III. Enjoy a grander view only by climbing to a greater height
A grand but abstract development strategy can best be illustrated through Chinese poetry.
Chinese poetry has long been considered as a precious jewel of Chinese civilization. Poetry, as a highly condensed form of literature, expresses profound feelings and artistry in few words. Some poetry is sentimental and moving, while other poems describe China’s beautiful landscape and the poets’ broad mind. For example, Wang Zhihuan, a poet from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), wrote a very famous poem titled Climbing White Stork Tower, and two lines of the poem are fondly loved by Chinese people, “To enjoy a grander view, you must climb to a greater height.”
To our great surprise at the very beginning of the report to the 19th CPC National Congress, this idea was used, “All comrades must aim high and look far, be alert to dangers even in times of calm, have the courage to pursue reform and break new ground, and never become inactive or hardened against change.”
Actually I wrote a couplet during this year’s Spring Festival which still hangs on the front door of my apartment. It reads, “The mountain and the sea are smiling to greet the arrival of spring, and I climb to a greater height to enjoy a grander view.”
On the first day of the 19th CPC National Congress, I was doing a live show for China National Radio, interpretating Xi Jinping’s report to the congress. I was given a copy of the report after the congress began, and immediately noticed the phrase when speed-reading the report. I came to realize that it was one of the guiding principles of the report.
When questioned on the subject by the radio presenter, I immediately answered, “As our General Secretary has put it, to enjoy a grander view by climbing to a greater height.” I then summarized six key words from the report that best represented the expression.
People who visit China for the first time will come across many new things that they have never seen before, and naturally they will raise many questions: What is going on in China? How do these things happen?
Everything happens for a reason, and each specific question can be answered differently under different circumstances. But, when all these phenomena are placed together, how can we offer an honest answer that best reflects China as it is?
In order to enjoy the grander view we must examine China’s development strategy from its roots.
China’s rapid development in the past few decades can be interpreted from different angles and perspectives. When we have a comprehensive understanding of the development strategies and important measures that have been adopted by China in the past few decades, we can see why and how such dramatic change has taken place in China. It is the same feeling as Confucius ascending Taishan Mountain, when “all beneath the heavens appeared to him small.”
This is how a successful strategy works.
Everyone is familiar with strategy as a term, and there are numerous ready cases that can teach us about the significance of an effective strategy.
For example the Second World War was a giant battlefield in which different countries applied their tactics and strategies to compete against each other; the importance of strategy should never be underestimated. The famous Maginot line in France is a fine example. The Maginot line was a costly defensive system, consuming almost half of France’s defense budget between 1919 and 1939. The Maginot line was strongly fortified, with the finest engineering constructed to the highest standards at that time. However, when the Second World War broke out, German troops did not launch a direct frontal attack against France; instead they simply bypassed the Maginot line and invaded France through the Ardennes Mountains in northern France. In less than three weeks, the French army was defeated and the Maginot line was under the control of German troops. This is one of the clearest examples of how strategy works. The German must have been proud of the brilliance of their invasion plan, while the French were humiliated by their defeat.
In modern times, strategic issues are of the greatest importance. Chinese people have a saying: “Sit within a command tent and devise strategies that will assure victory a thousand miles away.” It appears to be an exaggeration, but nowadays we can see how true the statement is.
Devising strategy is nothing new in China, and Chinese people knew very well of the importance in having a sound strategy in ancient time. The Master Sun’s Art of War, a book written in the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC-476 BC) and the Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC), is a masterpiece on warfare from a strategic height, covering military strategy and tactics. Attack by Stratagem says, “Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy’s forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy’s army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.”
In the past 100 years, the connotation of the word “strategy” has expanded beyond the bounds of the military and now extends to politics, the economy, culture, state governance and other areas.
In 1929, Liddell Hart (1895-1970), an English soldier and a military theorist, proposed a concept of “grand strategy” for the first time, expanding the scope of strategy to areas other than the military. “A grand strategy deals with economic, diplomatic, commercial, ethical, and military aspects of war in addition to questions about securing peace after a conflict.”
By developing the concept, Americans further created the idea of a national strategy, which became very popular in the 1950s. The term is defined as “the art and science of developing and using the political, economic, and psychological powers of a nation, together with its armed forces, during peace and war, to secure national objectives”.
American strategist John M. Collins once said, “the comprehensive use of a national strategy during wartime or peace will involve the use of all sorts of national forces, so as to safeguard the best interests and national objectives.” In line with this theory, there are many kinds of strategies, including an overall political strategy to deal with both international and domestic issues, an economic strategy to deal with international trade and internal economic development, and a national defense strategy. Each strategy will affect the national security directly or indirectly.
The concept of national strategy began to be considered as an integrated approach to a country’s economic development or its national security.
China was among those countries that first applied the concept of strategy beyond the military and national defense; now the concept of strategy has been widely applied in the field of national development.
In the past few decades I have kept a close eye on the latest research on strategy and international strategic studies. I am also a PhD supervisor focusing on the study of international strategy. I teach a class titled International Strategy in which I give a detailed explanation of the concept of strategy.
Here is my definition of a national strategy.
A national strategy, in the general sense, is an overall strategic science or art that is designed to achieve the national goals through the comprehensive application and comprehensive development of national strengths under various conditions.
A national development strategy is an overall strategy to facilitate the growth and development of a particular country; compared to a national strategy, a national development strategy focuses more on development.
The national development strategy can be further divided into several categories, such as political development, cultural development, scientific development, and military development, while an economic strategy is the most widely-discussed. The economic strategy refers to the overall planning of elements such as the allocation of national industrial forces, economic structure, design of major policies, capital flow involving large sums of money and the distribution of major engineering projects.
Of the same importance as a country’s military or defense strategy, the development strategy will play a decisive role in its overall progress. The Communist Party of China and the central government therefore place a high value on strategic issues.
As a statesman and strategist, Deng Xiaoping was extremely adept at applying strategic thinking to governing the country. He regularly commented on the topic: “We should look at the big picture when we deal with any problem. … Whenever I talk about a present issue or a future plan, I don’t discuss it from a narrow angle, instead I look at the big picture.”1 In the Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, a book series of three volumes, the word “strategy” is mentioned 123 times, the expression “big picture” 62 times, and the words “overall situation” 31 times.
Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, when serving their terms as Party and state leaders, both recognized the importance of strategic issues and implemented many important development strategies.
After the 18th CPC National Congress of the CPC, the Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core attached greater importance to strategic issues. The Four-pronged Strategy was proposed.2 In addition, Xi Jinping also presented a great many strategic thoughts, measures and projects.
Since the reform and opening-up policy was introduced in 1978, China has formulated many sound and scientific strategies that cover different areas but are closely linked. Strategic thinking has taken root in China nowadays, and Party committees and governments at all levels, including officials, are keen to study development strategies at both national level and local level. China’s growth and development are based on a successful national development strategy.
In order to understand China, we must gain a comprehensive understanding of China’s national development strategy.
In 2008 I was sent to to conduct seminars in Western Asia and Northern Africa, sharing China’s experience of reform and opening up. In Algeria, over 200 central committee members from the ruling party, party secretaries from different provinces, the deputy speaker, ministers and other senior officials attended the seminar. Abdelaziz Belkhadem, prime minister of Algeria, listened to my speech attentively and delivered a speech on a comparison between China’s experience and Algeria’s latest creative experiments. The entire event lasted for more than four hours. In Syria I held two seminars, with over 100 senior officials participating, including Syria’s vice premier, ministers, representatives from its academic and business circles, members of the central committee of Baath Party, and party secretaries of different provinces. During these seminars, many participants raised their hands, passed me notes containing questions, or rushed forward to take the microphone. One participant even asked six questions at the same time. I was asked more than 100 questions during one of these seminars, and the host had to choose questions at random.
Most of their questions were related to development issues in China. For example: What were the secrets behind the success of socialism with Chinese characteristics? Is socialist ideology the driving force behind China’s rapid economic growth and the improvement in its international status? Some countries in Eastern Asia have different political systems from China and they are also very successful; is this because people in Eastern Asia are particularly intelligient? Does China follow a socialist economy or free market capitalism? Do you have any worries that socialism and capitalism will eventually become an integrated entity? Can other countres follow the China model? How can they get started based on their practical needs?
Abdelaziz Belkhadem, secretary-general of the National Liberation Front and prime minister of Algeria, said a number of things to us: “What you have done is an amazing miracle; we hope that we can learn more from you. … China has witnessed a profound change; we want to know how and why these changes happen, and what are the latest achievements of China’s reform. … We want to gain a better understanding of China’s development path. Senior officials in Algeria have agreed with me that we should keep a close eye on China’s best practices. … One of our party’s guiding principles is to follow a socialist path; however our socialist model covers elements from other socialist countries, including the Soviet Union, Cuba, Yugoslavia and Algeria. … After learning the best practices from other countries, we want to find a suitable path that will lead us to build a strong and prosperous country.”
Of course I tried my best to give proper answers to these questions; however I have to admit that my answers only covered a small part of China’s national development strategies. That is why I want to write this book, a book that is designed to give a systematic and comprehensive introduction to China’s national development strategies to our international friends. I want to explain to them the causes and effects of these strategies, their content, how these strategies have been implemented in China and their impact on Chinese society as a whole. By completing this task, I hope that I can explain to the world clearly how the China Miracle has happened in China from a macroscopic perspective.
1 Chronology of Deng Xiaoping’s Thought, Chin. ed., Central Party Literature Publishing House, 2004, p. 93.
2 The Four-pronged Strategy was first proposed by Xi Jinping during an inspection tour of Jiangsu Province in December 2014. The strategy calls for completing the process of building a moderately prosperous society, pursuing all-round in-depth reform, implementing a comprehensive framework for promoting the rule of law, and launching an all-out effort to enforce strict Party discipline.