No one in China takes the concept of socialism seriously anymore, Ira Kasoff GS '82, a senior counselor at APCO Worldwide, said at a panel on Friday.
He presented two common views of China’s place in contemporary politics.
Some believe that the Chinese Communist Party is about to collapse, a long-held view that has taken on new momentum because of David Shambaugh’s article, “The Coming Chinese Crackup,” Kasoff said. The article argues that pervasive corruption is built into the Chinese system, such as through one-party rule and the absence of the rule of law, and that the Chinese economy is stuck.
In response to the article, Foreign Affairs magazine conducted a survey asking experts on China about the country’s future, and 19 of 26 respondents said they did not believe the Chinese Communist Party was about to collapse, Kasoff said.
An alternative position characterizes the Chinese Communist Party as aiming to replace the United States as a global superpower. Most experts do not support this view either, Kasoff said.
Moderator Rory Truex ’07, a politics and Wilson School professor who specializes in Chinese politics, said China’s international status remains unclear because of mixed signals from the nation.
Regarding security, although Chinese leaders claim to focus on achieving peace, the government has announced a 10 percent increase in military spending, Truex said. Moreover, China now has the world's biggest economy, a largely free market economy that boasts levels of inequality rivaling those of the United States, although Chinese officials continue to employ socialist rhetoric.
"In all my years of working in China, I have never met a communist," William Fung ’70, group chairman of Li & Fung Limited and chairman of Global Brands Group Holding Limited, said to laughter from the audience.
Kasoff described China as pushing not necessarily to supplant the United States in the world hierarchy but rather to reclaim lost glory.
"China has had a long history, several thousands of years, of being a great civilization and a great power. I think most of China, including the leadership, in the last 200 years give or take, has been an aberration, and they're now on course to regain their natural place in the world, if you will," he explained.
Owen Nee, Jr. ’65, senior counsel to Greenbert Traurig LLP, echoed Kasoff's claim and identified China as the central kingdom in Asia.
"If you look in the long term, China's position in the world and what is happening now are the reassertion of what has always been the case," he said.
Nee added that the Communist Party that Chinese President Xi Jinping oversees does not differ all that much from the emperors and mandarins who once ruled.
"We have very well-educated elite and a very tightly controlled body that basically knows the rules, follows them and that overall has done and is doing quite a good job," Nee explained.
New America Foundation president and chief executive officer Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80, who is also a former dean of the Wilson School, expressed a more nuanced view. She granted that China succeeds in the traditional "game of thrones," in which a nation leverages military power, economic power and population size to intimidate other states as much as possible.
However, Slaughter argued that in the 21st century, an effective state must also become the most networked power within a web of nations — a benchmark China has failed to meet.
China has been trying to tie its economy to the rest of Southeast Asia by giving money to neighboring countries, but the corruption of these governments prevents lasting relationships from forming, according to Slaughter.
She said China has no real allies except North Korea.
"With allies like that, I'd prefer enemies," Slaughter said, noting that the lack of allies is extraordinary for a returning great power.
She said China's inability to establish economic, diplomatic and people-to-people connections, such as those among civic groups and businesses, makes China weaker than it appears on the surface.
"I do not think that we need to see China as a great military threat. I think in many ways they see themselves as encircled by us," Slaughter said, though she noted that to ensure safety, the United States must prevent China from building out of territorial waters around small islands.
The Alumni-Faculty Forum at Reunions, called "What China Stands for in the New World Order," was sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University. The event took place on Friday at 10:30 a.m. in McCosh 50.
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