Pinker: It’s hard to see how China will ever compete with the West

In the latest issue of Edge the well-known Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker questions the popular assertion that “China will be the next scientific and economic power.” What prompted Pinker to question that assertion seems to be the recent rejection by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to publish the book: What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today’s Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable.

The book, based on an edited selection from The 2006 Edge Question, was published last year in the US (HarperCollins) and the UK (Free Press) as well as a number of foreign-language markets. The recent rejection came via the publisher that purchased the PRC Chinese language rights to the book, stating that the book “can’t be published in China because some content is not accordant to Chinese regulations, for example, some content about religious, soul.” [sic]

Pinker, who wrote the forward to the book, went on to not only question China’s power grab but the claim that any nation can become a technological superpower (and thus economic superpower) when it can be categorized as anti-intellectual. “There is a profound issue lurking here,” writes Pinker. “Everyone says that China will be the next scientific and economic power. Is this compatible with their ongoing rejection of open debate and exploration of ideas? Is a technologically advanced society compatible with anti-intellectualism and suppression of debate? It’s hard to see how China will ever compete with the West as a source of scientific and technological innovation if ideas cannot be discussed and evaluated.”

Pinker goes on to state one possibility, “or will the Internet — which can never be completely censored — and a stream of PhDs returning from the West eventually pressure them to open up?” As ideal as this would seem to most free speech advocates, it does not seem to be consistent with the observed direction of China.

Typically, many westerners that live and work in China do so in the capacity of an expert and are hardly challenged on free speech issues. It is only when a foreigner appears to be “corrupting” a sizable number of natives that the PRC will exert its control and send the foreigner packing with little hope of ever returning; however such instances in the last two decades are quite rare. Instead, westerners are free to work and play which essentially amounts to a knowledge transfer from westerners to the locals. Once this knowledge transfer is wielded by a local it then comes under full regulation by the PRC. A system such as this allows for societal roles and industry to be created under complete control with little “corruption” to the system itself. Such a system may not be a key innovator in the technology and science worlds but can however take and assimilate knowledge into powerhouse technology industries at a scale unique to countries like China and India.

While Pinker’s questions are valid their conclusions do not appear to be consistent with how China is growing both technologically and scientifically. As for the book, the Chinese living in China will not be reading it any time soon.

I originally wrote this for NowPublic.