Olho mágico: Um líder intrigante / Peephole: The puzzling leader

Being midway through his first term as supreme leader of China, Xi Jinping became itself an object of study and question, as is another form of a "new normal", especially after having driven a break radical with the ancient Chinese leadership and the "lost decade" of Hu Jintao. But the governance Xi Jinping is also a "case study" by the depth and scope of what the Chinese leader designated as a priority in terms of policy orientation, with the fight against corruption to stand out clearly visible. [...]

Published in Ponto Final, May 15 2015

And the text original in English with web links:

Being now halfway into his first mandate as China’s supremo, Xi Jinping has become the object of many probes—another form of “new normal”—, mainly because of his apparent clean break with the previous leadership—the so-called “lost decade” of Hu Jintao—as well as the depth and reach of everything he has undertaken or designated as a priority in terms of policy-making, among which the fight against corruption stands a distant first. Assertiveness at home and abroad has become his trademark and his self-confident and earthily personal style has made his ultimate goal to salvage the perennial rule of the Communist Party of China (CPC) very convincing for many.

In a recent “educated poll” run by Foreign Affairs flashily entitled “Will China Crumble? ,” some 32 experts and scholars from various sectors and background were asked whether or not they agreed with the assertion that “The current Chinese regime will not survive the next decade without major reform” and quite surprisingly 19 of them disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, 6 stayed neutral and only 7 agreed or strongly agreed. Despite the relative vagueness and ambiguity of the question—are we talking exclusively about political reform? Does it necessarily mean a breakthrough towards liberal democracy? Is it “reform” versus “revolution?—this is a clear indication that beyond the two major dangers of soul-searching anti-graft purges and declining economic growth—the backbone of the Party’s legitimacy—there is a significant level of confidence regarding the ability of the Party-state under Xi’s helmsmanship to overcome the seemingly inconsistence of having economic reforms without ultimately engaging into far-reaching political reforms. In the enduring contest between the idea of “authoritarian resilience” coined by Andrew Nathan in the early 2000s and the one of inescapable “collapse” because of inherent internal contradictions popularized by Gordon Chang, Pei Minxin or more recently David Shambaugh, resilience appears to have the upper hand. Yet, all these experts do not see China as an alternative model to liberal democracy and none for sure agree with Daniel Bell’s latest claim that “Chinese-style political meritocracy can help to remedy the key flaws of electoral democracy”.

The resolve of Xi’s action has thus translated into a perceived renewed capacity of the Chinese state to deliver on its promise of modernity, but Xi the “Born Red” leader is still pretty much a puzzle, despite his impeccable princeling credentials and being the most “advertised” Chinese ruler since Mao Zedong—several books of his selected works have already been published, including a “Study China” (xuexi zhongguo) smartphone App providing his complete writings, favorite poems and travel agenda, and “Xi Dada”, “Big Uncle Xi” as he was nicknamed by the state news agency, can be found on stickers, pins, as a statuette and even comics and animated cartoons. Many an observers have highlighted that this could amount to a revamped form of cult of the personality, and yet Xi Jinping is portrayed as being genuinely “accessible” to the people—in one of these cartoons, the presidential Chinese dream becomes the one of winning the World Cup! Despite the many references to the Maoist era and the heavy crackdown on civil society and any form of dissenting view—more so if it is suspected to be under a “Western influence”—most of the reforms in the economic and social realms appear to be guided by pragmatism. If the wish for a Chinese rejuvenation or renaissance, as argued by Willy Wo-Lap Lam in his Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping, is hard to refute and has been part of the political master narrative since the humiliation of the First Opium War, other ulterior motives are less ascertained.

In a somewhat traditional neo-authoritarianism perspective, the concentration of power in the hands of a single enlightened leader is made necessary to keep stirring the boat in the right direction, and clearly the cape to avoid at all cost is the one that has presided over the demise of the Soviet Communist Party, precisely because of a lack of confidence and resolution—obviously quite an obsessive thought. For Willy Lam, the excessive monopolization of power that forces even Premier Li Keqiang to play second fiddle, the ad hoc creation of leading groups and committees that somehow circumvent the collegial power of the Politburo Standing Committee, the lack of promotion of the so-called 7^th generation of leaders, together with the admiration that Mr Xi holds for Vladimir Putin and his 15 years of uninterrupted exercise of power in Russia are an indication that the design might go beyond the salvation of the CPC and suggest a wish for Mr Xi to stay in power at least up to 2027. For a liberal thinker like Wu Jiaxiang, this tight grip over power and the fending off of rival factions and vested interests within the party correspond to a consolidating stage that necessarily precedes further reforms. The puzzle remains though: depending on the tightness of the grip, one always risks choking off the potential for innovation and reform.

Kapok: Groundhog Day

In the 1993 comedy “Groundhog Day”, Bill Murray plays a weatherman who falls victim of some form of never ending time loop while reluctantly covering a seemingly dull and repetitive story about a rodent able to forecast the weather: each and every morning, the very same day starts all over again, and the weatherman is stuck on February 2nd. What appears as an opportunity at first, providing endless occasions to influence the same situations for both worst and best, soon turns into a nightmare, as the now much wiser character discovers the limits of his newly-found omnipotence. Ultimately, only the discovery of his true benevolent self will allow him to break free from this doom—this is after all a Hollywood movie.
Beyond the growing annoyance, this feeling of everlasting repetition made pointless by the powerlessness of the protagonists is obviously what resonates most in the hearts and minds of many people in Macao when it comes to “traffic issues”. The problem is: Macao is no Hollywood!
While on the trail to win an election for which he was running unopposed last August, Mr Chui went the extra step of gathering people’s “opinions and suggestions”—let’s say grievances. Quite unexpectedly it seems—we had been told time and time again that “housing” was the No. 1 problem—it was reported in November that the most pressing concern for Macao residents was actually the one concerning traffic. At the time, a very inspired Lao Pun Lap, the head of the government think-tank, revealed that even though he did not have the “exact figure” for the breakdown of these 87,425 “opinions” (out of a total of 111,246) exclusively troubled by “traffic issues”, a majority of citizens expected the government to give high-priority to public transportation, and that the number of vehicles on the road should be limited, the number of parking spots increased, the LRT construction work sped up and the overall management of traffic flow improved.
This is pretty much in line with observations and suggestions—clearly I cannot use the word “commitments”—that were developed back in 2009 in the “General Policy on Traffic and Land Transportation in Macao (2010-2020)” issued by the Transport Bureau (DSAT): the future in terms of “mobility” was bleak if projections from 2010 were to be trusted (too many private cars, too slow a traffic, lengthened commuting time and too much pollution) and thus a duly identified impending disaster required swift actions and long term planning. According to that document, by 2012, the priority was to be the reorganization of “public transports” and “the safeguarding of commuting”, and by 2015, the “metro” would have started operating and “tangible results in every area supporting the ‘primacy of public transports’” would have been achieved. Let’s face it: every aspect of the four step action plan of that 2009 blueprint—improving public transport, reasonably managing private vehicles, creating a sense of flawless mobility and pursuing the construction of infrastructures and a better education regarding road safety—are utter failures.
The new Secretary for transport and public works, Raimundo do Rosário, is absolutely right when he hints at the fact that the issue of traffic congestion and the ways to solve it are a matter of collective responsibility. When newspapers are filled with full-page ads of cars whose speed and size are simply insane for a 30 sq. kilometer territory, they bear a responsibility. When people pressure the government to keep the price of petrol and the tax on vehicles low, they share part of the blame—and the same goes for legislators who speak on behalf of the said people. When the government fails to organize sensible tenders for big infrastructure projects, or when it proves unable to supervise the realization of these projects, or when it makes a mistake in the type of contract it issues for the concessionary exploitation of the city’s bus lanes, it does indeed bear another significant part of the responsibility.
The failure to address the challenges of fast deteriorating mobility in Macao has already had a great impact on our mind—peace of mind—, lungs and purse, and clearly breaking free from that apparently inevitable trap will require far more than good intentions and benevolence.

Published in Macau Daily Times, May 1st 2015

Kapok: The way ahead is long

Thanks to Linkedin, I sometimes get to read articles about management in general and human relations at work, in particular, that I would otherwise simply brush aside for lack of substance and meaning. Many a time, scholars who specialise in the management of people in a working setting are failed businessmen, lack the broadness of mind to embrace economics, miss the point of power politics and are too short in scientific rigour to engage in psychology. When they focus on cross-cultural interactions, it often gets worse: culture gets reified and learning how to communicate gets truncated into imperfect lists of dos and don’ts.
Linkedin describes itself as a “business-oriented social networking service”, so it cannot really be blamed for endlessly publishing postings, papers and quotes about what to expect from a manager. Clearly, this is a network for people who think of themselves as decision-makers, and are always eager to grab a new opportunity—“losers find excuses, winners find solutions” reads one, “you create your own opportunity” reads another.Yet, listening to the new team of secretaries in Macao addressing for the first time the legislature in the past few weeks has made me reconsider a classic dilemma that scholars in the field of human resources never fail to examine and cross-examine: the one of leadership versus management. The artificiality of the boundary between one and the other is obvious, and depending on the scale of the operation, it is often impossible to make a distinction. The head of a small organization usually has to be a leader as well as a manager as there is no way things can be delegated. Also, competing characteristics can be complementary even though the idea that one set of features cannot exist without the other is fallacious: a so-called manager can continue to operate even though the leader has no vision and an institution can continue to strive even though the vision of its leader is completely distorted—absurd visions being only bearable as long as they are not instantly lethal, especially when it comes to public administration.
In the case of Macao, I would argue that what inspired the clean slate approach of a brand new government last December after 15 years of more or less the same was having too many insulated managers and no leader. Contrary to what I believed for a long time, the absence of leadership was more consequential than essential: the burdening legacy of the previous leadership appears to have acted almost right from the start as some kind of tantalizing, paralyzing and lurking influence. Social disgruntlement coupled with a looming economic recession and a wider political shift in the mainland precipitated the need for change.Because of Easter and Qingming, the addresses by the secretaries have been dragging far too long. So as to give an even greater sense of efficiency – the one virtue that had been lacking in Chui I – everything should have been wrapped up in a week or so instead of starting March 23 and finishing April 16! Yet, with maybe the notable exception of Sonia Chan who has yet to prove herself, the secretaries have displayed a remarkable sense of commitment in restituting the daily operations of their portfolio together with the challenges—being true managers—and a commendable capacity to project their work and priorities into the future—being true leaders. They have done so with an amount of resoluteness and power of conviction not often seen in this polity. Sometimes even with humour, as when Alexis Tam Chon Weng retorted to legislator Fong Chi Keong who had quoted the most famous poem of Qu Yuan (“The way ahead is long, and I do not see any ending, yet high and low I’ll search with determination”) that he hoped he would not have to drown himself if he failed to implement his “Glorious five years’” policy! With an additional promise of accountability, let’s hope that they will be able to now work as a team to confront the many vested interests that have marred the city far too long.

Published in Macau Daily Times, April 17 2015

Olho mágico: Verdificação / Peephole: Greenisation

A 24 de Março, o Politburo do Partido Comunista da China (PCC) abraçou oficialmente, e pela primeira vez, o conceito de “verdificação” (绿色化). Com um empurrão decidido, e sem que nada o fizesse anunciar, os escalões mais elevados da estrutura orgânica do Partido, entronizaram a necessidade de adicionar uma “cultura de conservação” às “quatro novas modernizações” (a industrialização, a urbanização, a informatização e a modernização da agricultura), política que constituiu o alfa e omega do PCC tal como foi definido pelo 18º Congresso do Partido em 2012. A medida constitui uma decisão de monta, ainda que a ausência de pormenores mais pragmáticos e de políticas concretas tenham contribuído para que passasse quase despercebida. [...]

For the rest, see Ponto Final, April 15 2015 & Ponto Final, April 19 2015

My original text in English:

On March 24th, the Politburo of the Communist Party of China (CPC) espoused the concept of “greenisation” (绿色化) for the first time ever. In a powerful push, at the highest echelon of Party politics, all of a sudden, the need to develop a “conservation culture” is being embedded in the “new four modernisations” (industrialisation, urbanisation, informatisation and modernisation of the agriculture), the alpha and omega of the CPC as defined by the 18th Party Congress of 2012. This is no small feat even though we are still short of pragmatic details and policy-making, and yet it has gone fairly unnoticed.
The very fact that greenisation appears to be meant to cut through the “new four modernisations” should have raised a few eyebrows.
First of all because these revamped magic four are a direct reference to Deng Xiaoping’s own “four modernisations” that launched the “opening up and reform” era back in November 1978. They are thus symbolically powerful and meaningful. For the present leadership, both the ambition and the imperative are of the same magnitude as it was at the end of the 1970s: the survival of China’s model depends on its ability to adapt and several indicators have already shown that the economic drivers of the past three reformist decades are dwindling, hence the need for a vast overhaul that will put both (shrinking) human resources and capital investment (with diminishing returns) to a better use.
Secondly, the crucial need to develop a “conservation culture” is supposed to infuse a new momentum to some of the priorities already defined and appears to be taking overall precedence: the greenisation of China is to be the one of its “production, economy and lifestyles” as a whole. “Green development” implies to go beyond the mere “promotion of sustainable development” as one of the eight tasks for the “deepening of economic reform” as defined by the Third Plenum of the Congress in November 2013. And “green development” is not only being embedded in the general program that ambitions to fix the engine of growth, stabilise the economy and better the quality of life of the citizens, but is also seen as being “part of national soft power and a new advantage in international competition”.
Finally, a decision made by the Politburo itself regarding a shift of that nature should not be downplayed, especially because Xi Jinping’s “strong leadership” style follows a pattern we could ourselves characterise as a shrivelled version of democratic centralism. Mr Xi’s interpretation of Lenin’s “freedom of discussion, unity of action” is quite restrictive and, as already noted by several perceptive observers of Chinese politics, in the two crucial areas of security and economic reforms the Politburo itself is dominated by two “super organs” created in late 2013 and both of them are chaired by President Xi himself: the Central National Security Commission and the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms.
The seriousness of China’s environmental upheavals is now widely acknowledged, both inside and outside of the country, and is proving to be quite challenging as well as extremely sensitive. The success of Chai Qing’s “Under the Dome” documentary at the time of the convening of the National People’s Congress is more than telling. This often very personal 103-minute video detailing the appalling air pollution problem faced by China produced by a renowned investigative journalist and financed out of her own purse had been seen 100 million times in just 48 hours before it was removed from the popular video-hosting website Youku. No doubt that this Ted-talk style report nourished by dreary statistics à la Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and jaw-dropping interviews with admittedly powerless local officials might have proved a (too) perfect enthusing illustration of Premier that Li Keqiang’s own characterisation of pollution as being “a blight on people's lives”.
A World Bank study indicates that the overall cost of China’s degraded environment corresponds to 9% of its Gross Domestic Product, and a recent Tsinghua University study concludes that tiny particulate pollutants were linked to 670,000 premature deaths from strokes, lung cancer, coronary heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2012 alone! ! No wonder then that the reforming of the “ecological systems” in China appeared in the first sentence of the broad-sweeping economic reform plan of November 2013 issued during the Third Plenum! In one of the few studies that have looked precisely and comprehensively into the substance of all the reforms publicised by the new leadership, Daniel Rosen goes to great lengths in showing that indeed the authorities have been busy making these announcements a reality by setting in motion “populist campaigns against polluting facilities, energy and coal policy reforms, a revamped environmental protection law and [stepping-up] regulatory activism”. But, partly thanks to often self-imposed greater transparency in actual reporting, the fact remains that the situation has worsened, that extremely polluting coal remains king and environmental protection comes a distant second behind the constraints to deliver GDP growth and economic performance, especially at local level.
Since January 1st 2015, China is equipped with regulatory standards widely recognized as being both extremely progressive and stringent. And yet, watchful observers Bo Zhang and Cong Cao warn us in the journal Nature that the brand new Environmental Protection Law could easily be confronted by four kinds of adverse “gaps”: first, being outclassed by other pieces of specific legislation dealing with agriculture, forestry, grassland and water; second, being “hampered by the fragmented and overlapping structure of environmental governance”; third, being crippled by the lack of acknowledgment of “citizens’ basic right to an environment fit for life”; and fourth, because enforcement could easily be contravened “by a lack of capacity and by conflicts of interest”. In conclusion, they argue that this very promising law thus now “requires robust implementation mechanisms, accountability regimes and institutional arrangements”, and they concur with Alex Wang from the University of California (Los Angeles) that environmental protection needs to be raised to “a level of priority previously reserved only for the most important party-state mandates, such as economic growth, social stability, and the one-child policy.” Could the “greenisation” concept vouched by the Politburo be it?

Kapok: Going back to politics

Politics in many a modern polity seems to have become taboo; a notion somewhat perceived as coming from the past, when ideologies reigned and ultimately proved to be the inspiration for some of the deadliest man-made catastrophes of the twentieth century. Religions are today being used as political repertoire by some organizations for which “–ism” soon become “–ist”, but far from speculating on the specific workings of better tomorrows and more egalitarian polities, radical political movements inspired by twisted reinterpretation of religion are “merely” contesting an existing political order and thus protest more than they propose. Clearly, it is a mistake to allow radicals exclusive recourse to politics.
In Macao, politics has often been reduced to politicking — the last vivid memory we have of radicalism dates back to 1966. Since the handover, most of the promises made by our executive-led government have provided perfect illustrations for the expression “vanishing in thin air”. Simply looking at policy addresses, the buzzword for the economy up to 2003 had been “restructuring”, and starting as early as November 2003, less than two years after the liberalization of gambling, this was replaced by the sacred requirement for “diversification”. In 2015, we are still dominated by the imperative to diversify, only this time under a period of “adjustment” corresponding to a “new normal” with an ultimate objective of “sustainable development”, and this no longer for the sole benefit of Macao but China. Mind you, we belong to a wider community and syphoning hundreds of billions of renminbi (the people’s money) for more than a decade had to come at a price, especially when the new head of state regards the fight against corruption as a question of survival.
Talking about “diversification”, the economist Albano Martins recently reminded us that total earnings from the MICE industry for a whole year equated to the revenues of “three hours of gambling”! No wonder Lionel Leong is betting on the development of traditional medicine in Hengqin as the way to go: not in Macao and not now!
In many democracies, promises made during electoral campaigns get buried when confronted by the reality of governing in an ever more interdependent global environment. Let’s be honest, quite a significant number of pledges made while on the campaign trail are rather theatrical: a former French president, Jacques Chirac, once said that promises were only binding for those who listen to them, and he got elected twice! Yet, issues get debated, alternatives envisioned and if a government defaults too much on its commitments, it ultimately gets sacked. In August last year while running unopposed for a new mandate, the last point on Mr Chui’s program was to further democratic development in Macao. Of course, this is only second to “sunshine policies” (meaning transparent and without corruption) and “scientific governance” (meaning based on rationality, due processes and benchmarking).
The greatest achievements in democratic development in Macao has been the suppression of the electoral registration card in order to fight electoral corruption, and the addition of a few seats in both the Legislative Assembly and the Chief Executive Election committee in order to improve representation of the people. Even mitigated by more popular forms of consultation, I sincerely doubt that these have proven successful, on either account.
Now, the newly appointed secretary for Administration and Justice, Sonia Chan, is promising to make the “indirectly elected” seats at the Assembly more competitive, the consultative committees of all hues more diverse and to establish a renewed form of municipal organization. What is at stake, and this is precisely why we have a brand new government, is to partially get rid of “vested interests”, the one thing that has crippled the healthy development of Macao for the past 15 years. But, beyond the letter of the Basic Law, why be scared of entrusting these revamped entities with political power? Just as legal changes are often not a matter of public opinion, as perfectly pointed out by Leonel Alves, grooming a new generation of leaders requires they be entrusted with authority.


Published in Macau Daily Times, April 3 2015