China Has Its Own Version of Business-Versus-Beltway Conflict

Is China psyching up for a stupid war with Taiwan? That might seem a logical inference from the screaming headlines about the new government in Taipei. Yet it appeared to be the last thing on the busy minds of the go-go international financial moguls, mid-size-business leaders, top economists and international lawyers gathered at the opulent China World Hotel here for a three-day conference on globalization and world business. These are the people who are too busy making money, creating new jobs and helping China escape from so many decades of economic misery. They haven’t the time for a strategy to kill large numbers of other Chinese who happen to live on a nearby offshore island and aren’t 100% committed to “one China.”

It’s revealing, in this year of the Great God of Globalization and Market Openings, that at a major meeting in the middle of downtown Beijing, the issue of Taiwan--the “T” word--wasn’t even raised. But other usual suspects were: You couldn’t avoid the question of transparency, the international catchword for open financial books. And you could not avoid scenes like the one during a boring banquet where the mainland appliance magnate from Changsha started gabbing away with a top international lawyer from Taipei with all the warmth of college chums. And then someone asks them: Just how long have the two of you known each other? “Actually, we just met,” Nicholas Chen replied. Yet hasn’t all the world been led to believe that there is so much tension between Taiwan and China that the two wouldn’t even be looking at one another, much less talking like civilized people? “Nah, that’s just the politicians doing their thing,” Chen said. “How close to the reality of America do you think your Beltway politicians are to your own real life? It’s no different in China.”

What is in reality so different in China now, headlines aside, is that the central emphasis among China’s economic elite is on making money, not war. Mark the words of Li Rongrong, vice chairman of China’s State Economic and Trade Commission. He talks about the need to get China’s domestic economic house in order as it awaits entry into the World Trade Organization. Listen to Liu Mingkang, chairman and president of the Bank of China, talk (with no need for an English interpreter) about the need for better corporate governance, greater openness to outside scrutiny and deposit insurance. Listen to speaker after speaker--from Di Weiping, investment head of the China Development Bank, to Xiang Huaicheng, China’s minister of finance, to Dai Xianglong, governor of the People’s Bank of China--as they recite the contemporary mantra of globalization and economic reform. If you closed your eyes, you might swear you were hearing Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers or Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan on the dais of this meeting, organized by the Geneva-based World Economic Summit.

Sure, it’s the “new socialism,” but with more American than Chinese characteristics. “That’s exactly right,” said Australian Michael Gill, publisher and editor-in-chief of Fairfax Business Publications. “That’s the consequence of the enormous American success. It’s more like ‘Let’s get down to business and make some money.’ ”

So it’s not surprising that the “T” word was a virtual nonentity at this international conference. Successful business people are uncomfortable with political insanity. They say: What is with the Chinese government’s unnerving rhetorical war over the strait? What is it with the Taiwan government’s foot-dragging on face-to-face negotiations?

China’s true enemy isn’t Taiwan; that island is hardly going to be the one to start a military operation of any magnitude. China’s main problem is a corroded economic and social structure. Its people don’t need war, they need jobs--at least 100 million in China need them now. Jobs are created not when politicians look to create boogeymen but when legitimate businesses are born or expand and need workers in order to keep business going and make money. That’s the implicit assumption of China’s entry into the World Trade Organization--change or die.

Yet China is conflicted, almost like two nations. The smart one concentrates on China’s capacity for greatness. The other concentrates on blaming outsiders, especially Western ones, for its problems, which leads to China’s historical penchant for shooting itself in the foot. And it may be starting to put powder in its musket now. That’s the gruesome and worrisome bottom line.

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Times contributing editor Tom Plate is traveling in China. E-mail: tplate@ucla. edu.