Four things I learnt in 2020: Crises, Sustainability-Philosophy, US-EU and Deep China

Academics is one of the great blessings of being a Schwarzman Scholar. You get to engage with great variety of topics in a very short time. The past few months, I was exposed to many things that sparked my interest in something new. This is an attempt to condense some of these learnings into one paragraph each and share them for inspiration. Since "4" is the lucky number of the new year of the Ox, that is how many you will get this time. But be assured, there is a lot more in the pipeline!

Cover photo: One learning brings another. We stopped in the middle of nowhere in Egypt to take a Chinese class. I ended up listening to stories about Egyptian marriage culture and local tax evasion strategies. But this is a story for another time!

Leadership in Public Crises and Emergencies

Taught by Arn Howitt, Harvard’s co-founder of the Program on Crisis Leadership, this is a real heavyweight. We studied cases like the Japanese triple catastrophe, COVID-19 or 9/11 with Joe Pfeifer, the first fire chief at the WTC on that fateful day. There is much to share, but here I will highlight just one: it is not really the scale that distinguishes a crisis from a routine emergency. But novelty. And often, crises don’t even look like crises in the beginning. In the words of our professor, some ‘fester and grow, arising from more ordinary circumstances that often mask their appearance’. Making sense of such uncertainty is the art of crafting an effective response.

The Confucian Philosophy of Sustainability

My colleagues know that in sustainability all I care about is systems thinking. That if you want to turn something sustainable, your actions must embrace complexity because by doing something here move a thousand things elsewhere. Today’s compartmentalised governments find it difficult to digest this fact. But maybe if they read more Confucius, they could get it right. Writing for my favourite course, Chinese Political Culture by Daniel A. Bell and Wang Hui, I discovered that the Great Learning offers splendid advice in this regard. Its theory of self-cultivation prescribes that the path to a tranquil empire must lead through a chain of steps from the individual, across the household, then the government. The individual is not treated as separate, but as an integral part of the system that makes up the whole. More than that, the components of the system must actively support each other - through filial piety and brotherly love - to accomplish harmony. As Wang Yangming (1472-1529) put in his commentary: “Everything from ruler, minister, husband, wife, and friends to mountains, rivers, spiritual beings, birds, animals, and plants should be truly loved in order to realise my humanity that forms one body with them…”. None of our problems are new, not even sustainability!

The Future of US Foreign Policy and the EU

Around the end of October, we met a very senior official of the Obama administration. Since then, he has been confirmed for an even more prominent role. Talking about the future of US foreign policy, he emphasised that everything must start with democratic rejuvenation - only that can restore trust and respect towards the US. And then he discussed different regions, except one. Had I not asked, he would never have mentioned the EU. I guess this shows our place in the pecking order - or at least how marginal we have become in the minds of American decision-makers. The centre of gravity is in the Pacific now.

Distance learning together in Turkey – I am glad I did not have to miss post-lecture debates

A Closer Look at Chinese Political Institutions

The other heavyweight. Besides 40 Years of China’s Reform, this is the course that gave me insight into the deep processes of the Chinese state. The amount of scholarship is insane here: I can hardly find an academic article that does not reference at least one of our faculty. So what to share? Consensus-based decision-making, cadre evaluation systems, tiao-kuai connections…or two things that may surprise you. First, China is an authoritarian power but also one of the most decentralised states in the world - even more than the federal US or Germany. The main reason: innovative competition encourages faster development. Second, free speech is beneficial for China - to a certain extent. Instead of censoring all critical content, they let discussions flow to analyse society’s preferences. The red lines are collective action and galvanising opposition against the Party. So until society is sufficiently divided and sticks to words rather than actions, China may actually like a bit of criticism.