- Publisher Reflects on Politics, Money And Happiness in the New China
Tuesday, December 19, 2006; A24
Hung Huang is regarded as a model by many young Chinese women. Her mother was Mao Zedong's English teacher in the 1960s, her stepfather was foreign minister in the 1970s. Despite her communist pedigree, Hung "jumped into the sea," as the Chinese say, taking advantage of economic reforms to try her luck in private business. It worked; at 45, Hung is emblematic of the new China. Her China Interactive Media Group publishes several glossy lifestyle magazines. Her flagship publication, Ilook, is filled with photos, articles and advertisements aimed at China's new rich. In a warehouse in Beijing's Dashanzi art district where she and 80 employees work, Hung shared her thoughts with Beijing correspondent Edward Cody on where China is and where it might be headed.
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Q Do you see any hope the leaders of China's Communist Party will ever loosen the authoritarian political system the way they have reformed the economic system?
A They're making gestures, to show people they want to change. I think for it to really change, it's going to take some time. But the gestures are so important, because for those of us who have so long been resigned to a certain way China works, this is very exciting, because with these gestures, it gives you room to push things forward . . . .
Can China's one-party rule evolve without violent upheaval?
We obviously hope that it can. You know, nobody wants a riot. When you talk to Chinese, there's an overwhelming feeling that they want "peace on earth." I mean, in a very selfish way. Most Chinese feel that they have just started to enjoy life, that they have just started to accumulate a little bit of wealth. Now they can take a breather. They can travel to Europe. They can see the world. They can build villa houses. They can have their little gardens. And they actually feel that, after 20 years of hysterical growth, now is the time that some people can take time off and smell the roses.
What is the biggest challenge to peaceful reform?
For society to promote change in a peaceful fashion, you have to bring enough opportunity and hope to people who are below the poverty line. Right now probably the most glaring problem in China is social inequity. The rich are extremely rich, and the poor are extremely poor. They literally live in completely different worlds. That imbalance is very dangerous.
But will the Communist P arty ever relinquish its monopoly on power?
In the West, everybody is looking to say, are the communists ready for bipartisanship and civil society, or groups of people who are organized and in some way challenge the government's political authority? You have to look at it in a two-step kind of way. Number one, think of the Communist Party as two soccer teams. There's the blue team, and there's the red team. . . . I think if they can institutionalize that kind of debate within the Communist Party and be able to give people transparency on the kind of debates they have in the Communist Party, it would be wonderful.
I think there are a lot more debates within the high offices of the government than we realize. Otherwise, how come the vice mayor of Beijing was arrested? How come there is this whole change of lineup in Shanghai's municipal government? I think being able to show the people the fact that there are different factions [would be] a sign of confidence of the Communist Party, rather than a weakness, and it really [would] enhance their legitimacy to rule. The fact that they haven't seen that is a sign they are not confident enough.
But so far, that debate remains secret. Are the senior leaders, those on the party's Central Committee, ready to let transparency happen?
I think the conservative side of China is on the defensive. They're being rolled back. You can't blame them for putting up a fight, because it's something they believe in. I've met conservatives, and I don't agree with them, but sometimes there are some people with a tremendous amount of integrity. I'm trying to imagine my stepfather, who was a communist official and foreign minister in the 1970s. I'm wondering, if he was in today's China, would he agree with something like that. I don't think so.
So is it a question of generations?
I don't think the blocking point is these old conservatives. The old conservatives are just like roadblocks. You see them miles away. You know they're going to be against you. It's much easier to deal with that. The not so easy things are the corruption issues. Because once you enter into a system, you realize what power can do for you and your family, and then you start rounding off things . . . . This process, this corrosive process, is within the system, because commerce and politics are closely linked. I think that corrosive system is scarier to me than the staunch leftists.
Most educated people and university students seem to look away from politics in China. Why do they not push harder for swift political reform?
An analogy would be how many people vote in the United States. Basically you probably have about 25 percent who exercise their rights in this democratic process and the other 75 percent just give it up. That's in a society that's had, what, almost 300 years of democratic tradition. This is a country that does not have a democratic tradition, for 5,000 years. So what level of participation do you expect?
But so many educated people just seem interested in money.
Democracy and democratic participation in the political process are not part of Chinese history and tradition. But growing rich has always been a part of Chinese tradition, because I think we are very good traders and we are also very good business people.
University students have been the single largest category of new recruits to the Chinese Communist Party in recent years. How can that be?
You come from a democratic society. Your participation mode is immediately to protest and voice dissent in the political system. The Chinese way of joining the political system is to say if you can't beat them, join them and make changes from within. Those students who are politically oriented in China, 90 percent of them are going to think about joining the party rather than protesting against the party.
Your flagship magazine is full of articles and advertising that focus on good living for the wealthy. Who are the readers of that magazine and what are they like?
We target the top 20 percent of Chinese society. And we provide lifestyle information. So these are the first generation of Chinese who got wealthy and entered the middle class. A normal reader [of Ilook] would be living in either a villa or a very high-end apartment. Usually the apartment will sell for [about $2,350] per square meter or more. She is either the boss of her own company or pretty high in management, so she actually doesn't have to show up at work at 9 a.m. She drives her own car or has a chauffeur-driven car and so hardly uses public transport . . . .
Some don't work, which means they are housewives and they get up and they plan for the day. Their biggest pastime is shopping. When they really have time, they're bored. They want to see the world. Most of them have visited Europe and America. And now they're into the more exotic traveling destinations: Vietnam, Cambodia, some even Africa. They are desperate to pamper themselves. Because they are very pressed, they are completely stressed out.
You mean they are unhappy?
There are two sides to their psyche. On the one hand, they are what the entire society looks up to as the successful people, the people who have made it. On the other hand, they are probably the most stressed and unhappy individuals. I think they are unhappy because they had great expectations of what wealth could bring them in terms of emotional rewards. And it did bring them emotional reward, but it wasn't sustainable, and it turned out they would eventually need something else, and more money doesn't seem to do it. They want recognition. Maybe they want fame. They want status.
What do these people believe in?
These people are in their 30s or 40s, and whatever core values they were brought up with, they had to actually give up those core values. So I think they are in search of a core value. This group of people, they are in search of something to hold onto, something to make life meaningful, other than wealth.
Hung Huang
谁来评评洪晃？ 有时我挺喜欢她，譬如她说陈凯歌的《无极》，说的特好；有时又不喜欢她，觉得她没女人味儿，说不出来的感觉。