2021.11.15 习近平的可怕的新中国

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GLOBAL
Xi Jinping’s Terrifying New China
The country is in the grip of the most concerted government campaign to assert greater control over its people in decades.

By Michael Schuman
Revolutionary poster of Xi Jinping
The Atlantic
NOVEMBER 15, 2021
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China’s social media was briefly aflutter this fall about an impressive feat in the popular online fantasy game Honor of Kings. A player had completed a “pentakill,” or five kills in a row, but something just smelled wrong: The user in question was 60 years old, according to the verified account information—hardly the type to be an expert gamer. Even more mysterious, why was this person brandishing digital weaponry at 3 a.m.? Was the player in fact a teenager sneaking online in the wee hours of the morning?

Under normal circumstances, the speculation might have ended there. But these days are far from normal in China. Deeming video games a distraction from the hard work of serving the motherland, President Xi Jinping’s government mandated in August that youngsters could play just three hours a week, and only at specified times. Thus, the anonymous gamer, whoever he or she was, might have been violating the law and the great leader’s wishes. The matter got so much attention that the game’s operator, the Chinese tech giant Tencent, investigated and in a formal statement confirmed that the game-obsessed insomniac was indeed a perfectly legal 60-year-old. (The company employs facial-recognition software to match users to their accounts.)


The episode would be humorous, if it weren’t so frightening. China today is in the grip of the most concerted government campaign to assert greater control over society in decades, perhaps since the tumultuous days of Mao Zedong. The edict restricting when kids can play video games is just part of a barrage launched by Xi’s administration in recent months across both business regulation and mundane daily life. Chinese companies face more hurdles to listing on public stock markets abroad and education providers are no longer allowed to offer online lessons run with foreign teachers, while local television bars men whose hairstyles are deemed insufficiently masculine.


From Rebel To RulerTONY SAICH,HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Taken together, this deluge of dictates can be viewed as one element of Xi’s broader agenda to mold a new Chinese society that will be instilled with proper socialist values—as he defines them—purged of corrupting individualism and other bad habits that have seeped in from foreign (read: Western) cultures, and thus girded for the next phase of national struggle: the quest for global greatness.

Xi’s campaign should be seen as “an exercise in nation building, and that means defining … what is the Chinese nation and who are the Chinese,” Regina Abrami, the director of the Lauder Institute’s Global Program at the University of Pennsylvania, told me. And, according to Xi, “the Chinese are not people that play video games all day,” Abrami said.

This grand experiment in social engineering has tremendous implications for China’s future, and the world’s. It comes at a critical moment, when China is attempting that decisive but often elusive leap into the ranks of the world’s most advanced economies. Yet in many respects, the underlying thrust of Xi’s campaign—toward greater state control—is a reversal of the winning formula of recent decades, and risks undercutting the entrepreneurship and innovation needed to propel the economy forward. If Xi’s new society fails to take China to the next economic level, the country’s ambition to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant superpower will founder as well, with possible negative consequences for Xi and the Communist regime.

Xi likely believes the exact opposite—that his program will ensure China’s future, not risk it. To him, a bracing infusion of stricter discipline, greater party direction, and deeper ideological conformity will strengthen and prepare the nation for the onrushing stage in its resurgence: competition with the United States. What’s about to unfold, therefore, is a contest between liberal and illiberal beliefs about how best to achieve national success.

Xi’s campaign is in many ways a return to the norm. Meddling with society is in the Chinese Communist Party’s DNA, and it has been itching to remake China. Marxism, after all, is about destroying a corrupt, unjust world and replacing it with a utopia of egalitarian camaraderie. A century ago, when the CCP was formed, this ideology appealed greatly to young radicals who sought to strengthen a China laid prostrate before imperial powers. Chen Duxiu, one of the party’s founders, wrote that China must be purged of its entire traditional civilization if the Chinese people were to rise again. “I would much rather see the past culture of our nation disappear,” he wrote, “than see our race die out.”

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In the first decades of the People’s Republic, Mao attempted to fulfill the Communist vision. No element of Chinese life was safe from revolutionary fervor, including the family farm and women’s hairstyles. The height of society-altering zeal was the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, during which troops of youthful Red Guards sought to eliminate the “four olds”—old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits—which entailed beating up their teachers and ransacking the country’s most prominent Confucian temple. Though the reformers who claimed power after Mao’s death downplayed revolution in favor of a pragmatic quest for wealth, they, too, intruded into Chinese households, including their bedrooms, with the disastrous one-child policy.

Now Xi is tapping into this storied legacy of social intervention. Anthony Saich, a professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and the author of From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party, believes we’re witnessing Xi’s “attempt to completely recast the economy and society to push it in a more socialist direction.” The campaign, he told me, “fuses with … key elements of Communist Party practice historically,” including “a deep strain of paternalism.” The party, he said, “sees itself as the moral arbiter of state and society.”

The current stage in Xi’s campaign began, oddly enough, with a stock-market listing. The ride-sharing app Didi Chuxing ran afoul of Chinese authorities by debuting its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in late June, despite Beijing’s concerns that the public offering could allow U.S. regulators to access sensitive data about China and its citizens. That led to new rules that will likely constrain the ability of Chinese tech companies to raise funds abroad. The government then added tighter protections on consumer-data privacy.

That proved to be just the start of a rolling snowball of regulation. The next target was private education companies that offer after-school tutoring classes, which are popular among students seeking to pass competitive college entrance exams. In July, the companies were barred from providing for-profit classes in core subjects and online sessions with foreign teachers. August brought a mandate for all schools to provide instruction in “Xi Jinping Thought,” a compendium of his sayings and teachings and an echo of Mao’s famous Little Red Book.

But wait, there’s more. The same month, Xi told a high-level committee about the importance of “common prosperity,” which he called a requirement of socialism. To combat income inequality—a serious problem in China—the meeting participants pledged to promote rural development, improve social services, and “adjust excessive incomes,” according to Xinhua, the country’s official news agency. Quick to sniff the political winds, the rich and mighty began opening their wallets. Companies such as Tencent and the e-commerce outfit Alibaba pledged fresh billions to Xi’s cause.

Xi’s assault on “celebrity culture” has also drawn the entertainment industry into his crosshairs. Popular Chinese stars will face greater scrutiny of their income and taxes, while some fan-club accounts have been shut down on social media and “effeminate” men (for instance, those who copy the styles of beloved Korean boy bands) have been barred from local television.

In sum, the individual edicts form part of a larger, more important shift. For much of his rule, Xi has worked to reassert the power of the state and party, which had somewhat receded during the decades of reform. Cold political calculation may be Xi’s primary motivation. He continually stresses the primacy of the Communist Party and its leadership, and some of his moves—such as the crackdown on Big Tech—might be aimed at squelching potential independent sources of power that have the wealth and influence to challenge authority. The timing, too, may not be coincidental. Xi is about to enter a particularly sensitive political period: A year from now, at a Communist Party congress, Xi will almost certainly attempt to break with modern precedent and stay in charge for a third five-year term. That’s still controversial in Chinese politics, so Xi may feel that having greater control might improve his chances. His new commitment to “common prosperity” could also be a way to appeal to the public as a defender of the people, a populist ploy to garner support at a crucial moment in his political life.

We can’t rule out, however, that Xi sincerely believes in the course he’s taking. (Indeed, the two explanations are not mutually exclusive.) It’s easy to discount the CCP’s Marxist pronouncements as a necessary but rhetorical cover for the country’s raging capitalism, but Xi regularly reminds the nation that it is socialist, and praises the successes of China’s version of the ideology. That’s why he may also find certain social practices—conspicuous displays of wealth, for instance—morally unacceptable. A U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, which was written before Xi became China’s paramount leader, paraphrases a professor and former friend of Xi’s who described him as “repulsed by the all-encompassing commercialization of Chinese society, with its attendant nouveau riche, official corruption, loss of values, dignity, and self-respect.” The professor speculated that if Xi gained power, “he would likely aggressively attempt to address these evils, perhaps at the expense of the new moneyed class.”

Xi most likely isn’t done. Officials are investigating Chinese state banks and other financial firms in search of ties to private companies that the government would consider too close, and a policy plan on women’s health care raised fears that Beijing plans to limit abortions as a way to slow the nation’s demographic decline. Penn’s Abrami thinks that this current movement could follow those of the Communist past, which had “a pattern of first cracking down on whomever is identified as the corrupt, and then cracking down on whomever is identified as the impure, and then widening the lens to a more broad mass movement.”

Xi’s goals for his campaign may extend beyond China, and into his widening confrontation with the United States. Xi and his propaganda machine are presenting China’s authoritarian governance as a more appropriate model for the world than democratic capitalism, better able to create a more harmonious, just, and prosperous society, and more capable of achieving great tasks, such as conquering the coronavirus pandemic, than a dysfunctional, decadent, and declining America. His new decrees could be part of this ideological offensive. As Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a recent essay, Xi “may believe the recent wave of crackdowns is necessary to bring about socialism at home to differentiate from capitalism as practiced in the West.”

That raises the ugly prospect of the competition between the U.S. and China becoming more like the Cold War—a battle between ideologically opposed political, economic, and social systems. That is, if Xi’s new China succeeds. By attacking the wealthy, constraining private enterprise, and strangling education, Xi could discourage entrepreneurship and independent thinking, the magic ingredients for technological breakthroughs and innovative products. Starting a company is already a risky business. Why attempt it if you’ll end up in trouble? By experimenting with Chinese society, Xi is gambling that his bid for social control won’t smother the incentives and initiative that the economy requires to excel.

It’s important, though, to realize that Xi isn’t likely to see things this way. The West is convinced that political and social freedoms and economic progress are inseparable. Xi and his Communist cadres do not agree, and, in their minds, they have China’s four-decade record of triumphs to prove their point. China’s leader appears to believe that greater top-down control will ensure his country’s continued ascent, not derail it.

From Rebel To RulerTONY SAICH, HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Michael Schuman is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, and the author of Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World and The Miracle: The Epic Story of Asia’s Quest for Wealth.



全球
习近平的可怕的新中国
中国正处于几十年来政府对其人民进行更多控制的最协调一致的运动之中。

迈克尔-舒曼报道
习近平的革命海报
大西洋报
2021年11月15日

今年秋天，中国的社交媒体对流行的在线幻想游戏《王者荣耀》中的一个令人印象深刻的壮举进行了短暂的宣传。一名玩家完成了 "五杀"，即连续杀了五个人，但有一点不对劲：根据验证的账户信息，该用户已经60岁了，不可能是游戏高手。更加神秘的是，为什么这个人在凌晨3点挥舞着数字武器？该玩家实际上是一个在凌晨时分偷偷上网的青少年吗？

在正常情况下，这种猜测可能已经结束。但在中国，这些日子远非正常。习近平主席的政府认为电子游戏分散了为祖国服务的努力工作，在8月规定青少年每周只能玩三个小时，而且只能在指定时间玩。因此，这个匿名的游戏者，不管他或她是谁，可能已经违反了法律和伟大领袖的意愿。这件事引起了广泛的关注，以至于游戏的运营商，中国科技巨头腾讯公司，进行了调查，并在一份正式声明中确认，这位痴迷于游戏的失眠者确实是一位完全合法的60岁老人。(该公司采用面部识别软件来匹配用户和他们的账户）。


如果不是如此可怕，这段插曲会很幽默。今天的中国正处于几十年来政府最协调一致的运动中，也许是自毛泽东的动荡年代以来，政府对社会进行了更大的控制。限制孩子们玩电子游戏的法令只是习近平政府最近几个月来在商业监管和普通日常生活中发起的一系列行动的一部分。中国公司在海外公共股票市场上市面临更多障碍，教育机构不再被允许提供由外国教师授课的在线课程，而当地电视台禁止那些被认为发型不够阳刚的男性。


从反叛者到统治者TONY SAICH，哈瓦德大学出版社
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综合来看，这一系列的指令可以被视为习近平更广泛的议程中的一个要素，即塑造一个新的中国社会，这个社会将被灌输适当的社会主义价值观--正如他所定义的--清除腐败的个人主义和其他从外国（阅读：西方）文化中渗入的坏习惯，从而为国家斗争的下一阶段做好准备：追求全球的伟大。

宾夕法尼亚大学劳德研究所全球项目主任Regina Abrami告诉我，习近平的运动应被视为 "国家建设的练习，这意味着定义...什么是中华民族，谁是中国人"。而且，根据习近平的说法，"中国人不是整天玩电子游戏的人"，Abrami说。

这一社会工程的大实验对中国和世界的未来有着巨大的影响。它发生在一个关键时刻，当中国正试图决定性地但往往难以捉摸地跃入世界最先进经济体的行列。然而，在许多方面，习近平运动的基本主旨--走向更大的国家控制--是对近几十年来的成功模式的颠覆，并有可能削弱推动经济发展所需的企业家精神和创新。如果习近平的新社会不能将中国带入新的经济水平，那么中国取代美国成为世界主要超级大国的雄心壮志也将建立起来，并可能对习近平和共产党政权产生负面影响。

习近平可能认为情况恰恰相反--他的计划将确保中国的未来，而不是冒险。对他来说，更严格的纪律、更多的党内指导和更深的意识形态一致性的有力注入，将加强和准备国家在其复苏中的冲刺阶段：与美国的竞争。因此，即将展开的是一场关于如何最好地实现国家成功的自由主义和非自由主义信念之间的竞赛。

习近平的竞选活动在很多方面都是对常规的回归。干涉社会是中国共产党的基因，它一直渴望重塑中国。毕竟，马克思主义是关于摧毁一个腐败的、不公正的世界，用一个平等主义的友爱的乌托邦来取代它。一个世纪前，当中国共产党成立时，这种意识形态对年轻的激进分子有很大的吸引力，他们试图加强一个在帝国主义列强面前一蹶不振的中国。该党的创始人之一陈独秀写道，如果中国人民要重新崛起，就必须清除其整个传统文明。"我宁愿看到我们国家过去的文化消失，"他写道，"也不愿看到我们的民族灭亡。"

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在人民共和国的头几十年里，毛泽东试图实现共产主义的愿景。中国人的生活中没有任何元素能免于革命的狂热，包括家庭农场和妇女的发型。改变社会的热情的高峰是1966年至1976年的文化大革命，在此期间，年轻的红卫兵部队试图消除 "四旧"--旧思想、旧文化、旧习俗和旧习惯--这需要殴打他们的老师和洗劫该国最著名的孔庙。尽管在毛泽东死后掌权的改革者淡化了革命，转而务实地追求财富，但他们也通过灾难性的独生子女政策闯入了中国家庭，包括他们的寝室。

现在，习近平正在利用这一历史悠久的社会干预遗产。哈佛大学肯尼迪学院国际事务教授、《从反叛者到统治者》一书的作者安东尼-赛奇。中国共产党的一百年》一书的作者，认为我们正在见证习近平 "试图彻底重塑经济和社会，将其推向一个更加社会主义的方向。" 他告诉我，这场运动 "融合了......历史上共产党实践的关键要素"，包括 "深刻的家长制"。他说，该党 "将自己视为国家和社会的道德仲裁者"。

奇怪的是，习近平运动的当前阶段是以股票市场上市开始的。6月底，滴滴出行在纽约证券交易所上市，触犯了中国当局的规定，尽管中国政府担心公开募股会让美国监管机构获取有关中国及其公民的敏感数据。这导致了新的规则，可能会限制中国科技公司在国外筹集资金的能力。政府随后在消费者数据隐私方面增加了更严格的保护措施。

事实证明，这只是一个滚动的监管雪球的开始。下一个目标是提供课后辅导班的私营教育公司，这在寻求通过竞争性大学入学考试的学生中很受欢迎。7月，这些公司被禁止提供核心科目的营利性课程和外国教师的在线课程。8月，所有学校被要求提供 "习近平思想 "的教学，这是习近平的言论和教诲的汇编，是对毛泽东著名的小红书的回应。

但等等，还有更多。同月，习近平向一个高级别委员会讲述了 "共同富裕 "的重要性，他称这是社会主义的要求。据中国官方通讯社新华社报道，为了消除收入不平等--这是中国的一个严重问题，与会者承诺促进农村发展，改善社会服务，并 "调整过高的收入"。迅速嗅到政治风向的富人和强人开始打开他们的钱包。腾讯和电子商务公司阿里巴巴等公司承诺为习近平的事业提供新的数十亿美元。

习近平对 "名人文化 "的抨击也将娱乐业纳入他的视线。受欢迎的中国明星将面临更严格的收入和税收审查，而一些粉丝俱乐部账户在社交媒体上被关闭，"娘娘腔 "的男人（例如那些模仿心爱的韩国男团风格的人）被禁止在当地电视台播出。

总而言之，这些单独的法令构成了一个更大、更重要的转变的一部分。在他执政的大部分时间里，习近平一直致力于重新确立国家和党的权力，而在几十年的改革中，国家和党的权力已经有所消退。冷酷的政治计算可能是习近平的主要动机。他不断强调共产党及其领导层的首要地位，而他的一些举措--比如对大科技公司的打击--可能是为了压制那些拥有财富和影响力来挑战权威的潜在独立权力来源。时间上也可能不是巧合。习近平即将进入一个特别敏感的政治时期。一年后，在共产党大会上，习近平几乎肯定会试图打破现代先例，继续执政第三个五年任期。这在中国政治中仍有争议，因此，习近平可能觉得拥有更大的控制权可能会提高他的机会。他对 "共同繁荣 "的新承诺也可能是作为人民的捍卫者吸引公众的一种方式，是在其政治生活的关键时刻争取支持的民粹主义伎俩。

然而，我们不能排除习近平真诚地相信他所采取的路线。(事实上，这两种解释并不相互排斥。）我们很容易将中国共产党的马克思主义声明贬低为该国汹涌的资本主义的一个必要的但又是修辞上的掩护，但习近平经常提醒全国人民它是社会主义的，并赞扬中国版本的意识形态的成功。这就是为什么他可能也认为某些社会习俗--例如，明显的财富展示--在道德上是不可接受的。维基解密发布的一份美国外交电报，是在习近平成为中国最高领导人之前写的，其中转述了习近平的一位教授和前朋友的话，说他 "对中国社会全方位的商业化感到厌恶，以及随之而来的新贵、官员腐败、价值观、尊严和自尊的丧失。" 这位教授推测，如果习近平获得权力，"他可能会积极尝试解决这些弊端，也许会以牺牲新的有钱人阶层为代价。"

习近平很可能还没有完成。官员们正在调查中国的国有银行和其他金融公司，以寻找与政府认为过于密切的私营公司的关系，而一项关于妇女保健的政策计划引起了人们的担忧，即北京计划限制堕胎，作为减缓国家人口下降的一种方式。宾夕法尼亚大学的阿布拉米认为，目前的这场运动可能会沿袭共产党过去的那些运动，"其模式是先打击谁被认定为腐败分子，然后打击谁被认定为不纯洁的人，再把镜头扩大到更广泛的群众运动"。

习近平的竞选目标可能会延伸到中国之外，并延伸到他与美国不断扩大的对抗中。习近平和他的宣传机器正在把中国的威权治理说成是比民主资本主义更适合世界的模式，更能够创造一个更加和谐、公正和繁荣的社会，比功能失调、腐朽和衰落的美国更有能力完成伟大的任务，如征服冠状病毒的大流行。他的新法令可能是这种意识形态攻势的一部分。正如布鲁金斯学会高级研究员Ryan Hass在最近的一篇文章中写道，习近平 "可能认为最近的镇压浪潮对于在国内实现社会主义以区别于西方实行的资本主义是必要的。"

这提出了一个丑陋的前景：美国和中国之间的竞争变得更像冷战--意识形态上对立的政治、经济和社会制度之间的斗争。也就是说，如果习近平的新中国能够成功的话。通过攻击富人、限制私营企业和扼杀教育，习近平可能会阻止企业家精神和独立思考，而这正是技术突破和创新产品的神奇成分。创办公司已经是一件有风险的事情。如果你最终会陷入困境，为什么还要尝试？通过对中国社会的实验，习近平在赌他的社会控制计划不会扼杀经济发展所需的激励和主动性。

不过，重要的是要认识到，习近平不可能这样看待问题。西方人相信，政治和社会自由与经济进步是不可分割的。习近平和他的共产党干部并不同意，而且在他们心中，他们有中国四十年来的胜利记录来证明他们的观点。中国的领导人似乎相信，更多的自上而下的控制将确保他的国家继续上升，而不是破坏它。

从反叛者到统治者TONY SAICH，哈瓦德大学出版社
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迈克尔-舒曼是大西洋理事会全球中国中心的非常驻高级研究员，也是《被打断的超级大国》和《中国的世界史》的作者。中国的世界史》和《奇迹：亚洲追求财富的史诗故事》。