How things work in China

The Financial Times has a fascinating story about Wang Yang, the party secretary of Guangdong province, the most economically robust province the the country.  Thirty years ago, Quangdong was a rural backwater.  In the more distant past , it was a Chinese Siberia where emperors sent political adversaries to exile.  Now, it represents the vanguard of the Chinese economic boom.

Wang Yang takes to heart Rahm Emmaneual’s famous line, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”  He sees the global economic turmoil as a great opportunity:

Mr Wang says: “In one sense we should be thankful for the global financial crisis, because it is doing what the government always wanted to do but was unable to.”

Mr Wang, one of only two provincial party secretaries to sit on the party’s 25-member politburo, adds: “Guangdong can take advantage of the crisis as a great opportunity to upgrade our industries. The old pattern of development doesn’t work any more.”

The brief story also helpfully explains the respective roles that leaders hold in provincial governments.  While Mr. Wang is described as a Chinese version of Arnold Schwarzenegger, he’s not the governor.  The governor has a subservient role to the party secretary.

“As party secretary my responsibility is for overall planning and to set the right direction,” Mr Wang says.

“That’s why you hear my voice when we plan the overall direction of the economy. When you hear [the governor's] voice, it’s more related to how policy should be implemented.”

One other very illustrative anecdote in the piece describes how the government can be responsive to the public in certain respects, which tends to be counter-intuitive given general media coverage of China in the West.

In one indication of the cleaner, greener direction he intends for Guangdong, Mr Wang announced that a $5bn (€3.5bn, £2.9bn) joint venture refinery and petrochemical plant with Kuwait Petroleum would be relocated after a public outcry.

It was an unprecedented decision for a joint venture investment project that had received its final central government approvals.

It’s a short piece very much worth reading in its entirety.