IMPRESSIONS-20 YEARS LATER

An experienced visitor, returning to a country, not only notices changes in its life, but also willingly or unwittingly compares them with what he sees in his homeland. In due time, Yu. Chudodeyev had a chance to talk with the Red Guards, and in the mid-80s he saw China already reforming, but still backward, just beginning to recover from the Maoist experiments. At that time, he saw "the extremely poor life of the majority of the people, poor and monotonously dressed people, mostly miserable dwellings" (pp. 6-7). Now a lot has changed: the developed transport infrastructure, the modern appearance of large cities, which is the features of economic prosperity-skyscrapers, banks, hotels, shops and restaurants. Decently and variously dressed people, mobile phones, computers. The country is on the move and looking for new opportunities.

Here is also, it seems, a private observation: on the streets there are almost no police and traffic police officers, traffic is usually regulated by pensioners with armbands (p. 11). The police are not armed. Waiters, taxi drivers, and other service workers do not take tips.

All this is very different from our practice. The author fairly attributes such features of Chinese life to the strength and authority of state power, law-abiding and disciplined citizens. But after all, the power vertical has existed in our country throughout history, and after a short break in the 90s, it was restored again. And there is no special law-abiding attitude-neither on the part of citizens, nor on the part of the police, who are very much on the streets, and all with weapons, even with submachine guns.

This is an important question. Discipline and hard work of the people are considered one of the prerequisites for China's success. And there is no doubt that the entire history of the centralized Chinese state leads to this conclusion. It seems, however, that the basis of the hard work and discipline of the Chinese, as well as other peoples of East Asia, is the historical tradition of irrigated agriculture, in which only a large amount and reliable quality of labor can ensure high yields on a limited land area. Another basis is the effective self-governance of grassroots social collectives (families, clans, communities), which have been able to maintain discipline and order in their environment since ancient times, without resorting to the services of the state. So at the core of Chinese discipline and law-abiding behavior is respect for authority, not fear and submission. A good illustration of this is the history of the Chinese expression " big brother "("lao da ge") in relation to the Stalinist USSR. The official slogan of the Soviet leadership at that time was "fraternal friendship", but the Chinese simply do not have such a concept and such a word as "brother". There is an "older brother" and a "younger brother". The second must show respect to the first and obey him. So the position of the "little brother" was a political reality for China, but they gave it the verbal formalization themselves. Now, according to the testimony of Yu. Chudodeyeva, older Chinese people remember this with a grin. This is interesting, but also important, because the Chinese have a tendency to consider relations between our states from the time of "fraternal friendship" unequal.

MODERNIZATION OF THE CHINESE TYPE

Much has been written about this aspect of Chinese life. But for me, in any case, it turned out to be new in the book of Yu. Chudodeyev's point is that the first page of economic transformation was not initiated by Deng Xiaoping (p. 28). Everything, as you know, began with the agrarian reform (1978-1984), which returned the land to the peasants, giving them the opportunity to feed themselves and the whole country. But it turns out that the case was started by the peasants themselves, in Anhui Province, who felt the weakening of the death penalty.-

Yuri Chudodeev is a long-time sinologist. His book " Changing China before our Eyes "(Moscow, Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2008, with illustrations, 160 p.) is written in the wake of a recent visit to China, far from the first. He had the opportunity to refresh his impressions and discuss with his Chinese colleagues the problems of their country and relations between our states. This one is of interest right now, when China has begun to actively respond to the new difficulties facing the country.

howling grip of the state after the death of Mao Zedong. And their actions were initially frowned upon in Beijing, including Deng, but were supported by the local leadership, led by the first secretary of the CPC Provincial Committee, Wan Li, and then in Sichuan Province by the first secretary there, Zhao Ziyang. Later, the first of them became the chairman of the parliament (1988-1993), the second-the head of the government (1980-1987), and then the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee (1987-1989). Therefore, even at that time, the Chinese Communist Party had more developed feedback than the CPSU. It also highlights an important feature of China as a country where the peasantry still makes up a significant majority of the population, and their economic and living conditions have once again begun to degrade.

Agrarian reforms, as you know, gave a powerful impetus to promote reforms in other areas of the economy, and then Deng Xiaoping put forward, like N. Bukharin, the slogan "Get rich!" (p. 31). The main feature of the reforms associated with his name is that a new, market-based sector of the economy was created in "special economic zones", next to the sector of socialist state industry, without affecting the foundations of its organization. This turned out to be possible, firstly, due to the success in the agricultural sector. Secondly, due to the opening of the country to foreign investment-70-80% of the capital consisted of foreign Chinese. There were no such conditions in Russia in the 1990s, so the reforms had to start with a painful process of market transformation of the entire socialist economy at once.

"GROWTH WITHOUT DEVELOPMENT"

And yet, as Yu rightly pointed out. Chudodeev, at the beginning of the XXI century. China is still a relatively poor country. It ranks 125th in the world in terms of output per capita (p. 61). But most importantly, China has reached the point where it is losing the leading role in economic growth of its main advantage - an abundance of cheap and mobile labor. This, combined with foreign investment, ensured the breakthrough of Chinese industry to foreign markets. Now the position changes: "growth without development" reveals its limits. The author quotes General Secretary Hu Jintao at the 17th CPC National Congress as saying that the party is "facing a mass of new challenges and new challenges that have never been seen before" (p.63), and outlines the vicious circle of contradictions that China is being dragged into. They are generally known, but the book is illustrated with interesting figures and observations.

First of all, economic growth leads to a deepening of contradictions: between the city and the countryside, rich and poor, coastal and inland regions. Here, for example, are some interesting figures from the book: in 2001-2006, the number of dollar millionaires in the country increased from 124 thousand to 310 thousand (p. 64). Let's add that in 2007 there were already 415 thousand of them. But, in Japan in the same year, there were 1 million 125 thousand of them. This comparison shows how weak and unevenly developed the Chinese economy is, where successful entrepreneurship is possible only in limited types of businesses and regions.

Contradictions between the city and the countryside are becoming more acute. The peasantry is being depopulated, agricultural land is being seized in the course of urbanization and industrial development, and the flow of unemployed people ("min gong") to the cities is growing (p. 89). In the process of rapid economic growth, the resource and environmental crisis has reached a dangerous milestone, the reduction of arable land area is very close to the dangerous limit of 120 million hectares, and energy imports are growing. Some Chinese experts believe that the current population of the country is twice the permissible level. One of the most acute problems remains corruption in the party and bureaucratic apparatus, which is natural for countries with such a high level of state interference in the economy as China or Russia.

XVII CPC NATIONAL CONGRESS

Yu. Chudodeyev described it as a" milestone event "and a" congress of renewal", which adopted a program of comprehensive modernization of the country (pp. 77-79). In its most general form, this is the "concept of scientific development", the transition from an extensive growth model to an intensive one, and the mitigation of social contradictions. Without abandoning the slogans of socialism, the congress developed the idea of building a harmonious society based on the middle class on the principles of Confucian "moderate welfare" ("xiao kang") without the consumption boom and hedonism inherent in Western societies.

But there is one issue that has not yet been specifically addressed. These are the prospects of the public sector in large-scale industry. "The reforms of the 1980s and 1990s," writes Yu. Chudodeyev - we have not managed to make this sector cost-effective." However, extensive privatization in it remains "politically unacceptable for the CPC leadership" (pp. 40-41). The inefficiency of this sector remains an obstacle to solving the party's "concept of scientific development", including the transition from the world's most expensive (p.83) model of economy to an intensive and innovative one.

The main conclusion in which I was strengthened after reading the book by Yu. Chudodeev is the following. If during the first decades of the new economic policy it was possible to talk about a gradual, smooth course of transformations, and this was reproached by many to the Russian reformers of the 90s, now the situation is changing. The Chinese leadership will have to reform the socialist state industry, which will no longer be a therapy, but a surgical operation. This, of course, cannot but affect the political situation in the country. At the same time, the task of supporting the agricultural sector, which was previously one of the pillars of economic growth and a shock absorber of its contradictions, is becoming increasingly urgent.

Yu. G. ALEXANDROV, Doctor of Economics

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