Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the National People's Congress of China. He is the number two man of the country according to his position in Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China. Recently in September Bangguo visited Bahamas. Why? Because roads of capital Nassau are constructed by the Chinese. Moreover, Chinese also built a large stadium at the capital city. A couple of years ago Chinese built a huge holiday camp in Bahamas. So, what is the lesson to learn here? Would you like hear a couple of conclusions I reached?
When you wander around in the least known countries of the world and come across a construction, you see that it was built by a group of Chinese people. At least, this has now started to grab my attention. At hotels, stations or at the airport, you are being told 'Yes, the Chinese guy who was here before you also told so' even you do not personally come across a Chinese. It is impossible to overlook this. However, this was not what Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China's political reforms, the Turgut Ozal for China, advised in the past. He used to say "Hide your brightness, bide your time." It in a way is "neither leave behind nor drop behind; walk in the middle" syndrome. But nowadays it is more difficult for China to hide its brightness. In fact, this can be observed in their attitudes, too. Recently, Chen Yuan, Governor of the China Development Bank, probably fed up with the 'What type of communist county would China be? You are completely capitalists now' comments said "We are the Communist Party of China and we will decide what communism is." He sounded as if he was revolting "So what? Do we have to get a 'genuine communism' certificate from the West?" And that revolt revealed that some things are changing in China. Do you think that the 'we have to stand in the shade to hide our brightness or something bad could happen' mood has come to an end?
Remind me to tell you about Wu Bangguo sometime. After Deng's, the legendary leaders era ended for China. Instead, collective leadership approach was activated. Meanwhile, the engineer and State Planning Organization dominance in the Politburo that gained prevalence after Deng started to weaken. The Politburo now reflects a greater diversity with historians, economists and international relations experts. Similarly, the number of businesspeople in the central committee of the Communist Party of China increased to 20 out of 271. Although these are the senior executives of public enterprises, private entrepreneurs were allowed to become party members in 2002. Communist Party and private entrepreneurs. Ok, entrepreneurs might want to become the member of the Party to extend relations. But why would the Communist Party accept private entrepreneurs as members? I actually have an idea, but let me cut it short and settle with what Chen said. After all, it should be not me but the Communist Party of China that will decide what communism is. Is not it?
It becomes increasingly difficult for China to hide itself in the shadows; it has surpassed Japan and became the second biggest economy of the world. If you have the second biggest economy of the world, you cannot simply say "Do not worry. Nothing interesting happens here." As the economy grows, you have to start traveling more around the world. I guess this has to be the first point those wondering what Chinese people do in the Bahamas have to keep in mind.
On the other hand, having the second biggest economy of the world does not change the fact that China ranks the 92th in the Human Development Index. Quantitative change does not automatically bring quantitative leap. Full-fledged enrichment of the country does not guarantee that the society will leave a prosperous life even though the Communist Party of China is in power. But this is what Stalin promised in the "Principles of Philosophy". Who can we trust, anyone?
By the way, Turkey is currently the 17th biggest economy of the world and the 6th biggest economy of Europe. However, in Human Development Index we rank the 79th in the world and the 41st in Europe. It was quite interesting for me that in the Search Conference Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey organized to set its future priorities, the issue always locked at the Human Development Index issue. Let me tell you why I found this interesting.
Anyway, back to the main theme, of course if you think that there actually is a theme. Why do you think would a country performing highly poor in Human Development Index carries out project in the middle of nowhere instead of doing something good for its nation? A growing economy implies an economy with a growing need for raw materials and energy. With this perspective, it is inevitable that any country with a growing economy seeks to develop more cordial relationships with the international community, particularly in this milieu of mutual dependencies. This is not only about neo-colonialism, of which China has frequently been accused in the recent era. How did things work in the past? The developing country needed raw materials. It therefore searched the world for raw materials. And ops, you made a discovery. Do not you remember the age of discoveries? Anyway, then you would get near to the raw material reserved by sea and build a bridgehead. You would build a railway line between the port and the raw material reserve. And would come the development. Meanwhile, you would make the native people to extract the materials. You would not be much interested in the surroundings. This is not the Chinese do today. Tell me, what is it with the Bahamas? In my perspective, it has one vote at the United Nations. Just as Japan, it has one entire vote. Securing raw material resources in our era is closely tied with the organization and activation of an international governance system. With this lens, we can conclude that the China's strength in assembling at the global scale. Let this be the second point to state.
The third could be this: How do Chinese achieve this? One holiday resort in the Bahamas for instance was built by a Chinese state enterprise a couple of years ago. China's power is not fueled by the private sector. In 2009, 500 largest private sector companies of China had total profits of approximately US$32 billion. However, in the same year, total profits of only two of the 129 giant state enterprises - China Mobile and Petroleum - were approximately US$250 billion. So, tell me: how does the system work in China? Is it private sector lead development? I doubt it. We learned recently in August from newspaper ad in English how the executives of the 129 state giants were assigned. Stating that senior executives for state enterprises were wanted, the ad said that candidates must apply to the Central Organization Department of the Communist Party of China. That Department is in a way the central labeling department. It is where they keep the files. You can only learn the operator telephone number. The buildings do not have descriptive signs on their walls. Even the address is unknown. In an interview, one of the executives told the journalist "the Party knows how to find us. Just as you cannot forget your parents' name, you do not forget us". Remind me to talk about this huge organization, the Communist Party of China, of my understanding someday.
But even the newspaper ad in itself was an innovation. China is a unique place full of life.
This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 04.09.2010
