(East-West Question) Harvard Scholar Wang Yuhua: Can the East and the West learn from each other in national capacity building?

　　China News Agency, Washington, June 19th: Can the construction of national capabilities learn from each other?

　　——Interview with Wang Yuhua, the first Chinese professor in the Department of Government of Harvard University

　　China News Agency reporter Chen Mengtong

　　What exactly does a country's national capacity mean?

How do the ways of building nation-states differ between Eastern and Western societies?

Behind the political game between great powers, how should the East and the West view the development of national capabilities?

　　Recently, the "East and West Questions" column of China News Agency interviewed Wang Yuhua, the first Chinese professor in the Department of Government of Harvard University, to discuss the similarities and differences in the process of capacity building between Eastern and Western countries.

Wang Yuhua has long been devoted to the study of comparative politics, and takes ancient and modern China as a sample to explore the significance of national capacity building to the development of the country and society.

The following is a summary of the interview transcript:

China News Service: In recent years, the older generation of American scholars who studied China issues, such as Vogel and Shi Jingqian, have passed away one after another, and some senior China experts have gradually faded out of Washington think tanks.

As a new generation of scholars studying China issues in the United States, how do you feel about the current state of research on China issues in the American academic community?

What issues do they care more about in China?

Wang Yuhua:

It may be necessary to review the history of Chinese studies in the United States to see the current situation.

The earliest research on China in the United States can be traced back to before World War II, but the most important research on China was after World War II.

At that time, the main motivation for China studies in the United States was to cultivate a group of "China Hands" to help American policymakers understand China's political formation and structure.

Since the 1950s, most Chinese experts in the United States have worked as professors in universities, but their main task is not to make theoretical contributions to political science, but to provide the US government with factual basic knowledge.

Therefore, we see that the older generation of China scholars have more experience in the policy field.

They could use their knowledge about China to influence the US government's China policy at that time, and at the same time they could bring the experience gained from policy practice back to the study of China.

This is characteristic of that generation of American scholars, which enabled communication between politics and academia.

　　However, after the Cold War, the motivation of the United States to study China has changed a lot, and there has been a phenomenon of differentiation between the academic circle and the policy circle in the study of China issues. Slow and less, because their concerns are very different.

However, the communication between the two has been slowly increasing recently.

In the context of deteriorating Sino-US relations, there are actually many scholars on China issues willing to participate in policy formulation and help the US government understand China.

On May 21, 2022, the 16th Dance Parade was held in New York, USA. On the streets of Manhattan, Chinese people performed Chinese dances.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Liao Pan

China News Agency reporter: When you are doing China research, you pay special attention to data mining and quantitative analysis. Behind these "big data", what are the "big questions" you think about?

Wang Yuhua:

This is also a big change in the field of Chinese political research in the United States in the past 20 years, that is, more use of data to study China, including data from Chinese officials and survey data collected by scholars themselves.

The benefit is a more comprehensive understanding of China.

　　In the past, American scholars used case studies and field investigations to study China.

China is a very big country, we need to know how the differences between different parts of China are caused and the results of the differences.

I firmly believe that with more data, a more complete understanding of China can be obtained.

China News Service reporter: In your new book "The Rise and Fall of Ancient China: The Social Origin of National Development" (tentative translation), there is a very important concept in the construction of ancient China's national capacity. How to understand it?

Wang Yuhua:

State capability is a very popular concept in the social sciences. Economists, sociologists and political scientists all like to use the word “state capability” to describe a very important variable.

This variable will affect economic development, the supply of public goods, and even the maintenance of national peace.

　　National capacity is a neutral concept, which is generally defined by political scientists as the ability of a country to achieve national goals, which is equivalent to a country's policy goals.

It affects our concerns about peace and economic prosperity, the two most important social development goals.

My book is to tell such a story: Why did the state capacity of ancient China, including the state's ability to control society and taxation, drop from such a high level to such a low level in the Qing Dynasty?

Visitors view the "Ancient Nanjing Section Yangtze River Cultural Relics Special Exhibition" at the Nanjing Museum.

Photo by Sun Zhongnan issued by China News Agency

China News Service reporter: When talking about state capacity in a modern context, can we understand it from two different dimensions, "inside" and "outside" of state governance and state exchanges?

Wang Yuhua:

When we talk about national capabilities, we often talk about it from the perspective of the relationship between the state and society, that is, when regulating people’s behavior, whether it is social customs or national laws and regulations, including national systems, play a major role.

Internally, it is more about the relationship between the state and society, and externally, it is more about the degree of economic interdependence between countries, which leads to differences in national capabilities.

China News Service reporter: When you study national capacity building, in addition to economic development and war factors, you seem to pay more attention to the influence of people or national builders?

Wang Yuhua:

Yes.

This is my main point. The original political theory assumes the country as a "person" without taking into account the differences between different groups within the country.

　　But when I look at Chinese history, I find that there are often strong differences of opinion among elites within the country.

Therefore, I think that the country may not be regarded as a "person" in the analytical framework, at least it should be a field, so as to study how different interest groups achieve their goals by influencing policies in this field.

China News Agency reporter: Your research also used the analysis method of social network structure to study national capacity.

There are different forms of social network structures in the East and the West. One emphasizes the collective and the other emphasizes the individual. How do you think this will affect the construction of national capabilities?

Wang Yuhua:

There is a big difference between Chinese traditional society and Western traditional society. The influence of family on people, or the size of family is very different.

In Europe, the family size is small, while the family form of clan has appeared in China since the Song Dynasty.

The influence of the family on the individual in ancient China was far greater than the influence of the European family on the individual.

This can be a big difference.

Visitors study the genealogy of ancient Chinese clans at the museum.

Photo by Huang Zhengwei issued by China News Agency

China News Service reporter: Can the rise and fall of a country be understood as the history of the construction and development of national capabilities? How do you view the construction of national capabilities in modern China?

Wang Yuhua:

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Chinese state's ability to control society weakened, mainly due to the rise of clan organizations.

One of the most important changes from ancient China to modern and contemporary China is the transformation of society.

Various wars that began in the 1930s and land reforms after the founding of New China weakened the economic foundation of local clans in China.

The greatest achievement of modern China's national capacity building is the government's strengthening of social governance capacity.

On June 30, 1950, the Land Reform Law was promulgated and implemented in China.

Photo by China News Agency Luo Fei

China News Service reporter: From this perspective, can the construction of China's national capabilities provide broader experience for other countries in the world?

Wang Yuhua:

Not all countries can build a country as powerful as China.

A very important policy goal in the field of social sciences is to help developing countries build their national capacity and achieve development.

For example, how can countries and regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia provide more public goods for local economic development and public services by strengthening government capacity building?

　　International organizations such as the World Bank have invested heavily in some countries, but with very low results.

In this regard, China may be able to provide the world with a very good experience, that is, by designing institutions and mechanisms, selecting elites in society to work in the government, and providing effective public goods for the society.

This is something that the Chinese government has done very successfully.

China News Service reporter: Explain that there is a derivative topic behind the construction of national capacity. How do you view the rise and fall of a country?

In a contemporary context, how do you view the Western society's view of China's national capacity building as a threat?

Wang Yuhua:

There may be a lot of prejudice here, but behind it is a zero-sum way of thinking, which sees your rise as the cause or result of my decline.

But in fact, when we look at the country's capabilities, a very important dimension is whether the government can manage the country itself, the most important of which is stability and peace.

　　For example, ending the new crown epidemic on a global scale does not depend on one country, but on whether all countries can contain the epidemic in their own countries.

At this time, national capacity is not a zero-sum problem, but each country strengthens its own national capacity and controls the epidemic in its own country, and the epidemic in the world will improve.

Countries can maintain their own peace and economic prosperity and make the world a better place.

It's more correct way of thinking than saying "you get stronger then I get weaker".

In 2020, the new crown epidemic swept the world, and two elderly people wore masks to play chess in a park in Washington.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Sha Hanting

China News Agency reporter: How do you view the process of building national capabilities in the United States and China?

Wang Yuhua:

In the way of dealing with social problems, the United States relies more on the ability of social autonomy, and the strength of social groups and communities may play a more important role; China is more government-led.

But Chinese and American societies pursue similar end goals: economic prosperity, social peace and stability.

Beijing CBD area.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Jia Tianyong

　　However, there may be some differences in the way of dealing with the problem and the way of solving the problem. Countries in the world have their own way of dealing with the problem, and deal with the problem according to their own history, culture, geography and population structure.

We should recognize or learn to appreciate different social formations and appreciate the diversity of the world, instead of having to "be like me".

(Finish)

Interviewee Profile:

　　Wang Yuhua studied at the School of Government of Peking University, and then went to the United States for further study, under the tutelage of Li Kanru, a famous American expert on China issues, and received a doctorate from the University of Michigan.

He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University successively. From July 2022, Wang Yuhua will become the first Chinese full professor with tenure in the Department of Government of Harvard University.

　　In the field of political science research, Wang Yuhua constructed a theoretical framework for the study of national capacity and national development with the method of social network analysis.

His new English book The Rise and Fall of Ancient China: The Social Origins of National Development (tentative translation) will be published soon.