Kapok: is that normal?

One thing is certain: it is indeed pervasive! And it is meant to be so! It has almost become a mantra, one that everybody repeats in all circumstances, as if it could clearly identify, accurately characterize, precisely define, and ultimately allow us to anticipate, not to say predict, what was to come, for each and every situation, whatever the focus, regardless of the topic under discussion. What is that magic formula? What is that epitome of clear and unmediated understanding?

Taxis have stopped fishing on the fringe of casinos, are routinely queuing outside the ferry terminals and the airport, and have stopped overcharging and have started to provide the service that was rightly expected of them: this is the new normal. A new line up of secretaries have started to tackle public policy issues head-on; they are proving competent, reactive and swift in their approach to policy making: this is the new normal. The economy is slowing down, and yet with the ambition (under serious pressure) to become more diversified and sustainable: this is the new normal. The ongoing fight against the corruption of “flies”, “tigers” and “foxes” alike on the other side of the Portas do Cerco and beyond is the driving force of that decline in revenues and profits of the gaming industry: this is the new normal. Gaming stock prices are in correction mode and the prospects for a rebound in the mid-term — let’s exclude Chinese New Year and the new openings — have become bleak, to say the least: this is the new normal.

Gaming analysts and bankers, be they American, Australian, German, Swiss, Japanese or British abusively resort to the expression. Journalists are no exception either, and despite the lack of metaphoric beauty of the wording, they find it far more palatable and overall purposeful than the more cryptic “China dream”. Even scholars — some more than others — relish the evocative power of the formula: on January 22nd, the Center for Macau Studies of the University of Macau organized an entire forum bringing together 11 distinguished academics to discuss “Macao and China’s economy new normal”. And then of course, Xinhua, the China Daily, the People’s Daily, the Wen Wei Po or our own Macao Daily News abound in titles and op-eds adorned with this prescriptive depiction.

But where does that “new normal” — what I perceive as a rebranded “society of moderate prosperity” on steroids — come from? In Chinese, the expression xin changtai 新常态 was first used to characterize China’s economy today in a speech given by Xi Jinping at the occasion of the Central Economic Work Conference in May 2014. What are now branded as “hot words” by the news website of the Communist Party of China itself were meant to describe the “big logic” at work behind the credo of a new national economic policy. And this new economic rational was to “endure and accept the economic slowdown”, “resolutely face the contradictions of the industrial structure”, “level up the govern- ment’s objective knowledge and rationality in the development of the economy and the society”, “display self-confidence in providing serene answers”, while at the same time “acknowledging that this new normal requires good preparation and a mature approach to succeed”.

Mind you, I am not saying that this “new normal” is not doing us good, even though some of the more immediate and bankable benefits seem to suffer in the process. Diversification? If not a chimera, it was definitely a distant dream — Chinese, but distant. More transparency in the gaming operations? Uh? Good faith and accountability on the side of all the stakeholders? Uh-uh? The question remains though: if that’s an imperative, what will it really take to make it both achievable and sustainable in the short-term?

Published in Macau Daily Times on February 13th 2015