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The Chinese Genealogy of Financial Expertise

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Risky Expertise in Chinese Financialisation

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Abstract

This chapter traces a Chinese genealogy of expertise to gauge the distinctiveness of Chinese financialisation. Chinese capitalism developed differently from Western capitalism (described as an “industrious revolution” instead of an “industrial revolution”) and diverges from the principles and rhetoric of Western laissez-faire, free-market performance in which financial discipline must be detached from the political sphere. Recalling Zhang Zhidong’s (1837–1909) slogan of “Chinese knowledge as a basis, foreign knowledge as a tool” during the first Chinese Modernisation and the “red and expert” policy from the first decades of the People’s Republic, the chapter highlights how political commitment and professional expertise form an indivisible unity for financial experts. The chapter examines financial expertise in relation to continuities and disruptions in terms of Chinese knowledge production along its unique capitalist path.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I refer here to a multitude of thinkers (Tan Sitong, Gong Zizhen, etc.) who conceived modernisation in spiritual and cultural terms, and not in terms of economic development and strength. In their reflections they sourced traditional Chinese values such as “non-belligerency” and “community of property,” in order to heal the “evil of the Chinese souls.”

  2. 2.

    A derogatory expression the new intellectual referred to Confucianism.

  3. 3.

    Through the label kongjiadian (“shop of Confucius school”), Lu Xun and other revolutionaries mocked the precepts put into circulation that had been preached by traditionalists.

  4. 4.

    A striking example is the simultaneous use and beauty of Chinese writing.

  5. 5.

    These were classical scholars with various degrees of knowledge of the West and the modern world. They were considered the first generation of Chinese modern intellectuals.

  6. 6.

    This appears in a book entitled Modern Aesthetics System, published in the 1990s and edited by Ye Lang (1938–), a leading aesthetician at Beijing University. The book, written collectively by a group of young aestheticians with no individual author identified, was intended to work as a basic textbook for college students and readers nationwide introducing them to aesthetic theories using a new aesthetics model.

  7. 7.

    For example, the “beauty” of revolution in Mao Tse-tung’s poems, which are written in a traditional style.

  8. 8.

    Throughout the Chinese countryside, the ghost cities in China have resulted from huge real estate development projects, with no public services, commercial networks and connections. These projects are often the result of speculative investments coming from the government and have been called as a blatant manifestation of the incoming housing bubble.

  9. 9.

    In the language of executives and professionals, it is a new term that describes a blurring line between business and leisure.

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  1. Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Giulia Dal Maso

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Dal Maso, G. (2020). The Chinese Genealogy of Financial Expertise. In: Risky Expertise in Chinese Financialisation. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6824-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6824-4_2

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