Instability seen as a threat to PRC government

“China’s leaders are very anxious about their hold on power inside China,” Shirk said. “This insecurity drives their actions and decisions both in regard to foreign policy and domestic policy.”

While foreigners might view China as a rising power in the global sphere, the Chinese have a different perspective.

Her American friends’ response to the book title “China: Fragile Superpower” was, “What do you mean, ‘fragile’?” while her Chinese friends wondered, “What do you mean, ‘superpower’?” Shirk explained.

Chinese citizens and leaders are extremely aware of China’s domestic fragility.

“Inside China, the party leadership is hemmed in by threats to its stability — a rapidly aging population, the rise of the internet, privatization of the economy, a widening gap between urban rich and rural poor, a restive population fed up with corruption, pollution that not only sickens but kills [and] mounting unemployment in [the] economy,” Shirk said.

Shirk said the root of the insecurity felt by China’s leaders dates back to 1989, when the regime was shaken to its core by pro-democracy, student-led protests in Tiananmen Square and 130 other cities throughout China.

“The People’s Republic of China survived only because [the] military remained loyal and followed Deng Xiaoping’s orders to put down the demonstration,” Shirk said.

Since the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, China’s leaders have felt increasingly vulnerable, she said. Moreover, China’s leaders of today know they lack the prestige and following of Mao Zedong and Deng.

“[President] Hu Jintao and China’s politicians today are interchangeable with each other,” Shirk said. “There is nothing really distinctive about them. They don’t have much charisma.”

Shirk characterized China’s rise as a dramatically successful and unprecedented economic miracle. The country has experienced greater than 10 percent GDP growth per year and a per capita income increase of more than 20 percent annually for the past 20 years.

“To those outside of China, Chinese leaders look like giants because China has improved dramatically financially,” Shirk said. “In their own minds, however, I think they feel more like scared children trying to stand on top of a society revolutionized by market reforms since 1978.”

In addition, the Chinese population now has much greater access to information than it used to. There are currently widespread tabloid newspapers and roughly 200 million internet users. The increased flow of information contributes to leaders’ insecurities.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Shirk also touched on the way in which Chinese leaders obsess over inequality in China.

“We talk a lot in this country about our wealth gap, which is larger than it’s been in more than a century, but China’s is worse,” Shirk said.

She cited measures of different countries’ income inequalities using the Gini coefficient, which is the internationally accepted measure of income inequality with zero representing perfect equality. China measures at .49, compared to the United States at .41 and the United Kingdom at .36.

The uncertainty China’s leaders feel is no secret. They talk and publish articles constantly about their worries about polarization and inequality, Shirk said.

“It is widely believed that the wealthy, conspicuously consuming rich class has acquired its wealth not through ingenuity, hard work [and] diligence, but through official corruption,” Shirk said. “That’s what makes inequality so potentially explosive in political terms.”

During the question-and-answer session following the lecture, Katie Ko ’09, who is also a business staffer for The Daily Princetonian, asked, “Given the insecurity in China, what advice can you give to Chinese policymakers?”

Shirk advised U.S. leaders to be aware of China’s fragility when making policies toward China but also to maintain a strong domestic defense.

“I argue that America must maintain its own military strength in the Pacific,” Shirk said. “I want them to look out over the Pacific and see a robust military presence so they think twice before they act and make threats.”

Students gave largely positive feedback following the lecture.

“I think Susan Shirk provides an unusually balanced view of China from both the American and Chinese perspective,” said Weiyuan Cui GS, an MPA candidate in the Wilson School. “I enjoyed the inside stories she told, which are even unheard by Chinese journalists like me before.”

“She gave a well-crafted presentation to clearly underline the major domestic issues affecting how Beijing crafts its decision,” Rob Weiss ’09 said. “I would have liked to hear more about the specific implications for U.S. policy and how our current policy does or does not address these issues, and how a better understanding of the Communist regime’s fears and constraints might change our current diplomatic efforts.”

Shirk was one of the first women undergraduates at the University from 1965-66, during a two-year pilot program before the University officially admitted female students. She studied the Chinese language in Jones Hall.

“I was one of 12 female undergraduates at Princeton, and it’s been down hill ever since,” she said.

The event was sponsored by the Wilson School and the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program as part of their series on “U.S. Policy and the Rise of China.”