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The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China – review
In The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China, Ya-Wen Lei explores how China has reshaped its economy and society in recent decades, from the era of Chen Yun to the leadership of Xi Jinping. Lei’s meticulous analysis illuminates how China’s blend of marketisation and authoritarianism has engendered a unique techno-developmental capitalism, writes George Hong Jiang.
Twenty years ago, people inside and outside China were wondering whether the country would eventually capitulate to dominant capitalist and democratic models. American politicians such as Bill Clinton were enthusiastically looking forward to the future integration of China into globalisation. When this happened, millions of ordinary people would get rich and become the middle class through fast-growing international trade and domestic labour-intensive industries. However, this judgment quickly proved ill-made. China has simultaneously emulated the US in high-tech industries but also become an unparalleled authoritarian state which polices its citizens through intellectual technology and high-tech instruments. How has it achieved this, and what are the effects of this? Lei tries to untangle these questions in her book, The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China.
The author was inspired by the “birdcage economy” of Chen Yun when choosing the title of the book.[…] Statist control is the cage, and private economies, like captive birds, are only allowed to fly within the cage.
The author was inspired by the “birdcage economy” of Chen Yun when choosing the title of the book (5). Building the planned economy in the early 1950s and supporting economic reforms in the 1980s, Chen Yun was one of the most important architects of economic systems in communist China. While he was a proponent of giving more space to private economies, Chen Yun staunchly believed in the efficacy of governmental regulations. Statist control is the cage, and private economies, like captive birds, are only allowed to fly within the cage. Chen Yun was particularly cautious about liberalist reforms, such as deregulation of finance and fiscal decentralisation, and distinctly opposed to privatisation. After he died in 1995, Deng Xiaoping and his disciples, including Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, carried out deregulation bravely until the late 2000s. But the ideal of Chen Yun’s “birdcage economy” is never abandoned by communists who fear losing control over the society.
The 2008 financial crisis started China’s big turn of macroeconomic policies. In order to stimulate the deflated economy, the government reacted fast and invested enormous capital into a few key strategic industries, including bio-manufacturing industry and aircraft and electronic manufacturing. Ling & Naughton (2016) believe that this action signalled the watershed of China’s economic orientation. The government’s budget poured into these industries, and bureaucratic units responsible for supervision and regulation turned to interventionist policies. The trend was further strengthened after Xi Jinping, who believes that the combination of the free market economy and Leninist political principles is the best blueprint for China, ascended to the presidency in 2012.
New leadership since the 2010s wants to emulate western high-end development rather than provide low-end, cheap and labour-intensive products for the West.
The ambition to develop high-tech industries runs in tandem with the unique political system of China. Economic growth has helped sustain political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the 1980s. Since socialism was smeared by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and its disastrous economic consequences, economic growth has been identified as the most important source of political legitimacy. Economic performance has become the indicator of bureaucratic promotion, which has fused China’s politics and economies together. This political organisational mechanism makes it easier for leaders to push through any desired change and it is on this that China’s turn to techno-development (Chapter Three) is precisely based. New leadership since the 2010s wants to emulate western high-end development rather than provide low-end, cheap and labour-intensive products for the West.
Still, a key question must be answered: why are Chinese bureaucrats who care primarily about social stability and political monopoly willing to replace human labour with robots, which tends to reduce employment in the short run? In Chapter Five, the author traces the process of robotisation in firms which previously rely on cheap labour, including Foxconn. While the benefits of robotisation might be obvious to entrepreneurs aspiring to reduce costs by any means, potential instability could cause trouble for communist bureaucrats. The answer lies in the possibility that technological upgrades will lead to an enlarging economy capable of digesting more workers than it kicks out. However, it results in a dilemma: if the growth rate slows down, the appetite for mechanisation and robotisation could stir social tensions.
Seeing the chance to surpass the West in the development of high-tech industries, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is more than willing to strengthen control over public spheres and civil society and increase investment in the sector to achieve this.
Seeing the chance to surpass the West in the development of high-tech industries, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is more than willing to strengthen control over public spheres and civil society and increase investment in the sector to achieve this. As the author puts it, “the Chinese state is an unwavering believer in intellectual technology and instrumental power and employs both to enhance governance and the economy” (9). It is highly possible that with the help of an authoritarian regime and its will to develop technological capability, the dismal future that Max Weber once predicted – ie, the “iron cage of bureaucracy” in which depersonalised and ossified instrumental rationality will dominate every sphere in the society – will come sooner in China than in the West.
Economic growth is mainly driven by high-tech industries that private and state-owned capital foster, both of which must be under the control of the government, with the unified aim of rejuvenating the Chinese nation.
Karl Marx argued that productive power, including technological conditions, determines relations of production. This idea is being justified in China. A mix between marketised economies and authoritarian rule, which is penetrated by high-tech instruments, facilitate the rise of techno-developmental capitalism, as the author proposes in Chapter Nine. On the one hand, large tech companies in China have hatched one of the biggest markets in the world. On the other hand, tech professionals’ increasing demand for institutional (if not political) reforms (Chapter Eight) renders bureaucrats gradually more concerned about their social influence. For instance, Jack Ma, the boss of Alibaba, attacked the state-owned financial system and instantly got punished by the authority. China is developing a new variant of capitalism: economic growth is mainly driven by high-tech industries that private and state-owned capital foster, both of which must be under the control of the government, with the unified aim of rejuvenating the Chinese nation.
Techno-developmental capitalism is not the result of contingency, but path-dependent outcome, the direct result of China’s polities.
The author includes an excellent range of relevant materials into the book, spanning academic literature and personal interviews with private entrepreneurs and IT practitioners. Lei also bravely applies the term “instrumental rationality” in relation to China’s socioeconomic reality. In so doing she identifies the Janus-faced nature of China’s technological development, whereby the society enjoys higher productivity but becomes more rigid and occluded due to the omnipotent techno-bureaucracy. Nonetheless, the book could have been improved if Lei could take China’s political-economic structure into account when explaining the motivation to develop high-tech industries. While Lei focuses on the era after the 2000s, the rise of techno-developmental capitalism is deeply rooted in the persistent logic of the CCP since the late 1970s. In other words, techno-developmental capitalism is not the result of contingency, but a path-dependent outcome, the direct result of China’s polity. In spite of this lack of fully examined historical dimensions, Lei presents a good guidebook for China’s holistic development, not just within the last two decades but also in the decades to come.
Note: This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: B.Zhou on Shutterstock.
Channel 9 Locks In Donald Trump To Host The Roast Of Kevin Rudd
Fresh of the success of their ”roast” of John Cleese which featured a who’s that of Australian comedy, Channel 9 has announced that their next roast victim will be former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Not only that but the roast will be hosted by former President turned multiple time defendant, Donald Trump.
”The Cleese roast was such a success we almost got 20 viewers, that’s unheard of these days for commercial TV,” said a Channel 9 executive. ”The Kevin Rudd one though will be off the hook, we’ll have 100’s of people watching.”
”And that’ll just be the Nation’s defamation lawyers.”
When asked how they managed to secure former President Trump to host, the Channel 9 executive said:”He really needs the cash at the moment, so it wasn’t that hard.”
”Heck, offer him a bundle of cash and a microphone and you can pretty much get him to do anything.”
”Don’t believe us? Wait till you see our new winter show, Don’s Backyard.”
Mark Williamson
@MWChatShow
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Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam – review
In Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam, Christina Schwenkel unpacks how the city of Vinh was reconstructed with the aid of East Germany in the aftermath of its bombing by the US between 1964 and 1973. Schwenkel skilfully combines historical analysis and ethnography to explore Vinh’s urban evolution, highlighting the challenges created through socialist planning and the enduring societal impact of Cold War urbanisation, writes Xue Xuan. This post was originally published on the LSE Southeast Asia Blog.
In her book Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam, Christina Schwenkel tells of the neglected story of the Vietnamese city Vinh’s socialist reconstruction during the Cold War. This city was badly decimated by US air strikes between 1964 and 1973. To rescue Vinh from its ruins, East Germany provided substantial material and technological assistance that was designed to transform it into Vietnam’s model socialist city. However, this transformation was not without its challenges, as Vinh’s rapid ascendance was followed by a quick fall into “unplanned obsolescence”.
Schwenkel skilfully weaves historical records with ethnographic research to dissect the architectural forms and planning practices of postwar Vinh, while also capturing its residents’ lived experiences within this changing urban landscape.
Schwenkel skilfully weaves historical records with ethnographic research to dissect the architectural forms and planning practices of postwar Vinh, while also capturing its residents’ lived experiences within this changing urban landscape. This historical ethnography of Vinh’s postwar reconstruction offers an in-depth exploration of state-led socialist modernisation, its vision, implementation and subsequent impact. During the Cold War, information about these urban experiments among socialist countries was largely inaccessible and unknown to the external world. To expose these facts contributes to a better understanding of socialist modernisation. It also resonates with the “multiplicity of experienced modernities”, thereby shifting the focus away from the dominant narrative of capitalist spatial production.
Schwenkel contends that socialist planning was both a “utopian science” and a “fantastical art of projection”, often venturing into realms of impracticality.
Interestingly, the book does not dedicate a specific section to explain what socialist urbanism is. Instead, its unique characteristics are gradually revealed across several chapters through detailed documentation of historical events and objects. Schwenkel contends that socialist planning was both a “utopian science” and a “fantastical art of projection”, often venturing into realms of impracticality. She examines two visual devices in the service of modernist planning: figurative drawing and abstract blueprints, delving deep into how these visual renderings of rationalised spaces sought to represent a universal socialist future. However, when materialised in buildings and infrastructures, the rational planning was far from fulfilling its promise: it neither increased labour productivity nor moulded enlightened proletarians. The author employs the case of Quang Trung Housing Estate to concretise how practical problems like poor material conditions and conflicting spatial practices inhibited the rapid construction of mass housing and how residents’ uncivil behaviours serves to contest quotidian forms of urban governance, epitomising the dialectical relationship between civilization and backwardness. The ethnographic approach of this study offers the author an opportunity to deliver a nuanced understanding of the lived experiences associated with socialist urbanisation. This perspective underlines the agency of citizens, challenging prevailing views that often portray citizens as passive participants. Schwenkel traces manifold ways that residents in Quang Trung made the decayed buildings adapt to their changing needs and urban lifestyles. Such acts, as demonstrated in the book, were not arbitrary but planned, which serves as individualised ways to pursue the unfinished utopia.
When recounting the destruction of Vinh during the war with the US, Schwenkel pays particular attention to the contrasting visual techniques employed by the US and Vietnam in reporting and recording urban warfare.
A particularly fascinating aspect of Schwenkel’s analysis is the focus on affect. She skilfully draws together socialist planning and its afterlife in mass housing through the thread of affect, generating many thought-provoking ideas. When recounting the destruction of Vinh during the war with the US, Schwenkel pays particular attention to the contrasting visual techniques employed by the US and Vietnam in reporting and recording urban warfare. In contrast with the aerial photographs by the US military, those photos taken by Vietnamese photographers employ close-up shots in recording the architectural remains of everyday urban life. The intimate portraits of the destroyed buildings powerfully convey the sense of trauma perceived by the people. This sense of trauma further strengthened international solidarity between East Germany and Vietnam, as detailed in the chapter “Solidarity”. It also set the stage for East Germany’s involvement in Vinh’s postwar reconstruction, which is thoroughly explored in the chapter “Spirited Internationalism”. This international solidarity, as demonstrated in the book, was both political and affective, appearing on the surface as a form of brotherhood between East Germany and Vietnam, but at its core, it was characterised by an asymmetrical relationship. The middle part of the book elaborates how this international solidarity gave birth to socialist planning and architectural forms in Vinh.
The author delves into the complexities of international solidarity as affective practice, highlighting the challenge of cultural differences, misaligned expectations, and the difficult balance between altruism and self-interest. The last part of the book features voices from the people of Vinh, who inhabited and used modernist architecture. Their affective attachments to the modernist architecture of the city are reflected in the various modifications they made to their residences, which subverts the narrow understanding of seeing modernist architecture as the product of rationality. To examine this state-sponsored, nationalist project through the thread of affect is very intriguing. It also piques my curiosity: how does affect relate specifically to socialist urbanisation as opposed to capitalist urbanisation? While the author briefly addresses this aspect in certain chapters, a detailed exploration is not provided.
The book not only sheds light on a lesser-known chapter of Cold War history but also propels readers to think about the lasting impact of architectural and urban planning decisions in shaping societal narratives and experiences.
The book’s strength lies in its methodological approach. Schwenkel’s transnational perspective, underpinned by extensive use of both German archives and Vietnamese sources, allows for a nuanced understanding of this complex historical interplay. By engaging with key informants in Vinh and delving into local archives, Schwenkel brings to the fore voices that have long been marginalised in historical discourse.
Building Socialism is a compelling read for scholars and enthusiasts of socialist urban planning and architecture, Asian urbanisation, and postcolonial studies. The book offers a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the socialist modernisation in the postwar city of Vinh. It not only sheds light on a lesser-known chapter of Cold War history but also propels readers to think about the lasting impact of architectural and urban planning decisions in shaping societal narratives and experiences.
This book review is published by the LSE Southeast Asia blog and LSE Review of Books blog as part of a collaborative series focusing on timely and important social science books from and about Southeast Asia.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image Credit: khuanchai photo on Shutterstock.
Exclusive Book Excerpt: Mike Pence’s Forward For ScoMo’s New Book
When I was approached to write the forward to Scott Morrison’s new book, my first reaction was, who?
Then after being told that he was the former Prime Minister of Australia, a Christian and a tourism ambassador for the State of Hawaii, I turned to my wife and said: ”Mother, I must write something for this man.”
Scott Morrison is a dear friend of the United States of America. When he heard that tourism numbers had slumped in the State of Hawaii, his first instinct wasn’t to stay at home and do his job coordinating the country he was in charge of, Australia, against life-taking bushfires, no.
His first instinct was to pack up the kids and wife and book a ticket on to the next available flight to Oahu. What a guy!
He also did not want this example of generous philanthropy to get out, so he instructed his office to not tell anyone he was on holiday and when the story finally did leak did he seek to take credit for his actions?
No, he sought to tell all and asunder that the idea for the trip was not his but rather his wife, Jen’s.
Thinking of Scott I am drawn to the bible, particularly the passage from Timothy 3:13: ”Unscrupulous con men will continue to exploit the faith. They’re as deceived as the people they lead astray. As long as they are out there, things can only get worse.”
Scott is not one of these men, no. Scott is a man of the Church, a man who when Myself or President Trump said jump, replied: ”How how high, sir?”
Mr Morrison, thank you for the opportunity to write this forward and I look forward to taking you up on your offer of joining you and the family for dinner sometime at Engadine Maccas.
Not sure why you suggested bringing a second pair of pants though.
Mike Pence
Former American Vice-President
Husband to Mother.
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The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future – review
In The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future, political reporter Franklin Foer unpacks the first two years of the Biden presidency, spanning the Covid crisis, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Though stronger on domestic than foreign politics, Foer has produced a well-wrought and detailed insight into Biden’s premiership, writes Michael Cox.
The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future. Franklin Foer. Michael Cox. Penguin Press. 2023.
Find this book: 
Whatever critics might like to say about Joe Biden – that he lacks gravitas or is just too old – there can be no doubt that he has been one of the most successful politicians of his generation, first as a senator, then as Vice President, and finally in beating Trump in 2020 where Hilary Clinton failed in 2016. Moreover, if the author of this not uncritical study is to be believed, he has not done a bad job as President either. Coming to power in the middle of a pandemic, and only three weeks after the January 6th attack on Congress, he has at least steadied the ship of the State, without, however, overcoming the US’s deep divisions.
Coming to power in the middle of a pandemic, and only three weeks after the January 6th attack on Congress, [Biden] has at least steadied the ship of the State, without, however, overcoming the US’s deep divisions.
But Biden has also brought something else to the table that previous Democrats – like the cerebral Obama and the crowd-pleasing Clinton – did not: a belief that the Democrats had to do more than just manage globalisation. Rather, they had to be bold enough to stand up for those working people “without college degrees” and use the power of government to rebuild the American economy from the ground up. Thus far, the strategy has worked reasonably successfully, and might even deliver Biden a second term.
For a book which is much stronger on domestic politics than the world outside the US, Foer nonetheless does a fair job in assessing Biden’s various foreign policy challenges, the most long-term of which is China – and here, at least, he has something in common with Trump – but the most immediate, of course, being Putin’s Russia.
After the fiasco that was the withdrawal of the US’s military presence in Afghanistan in 2021, Biden dared not fail. And according to Foer, he didn’t.
This is a story that has been told many times before. However, Foer tells it well. After the fiasco that was the withdrawal of the US’s military presence in Afghanistan in 2021, Biden dared not fail. And according to Foer, he didn’t. In fact, having concluded by October that year that Russia was planning an invasion, the Biden team acted in a most decisive fashion by letting Putin know that Washington knew precisely what Moscow was up to. Thereafter, his team did everything it could to warn Putin of the possible consequences of an invasion – he even sent his CIA chief to Moscow to meet Putin – while making sure it did not hand the Russian leader a pretext for attacking Ukraine. The trick was to do this while at the same time reassuring Ukraine and its President, Volodmyr Zelensky of US support.
Relations with Zelensky were not always easy, though they were nowhere near as disastrous as they had been under Trump. Most obviously, Biden and his team failed to persuade the Ukrainian President that Moscow was actually going to invade.
As Foer shows in some of the more revealing sections of the book, relations with Zelensky were not always easy, though they were nowhere near as disastrous as they had been under Trump. Most obviously, Biden and his team failed to persuade the Ukrainian President that Moscow was actually going to invade. Zelensky moreover always seemed to be asking for more than Biden could deliver and was forever complaining (according to Foer at least) that the US wasn’t doing enough to support Ukraine, either by allowing it into NATO, or by supplying it with all the most up-to-date military equipment. As more recent events have shown, these are arguments that look set to run well into the future as the war grinds on towards its third year.
Foer’s volume only covers the first two years of the Biden presidency and leaves the story hanging on a somewhat optimistic note in late 2022. Whether he would be so optimistic a year on given Biden’s still very low ratings is not so clear. Nor is it at all clear how he would write about the impact the deepening crisis in Israel and the impact its war against Hamas might have on the presidential race. But it could be significant given Biden’s determination to support Israel and “hug Bibi [Netanyahu] tight”. Indeed, with many in the US – including its around one million Muslim voters and a large tranche of younger people – asking whether they are still willing to vote for a party whose leader has thus far has been reluctant to call for a ceasefire, Biden may come to rue the day that he got quite so close to “Bibi”.
In 2024, the Democrats will need every vote they can muster. It would be ironic if a war the US did not anticipate, in a region it felt was beginning to settle down, turned out to be decisive and delivered victory to its opponents.
The outcome of the race for the White House in 2020 was in the end determined by just under 45,000 votes in three key swing states out of five. In what promises to be an even tighter race for the White House in 2024, the Democrats will need every vote they can muster. It would be ironic if a war the US did not anticipate, in a region it felt was beginning to settle down, turned out to be decisive and delivered victory to its opponents. We are often told by political scientists that foreign policy never determines the outcomes of US elections. In 2024 it just might.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
You can watch a video for LSE featuring Professor Michael Cox, “2024: A year of unpredictable elections” on YouTube here.
Image Credit: Executive Office of the President of the United States via Picryl.