Is China’s ‘Face’ Culture Sidetracking Real Development Goals?

October 18, 2010 Posted by Chris Devonshire-Ellis Reading Time: 7 minutes

Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis

Oct. 18 – Some aspects of the Chinese culture such as “face” have long been the subject of opinion and debate over the endless discussions between China and the West. “Face” is being seen to be perceived in a good light, and one can be given “face,” attain it through hard work and piety, or even have it taken away. “Losing face” is a major issue in China. While relatively harmless in a social context, I feel it seems to be increasingly getting out of hand when it comes to government expenditure. While what people do with their own personal money is their own affair (and Chinese consumers recently surpassed the British as the main buyers of fine Bordeaux), when it comes to government, things seem to be becoming excessive. It’s a curious phenomenon, especially as conspicuous consumerism or showing off have long been regarded as inappropriate and undesirable character traits not just by Chinese Confucianism, but by the traditional values of the Communist Party themselves.

Recent examples include the artistic, such as The Bund in Shanghai now possessing a bull sculpted by Arturo Di Modica – the man behind the similar sculpture on Wall Street in New York City. At 2.5 meters tall and weighing in at 2.7 tons, the Shanghai Bull is the same size as the Wall Street version, but “redder, younger and stronger,” which is fair enough, but Shanghai officials had apparently wanted one twice as large as the one on Wall Street. The city requested a bull that was younger and stronger than New York City’s bull to symbolize “the energy of Shanghai’s economy,” Zhou Wei, the head of Huangpu district told reporters at a briefing. “That’s why the head of The Bund Bull looks up while the Wall Street Bull looks downward,” he said. That may be playful rhetoric, but it is also a matter of face, and taking it away (in this instance from New York) would previously have been considered rude.

While the Wall Street Bull moved quickly onto new pastures after its initial installation in front of the New York Stock Exchange, and is currently grazing in Bowling Green Park, Shanghai’s bull faces Pudong with a prominent arse end pointing at the old colonial structures. Accident of design maybe, but every time I see it I can’t help thinking about that, while also noting it should be matched by sculpted piles of bull poo, such is its somewhat constipated posture. It has very large testicles too, and apparently it’s considered good joss to rub them. In two years’ time, the bull’s nuts may blind oncoming traffic. Yet facing Pudong with its butt towards the old colonial buildings does seem rather a statement, deliberate or not.

Intercity rivalry aside, there is a more serious side to the question, and I wonder if it is not related to the Communist Party’s desire to impress upon the nation its own magnificence and ability to deliver. Here’s where things start to get a little subverted. While Delhi spent US$4.6 billion to host the Commonwealth Games, Beijing spent US$70 billion to host the Olympics, a multiple of 15 for an event three times larger. Now that could be argued for as it’s a wholly global event, but the city of Guangzhou has blown US$16 billion on facilities to host the Asian Games next month. China has gone to town on the Asian Games, which will see a total of 476 events in 42 sports be contested by 7,987 athletes, making it the largest event in Asian Games history. That’s too much, even for the IOC (who monitor the event), and the number of competition events is scheduled to shrink down to just 35 sports at the next 2014 Games to be held in Incheon, South Korea. It may also be pointed out that US$16 billion is equivalent to the entire annual tax revenues of Guangzhou, and that hosting the Games doesn’t really add a huge amount to the city infrastructure. Unlike Delhi, Guangzhou already has an upgraded new airport, metro system, a new opera house and plenty of appropriate and existing infrastructure. It seems increasingly like an event to impress – and to impress Chinese tourists, not foreign visitors or even the participating athletes. That much is clear as a hotly debated decision by the authorities to change Guangzhou’s television language programming to Mandarin (the city is Cantonese speaking) created riots amongst the locals, an increasing type of occasion that marks that all is not well with the Chinese government’s sensitivity towards its regional citizens.

The Guangzhou Asian Games seem designed to demonstrate to Chinese domestic tourists that the government can and will deliver. But exactly what, and at what cost? Guangzhou, certainly, could not actually afford to spend that sort of money on its own – so the central government must be stumping up the bill. And here’s the rub with India. While the Delhi Commonwealth Games involved a total of 6,081 athletes from 71 Commonwealth nations and dependencies competing in 21 sports and 272 events, it was also the largest international multi-sport event to be staged in India. In terms of comparisons between Delhi and Guangzhou, this is how it stacks up:

It should be noted that the Delhi Commonwealth Games were the most expensive ever, while when bidding for the 2010 Asian Games, Malaysia, putting forward Kuala Lumpur as a host city, eventually pulled out of the running due to the expected high cost. If Delhi had wanted to blow US$16 billion on the Commonwealth Games, there would have been a national outcry and potentially a voting out of a government seen divorced from its people’s needs. Providing food, shelter and raising millions out of poverty are more pressing concerns in the world’s largest democracy. In China, the job is far from complete as well. Tens of millions of migrant workers do not enjoy the same rights to basic services as urban dwellers, due to China’s outmoded “hukou” (residence) system, while an estimated 4.6 percent of China’s total population, some 282 million people, still live below the poverty line.

It’s a similar story over size and costs for the Shanghai Expo. It is the largest World’s Fair site at 5.28 square kilometers, while 242 countries and international organizations confirmed their participation in the Expo, mainly due to trade issues and the inevitable “face” – to make China (and specifically the government) look good. The pre-Expo blurb stated that China expected to receive almost 100 foreign leaders and millions of people from across the world to come and visit the World Expo. So far, some 70 to 80 million visitors in total are expected to have visited, making it the most popular in history, while on Saturday October 16, 2010, the expo broke the daily attendance record with over one million visitors coming in. In the two years preparing for the Expo, some 18,000 families were relocated along with 270 factories, and some 2.6 square kilometers cleared. The estimated total expense is over US$55 billion and it has already been acknowledged that the fair is “unlikely” to recoup its costs. As for the attendees, foreign participants are actually rather thin on the ground and the vast majority are again, China’s domestic tourists. Tourism visas to China meanwhile have been difficult to obtain, belying the rhetoric of “millions of international visitors.”

There is an interesting comparison about face, insofar as that the Chinese Pavilion is 207 feet high. The next tallest is 69 feet high, making the Chinese Pavilion the stand out by far. That’s fair enough, but political statements are also made within the site – the U.S. Pavilion is far away from the Chinese one, while China-friendly, yet internationally condemned, “pariah” states such as North Korea are very close. A politicized Expo? There’s nothing wrong with being nice to your friends. However, we may also compare the figures with the previous Expo, in Zaragoza, Spain in 2008.

While it’s fair to say the size of the Shanghai event needs to be far bigger just to accommodate the massive increase in domestic tourism, the costs again seem to have escalated beyond any other comparison. China just wants bigger, better, and larger, and is prepared to pay for that to impress its – own ego? Own people?

While there is no doubt that the Guangzhou Games will be spectacular and the Shanghai Expo has been a marvel, one really has to start wondering if Chinese “face,” of wanting to be seen to be the biggest and the best, is not diminishing the responsibility of distributing the nation’s wealth wisely, and diluting more pragmatic requirements such as health care, pensions, and education. The costs associated with the Expo and the Asian Games seem to go way beyond those of normal prudence and economics, and that may be symptomatic of a rather more serious malaise. Incredible sums of money appear to be being spent on temporary intangibles that countries such as India and Malaysia apparently would prefer to earmark for more socially responsible, yet admittedly duller and democratically accountable expenditures. Whether the Chinese Government would agree is a moot point, but the price China seems prepared to pay to host such extravaganzas seems out of norm both with the true nature of the Chinese traditional culture of face, and any semblance of fiscal reason.

Chris Devonshire-Ellis is the principal and founding partner of Dezan Shira & Associates, establishing the firm’s China practice in 1992. The firm now has 10 offices in China. For advice over China strategy, trade, investment, legal and tax matters please contact the firm at info@dezshira.com. The firm’s brochure may be downloaded here. Chris also contributes to India Briefing , Vietnam Briefing , Asia Briefing and 2point6billion