discursively, ‘peace-
ful development’ is a better fit, and riding globalization is deemed a way to achieve it.
Just as development may take myriad forms, so it spawns multiple shades of identity, inter
alia, Sinocentric and pan-Asian images. This part of the self/other distinction operates in the global arena and is tied to a long perspective. The historical memory of ‘the Century of National
Humiliation’ persists. This experience is seen as a period of wars, exploitation by foreign
powers, and decadence. Thus, trust in external actors within East Asia is generally low. Even
when focused on the here-and-now of globalization, this discourse about China’s history is
unavoidable.
Another shade of identity relates to domestic pluralism. In China, the question of diversity is
partially a matter of the national minority populations, including large Muslim communities.
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Many of these ethnic groups mostly live in remote regions, border areas that lag far behind the
country’s average standards, as measured in income, education, health care, water supply, and
transport. Whereas concrete policies are being adopted to develop the frontier areas, the official
discourse continues to stress ‘harmonious relations’ within the compass of one society.
A third shade concerns defining Chineseness. To depict China’s transnational relations with
its diasporic community, Beijing officials no longer favor the phrase ‘Greater China’, because it
may be perceived as intimidating (for example, to Southeast Asians). No idiom has replaced it in
the political lexicon. Rather, there are mixed intersubjective meanings, variably invoking
Confucianism and the accumulation of wealth. For dealing beyond China’s territorial bound-
aries, a narrative of flexibility lubricates the negotiation of practices. In other words, there are
diverse ways to be Chinese (Goodman and Segal, 1994; Ong, 1999; Ong and Nonini, 1997;
Callahan, 2002; Ames, 2004).
How then does a ‘harmonious society’ attempt to harmonize the quest for status and varied
identities? In the blend, realizing ‘prosperity’ is accorded priority, if not primarily in word,
then in deed. Yet this move requires stability, which, in turn, entails balancing the state. The
decentralization of political authority is a key policy initiative, one that shifts dimensions of
power from national to local government (Wang, 2004, pp. 534 – 535). Nonetheless, periodic
swings from balancing to rebalancing can be safely anticipated. This restructuring of the state
also involves reform in the ministries (Wang, 2004, pp. 536 – 537). Matters of commerce, tax,
and the legal code, among others, are subject to slow-paced institutional adjustments in the
mode of regulation.
Many problems appear in, or are even heightened by, reforms partly aimed at winning gains
from globalization. Foremost perhaps are rapidly increasing inequalities in income, among
regions, and between the countryside and the city. In 2005, a Chinese government press
agency reported that the top fifth of the population received 50% of national income while
the bottom fifth earned less than 5% (cited in Le Monde, 2005). Although figures differ slightly,
most up-to-date sources calculate the ratio of average urban income to average rural income in
China as more than three to one.
The country’s growing number of millionaires and billionaires, especially in Guangdong
Province, an economic powerhouse in southern China, coexist with impoverished workers
and a multitude of unemployed citizens; the ranks of the latter are swollen by layoffs in state-
owned and collective enterprises, mainly in large industries, many of them in the northeastern
rust belt and poor inland areas. More frequently, these public enterprises are declared financially
defunct. Some of the bankruptcies are attributed to unsound banking practices, including
massive bad debts and new sources of vast corruption. The pursuit of prosperity is accompanied
by shortages in housing, sewage, and transportation. The challenges of meeting escalating
energy needs (up 65% between 2002 and 2004, making China the second biggest oil market
in the world) and coping with rampant pollution, hazardous waste, and other forms of environ-
mental degradation strain state capacity. Safety nets are being established, but are big projects in
the west and other poor areas the answer to the needs at the grassroots?
These and other questions are debated by China’s ‘New Left’, as it is called. The ‘New Left’ is
a heterogeneous group of disgruntled intellectuals and other, often young, citizens. Edited by
Wang Hui, a professor of literature, the journal Du Shu is a venue that allows for criticism of
the caliber of governance and the impact of policies that favor an export-oriented economy at
the expense of the wellbeing of several sectors of the population, especially subaltern groups
in the countryside. Certain articles in Du Shu focus on topics such as freedom of expression
and damage to the environment (Pocha, 2005). Some of the dissent from the ‘New Left’ endorses
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select elements of Maoism; aspects of the criticism resonate with the concerns of the global
social justice movement; and other restive sentiment about quality-of-life issues is in fact
favored by members of President Hu Jintao’s government.
Since becoming president in 2003, Hu, and the premier, Wen Jiabao, have sought to calm
critics by introducing the policy of ‘five balances’: the need to reach equilibrium between ‘dom-
estic and international, the inland and the coast, the rural and urban, society and the economy,
and nature and man’ (Financial Times, 2005). For each balance, Chinese officials at all levels are
supposed to give priority to the first concern rather than the second factor. This discourse is
crystallized in the motto ‘green GNP’, shorthand for the desiderata delimited by China’s leaders.
At the same time, the state seeks to restrain dissent by relying on filters, firewalls, and other
security tools. Some of them are sold to China by US companies like Cisco Systems, Microsoft,
Yahoo, and Google, which sign pledges to respect local censorship laws. Nevertheless, consider-
able discontent appears on the Internet. Understanding globalization as a double-edged sword,
sundry voices decry the excesses of market expansion. They also debate the impact of the WTO,
with attention to its deleterious effects. Frequent talk about workers’ rights is part of this trend.
Furthermore, artists are pushing social mores. Some internal migrants, too, are dissatisfied,
refusing to take the worst jobs in factories. Among peasants and villagers, riots and protests
numbering in the tens of thousands each year are vivid expressions of frustration with the
Chinese ‘miracle’.
Another social force building political space is the Falun Gong, introduced to the public in
1992. This spiritual practice purports to improve mind and body, and causes the political auth-
orities to worry. Subject to crackdowns by the government since 1999, many of its adherents
have their roots in rural areas and are poor. Some of them are women who have lost jobs in
state agencies and are vulnerable to globalization. For the power holders in Beijing, the Falun
Gong represents and is perceived as a political challenge. In a country with a historical tradition
of redressing grievances, a government increasingly prone to prize order and stability is sensitive
to the activities of a movement constituted outside the realm of state politics.
To a certain degree, a discourse resistant to market-led and state-induced globalization is emer-
ging in the expanding space carved out by China’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). They
may be best understood as both a response to and a component of the power of globalizing forces,
refracted and shaped by the state. This contradiction manifests in the efforts of NGOs to mitigate
the jagged impact of the deepening of the market—say, by remediating widespread environmental
damage—and in their compliance with the state or even extension of its policies.
China’s NGOs have called for changes in the regulations on their activities. The current rules
stipulate that under the dual-management system they must register with the civil rights depart-
ment and a relevant industry watchdog. In other words, these organizations must be officially
endorsed in order to receive tax exemption, sponsorship from domestic enterprises, and prefer-
ential treatment in governmental purchasing policy. Another requirement, one that may be
relaxed, but particularly stringent for regional NGOs, is meeting a threshold of activity funds,
currently 30,000 yuan, or US$3,614, before organizations are permitted to register (Zong,
2005, p. 4).
Empirical research, for example at the Tsinghua University NGO Research Centre, documents
the expanding role of NGOs in China. The Ministry of Civil Affairs puts the number of those
officially registered at 283,000, but scholars such as Wang Ming, director of the Tsinghua
NGO center, report approximately three million. There are also township or community-
based, unregistered NGOs required to submit documents (Zong, 2005, p. 4). Another category
is foreign NGOs in China, perhaps 3,000 to 6,000 strong, according to Wang Ming, who
Globalization and Development: Debates in China 385
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holds: ‘The number of foreign NGOs is small, but they are financially powerful and have
impressive activity capacity and thus wield huge influence in society’ (quoted in Zong, 2005,
p. 4). Although NGOs such as Greenpeace are not officially registered, the state clearly
acquiesces to this transnational presence. However, while they are supposed to be subject to
the legal requirements of the dual-management system, the legislation—an aspect of how the
state accommodates globalizing activities—is in flux.
Globalism and Nationalisms
If globalism, the dominant ideology of globalization, provides the normative architecture for the
expansion of the market (Steger, 2002), in China it also embraces cosmopolitan norms that are
built on the foundations of a more than 5,000-year-old civilization. Indeed, the cosmopolitan
dimensions of globalism easily come into play in daily life. Examples are legion: an outpouring
of contributions for tsunami relief signifies a display of empathy with humankind beyond
China’s territorial borders. Also, the growing number of Chinese tourists traveling overseas
bring back images of alternative ways of life, including varied intersubjective frameworks.
Many Chinese students enroll in universities abroad, and an increasing number of foreign stu-
dents and teachers come to China. Political leaders and business people in China are sending
their children for schooling in other countries. And, nowadays, marriages to non-Chinese are
common and without stigma they used to have. With greater frequency, disaporic Chinese are
returning to the mainland to take advantage of the economic opportunities there and injecting
new norms in the mindset. No doubt, borders are blurred; Great-Walling, latticed.
Yet there is a contradictory phenomenon. Accompanying mounting globalism is the ascen-
dance of nationalisms. This tension is manifest in Shanghai, China’s most globalized city.
There, more than anywhere else in the country, the 2005 demonstrations against Japan took a
violent form. Triggering the explosion of nationalism in Shanghai was the downplaying by Japa-
nese newspapers of the acts committed by Class A war criminals found guilty at the postwar
Tokyo trials; Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where
these soldiers are buried; and the failure of Japanese textbooks to deal forthrightly with the
history of militarism in Asia. Consequently, in the display of anti-Japanese hostility, Chinese
nationalism and globalism encountered one another.
What kinds of nationalism? What is its content? One form is linked to pride in the country’s
real achievements: more prosperity, better housing, and advances in technology. It is apparent in
the fervor of sports teams fueled by preparation for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. 6
This type of
nationalism is animated by incidents with Taiwan and other hotspots offshore (Zhao, 2005). Dis-
putes with the United States over trade and protectionism as well as revaluing currency add to
the nationalist zeal. State sovereignty and self-determination are components of the official dis-
course. Mostly top-down before the mid-1990s, this nationalism is dominated by the CCP and
dwells on patriotism (Chen, 2005).
More bottom-up beginning in the early 1990s, popular nationalism has a different inflection
(Chen, 2005). According to Chen, popular nationalism consists of different strands: traditional or
culturalist notions emphasizing Confucian philosophy; neoauthoritarianism repackaged as neo-
conservativism with an emphasis on rejuvenating the strong state and patriarchal power; and the
call for the political will to say no to the United States and Japan in the country’s foreign
relations, reflected in survey data and best-selling literature in China, which expresses criticism
of the state (Ong, 1999, pp. 196 – 201; Chen, 2005). More than ten years on in this debate, is
another form or forms of nationalism evolving? A robust construction of the global nation? 7
386 J. H. Mittelman
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Conclusion
The constructs examined above convey multiple, dynamic, and chaotic meanings. But given the
complex dynamics of globalization, the arduous transition on which China is embarked, and the
sheer scale of this shift, it would be foolhardy to expect coherence. In delineating patterns,
however inchoate, the four specific questions posed at the outset of this article may serve as
guideposts. Let us now revisit these themes and consider the implications.
1. The globalization debates in China are hardly single-mindedly concentrated on economic
issues, and have shifted since the 1978 advent of market reforms. Now, they take on a decid-
edly political hue. Encapsulating politics, society, and culture, the framing discourses incor-
porate realpolitik; to be sure, some of them are centered on the state, which can play a key
role in garnering the benefits of globalization. As indicated, they coexist with other dis-
courses. Above all, the leaders, many of whom were trained in engineering and other tech-
nical fields, regard themselves as pragmatists.
2. The redefinition of political life in China is shot through with technological innovations and
more mobile spaces, as on the Internet. Subject to contestation, new state – market – society
relations are evolving and joined to China’s insertion in the globalization syndrome. The lin-
kages between the domestic complex and the global political economy have precipitated per-
plexing questions. In China, the discourse about the country’s ‘peaceful rise’ is mainly
framed in terms of development paradigms, ensconced as they are in an amalgam of internal
and external relations.
3. Globalization debates in China are definitely not confined to its official transcripts. In the face
of mounting prosperity, matters pertaining to the ethical framework of development are sur-
facing. Interventions critical of policies such as bans on begging in public places in certain
cities are prompting further debates on provisions for the losers in globalization. Undoubt-
edly, resistance to the incursion of neoliberal globalization, channeled, for example, by the
WTO and private corporations, is apparent. Chinese police records document a sevenfold
spike in incidents of unrest, including mob violence, in the last ten years (reported in
Bardhan, 2005). Helping China’s growing rights movement is an informal network of jour-
nalists, scholars, and lawyers; they gather information, write articles, file court cases, and
provide expertise. Yet, given semiauthoritarian politics, some of the resistance must be
read as subtext. Much of it is covert, though overt displays take such forms as workers’
unrest over conditions in factories and peasants’ discontent with a meager social policy,
that is, failings in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable citizens in an increasingly pros-
perous society.
4. In China, the bundling of globalization debates includes some elements that derive from
without, while others spring from a local knowledge system. An ‘indigenous’ epistemology
is about how problems are formulated, methods for resolving them, and ways to reconcile
differences. Over the longue durée, a knowledge structure absorbs and develops part of its
‘common sense’ from outside national borders through intercivilizational contact, including
conquest, long-distance trade, and migratory flows. For China today, like elsewhere, vault-
ing forward this thinking pertains to control over globalization processes, notwithstanding a
professed self-confidence in the ability to steer them. Of course, it remains to be seen whose
priorities will prevail. For instance, although China has not experienced structural adjust-
ment under the guiding hand of the Bretton Woods institutions, Beijing is the World
Bank’s biggest client in terms of outstanding loans; and in the post-2000 period, all of
Globalization and Development: Debates in China 387
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them are at commercial, not concessionary, rates. Notwithstanding China’s sizable foreign
exchange reserves, the Bank estimates that the country is home to about 18% of the world’s
poor. Now, the World Bank’s large-scale involvement in China’s educational projects,
enamored as a poster child of the Washington-based agency, provides a means for not
only basic skills but also the dissemination of universalizing ideas. Meanwhile, the Bank
offers largesse for Chinese consultants; and some of these nouveaux riches are moving
into gated, upscale communities. Even among the winners, concern lurks about the uneven-
ness of globalization.
More often, however, the transcripts about vulnerability are directed at outside forces. In this
vein, the 1997 – 98 Asian financial crisis dramatically betrayed the risks of globalization, even if
China was not one of the most severely affected countries in the region. So, too, standardization
policies, required in international accountancy procedures and for joint ventures in China’s high-
tech centers, show that the benefits of globalization require a high level of integration in the
world order.
In China’s official transcripts, the antidote is represented as a stable Confucian order. Despite
this move to essentialize culture, a flexible value system is in fact emerging. Folklore, aesthetics,
and material power are combined. Shared meanings must be negotiated. Like Beijing opera and
traditional medicine, China’s encounter with globalization has its own speed and rhythm, mark-
edly different from the crescendo and swiftness characteristic of Western forms. In China, the
discourses offer searching reflection on a way to balance globalizing processes, one that calls
for a gradual, sequenced, and directed strategy. Today, participants engrossed in this debate
are posing the political issue of who should be entrusted, or empowered, to look after the
public good. When politics increasingly crosses the line between the public and personal, as
well as the national and global, realms, the telling question becomes: how is this trust being
reimagined?
In sum, it is useful to tell the story of China precisely because we cannot afford to keep repeat-
ing the old tales of globalization and development. The debates underway there can contribute
importantly to remaking these narratives.
China, I want to say emphatically, is not a model to be copied. But it is a compelling case of a
home-grown strategy for transformation. It is a case wherein hope and self-confidence are
expressed in the developing world. Absent structural adjustment, it is a case of a large
measure of self-determination within the globalization syndrome. It is a case in which indigen-
ous cultural resources are mobilized while values worth localizing are derived from other
systems.
Outside China, these issues are ripe for debate and may well open to different answers. The
point is that there is no reason for other countries and regions to remain engrossed in bleak dis-
courses about their unremitting ‘crisis’.
The operative challenges become: how to reframe issues? How to imagine alterglobalization
in the encounter with development and achieve a measure of autonomy? How to tap a cultural
endowment, fostering not merely resources and inventions but resourcefulness and inventive-
ness? In other words, how to write a fresh script for the future while in the grips of neoliberal
globalization?
The question to wrestle with is how far these debates can be taken. And how can different
communities find their own alternatives? One lesson is clear: not to learn from the debates
over globalization, the foray into antidevelopment, and a newly informed quest for the self-
realization of collective potential would be a great error.
388 J. H. Mittelman
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Acknowledgments
This article is a revised version of the Annual Globalisation Lecture sponsored by the Economic
and Social Research Foundation, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 11 October 2005. Special thanks to
Josapahat Kweka for organizing this event. For stellar research assistance, I am indebted to
Patrick Besha and Carl Anders Härdig; for helpful suggestions, Jeremy Paltiel; and for
comments on earlier drafts of this paper, Chen Zhimin, Fantu Cheru, Barry Gills, Linda Yarr,
Wang Yong, Wang Zhengyi, Samuel Wangwe, and Zhao Quansheng, though they are not
implicated in the final product, for which I alone am responsible.
Notes
1 Computed in purchasing power parity, the US GDP per capita of $37,800 in 2004 was second worldwide to
Luxembourg’s, whereas China’s at $5,000 ranked 122 for all countries. The source of this information is the
Central Intelligence Agency (2004), available at: http://worldfactsandfigures.com/gdp_country_asc.php (accessed 2 June 2005).
2 I am adapting the distinction between ‘public’ and ‘hidden transcripts’ introduced by James C. Scott (1990). Public
transcripts refer to verbal and nonverbal acts by the dominant party or, ‘to put it crudely, the self-portrait of dominant
elites as they would have themselves seen’ (Scott, 1990, p. 18; emphasis original). For Scott, they are the public
record of superior – subordinate relations, whereas hidden transcripts are what subordinate parties say and do
beyond the realm of the superordinate group.
3 Elsewhere (Mittelman, 2000, 2004), I have argued that globalization is not a single, unified activity, but a syndrome
of processes and activities: a historical transformation in the interactions among market forces, political authority,
and the lifeways embodied in society and culture.
4 The domestic debates over the WTO in China are explored by Wang Yong (2000).
5 Military developments in China and its security policy are perceived as a major threat in Washington, as evident in
US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s sharp criticism of Beijing: ‘China’s defense expenditures are much
higher than Chinese officials have publicly admitted. It is estimated that China’s is the third-largest military
budget in the world, and now the largest in Asia’ (as quoted in Shanker, 2005, pp. 1 and 7). Recent data
compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI, 2004, appendix 10A) show that in
2003, US military spending, calculated at market exchange rates, came to roughly as much as the total for the
rest of the world, while China’s expenditure, was about 4%. The United States spends approximately $1,500 per
citizen; China, less than $100 (SIPRI, 2004, appendix 10A). China’s increases in its defense budget since 2003
could also be compared to the spike in the US’s, or relative to the growth of its GDP and then measured as a
percentage against India’s and those of other burgeoning economies. Whereas the Pentagon warns that China’s
defense spending is now mounting rapidly and may exceed Beijing’s official figure, it is not clear why China
would engage in an arms race with the United States and deflect funds from development rather than attack the
US economy by withdrawing its massive holdings in the bond market, thought by many American economists to
be propping up the dollar. Similarly, Washington would seem to have little incentive for a shooting war with
Beijing. The United States is not only militarily engaged elsewhere but also amassing huge budget and trade
deficits, thus making China’s goodwill an increasingly important factor.
6 With construction of exercise centers and other facilities as well as the demand for equipment, production in China’s
sports industry is already growing by 50 billion yuan, or US$6.04 billion per year, and the spending on average by
Beijing residents for physical exercise is now 888 yuan, US$107 (China Daily, 2005, p. 4).
7 Fusing these components, Thomas G. Moore (2000, pp. 123 – 126) posits the emergence of ‘global nationalism’
in China.
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James H. Mittelman is Professor in the School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC, and Vice President of the International Studies Association. His honors and
awards include fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Helsinki
Collegium for Advanced Studies. Previously, he held the Pok Rafeah Chair in International
Studies and served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National University of Malaysia.
Mittelman’s recent books are Globalization: Critical Reflections (editor, Lynne Rienner, 1996),
The Globalization Syndrome: Transformation and Resistance (Princeton University Press,
2000), Capturing Globalization (coedited with Norani Othman, Routledge, 2001), and
Whither Globalization? The Vortex of Knowledge and Ideology (Routledge, 2004).
Globalization and Development: Debates in China 391
