Monday, September 03

Full court press with staff on DPRK. This was a scene setting exercise, so that we shared among us basic agreement on where matters stood in the Cda/NK front, from which we planned the fall program.

MAM

Lai Changxing; review of Mission committee structures; CIDA sponsored agricultural sector mission in November; planning for Under-Secretary Gaëtan Lavertu visit for December 1 – 4; Ambassador to WTO Sergio Marchi visit to Hong Kong.

Tuesday, September 04

Meetings:

  • individual staff members.
  • telephone meeting with Alan Lee, Assistant VP for China, re Manulife activities and interests in China.

Wednesday, September 05

BT&I

Exchange with Chairman and CEO, Bank of Montreal, Tony Comper, regarding meetings with Chinese regulators in the coming months, and upcoming rules regarding regulations on foreign invested mutual fund management companies, following China’s WTO admission.

  • exchange re visit to Canada of Kang Chenghung, Asia Pacific Peace Committee DPRK representative.

Meetings:

  • EVP Sun Life Douglas Henck re SL’s China business plans;
  • individual staff members.

Thursday, September 06

Presentation of Credentials to President Jiang Zemin at The Great Hall of the People.

CCRels

This customary event was led by the Foreign Ministry’s Protocol Department, which arranges for an official car to meet and greet the Ambassador-designate at her or his Embassy. Heading to the Great Hall of the People, the car was surrounded by Beijing police motorcycles, to clear traffic. Once on East ChangAn Dajie, where all traffic had already been halted, we made our way to TianAnMen Square, turning left at the Gate of Heavenly Peace, featuring Chairman Mao’s world famous portrait. We drove to the Southern Gate of the Great Hall of the People (inter alia, the National People’s Congress) where I am awaited by a platoon of People’s Liberation Army soldiers, who accompanied me to the entrance of the building.

From there, Foreign Ministry and the President’s staff led me to a waiting room, for a sociable chit-chat. I was then told that the President had arrived. I was led to one of the many grand meeting rooms, with their endless carpets, dramatic and over-sized paintings and the inescapable medley of two immense chairs, not face-to-face but rather facing in the same direction (appropriately East, if I recall), separated by a table for a large flurry of flowers, which actually made seeing the person you are meeting difficult. (In less formal occasions, I often took the liberty of moving the flowers around for purposes of visibility.) The President was standing when I arrived. I passed on to accompanying officials my credentials, formally from Her Majesty the Queen (dated, coincidentally on my birthday, September 25: it was nice of Her Majesty to remember), and shook hands with President Jiang. I sat down in the chair on the President’s right.

Embassy Staff had helped me prepare a short set of remarks, in Chinese, to make following President’s welcoming comments. I followed with mine. I would be very surprised if President Jiang could comprehend any of it, but given his friendly demeanour when he wanted to show it, he responded politely, through his interpreter.

Not surprisingly, our brief chat dealt in very general terms with the state of Canada-China relations, beneficial to both of our nations and full of promise for the future. He reflected on his friendship with Prime Minister Chrétien, recalling the PM’s February Team Canada visit – his fourth to China, and his own travel to Canada in 1997. The President praised Canada’s commitment to an ever-expanding agenda of cooperation between our two nations. And with that, our conversation came to an end: another Ambassador-designate was waiting.

While I met the President on a number of formal occasions, I actually had an opportunity for an extended lunch-time chat with him, after he retired in 2003. Prime Minister Chrétien had also retired by then. He subsequently made a private visit to China, and during a courtesy call on Premier Wen Jiabao, requested an opportunity to meet his old friend, former-President Jiang, and suggested that I accompany him. (‘Old friend’ was hardly an exaggeration: they met over a dozen times.) We flew to Suzhou, with its many justifiably famous gardens, and met the former President in the dining room of his lake-side residence. As it happened, there were a number of guests at the lunch, and the dining table which separated the retired leaders was very wide, making conversation, inevitably through interpreters, somewhat strained. I was seated on the President’s left and, as we ate our lunch, much of the conversation was between the two of us. Most of our chat was about the milestones of the Canada/China relationship, post-1949, with the greatest hits list of high-lights: the on-credit wheat deal following the Great Leap Forward – on which the former President did not dwell; mutual recognition under PM Pierre Trudeau; the Chrétien Team Canada visits and Jiang’s visit to Canada in 1997.  As it happened, I had recently visited the home of Jiang Shanqing, Jiang’s uncle, where Jiang spent his early years. While surrounded by security personnel, it was accessible and it had become a bit of a gathering place for Chinese who especially admired their former President. Jiang was quite taken by the fact of my visit. He told me that he had wanted to visit as well, but stated that the security dimensions were complicated. I suspected that the real reason was that such a visit would raise his profile, and that was a risk that the Party was unwilling to take.

That evening, I went on to Shanghai.

Friday, September 07

ConGens

To Shanghai for two purposes: accompany the PMO Advance Team visit, preparatory to the APEC Leaders Meeting, as well as attend the APEC meeting of Senior Officials to finalize the texts of substantive issues on the Leaders’ Agenda. The second objective was to meet with the Canadian Consulate’s Program Managers and Staff, as well as a small number of local officials. The full program is in digitized format, and provided as an example of what these visits entail. It is typical of arrangements for Head of Mission visits. I’ll spare the Readers future programs, and keep the focus on the substance of the visits.

CdaPs&Ms

Durant mon séjour à Shanghai, j’ai fait la connaissance de Jean René Milot, qui a élucidé en bref la présence Québécoise en Chine :

  • ententes bilatérales en 1981 et 1984 Québec-Chine;
  • accord Sciences et Technologies, focalisé sur le multi-média;
  • établissement des Villes Sœurs Montréal-Shanghai, 1985;
  • …et suivra plus tard : entente entre de Gouvernement du Québec et le Ministère d’Éducation de la Chine, 2015

Milot attendait la visite d’Investissement Québec en novembre, focalisant sur les hautes technologies, bio-technologie, pharmacologie. Il nota que déjà, il y avait dans la région de Shanghai entre 50 et 60 firmes québécoises en marche.

En plus, l’ENAP, HEC et autres espéraient multiplier les liens avec des universités chinoises.

Back to Beijing

Sunday, September 09 – Tuesday, September 11

CdaGov

Greater China Management Retreat in Beijing. The schedule here is an example of the agendas and participants in such gatherings.

I took extensive notes during the two full days of discussions at the Embassy in Beijing. The gathering was to achieve a number of objectives, including:

  • insure that the Senior Managers of the Beijing Embassy and Consulates in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chongqing, as well as Hong Kong, share a common understanding of the state of delivery of Canada’s foreign policy objectives in China, in the capital and in the regions; mission by mission sit-reps on the main issues and challenges facing delivery in each of China’s main regions of interest to Canada; upcoming events on each of our calendars; and management priorities, including such day-to-day activities as communications and outreach, staff training, tech connectivity among the Missions and with respective Canadian Government departments represented in the Missions.

An unspoken but clear objective of course was to get the new Ambassador up-to-speed on his responsibilities and priorities. Among the most salient points that I drew from these meetings, two stood out:

LCX

The Lai Changxing case was a constant and potentially serious irritant, affecting the overall relationship. The outcome depended not on decisions of the Government of Canada but on the success or failure of Lai’s legal appeals against extradition. Generally speaking, Canada’s ‘rule of law’ arguments did not hold much sway with China’s top leaders. But the appeals process provided a clear and undisputable set of lessons about what ‘rule of law’ meant and continues to mean in Canada, something that more perceptive Officials had no difficulty understanding.

The Lai issue would be a permanent feature of the Canada-China relationship during the four years of my posting in Beijing…as it would be for my successor Rob Wright and the first years of his successor, David Mulroney. Lai was returned to China in 2011.

The Internet offers a plethora of articles and opinions about Lai and the importance of the legal cases against him…in both China and Canada. I leave it to Readers to do their own research….and those who cannot wait for the outcome of the legal battle will find it in Charlotte Bull’s narrative of January 24, 2003.

CdaIm&Vi

The movement of Chinese citizens to Canada was on the rise – as visitors, as students and, as in the future like the past, as welcomed immigrants. Between 2001 and 2006, over 155,000 Mainland Chinese emigrated to Canada, a 50% increase over the previous five years. The quality of Chinese immigrants – as judged by education level, the capital they brought to the country, and their industriousness – was high, and accordingly very welcomed in Canada. And not only immigrants: universities, colleges, technical schools, language schools and even high schools were actively promoting their institutions throughout China. The number of aspiring students and migrants was increasing by 20% per year. And they all needed visas. Adding to the challenge was the large number of self-styled ‘Agents’ – 80% of students and independent migrants hired agents to manage their applications – and not all Agents were competent and many were dishonest, which immensely complicated the tasks of the Immigration and Visa sections in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. It should be added that Canadian immigrant visas being a product of limited supply, their number determined by the Government of Canada, getting one was a highly competitive affair. Demand would always outstrip supply. Thus, there were constant and unavoidable built-in pressures on the delivery mechanisms. 

The PRC was also, at this time, the largest source of illegal migrants, which made cooperation between Canadian and Chinese police and security forces essential. More on that in the course of this narrative.

These conditions would prevail throughout my four years in Beijing, demanding constant attention and adjustment. Fortunately, I soon learned that the Program’s Senior Managers were hard working, imaginative in finding solutions, and effective. But they deserve – indeed the overall immigration challenges and responses all deserve – their own story.

There were many other issues on the table of course – the discussions were fulsome as my Embassy and Consulate colleagues contributed a great deal of experience and insight into the mix. I would have a lot to learn.

And then, this happened…

09/11

Wednesday, September 12

Letter of sympathy to US Ambassador Sandy Randt.

State of shock among the Embassy’s Canadians and Chinese staff. Not having at their homes access to CNN, BBC or other international news outlets as we did, Official Residence staff were not aware of the events in NY and Washington until arriving the next morning. The news was not conveyed by Chinese media until later in the day.

Thursday, September 12 – Friday, September 13

Meetings with individual staff members.

Hosted dinner for 19 senior members of Canadian business community.

Courtesy call on Netherlands Ambassador Philip de Heer.

Like me, Philip served as Ambassador to both China and Japan. Unlike me, he is a true scholar and linguist, having mastered both Chinese and Japanese. He was one of the most knowledgeable people I knew on the diplomatic front in East Asia.

Meetings:

  • individual Staff Members.

Friday, September 14

DPRK

  • Letter to the Secretary General, Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee Kang Jun Hun – Pyongyang’s foreign affairs gateway – expressing regret that I cannot undertake the planned official visit to the DPRK and presentation of credentials, given instability arising from 9/11 attacks. For similar reasons, the NK Secretary-General would have to postpone his plans to visit Ottawa, future dates tbd.

APEC

  • received and transmitted to Ottawa President Jiang Zemin’s letter to all APEC Leaders outlining his agenda proposals for the Shanghai Summit. The three principal topics would be: the global macro-economic situation, human capacity building and APEC’s future development.
  • letter of thanks to Senator Marisa Ferretti Barth for her congratulatory message on my appointment as Ambassador.
  • hosted lunch for former Ambassador Earl Drake (1987-1990), which included three former Chinese Ambassadors to Canada: Zhang Wenpu, Zhang Yijun and Zha Peixin.

Meetings:

  • Alison McCain, McCain Foods.
  • MP Jim Abbot, Columbia-Kootenay.
  • meetings with individual staff members.

Monday, September 17

CdaGov

Letter to Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Foreign and Defence, Larry Dickenson, thanking him for his congratulatory message, and promising to develop ‘an ability to speak some degree of Chinese’.

This is a promise I did not keep, despite efforts and study times set aside for that purpose. It was just too busy a place. Recommendation to non-Chinese speaking successors who set the same objective: staff the ‘Ambassador’s Interpreter’ as a full-time position, and use this person as your study partner. When not otherwise occupied, this Staff member be available to brief the HoM on Chinese domestic policy issues and debates, and advise on people to meet.

  • meetings with individual staff members.

Tuesday, September 18

  • meeting of Australian and Canadian mining executives with Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao. (See below.)
  • meetings with individual staff members.

Wednesday, September 19

  • meetings with individual staff members.

Thursday, September 20

BT&I

Joint letter to State Council Vice Premier Wen Jiabao and signed by me and Australian Ambassador David Irvine, thanking the Vice Premier for meeting with a group of Canadian and Australian mining companies and potential investors in China. The letter provides an excellent summary by the Australian and Canadian firms about the fundamental challenges they face in attempting to advance investment in the mining sector in China, including access and use of geological data, exploration and mining rights, and the investment approval processes.

My sense throughout my years in Beijing was that neither the CCP nor the Government, internally, had reached consensus on the role, if any, of foreign mining companies in China, with some players ready to explore possibilities e.g. the PRC State Development and Planning Commission, and some adamantly opposed, e.g. the security ministries including the military – miners need maps but at the time, maps of large portions of China’s territory were classified. The domestic mining industry itself was ambivalent about the competitive threat of foreign, well-capitalized and technologically advanced foreign firms. Nationalism also played a role, notably in the gold sector.

Meetings:

ChinaGov

Chairman Zeng Peiyan, Chairman of the State Development and Planning Commission.

How I regret not having personal notes of this and so many other senior meetings. SDPC was indisputably then (and remains today) one of the key Ministries with which the Embassy had to maintain close relations, given their role as lead formulator of economic and social development policies in the State Council, producing the five-year plans among other guiding documents. It was thus termed by many as the ‘macroeconomic control institution’. But microeconomic as well: it exercised immense influence on line ministries at the ground level, responsible for major infrastructure and energy projects, as examples, projects in which major Canadian companies had great interest but whose involvement the SDPC had the authority to accept or reject.
Thus, very likely, we discussed specific projects, as noted below in my letter to MFA Assistant Minister Zhou Wenzhong.

Meeting with Senator Dan Hays.

I don’t have notes of our meeting, but given that I knew the Senator well, we likely discussed my first impressions of the job as Ambassador, along with my short and long term priorities.

Friday, September 21

ChinaMFA  PMJC  BT&I

Letter to MFA Assistant Minister Zhou Wenzhong regarding Prime Minister Chrétien’s coming visit to China for the APEC Leaders’ Meeting, as well as the pursuit of specific commercial files of great importance to Canada, as an additional element of his visit.

These, specifically, included (1) long term collaboration between AECL and the China National Nuclear Corporation. The PM would visit the Qinshan AECL site, with its two CANDU reactors. They became operational in 2003, and continue to supply Shanghai and region with power; (2) Bombardier contracted sale of 35 regional jets to China Eastern Airlines and Shandong Airlines; (3) Approved Destination Status for Canada; and (4) the opening of the Sun Life/Everbright offices in Tianjin and Manulife/Sinochem in Shanghai.
(SNC-Lavalin, which was involved in the reactor construction, subsequently purchased AECL. In 2022, it announced an agreed refurbishment of the two reactors, doubling their life spans to the mid-2060s. The Sun Life and Manulife licenses were eventually issued. Canada was granted ADS in 2009, but was removed from the list of approved countries in 2023, in the context of the conclusions drawn by the Foreign Interference Commission on ‘Chinese interference’ in 2019 and 2021.)

  • Meetings with Staff members.

Friday, September 21

Letter to McCain Foods Ltd President Alison McCain following up on a meeting with me re McCain’s plan to open a frozen french-fry processing facility in Heilunjiang.

Meetings:

  • MFA Vice-Minister and APEC Senior Official Wang Guangya re Shanghai Leaders’ Meeting preps.
  • Terry Fox Run press conference.

Saturday, September 22

ChinaPs&Ms

Meeting in Beijing with Chongqing Mayor Bao Xuding, who I would not be meeting in Chongqing.

  • flight to Chongqing.

Sunday, September 23 – Wednesday, September 26

Meetings in Chongqing with the Consulate, local Government officials, Cdn business interests and academics.

Tuesday, September 25

APEC

Letter from President Jiang Zemin to APEC Leaders suggesting that, following the 9/11 attack against the USA, the issue of combating terrorism be included on the agenda of the Leaders’ Meeting in Shanghai in October.

Thursday, September 27

ChinaGov

Following the opening ceremony of the Aviation Expo/China 2001, letter to Minister of the General Administration of Civil Aviation Liu Jianfeng promoting Canadian aviation companies in the aerospace sector, as well as the importance of Govt to Govt collaboration in aviation overall.

Similar letter to the President of the China Aviation Industry Corporation II, better known as AVIC II.

Friday, September 28

BT&I

Letter to the Vice President, Supreme People’s Court, Cao Jianming, seeking his intervention to execute the transfer of funding from a Guiyang Bank to the benefit of a Canadian company who had obtained an arbitration award against a Guizhou state company, as a result of the decision by the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission.
The letter illustrates the challenges that China faced in taming some of the business practices of both public and private companies as they assumed new corporate governance responsibilities as a result of joining the WTO, formally, on December 11 2001. A CIETAC decision could not alone force the state company to comply. This was only one example among many about the challenge of creating a WTO consistent business environment.

Indeed, this may be the place to outline my views at the time on the implications of China’s WTO membership in domestic economic and ‘political’ terms, but also the Canadian response.

DFAIT and a number of Government of Canada Departments and their senior staffs had of course been thinking about the implications of China’s entry in the World Trade Organization on Canada. Membership imposes commitments that can profoundly affect the shape and potential of national economies, the structure of their industries, even the functioning of their societies or, put another way, the nation’s politics. For  the WTO was then and is now – and however imperfectly – about openness and transparency. It’s about law and rules. It’s about predictability and recourse. It’s about conduct that highly centralized economies and many authoritarian governments do not always find to be in their interest. Chinese economic policy and its attendant development, since the Deng Xiaoping revolution so to speak, had been based largely on experimentation: it was now to be based on something entirely different.

Reformers in China had now locked in a program of trade and investment liberalization and legal reform that extended five to ten years into the future. Of more immediate significance, by joining the WTO, they had enlisted foreign pressure to ensure that it would happen. Their gamble was that it would increase productivity and China’s capacity for long-term growth and influence. They also expected that the pressures caused by newfound competition would make further structural reforms inevitable in related areas, or at least provide a useful excuse for such reforms.

Of course, from an international trade perspective, China’s WTO commitments would produce an improved overall climate for Canadians doing business in or with China, as China had committed to lower tariffs, the elimination of quotas, and provision of greater freedom for services providers to do their business in China. 

This could all get pretty esoteric and primarily of interest to trade policy wonks. But it had real world implications. Canada would benefit simple epiphenomenon:
the implementation of rules. Thanks to its WTO commitments, China would need to adhere to the general principles of fair treatment of trading partners, non‑discrimination, transparency, predictability, and uniform application of laws and regulations; it had conceded that permission to export to China or to invest in China would not be conditional upon performance requirements or subject to rules covering the conduct of research, the use of local inputs, or the transfer of technology; it had agreed that only published laws and regulations were to be enforced. (As later observed, this would be in principle but not always in practice, especially in leading edge industries.)

The fact of the matter was that the administrative challenge of revising and repealing hundreds of laws and regulations on time and in the full spirit of WTO openness would prove daunting. Furthermore, as has been said for millennia, the mountains are high and the Emperor lives far away: regulatory changes mandated by Beijing, ordered all the way to Urumqi, Xinjiang, 6,000 kilometers to the West, would only in principle be observed and  implemented as formally required; a massive education campaign, and a subtle cultural adjustment would be necessary and it would take time for the system to catch up.

We at the Embassy would need to be vigilant on Chinese respect for the rules, but we also needed to distinguish between difficulties arising out of a lack of capacity and difficulties arising out of a desire to block trade or investment, in other words, compliance versus snail-pace implementation versus non-compliance.

And then there was the anticipated social changes because of growing wealth on the coastal cities and the left-behind segments of the Chinese population and to that, the decisions of the Chinese Communist Party. How would it respond to growing unemployment and under-employment, especially in rural areas? What about the migrant workers already visible and living marginal lives in the cities and subject to the ministrations of often corrupt and dishonest employment companies; and they had no rights to even minimal social services for themselves, or education for their children.

When I arrived in Beijing in 2001, and according to the Chinese government’s own statements, the problem was already pervasive and was not specific to officials high or low. In addition to the “tax” that corruption imposed on an undefinable swath of economic and government activities, it exercised a corrosive effect on public perceptions of government, and especially, the probity of Chinese Communist Party and its Leaders. As a major and astute Party figure put it: not fighting corruption would destroy the country; fighting corruption would destroy the Party.

And what about human rights and democratic development? It was indisputable that the Chinese people were enjoying an increasing degree of personal and economic freedom since the 1978 reforms; loose forms of civil society organizations were increasingly tolerated, in some cases even encouraged, as they could serve to fill the vacuum created by various retreats by local government from the provision of some social services. So bravo for increasing economic rights!

But political and civil rights remained, for all intents and purposes, extremely constrained; the rule of law and due process were gaining a degree of rhetorical support, but the practice was extremely uneven as judges considered themselves to be servants of the State and the Party, and in any event could only but rarely enforce their decisions when these went against the interests of power holders;
press freedom was increasing, but many areas remained strictly taboo: writing and publishing articles critical of the CCP, China’s senior leaders, Taiwanese independence, Falun Gong and religions freedom, or ethnic tensions were strictly forbidden. Violations could result in lengthy imprisonment.

Deng Hsiaoping’s famous dictum, “wending yadao yiqie” – stability overrides everything, remained at the center of CCP thinking. As we would see, this would continue to define the Party during the 16th Party Congress, to be held in October of ’02. During my 4 year assignment, the CCP would not abandon the Leninist orientation of its birth. It would experiment with village elections in very limited numbers, and would allow somewhat livelier selection processes for the delegates at local and regional party congresses. It would consider increasing the scope of independent enquiry at the level of provincial and national People’s Congresses on issues such as environmental degradation; open public hearings and have hotlines for local citizens; conduct public opinion polls and seek the views of non-party intellectual and even foreigners, but I would see no sign that it intended to reduce, in any meaningful way, its monopoly of power.

Nevertheless, I went to China with the view that Canada would not achieve its own, full potential without engaging, connecting and profiting from relations with this 21st century China. I believed that China was simply going to get bigger and more important; it’s economy, already larger than most of its immediate neighbours, had the potential of rivalling, within another generation, that of Japan. (That came to pass in 2010.) It was the Chinese government’s stated intention to become a major economic power and it gave every indication that it would make the sacrifices and the choices necessary to achieve that.

Canada could not sit this one out, indeed, PM Chrétien’s China policies made that clear. Canada possessed then as now a demonstrated ability to adapt to geopolitical changes, at national, regional and personal levels….even if sometimes, it takes time.  Thus, my colleagues at the Embassy and our Consulates were tasked to implement an engagement strategy, working to make China a key international partner, market and destination.

This task was shared by political leaders at all levels and of all persuasions, government departments, academics, businesspeople, educational institutions, touring groups of artists, tourists and people of all walks of life.

It was such a privilege to be part of the team.

Wednesday, September 26 – Saturday, September 29

ConGens

Visits to Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Meetings with the Consulate, local government officials, academics, Cdn business interests.

I was stunned by the appearance of Shenzhen, as if in the middle of nowhere appeared a fully modern, sky-scrapered city, built in less than a decade. Maybe I should not have been…

What I read…

I expect that many Readers will be familiar with the post-Mao Deng Xiaoping/Zhao Ziyang economic transition, but like me, not in detail. For that story, I recommend to Readers Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China by Julian Gewirtz, an American diplomat and historian who served as Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the White House National Security Council during the Biden Administration. Through its Introduction and 10 chapters, Gewirtz provides a remarkably detailed history of the complex and politically charged debates engaging the CCP and Government officials on what policies would indeed work to build the ‘socialist market economy’ that we see today, and it’s desired outcome, in Gewirtz words, ‘to make China modern, wealthy and powerful’. China’s post-Mao leadership realized that they could not modernize on their own: they had to learn from abroad, and not only from ‘capitalist countries’, but also from the experiences of a number of East Block countries that began, in the 1980s, to transform their economies in order to produce abundant and quality products for their citizens and consumers. And that, thanks in part to foreign investors and corporations.

The agenda essential to transform the Chinese economy was humungous and of immense complexity. Policy issues that needed debate and agreement included, in no particular order: the ‘contract responsibility system’ to wean agriculture from collective farming to individual households; permitting and regulating small businesses in an enterprise economy; the elimination of price controls; the management structures and incentive systems for State Owned Enterprises; the role of the People’s Bank of China – the central bank – in creating a financial market; designing the fiscal system; the role of the CCP within enterprise management; and myriad other issues crucial to the successful transformation of the macro and micro economies.

From Deng onwards, the CCP and State Council leadership knew that they could not address these issues on their own. Beginning with the 6th Five Year Plan, 1981 to 1986, the World Bank provided technical advice, publishing 2 major reports on the Chinese economy in the ‘80s, and providing $3 billion in loans in support of 30 projects. It opened a Resident Office in Beijing in 1986. The GATT, of which the Republic of China was a founding member in 1947, had also been an advisor to China since the early ‘80s.

But the main story in Gewirtz’ book is the nature, substance and dramatis personae of the Chinese and foreign economists and management experts debating all of the reform issues noted above and many others. The foreign advisers included: Ronald McKinnon, Canada; Ota Sik, Czech Republic; Lawrence Lau, Hong Kong; Janos Kornai, Hungary; Brus Wlodzimierz, Poland; Alexander Cairncross and free market exponent Margaret Thatcher to visiting Premier Hua Guofeng, UK; Milton Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, Peter Drucker, Barry Kaughton, James Tobin, US; and think tanks and institutions such as: Chinese Academy of Social Science, the Ford Foundation, and the IMF.
Their Chinese counterparts in economic policy debates and below the heights of political power will be well known to Students of Chinese political history – Bo Yibo, Chen Yun, Hu Qiaomu, Lou Jiwei.

One key player in the Chinese economic policy debates that is referenced throughout the book and that I got to know well as Governor of the People’s Bank of China was Zhou Xiaochuan. He figures in a number of entries in my narrative.

Sunday, September 30

Return to Beijing.

ChinaDom

Attended 52nd National Day Reception hosted by Premier Zhu Rongji at the Great Hall of the People.

Just about ‘le tout Beijing’ was there on the eve of China’s National Day, or so it seemed. But I am sure that it was much more fun when the CCP, annually, held massive parades, with thousands of participants and its best military gear, as we would see in 2025.

What I read…

The Maoist era parade is well described by Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Jacques Hébert, in their memoir of an organized tour of China in 1960, titled ‘Deux Innocents en Chine’. The title was well chosen, as those who have read it will attest: whether intended or not, ‘innocents’ may be a nod to the fact that there is no reference in the memoir to ‘The Great Leap Forward’, 1958-1962, and the death and destruction it inflicted on the Chinese people, at the very time that the Innocents were visiting. Still, a must-read.