Father Xi and the wisdom of the Chinese Communist Party

Understanding the world through the perceptions of one Hongkonger.

I was recently in Japan and just happened, via one of those ‘traveller occurrences’, to end up in a lengthy, engaging discussion with a fellow from Hong Kong. We met because we shared a table over breakfast in the reasonably busy hotel restaurant where we were both staying. We ‘hit it off’ and ended by having a long dinner together that evening.

There’s one thing I’ve noted over the years about Hongkongers that I’ve met in various Asian countries: they tend to have an expansive world view. The ease of travelling from Hong Kong to almost anywhere in the world tends to give them great exposure to different cultures, politics and social and business attitudes and environments.

Photo by Big Dodzy on Unsplash

This fellow was no exception. Around 45 years old, born in Hong Kong, he was initially a junior banking executive, but then started up a manufacturing business in partnership with his father about 20 years ago. Perhaps unusually from my general experience with Hongkongers, he was at his age unmarried. And just as interesting was the fact that he was quite tall, athletic, had a big smile with good looks and was highly engaging in conversation. And he was clearly financially comfortable. A good ‘catch’ one would have thought!

Of interest to me was the fact that he was born and educated under British colonial rule up to the end of his secondary schooling. After the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997 he worked in banking and subsequently started and headed up his own business. The business appeared to be successful, with a manufacturing plant employing 80-or-so people in Guangdong province bordering Hong Kong. He lived in Hong Kong from where the business was administered, but he travelled weekly to the plant, less than two hours away.

To say the least I was intrigued by what he thought of doing business and living in Hong Kong under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. Also what he thought of global politics, the USA, the UK, Australia and so on. He could certainly bring perspectives that would be based on life experiences outside of my own.

A few days earlier I had had a brief conversation with another, much older Hongkonger who was in the process of getting out of Hong Kong. He was taking his money and moving to the UK to be rid of the CCP overlords. Here was a potential comparison of alternative Hong Kong perspectives.

My breakfast/dinner companion was of a very different mindset to the older Hongkonger. In fact, as the conversation progressed, I found myself enmeshed in a dialogue where he, ever so gently, was seeking to convert me to the superiority of the CCP view of the world and its way of conducting business and society.

Even though we debated back and forth on some issues, I was intent on being respectful of his views. I tried not to challenge him or impose my pre-conceived ideas. I didn’t want to ‘win’ any points. Instead, I felt I had an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding, one that I wouldn’t receive from media and related information available at the Australian end of the world. My questions and comments to him were orientated to delving deeper into his thoughts, although I suspect he perceived some of these as challenges.

Here's a collection of his thoughts that he shared with me over breakfast and dinner.

Hong Kong is better run now than under the old British colonial rule where democracy never existed. Although they had departed from Hong Kong, the British left behind ‘time bombs’ embedded in Hong Kong society. Indeed, the mass protests that started around 2014 and rose to their height around 2019-20 were all the product of British interference. Even more specifically, the many months of protest and mass sit-ins in major thoroughfares in Hong Kong were only possible because of British (and CIA funding). Teenage pro-democracy ‘star’, Joshua Wong was, for example, a British plant, there to make trouble on behalf of Britain.

Those who have left Hong Kong, he says, particularly for the UK, are returning. They are finding the UK to be very different from what they imagined. It’s wet, soggy and chaotic. And once the departed Hongkongers have spent up their available accumulated cash, they return to Hong Kong.

My discussion pal is not a member of the CCP he explained and has no interest in being one. The CCP is pretty good anyway he says. There’s a whole new grouping of CCP members emerging at the lower ranks who are young, educated and very professional—more like helpful business bureaucrats than political operatives. And, besides, his business is too small for the CCP to take an interest in it. Shortly after saying this, however, he talked of the CCP people he “needs to deal with” as being great to deal with. I don’t think he realised that he’d contradicted himself.

I asked: Isn’t the CCP system in China really like the old bureaucracy that administered China up until the collapse of the dynastic system under the Dowager Empress in 1912? That is, that the CCP is really just a replacement for what China has done for centuries—being run under a dynastic Emperor-style system? He ignored this line of general enquiry but instead focused on some specifics.

For example, the closing down of the private education system in China itself was completely necessary because the private system was making people poor because of the huge fees they charged. Everyone should have the same education system, and no-one should be able to buy their way into a better education.

As for the suppression of Jack Ma, founder and head of the Alibaba Group, this was vital as Alibaba had become so dominant in China that it was squeezing out all competitors. No other business could get into the space to provide competition.

I asked, however, was not the real issue that Jack Ma had become a perceived threat to the CCP, that no-one in China can be seen to attract more attention than the CCP even if the business/individual has no intention or desire to be political? In China no-one must shine brighter, or even risk shining brighter, than the CCP.

In this respect my discussion partner perceived Xi Jinping as being perfectly reasonable in all things he does. Xi is very much the stable father figure guiding the Chinese people.

I said that I had trouble understanding Xi, as I have read two of Xi’s four-volume collection on the Governance of China. Essentially I found the readings boring, with circular thought processes that made little logical sense to me. There seemed to be one message only from Xi’s writings: that authoritarian rule is superior to anything else, but what guides that rule I found hard to detect. My discussion partner ignored these comments, even though I tried to deliver such an appraisal with respect (probably not possible given the context). However, I formed the impression that he’d not read any of Xi’s volumes. Instead, this part of the chat led to him decrying the US as failed, corrupt, in decline and nasty.

The USA is very much the enemy he says . The USA has the intention of invading China. China under the CCP has absolutely no intention of invading Taiwan. But China will protect its interests if threatened by the USA. The CIA operates throughout China and is the cause of most trouble.

He continued that the USA is in decline. US people are not nice. He has to deal with US customers all the time, and when they get a new CEO or other senior executive, the Americans immediately become aggressive and are nasty to deal with. He doesn’t like them at all. Europeans are much nicer to deal with.

I responded that it’s very much a mistake to assume the USA is in decline. The fact is that continental USA is blessed with the most endowed geography of any land mass on earth. The Mississippi river system allows for water-based transport thousands of miles into the land mass. The geography of the USA contains great mountains feeding massive rivers flowing through vast, highly productive plains combined with what seem to be endless resources of gas, oil and minerals. Compared with this, China has major geographic constraints. I also offered the view that it’s a great mistake to misunderstand the greatest democracy on earth. US democracy, however chaotic, has a history of producing great entrepreneurial classes, innovation and economic growth.

My friend’s response was that US wants to take over the world and push its military might on everyone. I agreed that there is a very strong element in the US that wants to suppress/contain China and, yes, the USA’s dominant, global military and economic might surpasses all others. But there’s also a need to understand what happens in the US as a consequence of democracy. For example, some Congressperson will have a military base/industry in their district. They will push hard for more money and expansion to appeal to their constituency. That is, that considerable domestic political pressure feeds the ‘industrial military complex’ and that that needs to be understood. Yes, there is unity of view in US over China, but the domestic political assessment needs to be understood.

He mused over diversity in China. He speaks Cantonese but really feels he should learn Mandarin. The province of Guangdong, where he has his factory, has always been a competitor with, and annoyance to, the masters in Beijing. He spoke of this provincial competition with some amusement. Here was an insight into the seeming constraints even upon authoritarian rule.

What was interesting with my discussion mate was the genuineness of his views. This wasn’t a put-on. This was no ‘wolf warrior’ trying to browbeat me. Instead, here was someone who was educated under British colonial, Hong Kong rule. He has considerable global business experience. He understands the world. And his world view is decidedly and genuinely pro-Xi, and pro-CCP orientated.