ONLY IMPERIALISM CAN SAVE THEM:

New and old: a review of China's Megatrends by John Naisbitt and Doris Naisbitt (Reviewed by Benjamin A Shober, Asia Times)

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.

As Bill Emmott explained The Sun Also Sets, describing why the notion of Japan's future dominance was ludicrous, the big problem is that in a group-oriented culture Mr. Naisbitt's first pillar is never planted. Such societies are non-innovative because individuals and their ideas are always subordinated to the group and the group-think.

There is one significant difference though between Japan and China, which may provide a future for the latter that was denied the former. Whereas even today only about 1% of Japan is Christian, China on the other hand has experienced an explosion of Christianization. That's the megatrend that matters, as it would transform them into a Western culture.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 22, 2010 7:26 AM