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Book Reviews
Gordon Chang
The Coming Collapse of China
 Three
years since Chang portrayed a doomsday for the People’s Republic of China,
perhaps it is the right time to reflect upon the predictions made in this
lucidly written book, naturally banned in China.
Himself the son of a Chinese who left the country in search for a better
future, and found it in the land of opportunity, home of the free world,
the United States, it is natural that Chang does not look favorably on the
dictatorship that rules China with an iron fist. He blames Mao for his
disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution that ripped the
heart out of rural China and killed millions of innocent, he blames Deng
Xiaoping for Tiananmen Square and not carrying forward with the economic
and political reforms and he looks at Jiang Zemin with uttermost disdain
as a worthless and orthodox leader, more interested in securing his own
political position rather than the welfare of the billion people he
subjugates. Yet, quite ironically Chang does seem to have a certain
respect for various qualities in Mao and Deng, the former being credited
with being a leader with a vision and the latter as one with a dose of
pragmatism and both endowed with tremendous charisma and personality and
widely respected. His wrath befalls Zemin and his to be successors, Hu
Jintao, Wen Jiabao and the like, who he argues to be callous and not
worthy of leading China.
Not surprisingly, Chang’s argument is rooted in economics, or in China’s
case, politics of economics. As an American, Chang sees the ideal model to
be one with least government interference and ultimate say in the
‘invisible hands’ of the market, coupled with free trade and movement of
capital and finally, a civil and equitable society with solid democratic
traditions and institutions. Chang is prepared to forgive Mao for
organizing China initially into communes because China at that time was a
nascent nation, facing crisis at all fronts with little entrepreneurial
zeal. But he deals a mortal blow to leaders after Mao, even Deng Xiaoping
for not furthering the reforms fast enough, resulting in continuous
slowing of economic development. Chang dismisses the shiny skyscrapers of
Shanghai as a symbol of over capacity, gigantic nationalized companies as
‘white elephants’ living off subsidies and bad loans from the banks and
highlights the crushing inequality and poverty that rages and has actually
worsened due to the fluctuation in the speed of reforms. His wicked sense
of humor and sarcasm rips apart Communist policies. He mentions an
incidence when a private company was strangled on the grounds that it was
‘too innovative’.
Perhaps, he was overtly fatalist. China has managed to stabilize its
collapsing banking system since the time the book was written and credit
to state owned enterprises (SOEs) have been squeezed to encourage
restructuring and efficiency. It is also managing to ‘cool down’ its
economy quite efficiently, thus not letting the over capacity problem
become precarious. China’s ‘Go West’ campaign also seems an
acknowledgement from the Politburo about the inequality problem.
However, here again Chang’s far sightedness is astounding. As he predicts,
the booming sectors of the Chinese economy are indeed because of
multinationals or government monopolies. With China’s accession to the
WTO, the latter will have to be opened up to competition, which Chang
argues is impossible for them to sustain and will result in their
collapse. Also, most of the fuel for China’s economic engine comes from
the government coffers. There will be a time when China runs out of money
to pump in the system. Chang points at that day when China’s economic
meltdown begins.
We must make two minor points here on which Chang can be taken to task.
Firstly, his constant emphasis on the erstwhile splendor of the Middle
Kingdom, unmatched by any in the world is frankly not acceptable. Even
leaving aside the flourishing civilizations of Egypt, Sumer and later,
Greece and Rome, he forgets to look across China’s southern border over
the Himalayas, where India sustained itself as a much more diverse and
cosmopolitan civilization for an equal, if not more, time. Secondly, he
indulges in far too many speculations regarding private entrepreneurs in
China. It is possibly premature to predict the rise of a Chinese
entrepreneurial class, because the economic model in China is based on
SOEs and MNCs. Even with a much longer socialist baggage, or perhaps
because of it, India has developed a world class private sector which can
compete successfully in a post WTO world in 2005 and beyond and thus
commands the reins of India’s economic development in its own hands,
unlike China.
Lest we take credit away from Chang, it must be reinstated that this
witticism clad book about the future and eminent collapse of China as we
know it is a must read to display the rot in its institutions and the
forces at work to end the Communist parties’ monopoly on power. Chang
argues persuasively that the Chinese people are tired of their overtly
regulated lives, dictated by a microscopic minority and enforced by crude
coercion.
A day will come when the Chinese will eventually have had enough of the
sermons of Beijing. That day the tanks of Tiananmen will not be enough to
stop them, nor will the bags of cash from the banks. It is that day that
one sixth of humanity will decide to take their destiny into their own
hands and their erstwhile dictators will tremble with fear. It is that day
Chang has foreseen.
The Communists had a chance to reverse this by allowing for more freedom.
They couldn’t let go. Now it is too late. They have run out of time, they
cannot turn away from the imminent future. The collapse is near.
– Aruni Mukherjee
November 21, 2004
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