The Fine Art of Reframing…

This week's report comes from the Micro Coffee Shop in Dongguan. Fortunately, the name refers neither to the size of the premises, rather generous, or to the size of the portions, again quite copious. For some strange reason, the more the economy creaks and groans towards the possibility of recession here, the more these coffee houses spring up. From the point of view of a nomadic flaneur in constant need of refreshment and a place to write, this is a very positive development. On the other hand, one wonders what is happening to the underlying economy here as the slowdown starts to bite deeper and deeper.

The coffee house itself is just one of a chain one sees in South China. Micro Coffee's shops seem clean, well managed and quite appealing. The seats are comfortable with a pleasant selection of coffees on offer. What more could a peripatetic flaneur wish for? Whilst enjoying the fayre on offer in such coffee houses, it is not unusual to enjoy a little conversation, or even some gentle banter, with the locals, or at least those that have a smattering of English.

One of the crucial factors one has to realise when discussing any issue with Chinese citizens living within the country is that their own sources of news are very restricted. There is some debate, online and even occasionally on television, but essentially the discussion is down to variations on the theme, rarely disagreement with the theme itself.

This, naturally, is very advantageous to the powers that be (a lovely phrase, that one!). They don't really need to win the debate or convince anyone as other governments around the world find themselves having to, they simply decide the policy and instruct the media to broadcast in, together with instructions as to how exactly it is to be framed.

Many years ago, seems like another lifetime now, I studied the somewhat dark arts of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) as developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. I say 'dark arts' as one pretty soon realises that although such practices are often presented, and indeed used, in a therapeutic context, they can and are readily abused by such amoral or immoral folk as those involved in government or advertising, to name but two areas where these techniques have been roundly used to exploit, cheat and generally take advantage of the unwary.

(On this front, I think if I hear one more person assure me that advertising has”no effect on me” I think I will start to tear out my already very short hair. The last invulnerable soul who assured me of this being the case was the proud owner of a Hummer…)

The Chinese economy is in some trouble now. One hears of firms going bust on a regular basis and simply by looking around it is plain to see that many shops are no longer occupied, even in some of the primest of locations. The government here though, is still as popular as ever, which speaks volumes for their skills at the fine arts of presentation and reframing. In NLP terms, a reframe is used to realign or reshape one's thinking on a given issue or situation. It is a very powerful technique, perhaps more so because of its ubiquity; there is scarcely any situation that a skilful reframe cannot change one's perception of.

At the recent New Year's celebration it was very apparent that the amount of money spent by local government, usually so generous in such affairs, was relatively mean. The fireworks in particular were noticeable by their absence. This sad state of affairs was presented as the administration practising those fine traditional Chinese values of prudence and economic restraint. A classic reframe, but one that worked very well, some people even telling me how much they admired the government for returning to such sensible ways.

Basically, in China, if you can couch the reframe in terms of nationalism and especially in terms of traditional Chinese culture, you are halfway there already. Those in power, like those who remain in power around the globe, know exactly what buttons to press when needed and exactly how to structure a needed reframe to cast themselves in the best possible light.

Another classic tactic along these lines is to point out that although things may be bad here, they are a lot worse somewhere else. Far too many times now, when the subject of the poor air quality comes up, I hear people referring to the awful smogs of London. Now, while it is true that there were indeed awful smogs in London, these mostly came to an end in the 1960s with the Clean Air Act. To listen to many people hear one would think that the news reflects the current state of affairs in the UK's capital. In one recent dinner conversation, my fellow guests seemed genuinely surprised, even a little shocked, when I showed that day's figures from Dongguan and London via an app on my Windows phone. London's air quality figures were about one fifth of those in Dongguan (pm2.5s at around 35 compared to Dongguan's 180). Beijing, needless to say, would suffer even more by comparison.

Perhaps the bleakest and most cynical tactic of all in times of economic hardship is the call to patriotism. Nationalism here is already very strong and needs but little stoking to work people into something of a patriotic fervour. In this way, China is very different from more mature systems such as those found in Europe or America. Often in those cases there are enough worldly wise folk willing to point out such tactics that the politicians are often weary of employing them. Not so in China where if there is any opposition, it will scarcely dare to raise its voice (perhaps wisely) anyway.

Currently China is involved in territorial disputes with at least seven other states, any of which can and is used to stir up nationalistic feeling when required. Perhaps of these, the dispute in the South China Sea is the most likely to flare up into something very dangerous. In this particular instance, China finds itself in dispute with the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. One worries that, given the current deteriorating economic situation, it could prove all too tempting to focus the population's attention away from the problems at home and into such dangerous waters.

Back in the coffee house some of my fellow imbibers are now enjoying a game of cards, whilst others watch basketball on a 42inch screen. The latter is very popular here, Dongguan in particular being known as the 'City of Basketball'. Personally, it has never been to my tastes, consisting as it does of a lot of very tall men running down one end of a court to put a ball into a net, then running up the other end and doing the same thing there. The highlight seems to be when they occasionally bump into each other but, as highlights go, its not particularly riveting.

All seems normal, perhaps even prosperous at this level. Beneath the surface though, it is not hard to detect the stark reality of an economy and a people who are  beginning to scent the unpleasant odour of recession. As ever in China, the stage managing is very impressive, but also as ever, economic reality will, in the end, prove very difficult to conceal forever.