States do not operate in a vacuum, I’ve argued. Daily engagement with public opinion is an essential part of political work. Otherwise, the public remains detached from government policies and is periodically surprised by their outcomes. Since people generally do not take well to surprises, the result is a decline in public confidence which instantly becomes a rise in criticism of policies the public neither knows about nor understands.
I imagine these are self-evident truths and most opinion-makers would agree. Or so it seemed until China took the world by storm, achieving what can only be described as a miracle by following the exact reverse of what I’d had taken to be axiomatic. It turned inward and sealed itself off so it could focus on implementing its policies and programmes without caring what the world abroad might think. So, for several decades, world public opinion knew next to nothing about what was happening in China. Then, ignorance turned to criticism, with the West portraying China as a backward dictatorship, light years behind the tremendous progress the West itself had achieved in all domains, be they economic, scientific, technological, or military.
This was the image the Western media had entrenched in our minds, sparing us the effort of trying to penetrate China’s curtain of silence. Then suddenly the curtain lifted, revealing a level of progress that left global opinion stunned. Not only had China caught up with the West, many of its achievements had surpassed their Western counterparts in economy, infrastructure and advanced technologies – not least artificial intelligence and green technologies.
China has built a widely diversified production base, expanding digitalisation, research and development networks. Thanks to the competitiveness of its products in both quality and cost, it conquered markets around the world. It has become such a formidable competitor to the US, including in domestic markets, that President Trump slapped China with the steepest tariffs ever on imports. The effect was to signal that US products could not compete even at home on their own merits.
Something similar to the Chinese model is unfolding in our own neighbourhood. Will it yield fruits like those achieved in China?
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 December, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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