Dear Commons Community,
The Atlantic has just published an essay entitled, “China’s big new idea: Why Xi Jinping won’t stop talking about “common prosperity,” by Michael Schuman. As the essay comments, common prosperity has mostly been a concept for domestic consumption in China (see video above), but it might soon be heading overseas. The idea could become a central feature in the ever-expanding lexicon of language Xi is trying to use to increase Beijing’s influence in international affairs and reshape the world order to favor China’s authoritarian interests.
Common prosperity might be just the sort of hook Xi is seeking. After all, who doesn’t like the thought of a just economic policy that spreads riches to the little guy? It allows Xi to more sharply distinguish China’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics” from American-style freewheeling capitalism, helping him to promote China’s development model as a superior form of economic management for the rest of the world. Neil Thomas and Michael Hirson, analysts at the consulting firm Eurasia Group, commented in a recent report that “common prosperity could occupy a key position in Beijing’s public diplomacy and in its competition with the West for ideological influence in global governance and international affairs.”
As an idea and a goal, common prosperity has been evolving for some time within China, if backed up by extensive foreign aid, it will become a very attractive alternative to the United States for many countries needing economic assistance.
An excerpt of the essay is below.
Tony
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“A common refrain among Americans when faced with China’s export machine—which pumps out 5G telecoms gear, plastic Christmas trees, and just about everything in between—is the complaint that the United States “doesn’t make anything anymore.” Yet the U.S. retains a commanding advantage in one, especially critical export: ideas. From inalienable rights to Iron Man, Americans churn out the concepts and culture that make the modern world tick, more and better than anyone else. China has long strived to close the deficit, tossing out notions like “community of shared destiny” or “win-win cooperation,” but so far, nothing has caught on.
Now China’s leader, Xi Jinping, might be onto something. His latest catchphrase, “common prosperity,” has been adopted by journalists, scholars, and corporate executives in China with a fervor only a dictator can ignite. State newspapers are routinely plastered with commentary on the topic. On November 11, a shopping holiday known as “Singles Day,” the usual conspicuous excess took a back seat to the common-prosperity spirit. The e-commerce company Alibaba, the holiday’s primary purveyor, focused its marketing on eco-friendly initiatives and charitable programs instead of sales figures. Its management, eager to get into Xi’s good graces, had already pledged billions of dollars in charitable donations to support the leader’s cause, rather than its own shareholders.
Until now, common prosperity has mostly been a concept for domestic consumption in China, but it might soon be heading overseas. The idea could become a central node in the ever-expanding lexicon of language Xi is trying to use to increase Beijing’s influence in international affairs and reshape the world order to favor China’s authoritarian interests.
One of the great achievements of the American world order, crafted in the wake of World War II, was to anoint democracy as the ultimate form of political organization, the standard by which every country is judged. Xi is challenging that primacy of liberal ideals, which automatically casts a dark shadow of illegitimacy over his oppressive regime. The war of words he is engaging in is part of a broader battle over ideals and ideas which could be as important for America’s future global power as other aspects of the U.S.-China confrontation—whether economic, technological, or even military. The outcome will influence how the world thinks about democracy, human rights, and open societies, and will determine if liberal political principles can maintain their stature against the growing authoritarian onslaught.
Common prosperity might be just the sort of hook Xi is seeking. After all, who doesn’t like the thought of a just economic policy that spreads riches to the little guy? It allows Xi to more sharply distinguish China’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics” from American-style freewheeling capitalism, helping him to promote China’s development model as a superior form of economic management for the rest of the world. Neil Thomas and Michael Hirson, analysts at the consulting firm Eurasia Group, commented in a recent report that “common prosperity could occupy a key position in Beijing’s public diplomacy and in its competition with the West for ideological influence in global governance and international affairs.”
In that sense, Xi’s “common prosperity” is somewhat the opposite of President Joe Biden’s “foreign policy for the middle class.” While Biden’s plan is to reorient American foreign-policy priorities to better protect workers and families at home, Xi might instead intend to alter his foreign policy to project new and supposedly fairer economic principles at home to the outside world.
The term itself is not new. Chinese Communists have been using it since the 1950s. Yet the new focus on common prosperity in state propaganda and official discourse marks a significant policy shift. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who launched free-market reforms in the late 1970s, famously broke with Communist egalitarianism and acknowledged that some individuals and sections of the country would have to get rich ahead of others if the nation was to prosper overall. In the decades since, though the Chinese government has promoted programs to alleviate poverty and develop poorer provinces, it has largely let the billions fall where they may.
Now, Xi, as he is in many aspects of his rule, is returning to more socialist principles. He began to emphasize common prosperity in August at a meeting of top cadres, and it has since risen to the top of his government’s economic agenda. In a sign of how important the concept is, Xi published an essay on the subject under his own name in Qiushi, the Chinese Communist Party’s main theoretical journal. In it, he described common prosperity as “an essential requirement of socialism and an important feature of Chinese-style modernization.”
For Xi, this new approach might be a political winner. The Communist Party always has its antennae finely tuned to catch potential sources of social unrest, and widening income disparity could be an especially destabilizing one. In his Qiushi essay, Xi noted that the division between rich and poor in other countries “has led to social disintegration, political polarization, and rampant populism” and that “our country must resolutely guard against polarization, drive common prosperity, and maintain social harmony and stability.” For Xi personally, the concept allows him to act like a man of the people (rather than the privileged princeling—or son of a Communist dignitary—that he actually is) to bolster his chances of extending his reign into a third, five-year term next year, still a contentious issue in Chinese politics.”
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