Delusional defence of Beijing.
China Incorporated: The Politics of a World where China is Number One
Kerry Brown
Bloomsbury, £20, 208 pages
In an October 1939 radio address, Winston Churchill described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. I would not necessarily use those words to describe China today, but I would use them to summarise Kerry Brown’s new book, China Incorporated. It is like a sieve – a superficially solid structure with a lot of holes in it.
The fact that it is enthusiastically endorsed by Martin Jacques, former editor of Marxism Today, who joined the Communist Party of Great Britain at the age of 18 and has been one of the most vociferous defenders of the regime in Beijing, should sound alarm bells, although respected Oxford scholar Rana Mitter lends it some legitimacy with his endorsement.
Throughout the book, Brown is repeatedly disparaging of Western democracies, and especially of Western foreign policy that seeks to address human rights in China. In a 208-page book with eight chapters, you have to wait until the sixth chapter to hear anything about the plight of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and even then, while the author acknowledges the repression, he is understated.
“I will not dispute that Xinjiang is a problem or deny the seriousness of abuses,” Brown writes. But as is the case throughout the book, then comes the caveat. He brings up the war in Iraq, Nato’s involvement in Libya and slavery and racial conflict in the US.
Of course, the West is far from perfect and has much to learn from its historical record – but is there really a moral equivalency as Brown suggests? Doesn’t the ability of Western democracies to hold those responsible for violations within their own systems accountable differentiate them from authoritarian or totalitarian regimes that have no mechanisms for scrutiny or accountability?
The Uyghur Tribunal – which I had a hand in helping to initiate and was chaired by the British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, who had prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic – concluded that the Chinese regime is guilty of genocide against the Uyghurs, yet Brown impugns that judgment. Ever the diplomat, he argues that if we use that term, “Beijing simply refuses to speak and engage”.
In the book, Brown gives a nod to concerns about human rights – but then trashes them. He refers to “heartfelt, emotionally fraught stories from the beauty queen” delivered by my friend Anastasia Lin in an Oxford Union debate. Lin, a courageous Chinese-born Canadian actor who has spoken out particularly about forced organ harvesting and the persecution of the Buddhist-inspired spiritual movement known as Falun Gong, is a highly intelligent young woman who does not deserve to be patronised in this way.
Where I do agree with Brown is in his concern about – and rejection of – anti-Chinese racism. He makes the point in his book – a point I have made in almost every speech I have made and article I have written – that we need to distinguish between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime and the peoples of China. We must focus our criticisms of the Chinese government’s policies – whether it is human rights at home or aggression abroad – on the CCP, not on the people of China.
And yet we must not fall into Beijing’s trap of concluding that criticising Xi Jinping’s regime is an aspect of anti-Chinese racism. Brown flirts with this idea and comes dangerously close to disseminating the CCP narrative in this regard.
I join with Brown in condemning any and all anti-Chinese racism. We part company when it comes to blurring the lines around criticising the CCP. Brown attacks those who give the “tired old line” of “how they loved the Chinese people” but opposed the regime. I don’t know if he had me in mind – the position he critiqued is mine – but I question what is his agenda if he can’t agree with me in differentiating between the CCP regime and ordinary Chinese people. I love China and its people, having spent more than 30 years in and around the country; it is the regime I oppose.
Throughout, Brown seems uncomfortable with any concept of morality. He describes the idea of what “truth” is as “unfathomably complex” and even questions “whether it exists”. Yet in one of the most interesting parts of the book, he explores China’s traditions of Confucianism and Buddhism, and in a section that would interest Herald readers, he unpacks the legacy of the 16th-century Jesuit missionary to China, Matteo Ricci, “one of the greatest intermediaries between the two civilisations”.
There are moments where I think Brown’s soul might contain some light, but overall he comes down much more in defence of Beijing and disparaging values of human rights or freedom. He dismisses the idea that the Chinese regime poses a threat to our freedoms – in our universities, media, business, politics or society – and disputes the suggestion that Confucius Institutes are a problem. “There is precious little sign,” he writes, that Beijing is “imposing its values on others.” I am unsure whether he is uninformed or naïve.
In his final chapter, Brown launches a broadside against the “Enlightenment West” and implicitly urges the free world to “put away its beloved ideals” and “head towards this new reality” – a predominant, authoritarian China that will impose its will on us all. “Many will need to admit they were wrong – never an easy thing to do on a large scale,” he writes. Is this a demand for Cultural Revolution-style confessions? I think it might be. “The West,” he adds, are “likely to prove sore losers”. His extraordinary self-loathing for liberal democracy is shocking.
I suggest Brown look at the economic data coming out of China today. The sky-high youth unemployment, the property crash, the currency plummet, the withdrawal of investment and the likely end of the so-called “China Dream” all suggest his promotion of China as the future may be in doubt. He churns out books so fast that I wonder if he writes faster than he thinks and ahead of the facts.
If you want a mind-bending book that will largely inform you of Beijing’s propaganda, with a few nods to the regime’s repression, read China Incorporated.
However, if you want the truth about China and how we best engage and build our future relationships around it, well, there are definitely better books. Even if he did mention Matteo Ricci.
Benedict Rogers is chief executive of Hong Kong Watch and author of The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny.
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