Opinion | How Hong Kong can play a pivotal role in innovation as China modernises

At the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress this week, the details of a government reorganisation approved at last week’s plenary session will be known. How they may address the myriad geopolitical, economic, demographic and social challenges facing China remains to be seen.

What is certain is that Communist Party leadership will become more pervasive in all areas of society – a party-led modernisation as announced at the 20th Communist Party congress last year.

China’s expressions of modernity can be traced back to Deng Xiaoping’s “four modernisations”, which marked the beginning of economic reforms in 1978. Of the four, China has made great strides in industries and agriculture. Equally impressive progress has arguably been made in defence and science and technology, although the gaps with the US are still to be closed.

In the 1980s, Deng tried to better delineate the party and the state, but it was short-lived. The question is: beyond material progress, what kind of modernity was envisioned by the party founders, many of whom had led the breakaway May Fourth Movement?

Of course, China does not need to justify its pursuit of a modernisation path different from the West’s. After the second world war, the most successful cases of modernisation were concentrated in East Asia – models of state-led development, initially under mostly authoritarian governments, followed by greater democratisation after successful industrialisation.

In many Asian economies, the market gradually took on a decisive role only with greater constitutionalism. In contrast, in places from Russia to Latin America, following the neoliberal-oriented economic prescriptions of World Bank “experts” often led to disaster.