A Long Term View
Insights on China in the twenty-first century. (3/7)
China’s long and complex history is omnipresent in conteporary Chinese culture, despite interventions over the years to rewrite much of it’s narrative.
During my recent trip to Shanghai, I ventured to neighbouring Hangzhou — a one hour high speed train trip from Shanghai (not factoring in the one hour it takes to drive to the station in Shanghai traffic!) where I visited the Linyin temple — a place rich in history, and (you guessed it) complexity. It is one of the largest and wealthiest Buddhist temples in China, established in 328 AD during the Eastern Jin dynasty. It thankfully escaped large scale destruction during the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guards sought to destroy the ‘Four Olds’; namely, old customs, culture, habits and ideas. This particular statue is over 1,800 years old. It’s truly humbling to be in the presence of such artefacts.
In very recent times the CCP has amended the Chinese constitution and abolished presidential term limits, in a move that will allow President Xi Jinping to stay in power indefinitely. (The amendment passed with 99.79% of the votes. I hate to think what happened to the guy that voted no). This is a stark contrast to Australia, where we have seen seven Prime Ministers in a decade.
This long term Government stability means that China can make big, bold policy changes, that will take several years, even decades to eventuate. The result of which is tremendous growth and the completion of successive large scale and ambitious programs of work, the likes of which other major and emerging economies would only be able to dream of.
For example, the Belt and Road initiative that will not be completely until sometime in the 2030’s.
The Belt and Road Initiative represents China’s effort to expand their trade and economic strength by utilizing the old trade routes from the silk road era. By spending and investing on significant pieces of infrastructure, China will be able to both improve trade and international relations with all countries involved with the BRI.
This long-term planning is evident throughout Chinese business culture. I spent several days working with a privately owned enterprise in the manufacturing industry, to better understand the commercial workings of business and trade in the area. Through this work, it became clear that the company was not looking for fast-acting, sweeping reforms of their business. This was not due to a sense of caution or uncertainty, rather they seemed completely calm with regard to acting when the time was right, instead encouraging us to focus on a tiny portion of their operations — namely their slow-burning expansion into the Australian market. It would appear that they were confident that they could take their time with large changes. During one of our meetings, the Chairman spoke with great excitement about the Governments new plans to invest ¥3.5 trillion on public infrastructure — a plan that will no doubt take decades to realise.
This doesn’t mean that things move slowly in China — it is the absolute opposite. The Pudong region of Shanghai is a striking example of the growth, power and speed of the Chinese.
Pudong — literally “The East Bank of the Huangpu River” — originally referred only to the less-developed land across from Shanghai’s Old City and foreign concessions. Until 1993, the area was predominantly farmland, with wharehouses and wharfs near the shore. In 1993, the Chinese government set up a Special Economic Zone, creating the Pudong New Area — a 1,200 square kilometre area which now stands as a powerful symbol of China’s modernisation, home to iconic skyscrapers occupied by the worlds most powerful organisations. The area’s total fixed-asset investment hit 200bn yuan in 2018, while overall fiscal revenue reached 400bn yuan. By the close of 2018 it was expected that Pudong would generate more than 2 trillion yuan in foreign trade for 2018. Not bad for former farmyard!
