Challenge is a word that carries a heavy burden of nuance: it can convey a sense of threat, it can be an inspiration, it poses questions – often difficult ones – and it can also be double-edged, in that the challenge frequently applies as much to the alleged challenger as it does to those on the receiving end. Where China is concerned, the word is appropriate in every sense; but an important part of the challenge is precisely to decide which aspect is of the greatest importance. Only having done this can we attempt to frame policies, or at least provide the best possible advice to the policymakers, which will enable us to meet the challenge that today’s — and tomorrow’s — China poses to us, and to itself.

If there is a single word that should be applied to China, whether speaking of its international impact or its domestic situation, it should be ‘complexity’. There is simply nothing simple about China; and this being the case, we should be distrustful of any simple descriptors or characterisations, be they benign — China’s peaceful rise, harmonious world, harmonious society — or the opposite, such as comparisons of a rising China with Wilhelmine Germany at the beginning of the last century.

And with complexity comes size: expectations that China will take any path, the nature of which can be predicted from the experience of other countries are almost certainly going to be proved wrong. This was so of American hopes for a Westernised, democratic China emerging from World War II; it was so of the expectation post-1949 that China would become a clone as well as a client of the Soviet Union; and expectations have similarly been disappointed in both the pre-and post-1989 phases of the era of reform and opening.

China is just too big, and carries too great a civilisational and historical throw-weight to be anything other than sui generis. As Lu Xun, one of the greatest Chinese writers of the first half of the 20^th century, told his readers, you make your path by walking it. This is as true of China now as it was then, but the implications for the rest of the world are now even greater — far greater — than when he wrote these words.

It is relatively easy to predict that in such and such a year China’s GDP will have reached a certain figure, that it will occupy such and such a global ranking in terms of size or in terms of per capita income, that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will be rated at such and such a level in terms of relative size, procurement, capabilities, and the like. These are all of course vital judgments to be made, and whatever the specifics, it seems clear enough that whatever difficulties China faces, domestically and internationally, in pursuing its growth goals, it is going to play an ever greater role in world affairs. Indeed, for better or for worse, it is doing so already. But the more difficult, and more crucial question is, assuming that China’s comprehensive strength, or global ranking, will place it amongst the most powerful and influential nations in the world by, say, 2020, or 2030, what sort of a China is it going to be?

Here our task is complicated not only by the sheer complexity of the issues to be addressed, and by the often unhelpful cacophony of foreign comment, but by the fact that the Chinese government — not just the present Chinese government, but others before it (although the Chinese Communist Party state has greater ideological inclinations and more effective tools than most of its predecessors) — is committed to presenting a single narrative of China’s rise as interpreted and enunciated by its official organs.

Yet anyone who has the slightest understanding of contemporary China will know that behind the editorials of the People’s Daily, the statements of Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokespeople, the presentation of the news by CCTV, or the work of officially approved film directors, there is a hugely complex world of debate, current and counter-current, introspection, historical and cultural revisionism, as much within the organs of state and party as outside. The degree to which this debate is tolerated waxes and wanes, and things can be said by some people, or within some bodies, that are forbidden to others. Some of this debate we can see, some of it is largely hidden. Some of it is inspiring, encouraging, some of it is more than a little scary or plumb crazy. But it is here, as much as in the more ostensibly transparent narratives approved for public — and foreign — consumption and edification, that the vital question of what sort of a China we are going to be dealing with 10, 20 or 30 years from now is being worked out.

Globalisation is another complicating factor that cuts both ways. As China becomes increasingly involved in the rest of the world, and vice-versa, the simple binary division between domestic and foreign — encapsulated in the once much-used formulation nei wai you bie — is increasingly untenable. Whatever they may wish, China’s rulers, and for that matter ordinary Chinese, are just going to have to get used to the fact that things that happen at home will impact on the way they are viewed from outside, and that this will in turn impact on decision-making relative to China by other countries. By the same token, foreign companies will find it increasingly difficult to regard with insouciance events in China that disturb their shareholders. The same, of course, applies to the treatment of Chinese, whether individuals, companies or representatives of the state, in other countries.

This means that in order to judge what sort of a country China is going to become, there is virtually nothing that happens in China that doesn’t matter, or that we don’t need to know about. The days when we could just look at steel and grain production figures, imports and exports, look at the PLA training and recruitment cycle, work out the pecking order in the standing committee of the Politburo, are over. Of course all these things are of the utmost importance. But as we seek to understand a country that is reassuming its historical place as one of the leading nations of the world, we need to know so much more: arguments about history and culture are important, not only to the Chinese, but to us.

To give only one obvious example: whether the standard for judging previous dynasties should be their achievements in culture and learning, or the degree to which central authority was imposed and borders expanded, matters to us. Similarly, the whole question of the reappraisal of traditional Chinese culture; how the modern Chinese state maintains the multinational character of the Manchu Qing Empire; questions of centralism versus federalism; the reappraisal of the achievements of the Nationalist government and its model of modernisation (not to mention its territorial claims largely inherited by the PRC, including, topically, the South China Sea); the debates about democracy; the rethinking of the post May-4 modernisation project . . . to name but a few issues that may once have seemed arcane, but in fact have major implications for all of us, not just the Chinese themselves, as they continue the process of walking a path that is increasingly going to merge with the global highway.

The first and greatest challenge, especially for those of us who grew up under the comfortable protection of British and US naval supremacy, and in a cultural world made in Palestine, Greece, Rome and Europe, is the challenge of understanding.

This essay is featured in the latest issue of East Asia Forum Quarterly (EAFQ).

Richard Rigby is head of the China Institute at the Australian National University and was formerly an Australian diplomat and analyst specialising on Chinese and Asian affairs.

1. The challenge of China and China’s challenge – Weekly editorial
2. China and the challenge to American power? – Weekly editorial
3. Negotiating the China challenge

There are many ways in which a relationship can be mutually beneficial – diplomatically, politically, commercially, educationally, economically. As someone who’s been involved in the Australia-China relationship in one way or another since the beginning of the 1970s, I’m struck by how one can now tick more and more items off, and add new one’s to the list.

The decision to establish relations in late 1972 with the election of the Whitlam government was clearly mutually beneficial, otherwise we wouldn’t have done it.

What an exciting time that was – I’ll never forget the first week, with the decisions taken to get the troops out of Vietnam and establish relations with Beijing. But in fact, while mutually beneficial, the relationship was pretty narrowly based, reflecting the nature of the China of those days, so different from the one we now know. But there was a vision, and we are indebted to the people on both sides who got things started.

The real difference came with opening and reform and we saw the relationship take off with Bob Hawke as Prime Minister and Ross Garnaut as Ambassador. These were great days that set developments on their present track.

After the trough caused by the events of 1989, the next big boost to the relationship came with Deng Xiaoping’s famous journey to the south, after which reform and opening returned with a vengeance. It was this that enabled the fully- fledged relationship we now enjoy, multi-faceted and rich – rich not only in terms of financial flows, but in personal ties and sheer variety.

I want to note two features of the bilateral relationship as it has developed here in Australia. The first is that it has enjoyed a high degree of popular support. The opening to China in the early 70s, still in the throes of the cultural revolution, reflected, and was in part a product of, our own more benign cultural revolution, when geography started to become at least as important as history in terms of our own self-understanding and ideas about where our future lay.

Australian tourism to China also reflected this – in terms of population per capita, for years Australian tourists outnumbered those from other countries, and the same people visited and re-visited China, not content with just one visit. This also illustrates the well-known fact that left to their own devices, Australians and Chinese generally get on very well with each other.

The second feature is that at the domestic political level, China policy has been essentially bi-partisan. There were a few hiccups such as we saw in the first months of the Howard government, but things soon settled down. This has served us, and China, very well, providing this crucial relationship with stability and predictability. So it’s disturbing to see signs of this breaking down recently. This goes absolutely against Australian national interests. One can only hope that this is a temporary phenomenon, and that good sense and an appreciation of where our interests lie are restored as soon as possible.

There is no denying that there have been some problems over the last year, some more important than others: the events in Tibet; negative reactions to the defence of the Olympic torch (these two being closely interrelated); the misadventures of the former defence minister; the defence white paper; the failed Chinalco investment; the arrest of Stern Hu; and the visit of Rebiya Kadir.

But there are two points that I want to make here. The first is that these events, and their media coverage, masked the continuation of much more substantive developments that continued throughout this period, and continue as we speak.

The second point is that this all fed into a more negative discussion of China that we’ve seen here for a long time. The television advertisements regarding the proposed Chinalco investment reached a new low in abysmal ignorance and prejudice; some MPs hardly covered themselves with glory; the media, with a few honourable exceptions, also played a rather negative role.

My problem is not with the debate as such. On the contrary, it’s essential. The rise of China, or rather the return of China, is a huge phenomenon, involving major realignments of power and influence. Things are changing. We need to make our own judgments about what is best for Australia, and what Australia can best do.

But let the debate be well informed!

Part of the problem is this. Up until the last year or so, the serious discussions about China took place in relatively rarified and reasonably well-informed circles: policy makers; elite journalists; senior business people; and academics.

Most people didn’t think much about China at all, other than what to get at the takeaway or where to go for the big holiday, along with a general sense that China was good for Australia’s prosperity. The rise of China has now reached such a stage, globally, that it’s impacting on wider and wider circles. To put it crudely, is ‘in your face’ in an unprecedented way.

So it’s not surprising that suddenly a lot more people are talking, if not necessarily thinking, about China, and that the discussion is not necessarily very well informed. It lacks context.

In terms of context, I believe it would be very helpful if we could have a high-level (that is, Prime-Ministerial-level – he’s the man to do it, as he demonstrated in his two Brookings speeches) articulation of a more comprehensive view of how Australia should relate to China and the growth of its power and influence.

Of course it’s not just the Prime Minister, though. We all have our own responsibilities in this regard.

Many challenges lie ahead, and more mistakes will be made. But given the strong complementarities between China and Australia, we should approach our bilateral future with confidence.

Dr. Richard Rigby is Executive Director of the ANU China Institute and was formerly an Australian diplomat and analyst specialising on Chinese and Asian affairs. This is a digest of his presentation to ‘Australia-China Investment Forum’, hosted by the Australia-China Business Council in Sydney on 24 September 2009.

1. Stocktake of the Sino-Australia relationship
2. Looking back on China’s relations with Australia
3. Blind spots in the Australia-Japan relationship

As one whose task it was – together with some excellent colleagues – to report and try to make sense of events as they unfolded in China from 1988 to their tragic denouement on the night of 3-4 June 1989, Zhao’s account comes as very welcome confirmation that, basically, we got it right.

Against a background of growing popular concern over corruption and inflation, the broad outlines were clear enough: Zhao’s intensifying struggle with his more conservative opponents, the way his efforts to defuse an increasingly tense situation following the death of Hu Yaobang on 15 April were systematically sabotaged, the cutting off of Zhao’s direct access to Deng Xiaoping, the subsequent monopolisation of information going to Deng by ‘a small handful’ (to use the phraseology of the time) of Zhao’s enemies, Deng’s final loss of confidence in Zhao, Zhao’s loss of power, martial law, the massacre and its aftermath.

What Zhao gives us, though, is the detail of the events as he himself lived them; and also the lacunae, things that others may have been aware of but he himself not. And this is itself a useful reminder that just because someone played a crucial role in major historical events, it doesn’t necessarily mean they knew everything that was going on. This applies both to the machinations taking place behind his back, but also to aspects of the situation as it developed in the streets.

What was not generally known at the time to outside observers was Zhao’s determination, mentioned several times in the book, that he not go down in history as the General Secretary who approved unleashing the PLA against the demonstrators.

In so doing he sealed his political fate, but also ensured his name would be added to the (all too long) list of upright officials who throughout Chinese history did the right thing – to their cost, but to their own, and China’s, ultimate credit.

The fascination of the book, though, goes much further than Zhao’s account of the June 4 events.

It will be mined in great detail by many for the insights it provides into the evolution of the economic reform program, the twists and turns of internal party struggles, the paramount role of Deng Xiaoping (but even his power was not unlimited), the serious differences within the reform camp over political reform (and in Zhao’s case, the way his thinking on this issue changed, and continued to do following his removal from power), Zhao’s insightful pen-portraits of his erstwhile colleagues, and his frank admissions of various policy mistakes (in particular the mishandling of the price reform of 1988).

Most of all, the book stands out as the sole account of how things worked – and in some, but not all ways, presumably still do – at the very top of the Chinese political system, by one who was there.

The difference now, regarding this latter point, is of course that there is no longer a Deng, or a Deng equivalent. Zhao tells us that at the time of the removal of Hu Yaobang, Chen Yun had expressed concern about how Hu’s resignation would be received, both domestically and internationally, and made sure the announcement explained that it was legal and in accord with proper procedures.

‘Deng himself’, says Zhao, ‘never took such matters seriously.’ Quite. None of the current leaders are cut from this cloth, nor have Deng’s power, deriving not from office but from who he was and what he’d done.

The book is in fact almost as much about Deng as it is about Zhao, and here the portrait is appropriately complex. While Zhao emerges very clearly as the man who was really responsible for the thinking through and execution of the reform and opening program, it would never have happened without Deng. Equally, without Deng other things that might have happened didn’t – most particularly really meaningful political reform.

Zhao makes it quite clear that for Deng political reform meant doing whatever it took to strengthen the position of the Communist Party as the sole ruling force in China. He was implacably opposed to anything that smacked of multi-party democracy or the separation of powers.

In this sense, the current leadership stands in a direct line of succession to Deng, as expressed most recently by the widely reported comments of Wu Bangguo; but it is good to be reminded that there have been, and are, other views within the Party itself. At the same time, Zhao demonstrates with equal clarity the support given him by Deng at various crucial junctures against the conservative forces that sought to turn the clock back on reform and opening.

Commenting on the June 4 events, Deng said, famously, ‘this storm was bound to happen’. Zhao shows that this was not necessarily the case – or at least that there was nothing inevitable about the way in which it was handled. Had he had his way, it was perfectly possible that the situation could have been resolved peacefully (as was quite obvious to almost anybody there at the time, other than to those who had an interest in what actually happened).

Going further back, had Hu Yaobang not been forced from power in 1987, Zhao believes the subsequent political trajectory would have been quite different (although, intriguingly, Zhao reveals that one of the accusations against Hu was that he had been too enthusiastic in his support of Kim Il Sung!).

A few days ago, responding to a foreign journalist’s question about a possible reappraisal of June 4, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that this and all related issues had been settled years ago. I have too high an opinion of the MFA to believe that the spokesman believed this to be true, or that his hearers would believe it either.

Sooner or later – and later is still more likely than sooner – the issue will be reappraised. When it is, Zhao’s memoirs will play an important role in re-assessing this vital episode in the history of modern China. In the meantime, thanks to access to modern means of communication – an important aspect of the reform and opening program for which Deng, Zhao, Hu and their successors can all claim credit –whatever measures are taken to impede them, thousands of people across China will find ways of reading this fascinating and important book.

Richard Rigby is head of the China Institute at the ANU and was formerly an Australian diplomat and analyst specialising on Chinese and Asian affairs. He was based in China during the 1980s.

1. Deng Xiaoping and the transformation of China
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3. China and global economic governance: History matters