Highlights
China Needs to Continue Eradicating the False Faith in Public Ownership
by MAO Yushi, Honorary President, Unirule Institute of Economics
Translated by MA Junjie, Researcher, Unirule Institute of Economics
After over 30 years of high-speed economic growth, a new phase has dawned. Everybody is anticipating a medium to high-speed economic growth rate that constitutes a “New Normal”. However, multiple economic indicators and direct observation of the market last year have shown that people are to be disappointed. The biggest problem now is many enterprises are making a loss or going bankrupt, decrease of tax revenue, gloomy prospects for enterprises, major fluctuation in the stock market, and the depreciation of Chinese Yuan, just a string of bad news. It is very likely that China’s economy may well deteriorate in the coming year 2016. Just as estimated by many economists.
Such bleak situation has occurred before. It first took place in 1978, after the reform and opening-up. Due to the disastrous Cultural Revolution, everything was in chaos while the economy was about to collapse. The second time was between 1990-1991, as a consequence of the events in 1989, the economy was in deep recession. The market was empty, there were no guests at hotels, seats were vacant on airplanes, and there were few cars in Chang’an Street, a main boulevard that goes through Beijing. These two precedents were way worse than now. However, China not only stepped out of the gloom, but also achieved mind-blowing economic development. What is the lesson there? I think it all boils down to “emancipation of the thoughts.”
The first time of thoughts emancipation was the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee that broke with the constraints of the “two must.” It ushered in the collapse of the People’s Communes and initiated the household contract institution. These measures solved the problem of feeding the people, which had not been solved for 27 years after 1949. Chinese people have never been in famine ever since. How to feed over a billion people may be a huge conundrum, but it can be easily solved with an emancipated mind. Then what constraints were lifted? It was the false belief of broad-scoped and public ownership of agriculture.
The second time for thoughts emancipation was after 1989 when China was under international pressure and the leftist thoughts were domestically pandemic. That was when any idea concerning making money was deemed capitalism and there was a fever over a socialist society based on public ownership. The subsequent two years witnessed the market depression and economic stagnation, which wiped out all the flourishing energy brought about by the Third Plenary Session. DENG Xiaoping, the designer of the reform and opening-up, felt concerned about the situation that fell short of his expectations. He then started a series of “southern trip speeches.” The two essential statements were “don’t ask whether it is capitalist or socialist, whichever fits works; whether a cat is black or white makes no difference. As long as it catches mice, it is a good cat.” Such statements, in fact, broke the false belief in socialist public ownership. What followed was development by leaps and bounds, which constitutes the foundation of the high-speed development for the next 20 years.
Although the difficulties faced by China now are not as severe as before, the causes remain the same. That is the false belief in public ownership. It first and ultimately shows in the low efficiency of the state-owned enterprises (SOE). These SOEs possess a huge amount of resources, such as capital, land, mines, or various quotas, but offer low productivity. As there is unfair resource usage and distortion of the fair opportunity for other economic sectors to gain resources, these SOEs drag down the resource efficiency of the whole society, which impedes the development of the economy. Abundant studies have proved this. Another issue with SOEs is the rampant corruption within them, which is less likely in private enterprises.
The problems of the SOEs have been around for years. The mixed ownership that was proposed lately indicates the recognition of the relation between ownership and the operation efficiency. However, it still follows the false line of logic as the proposal holds that the public-owned assets play a major role in the operation of enterprises. We also need to note that SOEs have a role in China’s economy, especially in the construction of infrastructures, since SOEs are better at lowering the transaction cost and speeding up the construction than private enterprises. Therefore, it does not fit China’s situation to fully privatise. However, it is also not fair to exaggerate the importance of SOEs and uphold a false belief in public ownership. We should fully recognise that what’s supposed to be publicly owned should be so, and what’s supposed to be privately owned should be so. To call a spade a spade and to practice pragmatism is the right path.
Over 3 centuries ago, British philosopher John Locke said that property was not to be publicly owned, and power was not to be privately held. We should see that those who are in favour of public ownership might not surrender their possessions to the public. On the contrary, they are most likely to have other people surrender their property so that they could grasp some. In this sense, the superficial fairness of public ownership is a form of deceit and grasp of property. In order not to let this scenario take place, property rights must be protected. There originates the saying that “the protection of private property is the moral god” On the other hand, public ownership leads to man fighting and stealing, which is a full deterioration of morality. Such scenarios occurred in China and the world before.
John Locke’s statement is a theoretical judgement, while China’s practical experience proves it right. Unfortunately, the Chinese people have not fully recognised the limits of public ownership. Many still believe it is an advanced arrangement, instead of giving it a critical assessment. If there is no emancipation of thoughts and no break with the false belief in public ownership, an innovative solution to the current economic downfall is hardly to be obtained.
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Current Events
Unirule Master Thoughts Class(2015) 6th Session Held in Beijing
December 19th and 20th, the 6th session of Unirule Master Thoughts Class (2015) was held in Beijing. This session was joined by Professor HE Guanghu from Renmin University, and Mr. LIU Junning, Researcher of Institute of Chinese Culture.
December 19th, Professor HE Guanghu spoke on “Christianity and Modern Civilisation.” Professor HE introduced the three main aspects of the evolution of the modern civilisations, namely, technology, institution, and mentality. He also shed light upon the four movements that laid the foundation of modernity, namely, the Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, the scientific revolution, and the Enlightenment. He ended with the mechanism and process of the modernisation of civilisation. Later on, Professor HE analysed the relation between Christianity and modern civilisation from a comparative perspective with examples of the classics, western civilisation, and modern civilisation. And he proposed that the core of Christianity had become the basic and fundamental spirit of modern civilisation.
On the evening of December 19th, a commencement ceremony was held. Professor SHENG Hong, Director of Unirule; Professor ZHANG Shuguang, Chairman of Unirule Academic Committee; Professor ZHAO Nong from CASS; Professor HE Weifang from Tsinghua University; and Professor SUN Liping from Tsinghua University were present at the ceremony. (To read more)
Unirule 2016 New Year Expectations Held in Beijing
January 8th, 2016, Unirule New Year Expectations was held at Unirule Beijing Office. This event was the fifth of its kind, organised by Unirule Institute of Economics and China_Review.com.
Professor SHENG Hong introduced Unirule’s achievement in collaborative projects in public-private partnerships, academic activities, research projects, and other operations in the past year, and expressed gratitude for the support of the public.
Representatives from the academia, business, media, and other walks of the society attended this event.(To read more)
Seminar on “Breaking the Administrative Monopoly in the Medical Resource Allocation” Held in Beijing
January 14th, a seminar on “Breaking the Administrative Monopoly in the Medical Resource Allocation” was held at Unirule Office in Beijing. Present at the meeting include Professor SHENG Hong, Director of Unirule; Ms. QIAN Pu, CCPPP of Unirule; Professor MAO Shoulong from Renmin University; Professor ZHU Junsheng from Capital University of Economics and Business; Mr. WAN Jingbo from Spring Rain Software CO.,LTD； Ms. SUN Xiuyan from China Behaviour-law Association(CBLS), and over 30 guests from the media.
Professor SHENG Hong and Ms. QIAN Pu introduced the research briefly. Later on, Professor MAO Shoulong gave a keynote speech on “Extensive Order, Structure of Rights, and the Governance Reform in the Healthcare Area.” Professor ZHU Junsheng gave a keynote speech on “From Monopoly to Competition: The Reform Path for Healthcare.”
Ms. QIAN Pu introduced that there were measures echoing the planned economy or administrative interventions in the allocation of healthcare resources, such as the entry barriers for medical institutions, price regulations, and regulations interfering the practice of doctors, which constituted huge loss of efficiency. On the other hand, the spatial allocation of resources did not fully reflect the unfairness of resource allocation, but the concentration of quality resources did so to an increasing extent.
Professor ZHU Junsheng thought the main problem of the existing healthcare system was monopoly which led to insufficient supply. He thought the reform direction should be more competition, and to guarantee the openness of services and the basic guarantee of provision. What’s more, the price regulation should be relaxed to let the payment standard of the social insurance function.(To read more)
Uirule Annual Conference 2015 Held in Beijing
January 21st, Unirule Annual Conference 2015 was held at Unirule Beijing Office.
In the morning, Mr. MAO Yushi gave a speech, and Professor SHENG Hong reported to the conference the performance of Unirule departments in 2015. He also pointed out the shortfalls and requested betterment in the coming year. Subsequently, directors of all Unirule departments presented their performances, and shared their opinions on the problems. Unirule staff later shared their views on a few issues concerning Unirule development in the coming year. (To read more)
News
Unirule 10-D Spatial Simulation Planning Model (SSPM)
The Unirule 10-D Spatial Simulation Planning Model (SSPM) is a mathematical and computational model based on economics. It is developed by a Unirule research team led by Professor SHENG Hong. SSPM is designed to simulate the development scale, economic density, industry distribution, resource constraints, ecological preservation, institutional influence, policy effect, and the evolution process in the next ten to twenty years or even longer period for a region. SSPM provides reference for the regional economic development strategy making, which can be directly adopted in the planning on regional economic development, population, land use, industry development, townships, water and ecology.
So far, SSPM has been adopted in the industry planning of Qianhai Area, Shenzhen, and the economic development planning of Yangcheng County, Shanxi Province.
Learn more about the SSPM
Current Researches/ Consulting
Improving China’s Implimentation and Supervision Institution of the Constitution
At present, research on the implimentation and supervision institution of China’s constitution is insufficient. Multiple problems exist in the current studies, such as the lack of a cultural perspective, and empathetic understanding of China’s political tradition; a lack of authentic Chinese perspective and an indulgence of Westernized framework of analysis; and a lack of reflection of the reality and the existing political framework.
The research on China’s constitution review institution should put the protection of civil rights and constitutional construction first, with a reflection of China’s reality and take in the advantages of external researches. A plausible research approach is as follows: 1. This research ought to provide a right relief mechanism; 2. It should take into account that China is a vast country with imbalanced regional development realities which foster unique and differentiated conceptions of the law and politics in general; 3. It should be built upon the current constitutional structure and take into account the interactive system of the power of the party, the National People’s Congress, etc. in order to make it a progressive research, which can enable the elements of constitutionalism to supplement the current constitutional framework; 4. Scrupulous examination should be given to constitutional practices in other regions and cultures, especially those influenced by the Chinese culture or with a similar institutional set-up, such as Taiwan and France; 5. Observations should be made in regard to the traditional Chinese institutions, such as the institution of the expostulation system (“谏议制度”, or giving advice), supervision system, and the institutions established in this light, e.g., Taiwan’s Control Yuan.
Improving Entrepreneurs' Survival Environment: Abolishing Death Penalties in Relation to Fund-Raising Cases in China
In recent years, environment for private enterprises has been taking a deteriorating turn, which attracts attention from the media and the academia. The causes are complex and multi-faceted, including: 1, the abuse of powers by government officials as the government powers expand; 2, “the private-owned deteriorating with the state-owned advancing” (guojin mintui) worsens the picture where the survival environment for private enterprises gets more and more squeezed; 3, external demands of enterprises decrease while internal cost increases; 4, financial suppression escalates with the industrial restructuring and updating lagging behind; and 5, the fluctuation of macroeconomic policies by the government poses uncertainty for production and investment. Moreover, many innocent entrepreneurs were labeled and persecuted for their “gangster behaviors” by the policy and law enforcements in Chongqing city, which was just a glimpse of similar occasional “gangster crashing” movements in the country. Many entrepreneurs are suppressed and sanctioned in the name of “illegal fund-raising”. According to active law, the court can sentence entrepreneurs to death penalty with this charge.
Unirule Institute of Economics is planning to undertake research on the problems of the crime of “illegal fund-raising” and specific methods to abolish this charge.
It is fit for Unirule to carry out this research project. Unirule Institute of Economics is a non-profit, non-governmental organization, which focuses on institutional economics with expertise in economics, laws, and politics. It has been dedicated to independent research on China’s institutional reforms and public policies as well as the reform of private finance. In 2003, 2011, and 2013, Unirule held seminars on the cases of Mr. SUN Dawu, Ms. WU Ying, and Mr. ZENG Chengjie. These seminars have been very influential before and after the close of the cases.
Unirule Institute of Economics has undertaken research projects in corporate finance and private finance in recent years. Over the years, Professor FENG Xingyuan has been carrying out pioneering research on private finance and private enterprises. He has gained rich experience and published many publications and papers on relevant topics, including “Report on the Freedom of China’s Corporate Capitals”, “Report on the Survival Environment of China’s Private Enterprises 2012”, research on the risks of private finance, etc. In August 2013, Professor FENG Xingyuan and his research team completed and released the “Report on Private Enterprise Fund-Raiding in West Hunan and the Case of Mr. ZENG Chengjie”, which analyzed and assessed the process, nature, problems, and causes of a series of events and proposed policy recommendations concerning the fund-raising activities in West Hunan and the case of Mr. ZENG Chengjie.
Business Ethics Declaration of Chinese Entrepreneurs
Over the last three decades, China’s economy has been embracing rapid growth with entrepreneurs being a key drive. The biggest and most significant structural change is the rise of entrepreneurs who constitute the pillar of the society nowadays. Today, the biggest, and the youngest group of entrepreneurs are going international, bridging China and the world.
However, because of the abnormal political, social and ideological environment of China for the last five decades, Chinese entrepreneurs happen to be widely confused and for the last thirty years, the emerging group of entrepreneurs has been suffering from severe anxiety over identity:
Firstly, due to the long time anti-market ideological propaganda by the authorities, many entrepreneurs believe they have the “original sin”. They are led to believe that their profits are based on exploiting the workers, which further leads to their confusion and anxiety over the ethical justification of their fortune and profits.
Secondly, this anti-market ideology also affects the public; leading the public to envy the fortune of entrepreneurs while disrespect them since their deeds are “unethical” and “dishonest”. This public opinion, in return, affects entrepreneurs’ self-identity. They, therefore, can’t convince themselves of the contributions they make to the society, or identify themselves within the social hierarchy.
Thirdly, Chinese entrepreneurs, especially those whose enterprises have gone international, are bothered with this severe identification anxiety. Chinese people stand out in entrepreneurship, so do Chinese enterprises. But what are the driving forces behind? Thanks to the long time culture break-up from the traditions, and the anti-tradition propaganda, Chinese entrepreneurs find it hard to comprehend and identify their cultural and social roles. This leads to the chaotic and restless mental state of entrepreneurs. This also results in the lack of a cultural supportive pillar for enterprise management in China.
“Business Ethics Declaration of Chinese Entrepreneurs” aims to provide answers to the anxiety over identity for Chinese entrepreneurs, to re-identify them by providing authentic and orthodoxical conceptions, to help them mature their thoughts and corporate social responsibilities.
This research project is committed to establishing a value system for Chinese entrepreneurs. To confront the anxiety over identity for Chinese entrepreneurs, this project provides answers to the three questions below:
1.Do Chinese entrepreneurs have the “original sin”?
2.What do Chinese entrepreneurs contribute to the society?
3.How do Chinese entrepreneurs gain respect?
An Economic Research of Chinese Urban Smog Management
The issue of smog has been on the spotlight in China that no matter government officials, ordinary citizens, or journalists and the press have expressed serious concern and anxiety towards it. Unirule Institute of Economics takes on this research topic and is conducting an economic research on China’s urban smog management.
The urban smog is attributed to multiple factors with many interest parties involved, which also makes it an economic issue. Unirule seeks to find a solution to the management of smog by the design of institutions from an economic point of view.
Fairness and Efficiency of Financial Resource Allocation
The first scale problem of the fairness and efficiency of financial resource allocation is whether the overall tax bearing standard falls within the optimal interval, whether the design of tax kinds and the mechanism will harm the development of the economy. The second scale problem is whether the expenditure structure of the existing financial resource allocation, especially transfer payment, obeys the principal of justice, and the efficiency of financial expenditure especially the general administrative costs.
Unirule Institute of Economics is going to undertake research on the fairness and efficiency of financial resource allocation with the emphasis on the second scale problem. In order to fulfill the ideal of justice in a society, the involvement of financial resource allocation is one of the methods, and a universal one. A state can promote justice by implying financial expenditure in two ways: the direct and the indirect way. When applying the direct way of implying financial expenditure measures to promote justice, financial expenditure is directly distributed to individuals to fill the gap of incomes between individuals.
Among the financial expenditure items of China are pensions and relief funds for social welfare, rural relief funds as well as social insurance funds. The indirect way is by governments' increase in expenditure used for supporting agriculture and villagers, construction of infrastructure, education and medical treatments. This research is on the justice of financial resource allocation and it deals mainly with whether the transfer payment of financial resources obeys the second rule of Rawls's theory of justice, which states that when violation to the first rule has to be made, resource allocation can be towards the poorest group of people. Besides the justice issue, efficiency is also involved in the financial resource allocation. The administrative costs of China have long been above the average standard of other countries in the world, therefore, a big amount of public financial resources are wasted (trillions of RMB per year as estimated). In regard with the efficiency issue of the financial resource allocation, this research deals mainly with the change of ratio of administrative costs by government agencies (in addition to other costs, such as medical treatments of government officials covered by public budgets, and housing subsidies) of financial income. The reform of the fiscal and taxation system is one of the core issues in China's on-going reforms. This research aims not at a comprehensive examination of the fiscal and taxation system, but a specific aspect which is the "fairness and efficiency of financial resource allocation", and evaluating the status quo of China's financial resource allocation.
Research on China's Urbanization on the Local Level
Urbanization is one of the most essential economic and social policies of the new administration. The emphasis of this policy is posed on medium and small cities as well as townships. As noticed, there are thousands of industrialized townships in China with their social governance lagging far behind their economic development.
Firstly, a big population is located in between the urban and rural level, which can't transform into citizens. Hundreds of millions of people have left their villages and moved to commercialized and industrialized towns. They are in industrial and commercial occupations and it is highly unlikely that they would go back to their villages. However, they are not entitled to local Hukou registration, which further leads to the deprivation of various rights, for example, the right of education.
Secondly, public governance in such industrialized and commercialized towns, in general, is at a rudimentary level. The number of officially budgeted posts is asymmetric with the population governed, which leads to the employment of a large number of unofficially budgeted staff and unjustified power to govern. There is a lack of financial resources for the local government to carry out infrastructure construction or to provide public goods sufficiently. Thirdly, the urbanization results in imbalanced development of the structure of society. Since the industrialized and commercialized townships are unable to complete urbanization, urbanization in China has basically become mega-urbanization which is dominated by administrative power. Local governments centralize periphery resources with administrative power and construct cities artificially, which impedes townships and villages from evolving into cities by spontaneous order. Fourthly, industry upgrading can't be undertaken in those industrialized and commercialized townships and the capacity for future economic development is greatly limited. The industry upgrading is, in essence, the upgrading of people. Enterprises ought to draw and maintain technicians, researchers, and investors, to meet their needs for living standards, which cannot be satisfied by townships. Similarly, the lagging urbanization reversely sets back the cultivation and development of the service industry, especially the medium and high-end services.
Unirule Institute of Economics is going to carry out research on urbanization of China on the local level, aiming at improving public governance of the industrialized townships, optimizing the urbanization methodologies, and improving the "citizenization" of migrant workers, therefore further pushing social governance towards self-governance and democracy.
Research on the Public Governance Index of Provincial Capitals
At the beginning of the year 2013, Unirule conducted field survey, including more than 10 thousands of households in 30 local capital cities. According to the field survey, the Public Governance Index was derived. The main conclusions of the PGI report as below:
Three statements summarize the status quo of public governance in provincial capitals. Firstly, public services have generally just gotten a pass. Secondly, protection to civil rights is disturbing. Finally, governance methodologies need improvements. These statements point out the solution: the structure of the society needs to be altered from that with a government monopoly to a civil society with diverse governance subjects. The ranking of provincial capitals in the public governance assessment from the top to the bottom is as follows: Hangzhou, Nanjing, Urumqi, Tianjin, Chengdu, Shanghai, Beijing, Nanchang, Xi'an, Xining, Shijiazhuang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Yinchuan, Hohhot, Chongqing, Shenyang, Changsha, Jinan, Kunming, Nanning, Haikou, Fuzhou, Guiyang, Harbin, Hefei, Changchun, Zhengzhou, Taiyuan and Lanzhou.
Generally speaking, all provincial capitals are graded comparatively low in the three public governance assessments from 2008 to 2012. Even those that ranked the highest in performance have just barely passed the bar of 60 points. Few provincial capitals with poor public governance got over 50 points.
There is a certain amount of correlation between the changes of ranking and improvements in public governance in provincial capitals. In the short term, should the capital cities be willing to raise their rankings, they can achieve this by increasing transparency in government information and civil servants selection, encouraging local non-governmental organizations, or promoting wider participation in local affairs. There is but a weak correlation between public governance and the local GDP level. However, a strong correlation exists between the rankings and the equity of local fiscal transfer payment. That is to say, a region gets a higher ranking in public governance if subsidies to local social security, medical care, education and housing are distributed more to the poorest residents in that region. On the contrary, a region's ranking falls if such resources are distributed with prejudice to the groups with high incomes. This phenomenon shows that equity is of significance in the assessment of the government by the people.
When residents are not satisfied with medical care, elderly support system, water supply and electricity supply, the situation can be improved when they complain to the government. But when similar situations take place in public transportation, environment greening, heating systems, and garbage management, whether by collective actions or filing complaints to government agencies, residents can hardly be satisfied with what the government does.
According to the three public governance assessments carried out from 2008 to2012, we discovered that the Gini coefficient of residents in provincial capitals was decreasing and the income fluidity was improving. From 2010 to 2012, citizens' comments on protection of civil rights are deteriorating, especially in terms of property and personal security. The request for freedom of speech is also increasing. For the moment, citizens in provincial capitals have a low evaluation on the cleanness and honesty of local governments.
Research on Disclosure of Government Information
Room for reforms is getting narrower as the opening-up and reforms deepen. It also leads to a more stabilized vertical mobilization of the demographic structure with the conflicts in the distribution of interests exacerbating. A collaborative system centering the political and law system and involving close cooperation between the police, courts, petition offices, and the city guards (Chengguan) is developed to deal with social unrest. This system is operated by local governments and finalized as a system of maintaining stability (Weiwen). There have been Internet spats over the amount of Weiwen funds. It is unsustainable to maintain such a Weiwen system, and the disclosure of government information is the most significant approach for this end. The essence of public governance is to dissolute conflicts instead of hiding and neglecting them. And one way to achieve this is by sufficient communication. Public and transparent appraisement and supervision cannot be achieved without transparent government information, otherwise the result will be the exclusion of citizens from public governance.
Unirule Institute of Economics has been undertaking research on the disclosure of government information since 2011. This research is carried out not only from the perspective of the regulations for the disclosure of government information which evaluates whether governments of various levels are obeying the regulations and their performances, but also by examining information disclosure laws in developed countries while looking at the status quo in China. There are seven aspects where government information disclosure can be improved, namely, information disclosure of government officials, transparency of finance, transparency in the decision-making mechanism, transparency in administration, transparency in public services, transparency of enterprises owned by local governments, and transparency in civil rights protection.
Upcoming Events
Unirule Biweekly Symposiums
Unirule's Biweekly Symposiums are known in China and throughout the world for their long history of open and in-depth discussions and exchanges of ideas in economics and other social sciences. Over 380 sessions have been held and over 15,000 scholars, policy makers, and students, as well as countless readers on the web, have directly and indirectly, and participated in the Biweekly Symposium for close to 20 years.
Biweekly Symposiums begin at 2 p.m. every other Friday and are free and open to the public.
Schedule
Biweekly Symposium No. 541: 15th Jan., 2016
Biweekly Symposium No. 542: 29th Jan., 2016
Previous Biweekly Symposiums
Biweekly Symposium No. 539: From Favors to General Welfare: Solidifying the Institutional Foundation for China's Economic Development.
Lecturer: BAI Chongen
Host: ZHAO Nong, Vice Chairman, Unirule Academic Committee
Commentators: LAI Desheng, WANG Xiaolu, TAO Yongyi
Professor BAI Chongen started with introducing a Doing Business Report by the World Bank annually that set 10 indices to compare the environment for doing business across countries.
A good institutional basis is the premise of economic development. However, according to the World Bank, China’s economic institutional lags behind, which sets predicament for enterprises. For example, in order to get a permit for constructing a building, 95 taxes and fees are required in China which involves getting 192 stamps and contacting over 30 departments. However, the question is, even in such a terrible institutional environment, China still managed to have miraculous economic growth. What is the cause, then?
Favours can be used to describe the practice of governments of all levels to protect and provide special treatment to certain enterprises. In this practice, enterprises can get the resources and licenses they need as long as they cater to the governments, and the latter return favours in the forms that suit the enterprises. Professor BAI stressed that this practice may enable some enterprises to survival and prosper,but it will harm other enterprises as the favours did not cover the majority of the enterprises. This will lead to inequality and unfair competition. The specific situations in China has bred this practice, but to improve the competition environment for enterprises, such practices should be abolished. A general welfare system should be established where enterprises are treated in equal terms.
Biweekly Symposium No. 540: Self, Others and the World--A Contemporary Analysis of "The Boundary between the Heven and the Man"
Lecturer: ZHANG Shuguang, Beijing Normal University
Host: ZHANG Shuguang, Chairman of Unirule Academic Committee
Commentators: ZHANG Xuezhi, HOU Cai, LIAO Shengbai, SHENG Hong, ZHAO Nong
Professor ZHANG Shuguang from Beijing Normal University introduced the meaning of the title of his lecture. He pointed out the two meanings of it. Firstly, the self refers to the identity of Chinese people, while others refers to westerners. Secondly, he thought the title led to a discussion between the modern and post-modern philosophy.
Professor ZHANG emphasised that in modern times, the thinking of the relation between the heaven and the man is that between man and the world, which can be better indicated in the discussion of the relation between the self and the others. He further illustrated the fact that situations have changed and the view should also evolve. Later on, he touched upon the eternal topic of the relation between “I”, “You”, and “He/She/It”. His discussion on the relations and the implications of this discussion on guiding the real life practices appeals to man’s logic and self reflection.
Editor: MA Junjie
Revisor: Hannah Luftensteiner
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