The world is plagued by uncertainty that is getting worse. The established Western powers continue to undermine the very values, norms and system they created and sustained.
Sun Liping, professor in the Department of Sociology at Tsinghua University, delivered a keynote speech on 'Finding Certainty in the Age of Uncertainty'.
A SUMMARY
1. Issue 1: some basic views on current economic trends.
The PRC’s GDP grew by 4.5 percent y-o-y in Q1 2023.
How to view this figure?
In my personal opinion, in two statements:
• The actual situation may be better than 4.5;
Popular sentiment is worse than 4.5
2. There may still be a clear gap between short- and long-term in 2023:
• demand for daily necessities will gradually return to normal levels
• demand for instant enjoyment will have a retaliatory rebound
• demand for consumer durables may be in a downturn for a long time
4. Issue 2: we may be going through a period of economic contraction that is not short-lived.
It means that the growth driven by large-scale concentrated consumption is over.
It's not deglobalisation nor dis-risking, but ulterior-motivated attempts in dismantling present China’s model.
5. Issue 3: the PRC’s rapid economic growth stage is not quite over: calm down and do our own things well.
PRC industrialisation is incomplete.
Urbanisation is not really complete. We now have 290m. rural workers who have moved to the cities, but few have integrated there; it may take three generations to be fully integrated…
Globalisation - inspite of BRI - is incomplete.
The northeast and northwest regions have potentials to be further developed.
We live in an era of high uncertainty.
In such an era, many things need to be returned to the basics, and economic development must be based on a solid foundation of people's livelihood.
Looking back at PRC history, it can be roughly divided into two paragraphs.
The first paragraph I call it intentionally planting flowers but not blooming, and the latter one is unintentionally planting willows and willows to make shade.
The full ENGLISH text ( a 12-minute read 📚 ) is available HERE.
The Chinese version - with better nuances - is accessible in:
Sun Liping, "It is confusing; why do many people feel that the rebound is not as expected?”, Fenghuang wang, 21 May 2023 [孙立平：“扑朔迷离，为什么很多人感觉反弹不如预期？”，凤凰网，2023年5月 21日 (in Chinese).]