China 2.0: Will bottom up collide with top down?

[Honor Guard at Forbidden City more for tourism than intimidation. Photo by Shel]

I read about half of Paul Theroux’s 1988 China travel book, Riding the Iron Rooster through China on my way over. It would prove to be a mistake. First, he and I tend to have different attitudes, I see light. Second, the China of 20 years ago is dramatically different from today as perhaps the China of 50 or 100 years ago.

This is a country that is evolving rapidly, dramatically, at a pace and with numbers that takes a Westerner's breath away. Robert Scoble had been to China a mere 12 years ago. He did not recognize the place. "There's just a great deal more wealth here now than there was back then. He gestured at a modern high rise building near a modern train station in Guangzhou [Canton], where we had met up.

                      [Guangzhou Just after sunrise. Photo by Shel]

Traveling independent of each other,  we both saw a story the story of a fast-evolving tech sector ecosystem moving rapidly through early stage evolution. We also both realized that what we saw is part of a larger, more nuanced story. As Robert & I and the group of bloggers that comprised the China 2.0 tour met hundreds of Chinese bloggers at CNBloggercon, where I spoke, police used clubs to quell angry laid-off migrant factory workers in another section of the city who were protesting being laid off without back pay owed them.

                          [CNBloggercon '08 attendees. Photo by Shel]

So, while I see light and hope and excitement in China, I need to not be blinded by that light as I write about this dynamic and complex place. As I tweeted my way through a week of meetings with executive from many of China's most promising companies, I received a great number of cynical comments--people who just could not believe what I was writing was true; who believed I must be writing under a watchful censor's eye; people who seemed to be talking of a China that was here when Theroux's cynical eye peered through the window of a train and saw a treeless vapid place, still recovering from the great ugliness that was the Cultural Revolution.

It just isn't like that in China, today. This is not a police state. The only military presence I saw was outside the Forbidden City, where an honor guard paraded to the pleasure of us tourists. The number of police on the streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou is about the same as San Francisco, London or Paris. The police are unarmed and in no way did they feel intimidating.

But, China is no simple, happy Land of Oz. Of the dozens of skeptical comments and questions I got from Westerners while traveling through China, a few were downright mean-spirited or boneheaded. Most, however, were sincerely asked by people who had trouble believing the favorable picture that I was painting. But mine were but a few brush strokes on the large and complex China canvas.

Likewise, there is probably some truth to any negative you have heard, but they are not the whole truth either. China is indeed polluted, congested and corrupt. Traffic is horrid and pedestrians in crosswalks appear to have the same status as road cones as the Chinese weave along as if lane markers were mere suggestions.

More seriously, the government remains a top-down oligarchy and when pushed, it sometimes reacts with despicable force and very harsh punishment. But almost every China resident I asked told me that they believed the Chinese government has the best interests of the Chinese people at heart. The government's ruling nine-member Politburo is overwhelmingly comprised, I was told, of technocrats, not ideological Communists. They are adept at building roads and urban complexes, hydroelectric facilities and train networks. They are heading for democracy at an uneven pace, which only a few people find too slow. More people fear that moving too quickly to set up a system that empowers 1.3 billion people to vote will lead to a social instability that could be disastrous.

The Communist Party is also less than you may think it is. There are 70 million members in China, less than half the number of the country's Christians. A large portion have joined for very non-ideological reasons. They need to be party members to work in municipal jobs, or police departments or as interpretors. One student shared with me that her mother's Communist Party card was her Union card, and made it easier for the mom to get a job in education and the daughter to get a scholarship to college.

I was there for a mere 10 days. I visited three cities, spoke to maybe a hundred people, most of them affluent, educated and ignited in the universal spirit of the entrepreneurialism that. I was fed great food, learned to appreciate Great Wall wine. I stayed in fashionable hotels, walked through historic jaw-dropping landmarks. I met the people who are winning, who are thriving in the fast-evolving Web 2.0 ecosystem. Many were American, or European ex-Pats, who visited China and fell in love with the country, the opportunity or a woman and stayed on longer than they thought they would.

But I did get to speak with several young Chinese, who were ecstatic with their lives. Each was enjoying an infinitely better life than their parents in terms of material goods and freedom. Each used the Internet regularly to chat, post anonymously on bulletin boards, play games or more frequently earn a living. Many had started or were working for or with companies that provided the same opportunities and informal working conditions that exist in Silicon Valley, where I live.

They are part of a bottom up culture which is moving upward at great speed. Are they on a collision course with a top-down government that is retreating from its command and control at a pace that they determine for themselves?

I have no idea. Like I said, I was there for a mere 10 days and it is a big and very complex country.

Comments

[Jeff Bundy]

Shel, typo? "...1.3 million people..." you mean 1.3Billion, right?

Loved your "road cones" analogy -- reminded me of Rome, Italy when I was there 30+ years ago! :)

Looking forward to your China Chronicles!

[shel Israel]

Typo fixed.

[Joel]

Your point about the total amount of Communist party members not being a true reflection of Chinese citizens who fully support Communism is right on. I have encountered a number of Chinese friends who joined the party in order to improve their career and/or educational advancement prospects. I really enjoyed your post. As someone coming from outside of China you did an excellent job of maintaining an unbiased open perspective, while still pointing out the harsh realities that the Chinese government and its citizens must come to grasp with in the oncoming future.