Susan Shirk Interview (2007): Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
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Susan, welcome back to Berkeley.
Thanks. It's a pleasure to be here.
What was your goal in writing this book?
My goal was to open up the black box of Chinese domestic politics, Chinese domestic situations, so that people could understand better how Americans should think about China and handle the rise of China.
How long did it take you to write the book?
I came back from Washington in 2000 and started doing research, and then it took about two years to actually write it.
You are a prominent China scholar who did service in Washington, so I'm curious about how your perspective has changed, first as a scholar, traveling regularly China, but then as a policy person who could have an impact on China. Were these different perspectives you were blessed to have?
Sure. I feel very fortunate. Not that many scholars have this rare opportunity to actually participate and maybe even, a little bit, influence history, not just study it. I really enjoyed the action-oriented role as a policymaker. Being a scholar, as you know, especially the research and writing, is kind of a lonely monk enterprise. You have to do a lot of it by yourself. It was very exciting to be engaged with Madeleine Albright and President Clinton, and other people, who were trying to make progress in laying a foundation for better relations with China during that period. This was right after 1996, which was a time when we came into an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with China, and so when I came to Washington I and other members of the administration were really worried about the possibility of a military conflict with China. So, it was very exciting.
In the literature there's always a discussion of theory and practice, so I'm curious as to what surprised you most when you switched tasks from scholar to policy maker, in a general way.
Well, it didn't intellectually surprise me. I didn't learn a whole lot more about China, I have to say. One reason I went into government is I thought, [gasps] "I could have access to all this intelligence! I'm actually really gonna understand how it works there!" You know? And it was pretty disappointing, I have to tell you. I didn't feel I learned that much more from the intelligence that I'd learned as an academic, interviewing and visiting China all that time. Of course, what you get a very heavy dose of is the politics in Washington, and this is the Clinton administration, so there was a lot of talk about the Clinton administration campaign contributions from Chinese, and giving away nuclear secrets to China, all sorts of mostly partisan attacks that actually had no foundation.
A little later we'll talk about U.S. - China relations, but now I want to focus on how things have changed in China. Your first trips were in the early seventies, and China was rural, undeveloped. In our first interview [2001] we discussed the rare opportunity you had to meet with Zhou Enlai the first time you were there. Give us a sense of how you've watched China change over the years that you've been doing research there.
When I first went to China in 1971 it was still the Cultural Revolution. Everybody was in baggy navy and khaki clothing, wearing Mao badges, almost no automobiles, people just riding bicycles, and things were decrepit, rusting railings in parks, and nobody mowed the lawn, and there was nothing to buy in the stores at all -- and I'm a big shopper. All I could get was a khaki bag saying "wei renmen fu wu" -- "serve the people." It was fascinating and very exciting but it was really decrepit. And the contrast between Hong Kong and the mainland was very vivid, because Hong Kong was a dynamic, modern place.
I go to North Korea sometimes, and it's interesting because when I go from Beijing to North Korea it's a little bit like '71, going from Hong Kong to Beijing. Although then the gap was even bigger than the gap to North Korea now. So, of course, China has become a very dynamic market economy, very modern. All the western stores are there, fancy, wealthy people with Mercedes, so it's really like night and day. I feel very fortunate to have seen this dramatic transformation, but behind all that development is the political China. Sometimes when I give a talk I talk about the economic China and the political China. Political China is still not that changed.
Let's talk about that in a second, but I'm going to lift out from your book a wealth of statistics to give our audience a sense of the impact of these economic changes, which your book does a wonderful job of doing. The volume of trade has increased twenty-five times from 1978 to 2001. During 1978 to 2004 China's GDP grew at an average annual rate of 9.5. China's per capita income grew at 8 percent. Of people over sixty, you say 128 million people in 2000, but in 2030 there will be 350 million. Twenty more years of rapid growth with quadruple the size of the economy with per capita income at $3000.
When you're talking about that last statistic you quote Huntington, who warns us that the change from a thousand dollars to three thousand is potentially a very revolutionary, violent period for any society.
What's interesting is the Chinese have read Huntington, too.
[laughs] The leaders, yeah.
Yeah! And they quote that all the time. So, they see this as a dangerous strait to cross, as well.
You focus in your book, as you get into the black box, you get into the politics of China which you were just touching upon. Let's talk a little about that, because your book points to a number of contradictions in Chinese society. It's really about the Party not wanting to change. Is that correct?
The Party wants to stay in power. I think the Party would be willing to change, would be willing to do anything to stay in power. They've got very clear focus there, and that's because in 1989 the Tiananmen protests, pro-democracy protests in more than 130 cities, the leadership split and the regime only survived by the skin of their teeth. Same year the Berlin wall falls and communism starts to topple in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. So, of course, China's leaders feel that their own days are numbered, and they're struggling to prolong their life span. They look around them, all they have to do is look out the window and see what we were just talking about, how China has changed. And so, how do they maintain control, how do they maintain power in a vibrant market economy that's so open to the world, in which people are moving all over China? They don't have the same control over the population they used to, people don't work in state enterprises, so they're very worried and insecure.
Just about that movement of people, you cite in your book this number, 130 million rural dwellers have emigrated to the cities. That's half of the U.S. population. So, these numbers and the changes they could potentially lead to are quite extraordinary.
Yes, this is a historic exodus of people from the rural areas to the cities. It's a very dramatic modernization and transformation of society.
Next page: Pressures on China
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