 My name is Richard Rigby, I'm Executive Director of the ANU China Institute, former diplomat spent a good deal of my life working in or on China. And today we're extremely fortunate to have with us Tansari Andrew Shun, who is a very well-known commentator and more than a commentator on Matizasian and on China in particular, both as an academic but also as somebody who's involved in the actual processes of reform and talking about reform in China. So Andrew, first of all, thank you very much for agreeing to talk to us. It's been wonderful to have you here at the ANU for the Second Crawford Australia Leadership Forum. You've spoken both in a general session but also in the session we had this morning on China's domestic challenges and obviously it's about China that I'd like to speak. Now some of the speakers talked about Chinese leadership and other problems but you spoke in a particularly interesting way on just what you see is happening in China now, the transformational nature of the developments they're witnessing and I wonder if for the benefit of our viewers you might be able to talk a little about this for me. Well first of all I think one needs to have a long lens of history to understand China. This is the first point. The Chinese bureaucracy is the oldest surviving human institution around. It survived all the emperors, all the changes of regime, foreign invasion, internal decay etc. And so when you're dealing with China you must remember that you're dealing with a very old and adaptable institution. That's point number one. The second point is that China complies with the law of large numbers. It's one-fifth of mankind and so by the law of large numbers one-fifth the world's problems exist in China and that's the point I was trying to make and it's not just that it's one-fifth of China's internal problems but China's success or failure would affect the rest of the world and the world's success or failure would affect China. It's just both are too big and we're all living on one planet earth. The third point that I would like to make is that because the whole world is going through very major transformative shifts, demography, climate change, technology, geopolitics, the revival of the Cold War etc. and governance, China is evolving with this at a speed and scale that has never as unprecedented in history. For China to move from a hundred over place in GDP numbers to number two economy in the world in 35, 36 years is unheard of. I mean even when you know long-term history. So this is the biggest transformation that we've seen and what has happened is that its success can only be explained because the Chinese governance model whether you like it or not has been an institutional development innovation over the old bureaucracy, ability to control the bureaucracy and to be able to have policy objectives and policy outcomes. It started with the four modernization in 1979 and it's implemented quite a lot of it except that the game has changed and the context has changed and I think that's the process that we need to appreciate that at the present moment the Chinese economy in 30 years became the world's greatest factory, the hub of the global supply chain. It's not very high value production but it is still a major production. Anything you can think of these days carries that made in China but China is now moving from that old investment based export led model towards a knowledge based innovation driven and consumption driven model. The best illustration of this is that four out of the top global 15 internet platforms are Chinese and you know there are some names that have become well known like Alibaba but Tencent Baidu JD.com transact more electronic detailing business than the United States because their user base is somewhere between 400 to 600 million population larger than the US population. So these transformations are changing China, changing the mode of governance, the very fact that the CCP allows these entrepreneurs now to have creative destruction. You must understand this, these businesses have creative destructions on state-owned enterprises so the whole game is remarkable and it's a remarkable march to markets in spite of the fact that people accuse you know the leadership of autocracy etc but it is a massive commitment towards market economy, massive commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation and openness to the world. Now you know whether you agree with that is another matter but that's essentially what the policy objectives are and we're now looking at the outcomes. I think analytically you know you put your finger one of one of the things that makes it difficult to approach on the one hand you say quite rightly that the Chinese bureaucracy is the oldest bureaucracy in the world so these vast elements of continuity in China but at the same time what is actually happening that was being undertaken by this very Chinese bureaucracy is absolutely revolutionary it's something we've never seen in the world before so it does make it a bit of a challenge. Now you are somebody I know that your own background and training is entirely Western oriented but at the same time you can draw on Asian tradition as well as plus your own contemporary involvement in China you must do Chinese language. From that point of view what do you think are some of the more obvious mistakes that Western observers of China tend to make? What does the tend to look at China from a very theoretical point of view they love a theory they love a hypothesis and they love to put you know China into a box of you know that oh this fits this doesn't fit you know oh this is black this is white the Chinese system is actually a very complex organic system you know governance works on network networks of networks there's the there's a civil bureaucracy there's a military bureaucracy there is a civil society that's transforming very fast as I mentioned you know religion Buddhism even Christianity is gathering as much membership you know in China as in anywhere else so all these things are simultaneously changing China right and the very fact that you know on we chat one could have wonderful discussions mostly in Chinese unfortunately on policy issues belies the traditional way that there is you know lack of freedom of speech or a discussion in China the intellectual tradition is very much alive in China and a lot of the policy debates that you have in the west on climate change you know on pollution on social in inequity all these are being debated very rigorously and very somewhat heated and sometimes you know the authorities climb down on this to so that it doesn't get out of hand but this way but but but but but that's but but it is moving forward and clearly in the last year or so it is true I think we have to acknowledge in some areas there has been a degree of clamping down on other areas though as you say the debate continues apace and I'm always struck by the fact that sometimes within the system that you see the most vigorous debate rather than from people outside the system for instance in our own a new contacts with the with the with the with the Chinese system we look at within the central party schools some of their debates about democratization the future role of the party center province relations these are all very very vibrant or in China international relations the contemporary China institutes of contemporary international relations kicker which that belongs to the ministry of state security but within which nevertheless you have very very vibrant debates and quite quite meaty you know arguments about the appropriate role that China should be playing globally I know you don't have a great deal of time but ask you to put yourself in the business of Xi Jinping if you were Xi Jinping what would be worrying you most what are the issues that you would be grappling with most of all do you think no I think I think the the the you know first of all I can't be and never will be but I think that's one of the toughest jobs in the world but I think what what he's grappling with is that he genuinely believes that there is a China dream he genuinely believes that Chinese society can be transformed towards that and that China dream is is not that far different from an American dream or an Australian dream or Malaysian dream you know it is about middle class income everybody having their jobs living in a in the world of peace and security I don't have to deal with you know terrorism petty crime corruption and all these sort of issues and I think I think on that on that area other than you know the absolute freedoms of individuals etc which the Chinese feel is relative I think within his lifetime and probably my lifetime some progress will be made now how much of that progress that's a very difficult question well that's that's that's a very interesting point and obviously precisely what is involved in the Chinese dream is of increasing importance to all of us whether we exactly have the same dream or not the whole Chinese expression Tung Rang Yimong same bed different dreams is all very well but at the same time Chinese increasingly are talking about peripheral diplomacy and I think Australia is definitely on the periphery talking about a community of common destiny even without the formulation community of common destiny seems to me that China is now so much part of our future our futures our regional futures that whether we what or not we are going to have at least to some degree a common destiny well we are having common destinies look at the children of the top leadership a lot of them are in ANU or in Harvard in Stanford etc so the young generation thinks very much like the millennials of other nationalities except that they have Chinese characteristics and and so if one recognizes that increasingly the framework of thinking what people care about social justice climate change jobs you know technology having a cool life you know these will be the shared values that we can build the common community put it this way well Andrew there's so much to talk about but I realize you're you're very busy and I really appreciate the time that you've given us for sharing your thoughts I hope in the future we might have an opportunity to revisit some of these issues I think it's a great honor and a learning experience for me to be at ANU thank you very much for the opportunity