HOW CHINA WORKS - XIAOHUAN LAN (trans. GARY TOPP)

You ever feel like you’ve willed a book into existence? Or that something conspired to bring you an object you encountered in a dream? I have, for many decades since visiting, been quite interested in China. The culture for sure, but also the economics. The culture is actually relatively easier to engage with and encounter. Sure, there are still lots of Chinese novels that remains untranslated, especially relative to other languages of that size, but you can get a lot. Economics on the other hand is another story. The layers of propaganda in the English speaking world is so thick as to make the whole idea seem impossible. The two major strands of this propaganda are that a) it’s a communist hell hole that killed untold millions in famines and seeks to destroy us or b) it’s actually capitalist, they reformed after Mao and now they’re basically capitalists (with less freedoms) and any success they have is actually proof that capitalism works. Nonsense in either direction, but it’s been hard to figure out where to get real information. Then we get this book. It is basically an economics textbook that gives an overview of China’s economy currently, the methods and techniques they developed to get the country where it’s at, informed speculation as to its future and a pretty clear-eyed, fair discussion of the pro and cons of various decisions. I’d love to own a physical copy so I could refer to it when I see future news stories, but, alas, the thing is like $80 so I read it on my Kindle. I’ll do my best to summarize some of it but please keep in mind that, despite (or perhaps, indicative of) literally teaching economics at one point (lol) I am quite dumb. He locates a lot of the change with the 1994 tax overhaul which allowed for more central financial control and allowed the central government to direct development by sending money to the provinces and tasking these local governments with development.He also spends lots of time discussing the ways in which the local governments can leverage leasing the land, since, in China, only the government “owns” urban land but it can be leased and mortgaged for decades and these rights can be bought or sold. The local governments can also use and create entities called State-Controlled enterprises (SCE) and State-Owned enterprises (SOE) to directly invest in projects that seem important to development. For me the most shocking part was how the stated goal of the government was to improve people’s lives and increase development. And they really think about these problems and orient their efforts to achieve it and bureaucrats and politicians are measured by their ability to improve the lives of the people they represent. Imagine if Amerika's state politicians were judged on how well the developed and material improved the lives of the people in their state. No one even pretends to talk this way anymore, we only get culture-war bullshit and the most braindead proved-wrong-40-years-ago economics. It’s just so interesting to see a country even larger than the US orient itself around real results and tangible, good outcomes, rather than bizarre fidelity to the idea of a “free-market.” But this is why China is rising and the US is falling apart. As far as the future stuff goes, Lan points out that the large-scale trend of  local government using  real estate to spur development has done a great job in creating the conditions to encourage urbanization and a manufacturing boom, but this dynamic leaves contemporary China with the problem of needing to transition to a balanced consumer economy. Especially with heightened pressure from an increasing erratic and belligerent US. I hope they pull it off. There are many critiques one could make of China, their support of the Zionist Entity comes to mind, but one would be hard pressed to not envy their economic system and their governments commitment to doing what is necessary to raise everyone’s standard of living.