A view of Beijing's Guomao Central Business District (CBD). Photo: VCG

Editor's Note:

For many foreigners, China may remain a mysterious land. However, for some China hands, the real China is credible, appealing and respectable. Their research and observations provide authentic reflections of China's transformation, mirroring the country's achievements and attractiveness. On October 1 of this year, the People's Republic of China (PRC) will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its founding. The Global Times launches a series titled "China Hands: My China Voyages" to share the connections, stories and insights of influential scholars and analysts who study China, narrating the changes and accomplishments they witness in China, and presenting a multifaceted view of the country.

In the first article of the series, Kerry Brown (Brown), professor of Chinese Studies and director of the Lau China Institute at King's College, London, shared his stories with Global Times (GT) reporter Su Yaxuan. 


GT: You recently visited Beijing. Did you have any new impressions or feelings about China this time around?

Brown: It was great to be back. This was my first visit since 2019, marking the longest gap between my trips since my first visit in 1991. I believe that the direct, lived experience of China is crucial. Too many people in the West are speaking about China who have never really lived or even visited the place. So the fact that I was able to update my knowledge was great. 

GT: As a scholar who has been researching China for a long time, could you share your first experience and impressions of the country? How has that influenced your research and views on China?

Brown: My first visit was in 1991. I stayed for just a week in Beijing. Everything seemed unfamiliar, and the fact that I did not speak Chinese at that time made things even more challenging. I walked everywhere rather than using the subway, often spending most of the day walking to tourist sites around the city. Of course, at that time China was far less developed than it is today. It is good to remember what the material lives of many people in China were like back then, so that I can better appreciate the changes that have occurred today.  

GT: After all these years of researching China, could you share some of the most memorable experiences you've had during your research?

Brown: Over the years, I have been to every province and autonomous region in China. I have explored various settings, from village committees and neighborhood committees in Xi'an, located in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, to state enterprises in the south and the Daqing Oilfield in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. I spent one winter in Harbin, lecturing at a university there. I think the thing that I value most is learning from all sorts of different Chinese people - both academics and non-academics - about how they understand the world, and what they believe is happening in their country. Chinese people have always been my best teachers, and there have been so many wonderful conversations over the years - too many to list here.   

GT: What's your take on China's economic reforms and opening-up policies? Are there any changes in Chinese society that have stood out to you?

Brown: I think China has proven that it can do very unexpected and surprising things and you never know what will happen next. In 1978, no one in the West really anticipated what was about to happen in China. When I compare the China I knew back in 1991 with the China of today, they often seem like two totally different places. I was struck by the traffic and infrastructure changes when I was in Beijing, and by the fact that you can now travel in four hours by high-speed train from the capital to Shanghai. The first time I did that in 1994, it took about 12 hours.

As for society, I think that the Chinese people I know today - friends, students and colleagues - are very internationally aware and have far greater exposure to and knowledge of the outside world. In the past, we would say that the Chinese had little real knowledge of the situation outside their country. But last year, a record 200,000 Chinese came to the UK to study, at a time when there were few British students going to study in China. We need to give young British the opportunity to at least go to China, experience the country, and learn its language and culture. This is crucial.  

Kerry Brown. Photo: Courtesy of Brown

GT: What is the significance of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the PRC for both China and the world?

Brown: I think China is clearly a global power now, and people need to be knowledgeable about what China is, and what it isn't. The thing that is striking to me after this recent visit is that on the huge issues - such as the environment, the challenges of AI, sustainable development and inequality, the need for better public health, and even mental health challenges - there is a broad level of consensus. We don't fundamentally disagree. We have a huge amount of shared concerns. We just need to speak and have dialogue in a more trusting and positive way - the basis for this already exists. 

GT: What's your view on China's contributions to the international community over the past 75 years?

Brown: Despite the pessimism in the West today about the global situation, the fact that 1.4 billion people in China are living materially better lives today than ever before is a huge achievement both for China and for humanity. And China needs to have a global role of some sort, because it is the world's second-largest economy, and increasingly a major producer of technology. Both China and the West need to create a better framework to relate to each other, one where there is a better ability to deal with their differences with each other while accepting the common challenges mentioned above. 

China must be part of any meaningful response to global issues. In the coming decades, it is quite possible that the environment, and AI, will pose massive problems. We need to be united in dealing with these. In the long term, I think people will be pragmatic and will find a way to do this. 

GT: In your recent book The Great Reversal: Britain, China and the 400-Year Contest for Power, you mention that the Britain-China relationship mirrors broader global power shifts. What are the current trends in global power dynamics?

Brown: In this book, I talk about the areas of the economy, knowledge, military power and geopolitical power. I argue that while Britain was more influential and powerful than China for most of the last few hundred years up to the year of 2000, that situation has now changed. To some extent, this is true for other countries too. China has developed fast, and to a scale that many did not expect. For many that has been disorientating. But we need a sense of perspective. Clearly, China has many areas where it still wants to improve its economic and technological capacity - and in these areas, there are ways in which the West can benefit. I think the worst attitude is to adopt a zero-sum game approach, where the assumption is that one side will win, and the other will lose. The problems we are all confronting are diverse and complex. Using simple binaries to try to deal with this won't help. It would be like using pre-Newtonian physics to deal with the Quantum world!