Requiem for a Technocrat

From NY Times, on the passing of former premier Li Keqiang:

…Mr. Li, who had degrees in law and economics, represented the pragmatic technocrats who led the country out of poverty in the 1990s and 2000s. [Online commentators] recited his opening remarks in his first news conference in 2013 after becoming the premier.

“We will be loyal to the constitution, faithful to the people, and take the people’s wishes as the direction of our governance,” Mr. Li had said.

Li represented the forces for economic openness and movement away from command and control in the Chinese economy. In my view, it has been this move away from economic liberalization and return to dirigisme that has in part resulted in elevated levels of economic and economic policy uncertainty, and hence slower growth than could be achieved otherwise (see e.g. Frankel’s post for further explication of other factors). Here’s a picture of recent measures of uncertainty in China.

Figure 1: EPU-China based on mainland China newspapers (blue, left scale), EPU-China based on SCMP (tan, left scale), and WUI-China (green, right scale). Light orange shading denotes Xi Jinping; gray shading denotes ECRI defined peak-to-trough recession dates. Source: policyuncertainty.com, and worlduncertaintyindex.com, and ECRI.

Below is a graph from the Economist in March, of the Li Keqiang index – a check on the possible measurement errors — deliberate or accidental – in the tracking of the Chinese economy.

Source: Economist, March 9, 2023.

As Li noted himself in 2015, the index was becoming increasingly unrepresentative of an ever more services-dominated economy, proposed a “new Li Keqiang Index” based on stability of employment, growth of household income and decreases in energy consumption [1]. Other competing proxies are discussed by Big Data China.

 

 

 

29 thoughts on “Requiem for a Technocrat”

  1. Moses Herzog

    Let’s hope that some young mainland Chinese students can see the wisdom and light that Li Keqiang offered China, and really gave China, however short the glimmer was. Let’s pray that they take on Li’s ethics and conscience. I know those young people are in the mainland CHina. Grab Li’s abandoned kerosene lantern laying on the ground, yank it up high above your head, and lead the way. Even if you have to do it surreptitiously in your mind’s eye at first.

  2. Macroduck

    The graphic from The Economist covers from around 2012 to the present. That misses the huge decline in volatility in the reported growth number, which can be seen when earlier years are included:

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1aM6L

    It has not been missed by observers outside China that the drop in GDP volatility is coincident with the rise to power of Xi. As with Bernie Madoff and Jack Welch, the unnaturally low volatility in Xi’s numbers reveals that the books are being massaged.

    Xi has been massaging the books, made obvious

      1. Moses Herzog

        Great article.

        I assume most of this has stopped as Chinese immigrants finally realized the risk. And even when I used the example to my students the reference really had already become dated. But the example I used with my students, and everyday friends (I never brought it up, it was only when I was pressed pretty hard on the topic) when they wanted to insist China was a better land than America “Do you know of any Americans risking their lives by hiding in shipping containers largely closed off to oxygen to come to China??” It would always get quiet after I asked this question, whether I was talking to one person over a meal or a class of 80 students. One might ask “Did they even know this had happened??” But I know for a fact, at minimum (and I believe more) 75% of them knew about 1989 Tiananmen. So if they knew about Tiananmen I figured it was a good bet they knew about Chinese dying in shipping containers from Fujian province etc.

        Mainland Chinese know the score. Even 80% of the ones who want to sit there and argue about it know the score. It’s their inferiority complex which motivates them to drone on with their faces turning red and voice rising that “China is numbaw 1”

      2. Moses Herzog

        “But people found ways out. More than three hundred thousand Chinese moved away last year, more than double the pace of migration a decade ago, according to the United Nations. Some are resorting to extraordinary measures. In August, a man rode a Jet Ski, loaded with extra fuel, nearly two hundred miles to South Korea. According to rights activists, he had served time in prison for wearing a T-shirt that called China’s leader “Xitler.” Others have followed arduous routes through a half-dozen countries, in the hope of reaching the U.S. Some take advantage of Ecuador’s visa-free travel to enter South America, and then join the trek north through the jungle of the Darién Gap. This summer, authorities at America’s southern border reported a record 17,894 encounters with Chinese migrants in the previous ten months—a thirteenfold increase from a year earlier.”

        I guess if I was teaching in China circa 2023 I’d have to ask my university students “Do you know any Americans risking their lives and deportation etc. by penetrating China’s southern border from Vietnam??” That analogy I would have to explain to them word by word and then maybe 5 in 40 college students would “get” what the hell I was talking about. [ i.e. skip the whole classroom discussion and save myself from an intense headache for the remainder of the day ]

    2. ltr

      No wonder — is staying close to the party line.
      No wonder — is staying close to the party line.
      No wonder — is staying close to the party line.

      [ Always but always bullying and intimidation. Not even being able to understand the shame in intimidation. ]

      1. Ithaqua

        That’s what we guessed your reason for staying close to the party line was, just so that you know.

      2. Ivan

        No I do not understand the shame of peddling the accomplishments of a brutal dictator – I have never even considered doing it. But maybe you can teach me?

  4. Moses Herzog

    I’ll tell you one thing that enters my mind related to the “service sector” in China. How much of that would “officially” count as criminal activity. This is one of those things people don’t like to talk about and some people feel “insulted” by. But I am here to tell you, people would be jaw-dropped shocked at the number of bath houses you see in China. And I am not just talking about places people go to take a shower because they don’t have shower facilities in their residence. And I am talking urban and rural. I am not trying to be facetious when I say that there really are about two every city block there. And then the parts of town where they are “thick” shall we say. It’s an open secret. I assume there is a percentage of “human trafficking” involved and municipal police “on the dole” who look the other way on the human trafficking. Some I am sure are college girls voluntarily wanting to make a buck–you have both I am certain.

    Many more innocent activities are street vendors, who never get their license and sell goods. Most of them are harmless. Even the “palm readers” are mostly quaint and just trying to get by and pay the apartment rent. I used to buy a paper I couldn’t read and still-shelled sunflower seeds from an old old lady just outside the campus that I would pass on the sunflower seeds to my GF and toss the paper in the garbage the moment I got back to my dorm. I just couldn’t stand to see a woman who looked like she was age 75 in 55 degree weather freezing her tail off in raggedy clothes not get something for being out there. How does the government measure those “service industries” on a grand scale?? I have no idea.

    1. ltr

      Some I am sure are college girls voluntarily wanting to make a buck–you have both I am certain.
      Some I am sure are college girls voluntarily wanting to make a buck–you have both I am certain.
      Some I am sure are college girls voluntarily wanting to make a buck–you have both I am certain.

      [ Imagine such falseness and need to degrade women. ]

      1. Ithaqua

        Plenty of college girls in the U.S. do sex work on the side to make a buck, I know this personally (a friend of my daughter is one of them.) If you think that doesn’t happen, you’re seriously disconnected from reality. And if you’re in control of your sex work, e.g., OnlyFans, it’s not degrading; you appear to have an old-fashioned view of sex as something icky that women wouldn’t do voluntarily or for fun. Life is better these days with sexual liberation and openness than when I was growing up too many decades ago.

      2. Moses Herzog

        @ ERNIEBOT
        Don’t forget the human trafficking of underage village girls. WInnie-the-Pooh’s government, all levels, must keep the supply chain for bath houses smooth. Remember, Great Leader Xi says “Procreation is patriotism” so leave your Laowai made condoms at home ERNIEBOT.

  5. pgl

    I wonder if there is an English translation of this:

    https://catalogue.nlb.gov.sg/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/ENQ/WPAC/BIBENQ?SETLVL=1&BRN=203880623

    The strategic choice for China’s prosperity = Zou xiang fan rong de zhan lue xuan ze / by Li Yining, Meng Xiaosu, Li Yuanchao, Li Keqiang ; translated from the Chinese by Shi Guangjun, Jiang Hongxing.
    Creator/Contributor:
    Li, Yining, author
    Meng, Xiaosu, author
    Li, Yuanchao, author
    Li, Keqiang, author
    Shi, Guangjun, translator
    Jiang, Hongxing, translator
    Publisher:
    Singapore : South Ocean Publishing House, Singapore, [2018]
    ©1991

      1. ltr

        We need a new nickname for “—”–ERNIEBOT.
        We need a new nickname for “—”–ERNIEBOT.
        We need a new nickname for “—”–ERNIEBOT.

        [ Always but always bullying and intimidation. Not even being able to understand the shame in intimidation. Imagine such crazy meanness. ]

  11. ltr

    https://english.news.cn/20231028/71d4eb33d0e140628a4b53ea47915e99/c.html

    October 28, 2023

    Chinese economy to grow 5.2 pct in 2023: IFF report

    GUANGZHOU — China’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow 5.2 percent in 2023 and 5 percent in 2024, according to a report released at the International Financial Forum (IFF) on Saturday.

    The global growth is projected to slow further this year at 3.1 percent, and is likely to remain weak at the same level in 2024, according to the IFF 2023 Global Finance and Development Report released during the IFF 20th Anniversary and Annual Meeting held in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province.

    The report said that the monetary tightening cycle in most countries is likely to end by 2024. However, monetary and financial tightening are likely to continue and further depress demand growth and slow the global recovery.

    It therefore forecast the global economy to grow by 3.1 percent in 2024, with developed economies growing by 1.3 percent and developing economies by 4.3 percent.

    The global community should work together to address both short-and-longer-term challenges. Countries should pursue international cooperation and multilateralism in dealing with common challenges, including reducing poverty, protecting the environment and mitigating climate change, resolving cross-country conflicts and reducing geopolitical tensions, said the report.

    The International Finance Forum (IFF) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental international organization founded in Beijing in October 2003, established by financial leaders from more than 20 countries and regions including China, the United States, the European Union, emerging countries as well as leaders of international organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

  13. Moses Herzog

    You know it has been just barely over one year since Winnie-the-Pooh had the frail 79 year old Hu Jintao carted off by ushers in order that Winnie-the Pooh could try to feel like he was a real man?? It doesn’t feel like it was but two months ago.

  14. ltr

    Month on month, the research result is about the same:

    https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/generate/all/global/all

    The Nature Index

    1 June 2022 – 31 May 2023 *

    Rank Institution ( Count) ( Share)

    1 Chinese Academy of Sciences ( 7172) ( 2168)
    2 Harvard University ( 3516) ( 1100)
    3 University of Science and Technology of China ( 1757) ( 655)
    4 Max Planck Society ( 2438) ( 650)
    5 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences ( 3006) ( 618)

    6 French National Centre for Scientific Research ( 4276) ( 616)
    7 Nanjing University ( 1379) ( 596)
    8 Tsinghua University ( 1703) ( 587)
    9 Peking University ( 2114) ( 573)
    10 Zhejiang University ( 1334) ( 517)

    11 Stanford University ( 1827) ( 512)
    12 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres ( 2458) ( 503)
    13 Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( 1918) ( 486)
    14 Sun Yat-sen University ( 1132) ( 456)
    15 Fudan University ( 1235) ( 450)

    16 Shanghai Jiao Tong University ( 1248) ( 427)
    17 National Institutes of Health ( 1134) ( 392)
    18 University of Oxford ( 1496) ( 388)
    19 University of Cambridge ( 1301) ( 383)
    20 University of Michigan ( 1221) ( 367)

    * Annual Tables highlight the most prolific institutions and countries in high-quality research publishing for the year

      1. Moses Herzog

        What were the chances Rutgers was going to be invited to the BIG 10?? Hahahahaahah!!!! I’m not disagreeing with you, I Just had to say it.

        I remember when the Big 12 was too snobbish to invite Houston and Cincinnati. If they had any brains they would have invited Memphis YEARS ago. All Three of those cities have a humongous supply of outstanding Black athletes in their metro area high schools. Now Oklahoma and Texas have left the Big 12 and the braindead geriatric crew that ran the BIG 12 (including shitheads DeLOSS Dodds and Bob Bowlsby) should breath a collective sigh of relief and thank God every night of their lives they didn’t have to fold up their tent around 2021. Their board of directors was/is the biggest pack of morons ever assembled.

  15. ltr

    https://econbrowser.com/archives/2023/10/requiem-for-a-technocrat#comment-306370

    October 29, 2023

    Some I am sure are college girls voluntarily wanting to make a buck–you have both I am certain….
    Some I am sure are college girls voluntarily wanting to make a buck–you have both I am certain….
    Some I am sure are college girls voluntarily wanting to make a buck–you have both I am certain….

    [ Imagine going to such an extent to degrade women and to degrade a wonderfully benign, wonderfully beautiful 5,000 year old civilization of 1.4 billion. ]

    1. Moses Herzog

      @ ERNIEBOT
      One wonders why so many college age and prime working age mainland Chinese girls are choosing not to marry, during a stretch of time (an entire generation really) in China where there is a surplus of Chinese men to women, and Chinese women have a plethora of choices of men?? I’ll let the general blog reader take an intense moment of thought to see if they can ferret out the reason why that would be.

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