住在纽约的藏人学者和作家茨仁朗杰（Tsering Namgyal），将这篇文章翻译为英文，并做了相应的编辑，发表于Asia Sentinel，在此转发。
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| 《经济学人》用这幅画描绘“中国梦”。 |
On China's Future
Written by Wang Lixiong
WEDNESDAY, 17 APRIL 2013
Chinese writer on the impossibility of being
optimistic
Wang Lixiong is a Chinese writer and scholar
best known for his political novel, China Tidal Wave, which was ranked 41st in
the 100 Most Influential Chinese Novels of the 20th Century by Asia Weekly. It
has gained widespread popularity in China and worldwide media attention while
Wang is regarded as one of China's most outspoken dissidents and reformers.
This was translated for Asia Sentinel by Tsering Namgyal, a Tibetan scholar and
writer.
In my 1991 novel China Tidal WaveI wrote about
the collapse of China and the resulting mass migration of millions of Chinese
into the world, thereby triggering various conflicts. As of today, more than 20
years later, it continues to sell.
On the surface this might seem surprising, but
actually it is not. As long as the future of China remains uncertain, the
collapse of China cannot be ruled out entirely. Perhaps this is why China Tidal
Wave Peril continues to attract its share of readers.
Yet over the past 20 years, the scenarios in the
book did not come true. The direction China is taking is also very different
from the one foretold in the novel. But I often think that China, far from
averting the apocalypse portrayed in the book, continues to inch closer toward
disaster.
China, they say, has gone through many crises
such as the Warlord Era (in the early 1900s), the Opium War, the Japanese
invasion, the Cultural Revolution and the Tianamen Square massacre, all of
which it survived relatively unscathed. Thus critics say that predictions of
China's collapse are overly pessimistic.
In this regard, first we should discuss not
China's crisis but its stability. In fact, it is precisely under stability that
we often see China?s biggest crises. A truly stable country should have many
ways of regulating society: political stability is just one of them. Others
institutions, such as civic and religious organizations and political parties
should all play a role in helping ease pressures.
Culture and tradition, religion and faith,
morality and ethics all help stabilize society, and so does the legal system,
the invisible hand of the market and an army that follows the constitution.
In China, however, there is only one force
regulating society ‑ the government. The role of stabilizing society has become the monopoly
of the government and political power belongs solely to the Communist Party.
Anything that threatens the party is suppressed or banished. As a result, the
party relies on its administrative network and the police force to rule 1.3
billion people.
As a result, the party itself has become China's
greatest risk. As soon as the party collapses, the whole country would lose its
balance. In this sense, the CCP holds he all of China hostage: as soon as the
CCP faces the end, China will meet with the same fate.
The officials and businessmen, who hail the
"Golden Era of China," know what would happen if China collapsed. The
fact that they are gradually siphoning their wealth offshore is a sign of the
looming crisis.
Of course, because people are unable to find an
oppositional force strong enough to challenge the government, many people
believe China will not change and there will be no collapse. A major
transformation, however, will not necessarily come from a big power or a big
event that would be the last straw. Such changes more often than not occur
unexpectedly. The classic example is the fall of the Soviet Union, an event
that few Soviet experts were able to predict.
During Mao Zedong's era, millions of people died
of starvation but it had little effect on political stability because politics
and economics were separate then. Politics was above everything else while
economics was just a part of the equation. Therefore, economic crisis did not
impact political stability. However, Deng Xiaoping put economics above
politics, and economic growth was considered a panacea for all social ills.
In other words, it is like spending money to buy
stability and trading people's consent for material benefit. This closely
linked public approval with public interest. Now, any economic problem is
simultaneously a political problem. If the public continues to enjoy benefits,
there is widespread calm; if they have no benefit, there will be discontent.
Stability is contingent upon economic benefit. Since there is a fine line
between the two situations, such a society can change at a moment's notice.
Under this circumstance, political and
administrative units have to keep the economic engine running. Economic
development, however, does not occur in a linear progression; it is cyclical
and it has its ups and downs. There is not a single major economy in the world
that has not suffered a crisis. The Chinese economy is no exception.
Stability will be put to a test not during good
times but during difficult ones. The Chinese economy has many potential
dangers, and there are impending crises on the horizon. They could take many
forms such as the traditional crisis of overcapacity, or a modern financial
crisis or a global economic crisis as a result of disruptions in the supply
chain.
In a society that puts economics above
everything else, people no longer believe in ideology. Totalitarian regimes,
therefore, can no longer rely on ideology to justify their rule and democratic
means are also off limits. Therefore, it is left to rely on its
"usefulness" to validate its rule.
For the Chinese Communist Party, its
"usefulness" lies in its ability to maintain continued economic
growth. Yet as soon as there is an economic crisis, the government will lose
its main claim to "usefulness" which could lead to political crisis,
which, in turn, would trigger social crisis.
China is a unique case in that tremendous
instability at the local level (every year there are over 100,000 mass protest
incidents) co-exists with extreme stability at the national level. The
authoritarian regime can stop the local protests from joining together. The
authorities can combine absolute control over arms, organizational networks,
communication prowess and responsiveness to suppress resistance.
Occurring at different times and in different
places, no single local movement can fight the power of the regime. The only
way to reverse the balance of power is for all the local protests to occur
simultaneously so that it becomes a national protest. This would divert the
regime's resources, weakening its otherwise advantageous position. It is not
surprising at all that the government would see this as its biggest enemy. Most
of repressive measures ? restrictions on political parties or organizations,
bans on newspapers, and strict control over NGOs ? are all rooted in the goal
of preventing protests from spreading.
Methods of political rule, which have been in
development over thousands of years, and advanced technology have given the
communist regime an unprecedented ability to rule, making it perhaps the biggest
beast of governance in history, and almost invincible. While authoritarian
regimes might be able to stop people from connecting at the political level,
they are unable to stop people from connecting in their daily social and
economic activities.
This is particularly impossible given that the
essence of the market economy is its interconnectedness. In the current era of
a closely integrated economic society, it is often stock market crashes,
financial crisis or large-scale unemployment that would cause turmoil.
Political repression often fails to avert such large-scale unrest.
On the contrary, the more effective the
government's repressive measures, the more likely for the society to manifest
change through such large-scale protests. In my opinion, the transformation in
China will come as a result of a mass uprising triggered by an economic crisis.
The thesis that China would not collapse is
based on the argument that nobody is actually willing to cause trouble. Yet we
know from Game Theory (for instance with the case of the "Three Prisoners
Paradox") that what might be a rational decision at the individual level
often leads to a very irrational decision at the collective level. This is
called "non-cooperative equilibrium."
In non-cooperative equilibrium, individual
interests are detrimental for the group as a whole. Such a conflict between
individual and collective interest is far more common than suggested by the
economist Adam Smith's "invisible hand" (where the market acts as a
self-regulating force, creating an equilibrium which is in the interest of
all). So the argument that China would not be chaotic because nobody is willing
to rebel is not feasible. The thesis that few would choose to create problems
is dependent upon rational decisions while whether China will be chaotic will
depend upon collective behavior.
Even though the situation in China Tidal Wave is
quite tragic, some thoughtful readers believe that my assessment is quite
sympathetic. Since I did not want to see too many people dying, I have created
many miracles (for example a "pumpkin" that can could grow in a few
days and mass migration of Chinese into the world in a fairly organized
manner). All of this, however, is not likely and is not logical. Having said
that, this is a novel.
Let us say the probability of such a crisis
happening is extremely small. However, if their dire predictions and concerns
about China?s future eventually help avert such a crisis, then the pessimists
-- though some might think they are lunatics -- would have achieved some
purpose.
Some believe that China will continue to enjoy
20 more years of fast-paced economic growth. As long as the economy is good, it
should be able to deal with the worst things imaginable. If the economy
continues to grow, pessimists will be blamed for crying wolf. I, however,
believe that China's crisis will come sooner or later and the only question is
when. Even if there are 20 more years left, that is not a long time in the
sweep of history.
(Wang Lixiong lives and works in Beijing.
Tsering Namgyal, who lives in New York, is the author of a forthcoming
biography of the 17th Karmapa Lama.)
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