China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society

"This is arguably more of a research paper than a book. It was written by the World Bank in conjunction with a think tank called the Development Research Centre which is directly associated with China’s State Council. I don’t really know whose title this was: whether it was a title that both organisations agreed on or whether it was something that was proposed by the DRC or the World Bank. But it touches on words that are quite meaningful for China — maybe for everybody. It should go without saying, but we may as well acknowledge, that there is no precedent, that I know of, of a country that has catapulted itself from being a poor country to a middle income country in such a short period of time as China. And if you think of the range of income per capita within that, there is low-middle, middle-middle, and high-middle. China is now a middle middle-income country. So there’s a lot of focus in China not just under the current leadership, but also under the previous leadership, under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, about what it means to be a modern society and a modern economy. They are very keen on being thought of as a modern economy. How do we, in China, fulfil the aspirations of modernity? “Very few of China’s leaders turned up to the reception. I don’t think they actually liked some of the things that the World Bank said in the report.” The idea of harmony is an inexorably Chinese concept. It comes out of the Party’s mantra about a harmonious society, which is really a Confucian concept. Society is in an optimum state when it’s harmonious, and this is when you have a benevolent leader or leadership, and society is very well structured underneath that leader. And I suppose ‘creative’ is about innovation. Innovation is something the Chinese government is very, very keen to emphasise as key to future success, and being creative is obviously part of being innovative. So these things are really about China’s aspirations for the world. I think it was the World Bank that originally proposed the idea of doing this report to the State Council. It was jointly authored and signed, although when the report was released in Beijing with a big press conference, very few of China’s leaders turned up to the reception. I don’t think they actually liked some of the things that the World Bank said in the report. That’s because while the report stands as a testament to the wondrousness of China’s economic development, it’s also about the critical success factors which China will have to check, so to speak, in the next 20 years, if it is to avoid falling into the middle-income trap. The World Bank’s words emphasise this is something that has happened to most emerging and developing countries. It’s a plaudit for how far and how fast China has travelled in such an incredibly short period of time, but also a reality check. If you want to go to the next level, then things have to change. It’s all about the kind of reforms and institutional changes, some of the things we’ve already spoken about. Yes, it goes into a lot of detail. For example, it looks in detail at migration in China. It looks at the social and economic status of migrants who go from the countryside to live and work in urban areas. Up until relatively recently, these migrants really lived as second class citizens without access to welfare, to schooling, to housing, or to social security. This is one area where there is certainly movement afoot, to try to alleviate the conditions under which migrants live and work in cities — to give them rights and access to welfare and housing. But there’s a lot of resistance to this, not just from provincial governments who are worried about overcrowding and too great a concentration of people in urban areas, but also from urban residents who don’t want to share their privileges with people from the countryside. I just mention that as an example of some of the issues that are investigated by the World Bank in China’s case. The report gives an indication of what’s required in social reform, in economic reform, in enterprise reform, wealth transfer, financial reform, property rights — just a whole array of things that need change if China wants to aspire to be ‘modern, harmonious, and creative’ in 2030."