Governance, Development and the Speed of Change

I will soon be departing Nanjing for Suzhou and Wuhan, the next stops on my meandering trail across China.  I’m not sure what all there is to be said about Nanjing, the city is gorgeous and distinctly different from anywhere I’ve been so far in life.  It is also distinctly “Chinese”, offering a rich blend of opportunities to observe ancient Chinese history as well as the nation’s more recent experiences.  From the memorial of Sun Yat Sen and the Ming Tombs to the modern history housed in the Presidential Palace, Nanjing has exposed me to much that I couldn’t have picked up from a textbook.

More than anything else Nanjing, like Shanghai, struck as a city going through a sea of rapid changes.  I can’t imagine too many other places where a two-year-old guidebook would feel so distinctly out of date.  Every time I am nearly squashed by a car or motorbike on the sidewalk despite there being tons of space on the broad streets, I have to remind myself that the swell of drivers in the city is a very recent occurrence.  Nanjing was also similar to Shanghai in the host of western engineers I met while exploring the city, all of whom had plenty to say about the nation’s approach to infrastructure development.  Here again I found great relevance to my studies in governance and development.

Meeting so many young engineers from the United States and Germany working in China was jarring in contrast with political rhetoric in the US regarding the need for more children to learn study math, science and engineering.  Each time I crossed paths with someone new to these fields, they bemoaned the same lack of opportunities in their field that young Americans seem to be plagued by across the nation. China, on the other hand, they hailed as a place overflowing with opportunity for people looking to build relevant work experience.  What purpose could there be in our developing education in this field if we aren’t interested in putting young engineers, mathematicians or scientists to any use domestically?  Proposals of mass transit or infrastructure development in the States are almost universally met with disdain or cries of government waste, particularly as our economy continues to flounder.

Whenever I’ve discussed these issues with people, the conversation has evolved into a broader exchange on the differences between democratic and authoritarian governance in regard to getting things done.  After expressing the differences between democratic systems rooted in plurality rather than proportional representation, these discussions lingered around the uncomfortable possibility of potentially positive impacts of authoritarianism where development was concerned.  Yet always, there was the question of precisely who is best served in these systems of governance.  In democratic systems, our winners and losers are (ideally) determined by elections, in China there are no such hang-ups.  Thus whenever I engaged in these conversations, there is always the reality of myself being a westerner visiting foreign nation and partaking of all the best that there is to offer.

This leads to another question on just what a democratic China might look like, and what if any development would occur under such a system.  Ultimately in a way, issues of governance simmer down into concerns over influence and interests.  Thus perhaps in China, at least for the moment, the question at hand is whose interests are being served by the state and who has influence over the decisions that are made.