A key to China’s success is that it allows many local and regional initiatives to compete with each other. Shanghai does it one way, and Chongqing another, says French entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand in an interview with the Global Times.
Bertrand discusses how the Chinese social system works in relation to the Western one. He says that those who are able to move beyond ideas about which world order is “best” can realize that the Chinese system actually has some advantages.
Bertrand says China has developed uniquely by retaining its sovereignty, which has been crucial. China would not have been able to create its way and maintain its independence and its particular philosophical way of thinking if foreign interference had been allowed to come in and take over.
He believes that if China had followed the methods recommended by the IMF, the World Bank, and similar organizations, It would have become another Western country, and the world would not have a China that contributes to cultural diversity.
So I think that was the key, be able to think for it. itself. Picking what makes sense was good for China, but also having the strength to refuse what doesn’t. I guess one key misconception is that it’s very centralized, that it’s central planning, basically.
Arnaud Bertrand explains that China is centralized, with a central government in Beijing making decisions affecting its 1.4 billion people, but “when you actually look at how China is organized, it is one of the most decentralized countries in the world.”
Every nation has a central government. The term refers to a central overarching authority that holds ultimate power in a state or at the national level in a federal system (ed. note).
Even in countries with a federal structure, there is still a single central or federal government, as in the United States, which has state governments, but all answer to the federal government in Washington.
China is decentralized, and at the same time, there is a central government
Decentralization in China is a key factor in making this giant country work, says Bertrand:
”Local governments have an extraordinary amount of leeway in deciding, you know, the way they spend money. That was also a key for the success of Chinese development, being able to, you know, have a lot of local initiatives on those initiatives, competing with each other.”
”Shanghai does something one way, and then you have Chongqing doing something another way. Maybe it works better in Chongqing. So that’s an inspiration for the rest of China. Like I said in my talk, the Chinese model applies uniquely and only to China.”
Decentralization in China is necessary because China is a massive country with a population of 1,400 million people, larger than the combined populations of Europe (742), Russia (144) and the Middle East (381).
All nations have the right to determine their own destiny
“China’s social system is a product of China’s long and unique history, and it fits the context in which China finds itself today,” Bertrand continues. Context means the economic and geopolitical context.
At the same time, China’s leadership has not expressed any intention to spread China’s system around the world.
Bertrand:
”So from China’s standpoint, there is no issue for the two systems to peacefully coexist because it’s happy with other countries having other systems. The difficulty is with the other system, the American or Western system, no matter how you call it because it claims universality.”
Arnaud Bertrand argues that leaders within the Western system try to persuade other countries, such as China, to submit to the Western way of thinking and that this behaviour “is very deep in the roots of the West”:
”So yeah, that’s the big question. Can the other model accept different models that coexist alongside with it?
What we need at the end of the day is a democratic world order with different civilizations and models coexisting and all getting a vice instead of a totalitarian world order where one civilization and one system want to force itself on the others.”
Source and related
- Global Times: Exclusive interview with French Entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand
- NewsVoice: The Meritocracy of China – Here, you can only become a top politician if you have skills and deep knowledge
- Shine.com: Life in Shanghai: French pastry, herbal teas and cultural exploration
- Arnaud Bertrand on X