It has been two weeks since I arrived in Beijing, joining 69 journalists from 63 countries acrossEastern Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and the Asia-Pacific region. As a group and individually, we will travel across the People’s Republic of China (China) to witness, experience, observe, learn and exchange with Chinese peoples and institutions across diverse spheres.

Now, withthe settling down period out of the way and some experiences of the Beijing region under the belt, it is time to share with you some of these experiences. Any narrative of China however will be incomplete without China’s own perspective about itself. Therefore, I will also attempt to describe China’s perspective as expressed by its government, academics, government and private institutions, the private sector and its people from across as broad a cross-section of Chinese society as practical - untainted by the western lens we in the Solomon Island are informed about China. Most important of all, any lessons of relevance will also be shared to inform and hopefully guide both our people and government as we grow our relations with China and its people and to assist us better navigate our way through the increasingly complex and contested global arena.

Why the China curiosity?

Before I embark on the diary proper, I would first like to introduce the circumstances that set me on this China discovery path. As much as this journey is official business, it also is the realization of my dream to visit — a dream borne out of curiosity in the emerging China miracle and what that could mean to our nation Solomon Islands.

In the 1990s, my China perspective was framed entirely by experiences in Solomon Islands and Fiji. In Solomon Islands, Chinese interactions were limited to family members and relatives working for and in very close social contact with ethnic Chinese. So I tended to associate Chinese (and by extension China, however erroneously) with running businesses and sometimes, a highly contentious involvement with the logging industry and politics.In Fiji, my China experience was slightly deeper: I have two ethnic Chinese friends, including a citizen of China.Though many ethnic Chinese in Fiji do become prominent players in the economy, government and society, their role as a group was largely overshadowed by Indo-Fijians. In fact, Solomon Island Chinese appear more successful and affluent than their Fijian counterparts. Furthermore,new arrivals from mainland Chinese were mostly small-time farmers, often rubbing shoulders with other small-time Fijian farmers at the markets, adding to the image of a relatively unsophisticated and less affluent class. In short, though the ethnic Chinese in both Fiji and Solomon Islands were generally more successful than their indigenous counterparts, in the grand scheme of things, China and the Chinese were rather ordinary. Of course, my perspective then was crude, merely projections derived from minimal interactions with a tiny cohort of ethnic Chinese, most with limited contact or association with China and its 1.4 billion people!

By early of mid 2000s, my China perspective however was to take a monumental shift. As one of the few Solomon Islanders in the 1990s privileged to graduate from University, the burden of responsibility to somehow help find solutions to Solomon Islands development challenges has been bearing heavily on my mind. So I’ve been asking questions and looking for explanations for experiences and new developments happening around me. For instance, when I was studying towards a masters degree (Chemistry) in Fiji in the early 2000’s,something unusual happened: a rapid influx of Chinese consumer products, particularly small electronic goods, and at much lower prices than in the 1990s when I first studied there.

These happenings coincided also with the advent of internet access. Finally,unhindered by the terrible state of our libraries,I now have a far more efficient means of exploring my China curiosity.The search led me to a then fledgling Alibaba. A far cry from the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba is today, the 2003 version was an unflattering Chinese online market-place full of low quality, low priced products stored or assembled in derelict warehouses and residential basements. Unknown to me then that China itself was only recently accessing internet, the Alibaba images intrigued and confused me. How is it that a technologically impoverished China was able to outcompeteestablished industrialized countries, at least in my tiny corner of the world? After all, one of the greatest transformative innovations, partially automated assembly line production, introduced by Henry ford was what make cars available to the American masses for the first time in the roaring 1920’s, precisely because of greater efficiency and lower production costs. In short, mechanization and technological advancement (including automation) is critical to raising productivity and reducing prices. The Alibaba images however did not conform to that.

By late 2006, I was off to France to pursue doctoral research studies at a pharmacology institute, again a field of study completely unrelated to this subject of interest.Interestingly, just as in Fiji (at least in the super markets I frequented)China-made products went from near in-visible in 2006 to almost dominating in 2010 – and the quality was comparable and prices very competitive. This time, in spite of the intensity of my scientific research work, I dove even deeper into the internet to make sense of these observations. Surely, I thought, if I can find all the literature resources online to publish peer-reviewed scientific papers, write a PhD dissertation and successfully defend without setting foot in a library, I should be able to find answers to the evolving China miracle.

For someone normally curious and excited about solving scientific puzzles (such as discovering potential new medicines to cure diseases, and establishing their three-dimensional chemical structureof newly discovered chemicals), I now have an equally exciting new curiosity: making sense of the China miracle. So I found out about the Kissinger-Zhou en Lai mating dance that eventually pried China from the USSR’s orbit into that of the United States of America in the 1970’s. Then there was Deng Xiaoping, the reformist whodid the unthinkable: opening up China to market capitalism in the late 1970’s. Considering the complete incompatibility between Marxist ideology and market capitalism, particularly the role of private enterprises in the latter, the Deng Xiaoping led reforms were audacious, even potentially fatal to China’s communist system.Yet China has still managed to hold on to its Marxist ideology, this time calling it Socialism with Chinese characteristic andcontinue to retain the Communist label. This seeming contradiction, at least to the western perspective is a great example of why outsiders need to seek the China perspective from within China.

I also found out that Deng Xiaoping singled out Singapore as an inspiration. Possessing a strong and stable central government, essentially a one-party system (since opposition was extremely week and never in power) and a meritorious approach to party membership, China views Singapore’s political structure as a better match to their own as compared to othersuccessful economies in Asia at the time. Furthermore, the Singapore government’s vastly stronger role in creating the conditions for a market economy is also closure to China’s then centrally planned economy.In contrast, the relatively laizez-faire economic system of Hong Kong, though highly successful was too different.

But I still do not understand enough of the China approach to gauge its suitability for the Solomon Islands. For starters, the Singapore model is likely incompatible with Solomon Islands’ political reality. The combination of a first-past-the-post electoral system and undifferentiated political ideology condemns Solomon Islands to insistent and crippling political stability, denying any possibility of continuity so crucial to the effectiveness of an interventionist economy policy, such as in the Singapore and China models.

This raises the question: what other models could potentially be more applicable to the Solomon Islands? There is indeed an alternative - the free market system. Besides Hong Kong (which is also inapplicable to Solomon Islands) a few small nations that splintered from the former USSR and Eastern Bloc have embracedfree-market economic systems with great success. Estonia for instance faced chronic political instability, particularly during its formative stages but was still able to achieve great success with free-market policies. However, the extensive failure of neoliberalism in Latin America and throughout the world suggest things are not so simple. Plus, even the United States that was founded onfree-market capitalism as put forth by Adam Smith, and the greatest champion of neoliberalism (for others) has effectively abandoned it since the 1930’s, embracing insteadKeynesian economics. But more importantly, Solomon Islanders, including, ironically the many new fans of conservative US politics that emerged over the past two years, in their hearts will never accept free market capitalism, in spite of their support for western neoliberalists. Furthermore, there are many other conditions for the free-market that currently do not exist in the Solomon Islands, the most important of which are strong rule of law, taxation polices and private property rights.

So at this stage,Solomon Islands is essentially stuck. But as China has so far demonstrated, it too was stuck between two supposedly irreconcilable systems, Marxist collectivism vs individualist market capitalism. Yet China was able to embrace both systems, continuously reform them, clearly define their respective spaces, and achieve unprecedented transformation in the economics and life of its people.

So here I am in Beijing to open my mind to the facts I have yet to learn, experiences yet unfelt and truths yet unknown to me. For at present, my perception of China is still tainted by the western lens from my studies and cultural experiences. Now is the time to experience China for my self and for the people of China to inform my opinion, in all aspects, untinged by western-centric biases and beyond just politics, ideology and economics.

So I invite you all to join me on this exciting journey of discovery starting with the upcoming episode of Diary of my China Experience – Episode 2: Chinese traditional medicine in modern

By Luke Mani,

Beijing