Features
A Category-5 Typhoon in China Again
by Kumar David
Every decade or two something happens in China that shakes the world; Napoleon little knew that he was making the biggest understatement in modern history when he said of China:”There lies a sleeping giant. Let him sleep! For when he wakes, he will shake the world.” The Chinese Revolution crafted the PRC in 1949 and woke up the sleeping giant. In 1956 Mao suffered an un-Marxist lapse into utopia and launched the Great Leap Forward envisioning the country leap over centuries of history to industrial muscle and technical eminence in two decades. Instead economic collapse and famine belied these illusions with 20 to 30 million deaths; a great leap backwards.
He retreated for a decade but came storming back in the mid-1960s, red-book, dunce caps, Red Guards and Cultural Revolution, shredding the country, destroying education and universities, driving the Party to its wits end, imprisoning and all but murdering President Liu Shao Chi – “renegade, traitor, and scab” who was rehabilitated in 1980 as a “great Marxist and proletarian revolutionary”. Deng Zhio Ping was purged twice by the Gang of Four which included Mao protégés and his wife. The Go4 attempted to bury even Chou En Lai. Then senile, Mao died. That was in September 1976. Deng had a second second-coming in 1977 (outdoing Jesus by one, whose next coming, in any case, is still eagerly awaited).
Deng set China on a path that has shaken the world; “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”; “Socialist Market Economy”, what’s in a name. It’s a state led, party-hegemonic, non-capitalist society that has made dramatic use of markets, given birth to a wealthy capitalist class, created unimaginable wealth within four decades and all but abolished poverty. Non-capitalist China is on track to become the world’s largest economy. On the darkest of nights, the monkey does not lose its grip is a Tamil saying. Likewise the grip of non-capitalism slumbered for four decades but is now storming back; the Communist Party never lost its authoritarian grip even as the market engine flew.
If by capitalism, you mean what chaps like Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Alfred Marshal described long ago, or what Keynes, Friedman et al fought about in the Twentieth Century, or the way in which American finance, investment and business function, then most certainly that model is NOT how the pieces fit together in China. I have an old friend, let’s call him Senarath who rejected my insistence that China was not capitalist. His Marxism was superficial: “If it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck” he would say. Nope dear boy, its physiology functions like a duckbilled platypus, something of a different genre.
Is there a reason why I am making a fuss about these old political-taxonomic debates? Yes, China is once again at a watershed, it is transiting from a Deng-moment to a post-Deng moment. To personalise the tectonics, we had a Mao-phase then a Deng-phase and we are now opening the Xi-phase. The current convergence of a stream of factors is not coincidental, it is the return of a society with less-capitalist characteristics; a more managed system. The new Xi slogan is “Prosperity for all”; there is a crackdown on the freedom of the wild ass that Alibaba, Tencent, Ant Group and other tech-giants enjoyed for the decades when they flourished and accumulated tens of billions. Ant Group’s planned IPO in Hong Kong and New York last year would have been the largest IPO ever had it gone ahead, but it was pulled at the last minute on the orders of the government. The impish Jack Ma, Chairman of Alibaba disappeared from view, and other Chinese corporate bosses are lying low.
Just one example of China’s runaway capitalism is the property sector. There was an enormous boom fuelled by gigantic debts and the unquenchable thirst of the prospering middle classes for better accommodation. The bust has come! Evergrande, one of the largest is on the brink of bankruptcy; thousands are demonstrating across China demanding their money back; over one million prospective buyers who paid for flats in full in advance face ruin. The company’s gross debt is $300 billion (yes b for billion). The government will have to step in and carry the can like everywhere else where capitalism and markets thrive: ‘Privatise profits and socialise loses’.
These are not superficial changes, nor to do with personal tiffs. No, the Party is making it clear who is the boss and far more important Beijing is enacting a slew of new laws. They will include laws on personal data use, controlling overseas financing, corporate supervision of firms by state-agencies, and national security. Irrespective of whether the proposals are good or detrimental to business, one ambiguity is being unequivocally laid to rest, China is not a capitalist state in any ordinary sense of the term. There are, as is to be expected, red hotheads who have been heard to say that China is “returning to its revolutionary socialist roots”. This is ballyhoo! The state is simply asserting its position and making clear the primacy of the Party over society and the bourgeoisie.
There is admittedly a strong populist streak in all this in the context of rising anger among the majority. Despite improvement for all there is a widening wealth and income gap. And yes, Xi Jinping is playing a populist game ahead of next year’s Party Conference where he will try to secure a third term. Yes, corruption in state and Party have been reduced not wiped out. But these are side shows, the big drama centre stage is restructuring relations between state, society and new-rich capitalism. Regarding society there will be no let-up in authoritarianism, if anything the new control tools allow the state to more efficiently manage what it wants the people to hear, see and think.
The new control measures and crackdown on cultural content in the media and social-media, include:
* Schools will introduce Xi Jinping Thought in the curriculum
* ‘Vulgar influences’ in material offered by tech giants will be curtailed
* ‘Incorrect content’, ‘abnormal ethics’, ’chaotic cultures’ and ‘effeminate men’ will be excluded
* ‘Idol glorification” (megastars, rave pop idols) to be curbed for promoting low moral values
* Children’s access to video games will be limited to three hours per week
Liberals may approve of some of these measures though they would have preferred to see them introduced by suasion not state regulation. Other matters such as the first point will make liberals shudder and recall the previous version of thought indoctrination in the 1960s and 70s.
The crackdown on the $120 billion (yes billion) tutoring industry is illiberal. High quality tutoring is affordable only by well to do families and the highly motivated middle class. The attraction of academic elitism is centuries old, as old as Confucius himself and competition to enter the most prestigious universities is intense. House prices in the catchment vicinity of the best schools is way beyond the reach of 90 if not 95 percent.
But China appears to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There is a movement to discourage mass English teaching after decades of emphasis on English as a second language. One hears inane comments like “Learning English promotes cultural subordination to imperialism” and “What’s the use of English to China’s teeming millions?” Remember the bogus Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists of yore who deprived the millions of exposure to the world while dispatching their own progeny to universities in the West? Well the Chinese hot-heads are different, they are intellectually primitive ultra-radicals, not rich political opportunists. Nevertheless the grouse of the majority against the tuition industry has real roots and if the Party fails to manage it properly it will do harm to cultural modernisation and the advancement of the people.
About one trillion dollars in asset value of China’s tech giants has been wiped out in global stock markets since the crackdown on giant businesses started. Beijing is not playing a superficial game of tit-for-tat with disrespectful corporate bosses, nor indulging in old-fashioned cultural prudishness, nor merely indulging populist hypocrisy to build Xi Jinping’s image and prospects of a third term at November 2022 Party Conference. No, there is a more fundamental real-world process at play. It is about resolving tensions in the Party-State authoritarian social and economic structure, correcting the capitalist portion of economic activity, ordering market freedoms and disciplining the super-rich capitalist class.
The whip has been cracked and it has been made abundantly clear who is boss. This of course comes as a great surprise to Western ‘analysts’, businessmen and scholars who never understood that Chinese state was at root non-capitalist. (Only Lakshman Gunasekara understood at the time; he may not have agreed but he saw what I was getting at, when I developed this thesis in a 50 page – with discussions – paper at the Hector Abhayavardhana Felicitation Symposium 22 years ago in December 1999).
This is the point I am making again in this essay. We have entered a third period, after the Mao-phase and the Deng-phase, in the socio-economic evolution of the People’s Republic. It may go down as a Xi-phase, or if Xi is ousted from leadership the designation may be different, but a shift in the dynamic of the PRC has commenced not because anybody willed it, but because it was necessary. Why was it necessary? I see two reasons; first a course correction in the relationship between the Party-State and ‘capitalism with Chinese characteristics’ was overdue, and secondly the Sino-American Thucydides challenge required China to gird up its forces. I cannot touch on strategic aspects without straining my Editors patience; this piece is already longer than usual.
The whip has been cracked not only over China’s capitalists but Hong Kong’s moderately free electoral system. Independent HK trade unions which supported the so-called pan-democrats and student rioters in 2019 have also been brought to heel. The largest professional union, HK Professional Teachers Union, has been attacked as a “poisonous tumour”; it wound up. Medical staff and nurses who speak against Beijing are prosecuted on flimsy grounds and imprisoned. These changes are a reminder that authoritarianism is not what characterises Chinese polity but totalitarianism in the sense of unwillingness to share political space and power with others (Catholic Church, Fulan Gong, Uyghur Muslims, independent legislatures and trade unions). This makes the system total-litarian in the literal sense of this ugly verbal disjunction; no one will be allowed to threaten or dilute the Party’s monopoly of power. Hong Kong’s electoral laws have been amended make future legislatures appendages of Beijing. Blame for unfurling this backlash has of course to be squarely assigned to Hong Kong’s 2019 rioters whose arson and destruction of public property opened the door to intervention on this scale.
Chinese tech-giants though muscular in stock market and profit do not have the clout that establishing the global sting of outposts that the Belt and Road Initiative needs. That’s a task that is too big even for Chinese capitalist enterprises, it needs the direct leadership and muscle of the state. In the global contest with the Americans Chinese capitalism is no match for dominant American capitalism. The state entered the ring brushing aside relatively weak and unsophisticated Chinese capitalism and took control of the Belt & Road Megaproject. A rectification of state-class-Party relations was needed to underwrite this and is now in progress. Chinese courts are even asserting that disputes involving Chinese companies anywhere in the world shall be adjudicated in accordance with Chinese laws and the rulings of Chinese courts.
The perceptive commentator seeking to make some sense of social and economic developments within most Southern countries today has no choice but to revisit, as it were, that classic on post-colonial societies, ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ by Frantz Fanon. Decades after the South’s initial decolonization experience this work by the Algerian political scientist of repute remains profoundly relevant.
The fact that the Algeria of today is seeking accountability from its former colonizer, France, for the injustices visited on it during the decades of colonial rule enhances the value and continuing topicality of Frantz’s thinking and findings. The fact that the majority of the people of most decolonized states are continuing to be disempowered and deprived of development should doubly underline the significance of ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ as a landmark in the discourse on Southern questions. The world would be erring badly if it dismisses this evergreen on decolonization and its pains as in any way outdated.
Developments in contemporary China help to throw into relief some of the internal ‘structural deficiencies’ that have come to characterize most Southern societies in current times. However, these and many more ‘structural faults’ came to the attention of the likes of Fanon decades back.
It is with considerable reservations on their truthfulness that a commentator would need to read reports from the US’ Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on developments in China, but one cannot approach with the same skepticism revelations on China by well-known media institutions such as Bloomberg News.
While an ODNI report quoted in this newspaper on March 25th, 2025, elaborated on the vast wealth believed to have been amassed by China’s contemporary rulers and their families over the years, Bloomberg News in a more studied manner said in 2012, among other things, on the same subject that, ‘Xi’s extended family had amassed assets totaling approximately $376 million, encompassing investments in sectors like rare earth minerals and real estate. However, no direct links were established between these assets and Xi or his immediate family.’
Such processes that are said to have taken hold in China in post- Mao times in particular are more or less true of most former colonies of the South. A clear case in point is Sri Lanka. More than 75 years into ‘independence’ the latter is yet to bring to book those sections of its ruling class that have grown enormously rich on ill-gotten gains. It seems that, as matters stand, these sections would never be held accountable for their unbounded financial avarice.
The mentioned processes of exploitation of a country’s wealth, explain in considerable measure, the continuing underdevelopment of the South. However, Fanon foresaw all these ills and more about the South long ago. In ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ he speaks insightfully about the ruling classes of the decolonized world, who, having got into the boots of the departing colonizers, left no stone unturned to appropriate the wealth of their countries by devious means and thereby grow into the stratum described as ‘the stinking rich.’
This is another dimension to the process referred to as ‘the development of underdevelopment.’ The process could also be described as ‘How the Other Half Dies’. The latter is the title of another evergreen piece of research of the seventies on the South’s development debacles by reputed researcher Susan George.
Now that the Non-aligned Movement is receiving some attention locally it would be apt to revisit as it were these development debacles that are continuing to bedevil the South. Among other things, NAM emerged as a voice of the world’s poor. In fact in the seventies it was referred to as ‘The trade union of the poor.’ Accordingly, it had a strong developmental focus.
Besides the traditional aims of NAM, such as the need for the South to keep an ‘equidistance’ between the superpowers in the conduct of its affairs, the ruling strata of developing countries were also expected to deliver to their peoples equitable development. This was a foremost dimension in the liberation of the South. That is, economic growth needed to be accompanied by re-distributive justice. In the absence of these key conditions no development could be said to have occurred.
Basing ourselves on these yardsticks of development, it could be said that Southern rulers have failed their peoples right through these decades of decolonization. Those countries which have claimed to be socialistic or centrally planned should come in for the harshest criticism. Accordingly, a central aim of NAM has gone largely unachieved.
It does not follow from the foregoing that NAM has failed completely. It is just that those who have been charged with achieving NAM’s central aims have allowed the Movement to go into decline. All evidence points to the fact that they have allowed themselves to be carried away by the elusive charms of the market economy, which three decades ago, came to be favoured over central planning as an essential of development by the South’s ruling strata.
However, now with the returning to power in the US of Donald Trump and the political Right, the affairs of the South could, in a sense, be described as having come full circle. The downgrading of USAID, for instance, and the consequent scaling down of numerous forms of assistance to the South could be expected to aggravate the development ills of the hemisphere. For instance, the latter would need to brace for stepped-up unemployment, poverty and social discontent.
The South could be said to have arrived at a juncture where it would need to seek ways of collectively advancing its best interests once again with little or no dependence on external assistance. Now is the time for Southern organizations such as NAM to come to the forefront of the affairs of the South. Sheer necessity should compel the hemisphere to think and act collectively.
Accordingly, the possibility of South-South cooperation should be explored anew and the relevant institutional and policy framework needs to be created to take on the relevant challenges.
It is not the case that these challenges ceased to exist over the past few decades. Rather it is a case of these obligations being ignored by the South’s ruling strata in the belief that externally imposed solutions to the South’s development questions would prove successful. Besides, these classes were governed by self- interest.
It is pressure by the people that would enable their rulers to see the error of their ways. An obligation is cast on social democratic forces or the Centre-Left to come to center stage and take on this challenge of raising the political awareness of the people.
On the morning of 21 March, 2025, a Chinese-built K-8 jet trainer aircraft of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) crashed at Wariyapola. Fortunately, the two pilots ejected from the aircraft and parachuted down to safety.
A team of seven has been appointed to investigate the accident. Their task is to find the ‘cause behind the cause’, or the root cause. Ejecting from an aircraft usually has physical and psychological repercussions. The crew involved in the crash are the best witnesses, and they must be well rested and ready for the accident inquiry. It is vital that a non-punitive atmosphere must prevail. If the pilots believe that they are under threat of punishment, they will try to withhold vital information and not reveal the truth behind what happened, prompting their decision to abandon the stricken aircraft. In the interest of fairness, the crew must have a professional colleague to represent them at the Inquiry.
2000 years ago, the Roman philosopher Cicero said that “To err is human.” Alexander Pope said, “To err is human. To forgive, divine.” Yet in a Royal Air Force (RAF) hangar in the UK Force (RAF) hangs a sign declaring: “To err is human. To forgive is not RAF policy” These are the two extremes.
Over the years, behavioural scientists have observed that errors and intelligence are two sides of the same coin. In other words, an intelligent human being is liable to make errors. They went on to label these acts of omission and commission as ‘Slips, Lapses, Mistakes and Violations’.
To illustrate the point in a motoring context, if one was restricted to driving at a speed limit of 100 kph along an expressway and the speed crept up to 120 kph, then it is a ‘Slip’ on one’s part. If you forgot to fasten the seatbelt, it is a ‘Lapse’. While driving along a two-lane road, if a driver thinks in his/her judgement that the way is clear and tries to overtake slower traffic on the road, using the opposite lane, then encounters unanticipated opposite traffic and is forced to get back to the correct lane, that is a ‘Mistake’. Finally, if a double line is crossed while overtaking, while aware that the law is being broken, that is labelled as a ‘Violation’. In theory, all of the above could be applied to flying as well.
In the mid-Seventies, Elwyn Edwards and Frank Hawkins proposed that good interaction between Software (paperwork), Hardware (the aircraft and other machines), Liveware (human element) and the (working) environment are the essentials in safe flight operations. Labelled the ‘SHELL’ concept, it was adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. (ICAO). (See Diagram 01)
In diagram 01, two ‘L’s depict the ‘Liveware’, inside and outside an aircraft flightdeck. The ‘L’ at the centre is the pilot in command (PIC), who should know his/her strengths and weaknesses, know the same of his/her crew, aircraft, and their mission, and, above all, be continuously evaluating the risks.
Finally, Prof. James Reason proposed the Swiss Cheese Theory of Accident Causation. (See Diagram 02)
From this diagram we see that built in defences in a system are like slices of Swiss cheese. There are pre-existing holes at random which, unfortunately, may align and allow the crew at the ‘sharp end’ to carry out a procedure unchecked.
Although it is easy and self-satisfying to blame a crew, or an individual, at an official accident investigation, what should be asked, instead, is why or how the system failed them? Furthermore, a ‘just culture’ must prevail.
The PIC and crew are the last line of defence in air safety and accident prevention. (See Diagram 3)
A daily newspaper reported that it is now left to be seen whether the crash on 21 March was due to mechanical failure or pilot error. Why is it that when a judge makes a wrong judgement it is termed ‘Miscarriage of Justice’ or when a Surgeon loses a patient on the operating table it is ‘Surgical Misadventure’, but when a pilot makes an honest error, it is called ‘Pilot Error’? I believe it should be termed ‘Human Condition’.
Even before the accident investigation had started, on 23 March, 2025, Minister of Civil Aviation, Bimal Ratnayake, went on record saying that the Ministry of Defence had told him the accident was due to an ‘athweradda’ (error). This kind of premature declaration is a definite ‘no-no’ and breach of protocol. The Minister should not be pre-empting the accident enquiry’s findings and commenting on a subject not under his purview. Everyone concerned should wait for the accident report from the SLAF expert panel before commenting.
God bless the PIC and crew!
– Ad Astrian
Yes, it’s happening tomorrow, Friday (28th), and Saturday (29th,) and what makes this scene extra special is that you don’t need to rush and pack your travelling bags and fork out a tidy sum for your airfare to Thailand.
The Thai Street Food Festival, taking place at Siam Nivasa, 43, Dr. CWW Kannangara Mawatha, Colombo 7, will not only give you a taste of Thai delicacies but also Thai culture, Thai music, and Thai dancing.
This event is being organised by the Thai Community, in Sri Lanka, in collaboration with the Royal Thai Embassy in Colombo.
The Thai Community has been very active and they make every effort to promote Amazing Thailand, to Sri Lankans, in every possible way they can.
Regarding the happening, taking place tomorrow, and on Saturday, they say they are thrilled to give Sri Lankans the vibrant Thai Street Food Festival.
Explaining how Thai souvenirs are turned out
I’m told that his event is part of a series of activities, put together by the Royal Thai Embassy, to commemorate 70 years of diplomatic relations between Thailand and Sri Lanka.
At the Thai Street Food Festival, starting at 5.00 pm., you could immerse yourself in lively Thai culture, savour delicious Thai dishes, prepared by Colombo’s top-notch restaurants, enjoy live music, captivate dance performances, and explore Thai Community members offering a feast of food and beverages … all connected with Amazing Thailand.
Some of the EXCO members of the Thai Community, in Sri Lanka,
with the Ambassador for Thailand
I’m sure most of my readers would have been to Thailand (I’ve been there 24 times) and experienced what Amazing Thailand has to offer visitors … cultural richness, culinary delights and unique experiences.
Well, if you haven’t been to Thailand, as yet, this is the opportunity for you to experience a little bit of Thailand … right here in Colombo; and for those who have experienced the real Thailand, the Thai Street Food Festival will bring back those happy times … all over again!
Remember, ENTRANCE IS FREE.
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