As Stephen Roach, the former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, became more pessimistic about the Chinese economy, China’s leadership became less interested in what he had to say.
Liu He: A very engaging and informative conversation. Thank you. Stephen Roach’s recent frustrations in being blocked from offering constructive criticisms of Beijing’s economic policies at a professional forum highlight a long-term issue in Chinese party-empire governance: that is the value and importance of what, for want of a better term, is “a loyal (or well-intentioned) opposition”. Apart from certain periods during the Deng and Jiang eras, this has been nettlesome for most of the Party’s 124-year history.
When in 2008 I had an opportunity to do so, I suggested to Kevin Rudd, then prime minister of Australia, who had an opportunity to address a gathering at Peking University during the extremely tense days of the March-April uprising in Tibetan China, that rather than falling into the “old friend of China” trap, he should try and frame his comments / criticisms in terms of 諍友 (zhèng yǒu). For more on this, see:
I appreciate the way you quietly walked through each phase of Stephen Roach's career and when appropriate you chimed in with a comment or question at just the right time. What I also appreciated was how Roach kept his objectivity - at the Fed, at Morgan Stanley, and I imagine at Yale too - for that reason I would say Roach was simply calling the Chinese economy like it is and Xi's China can't handle that. Now the first, top tier central banker who catches onto the Ye-Xi clique will be named WideFountain's Man of the Year (I'm pulling for Carney).
Liu He: A very engaging and informative conversation. Thank you. Stephen Roach’s recent frustrations in being blocked from offering constructive criticisms of Beijing’s economic policies at a professional forum highlight a long-term issue in Chinese party-empire governance: that is the value and importance of what, for want of a better term, is “a loyal (or well-intentioned) opposition”. Apart from certain periods during the Deng and Jiang eras, this has been nettlesome for most of the Party’s 124-year history.
When in 2008 I had an opportunity to do so, I suggested to Kevin Rudd, then prime minister of Australia, who had an opportunity to address a gathering at Peking University during the extremely tense days of the March-April uprising in Tibetan China, that rather than falling into the “old friend of China” trap, he should try and frame his comments / criticisms in terms of 諍友 (zhèng yǒu). For more on this, see:
https://chinaheritage.net/journal/contentious-friendship/
I appreciate the way you quietly walked through each phase of Stephen Roach's career and when appropriate you chimed in with a comment or question at just the right time. What I also appreciated was how Roach kept his objectivity - at the Fed, at Morgan Stanley, and I imagine at Yale too - for that reason I would say Roach was simply calling the Chinese economy like it is and Xi's China can't handle that. Now the first, top tier central banker who catches onto the Ye-Xi clique will be named WideFountain's Man of the Year (I'm pulling for Carney).