Lack of Long-Term End-Goal Orientation in the Chinese Planning Economy
The Chinese planning economy is characterized by a structure that does not strictly plan with a fixed, long-term end in mind, but instead relies on phased, evolving approaches that are adaptive to leadership priorities and external circumstances. Rather than maintaining an unwavering commitment to a singular, well-defined outcome over decades, the planning process involves rolling Five-Year Plans and policy adjustments that are frequently revised or recalibrated in response to changing domestic and global contexts. The plans serve more as guidelines—emphasizing medium-term coordination, negotiation across administrative levels, and ongoing consultation—than as blueprints for a predetermined end-state. While five- and ten-year objectives are often articulated, especially regarding economic growth and national modernization, the content of these objectives and the administrative categories they use are frequently amended to suit emergent challenges and opportunities. This policy fluidity undermines the habit of "beginning with the end in mind," which is about formulating clear, enduring ultimate goals and then aligning actions and strategies directly toward them. Instead, the Chinese planning economy favors a more reactive, incrementalist model that enables shifting priorities—from industrial expansion to innovation to environmental protection—without necessarily achieving harmony or integration among these areas.
Disalignment with the Five Fundamental Agreements of Don Miguel Ruiz
1. Be Impeccable With Your Word: The first agreement urges using words with integrity and truth, fostering trust and avoiding deception. However, the Chinese government's strict information management, state-driven narrative control, and lack of transparency in both domestic governance and foreign dealings do not exhibit this value. Information is routinely censored, and state communication is guided by political expediency rather than frankness or a commitment to open, trust-building dialogue.
2. Don't Take Anything Personally: This principle is about detaching personal ego from criticism or external actions, but the Chinese government is well-known for taking criticism—foreign or internal—as direct threats to its legitimacy and responding with fierce defensive posturing. Individual dissent, alternative research, and overseas commentary are often met with censorship, retaliation, or attempts at narrative suppression, rather than with equanimity or respectful engagement.
3. Don't Make Assumptions: Ruiz’s third agreement advocates clear, direct communication and asking questions to avoid misunderstanding. In contrast, the Chinese government operates with opacity in decision-making, seldom clarifying intentions or policies to stakeholders at home or abroad. Ambiguous regulations, lack of stakeholder engagement, and unpredictable enforcement foster global uncertainty and suspicion.
4. Always Do Your Best: Don Miguel stresses that one’s best varies with circumstances but should always be heartfelt. Yet the Chinese government frequently prioritizes speed, industrial output, and economic expansion without regard for negative consequences, demonstrating a “quantity over quality” approach, even as environmental, social, and health impacts escalate. The notion of continually striving for meaningful, value-driven improvement is often subordinated to headline economic or political goals.
5. Be Skeptical, But Learn to Listen: This final agreement highlights the importance of questioning while deeply listening to others’ perspectives and to internal guidance. Chinese governance is structured around central control and policy conformity, where skepticism—especially when critical of central edicts—is discouraged or repressed, and genuine listening to dissenting voices is not institutionally supported.
Incompatibility with the Six Core Processes of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
1. Acceptance: ACT encourages psychological acceptance of difficult realities and emotions without avoidance or suppression. Chinese governance, however, is characterized by denial or minimization of inconvenient scientific facts or dissenting evidence, such as those relating to ecological crises, public protest, or international criticism.
2. Cognitive Defusion: Changing the relationship with thoughts—viewing them as just thoughts, not literal truth—is a core ACT process. The Chinese system, in contrast, seeks to fuse party ideology with reality, often conflating official dogma with “objective truth” and suppressing contradictory evidence.
3. Being Present: Mindful, nonjudgmental engagement with the present moment is central in ACT. The Chinese central planning model focuses on projections, targets, and outcomes, rarely practicing true mindfulness or transparency about current shortcomings, setbacks, or challenges.
4. Self-As-Context: ACT teaches that self is a flexible perspective, not a fixed identity or narrative. The Chinese government takes a monolithic view of state identity and purpose, suppressing alternative narratives, regional autonomy, and pluralism.
5. Values: ACT is rooted in clarifying personal values and committing to living by them. Despite lip service to sustainability and harmony, actual Chinese policy often subordinates these values to economic and political objectives, such as resource extraction and global competitiveness.
6. Committed Action: ACT demands value-driven, sustained action, even in the face of adversity. Chinese policies swing between lofty rhetoric and incrementalism, with real action frequently backsliding or compromised by economic priorities.
Deviation from the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
1. Be Proactive: Chinese governance is more reactive and risk-averse than genuinely proactive, responding to global pressures and crises—such as new climate regulations or international sanctions—rather than independently anticipating or leading progressive change.
2. Begin with the End in Mind: As outlined earlier, the lack of clear, unwavering end-goal orientation—such as a truly zero-carbon, sustainable economy—means Chinese planning is not guided by the principle of envisioning and working steadily toward a holistic, positive future state.
3. Put First Things First: Economic growth and political stability take precedence, often relegating environmental priorities to secondary status or superficial compliance.
4. Think Win-Win: Cooperative, mutually beneficial outcomes are central to this habit, yet the Chinese government’s approach in global economic, technological, and environmental arenas is often zero-sum and competitive. The pursuit of green technology and industry is partly motivated by a desire to dominate global supply chains, displace Western industries, and secure market advantage rather than achieving shared planetary goals.
5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood: This habit requires deep empathy; instead, the Chinese system is driven by top-down directives with minimal genuine dialogue or engagement with international or minority perspectives.
6. Synergize: The habit of creative cooperation is undermined by a tendency to prioritize central control, conformity, and competitive advantage, often resisting integration of outside expertise or adaptive learning.
7. Sharpen the Saw: Continuous self-renewal and reflective improvement are not evident; reforms are carried out when crises loom or legitimacy is threatened, not as part of a continuous, value-driven improvement process.
Chinese Policy Contradicts Global Ecological Mandates
With climate change and the sixth mass extinction recognized as existential planetary risks, the world urgently needs unified and mutually respectful cooperative action. Instead, China remains the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases, and although it sets highly-publicized carbon neutrality and peak targets, it continues to approve new coal plants, dominate in exporting carbon-intensive goods, and support fossil fuel projects abroad. Even as some rhetoric and planning documents invoke sustainability, actual practice is guided by material growth, employment stability, and geopolitical influence—not planetary stewardship or responsibility for global commons. Biodiversity loss in China continues along with aggressive exploitation of domestic and foreign ecosystems, undermining already fragile planetary buffers against global catastrophe.
Criticism of the Chinese “Green Economy” as Self-Serving and Hypocritical
China’s “green economy” narrative is used as a strategic tool to capture global markets, secure supply chains, and establish technological dependency, rather than being a sincere transition toward a post-carbon economy. Investment in solar, wind, and electric vehicles is vast, but the structure, incentives, and trade policy are designed to outcompete and even destabilize Western manufacturing, not raise global environmental standards. At the same time, heavy reliance on coal, rampant pollution, and inefficient factory closures show that Chinese industry remains deeply brown on its own territory. Much of its green finance goes to projects that reinforce domestic industrial incumbency, not a comprehensive rebalancing toward genuine ecological health. This duality is underscored by overseas investments—such as in the Belt and Road Initiative—that export high-emission infrastructure to the Global South, entrenching environmentally disastrous patterns globally.
Money Motivation and Lack of Consideration for the Sustainability of Foreign Economies
At its core, the Chinese system remains relentlessly driven by monetary and strategic calculations: growth at home, advantage in global supply chains, and dominance in emerging green (but not necessarily sustainable) sectors. Little to no consideration is consistently given to the ecological or economic consequences for trade partners, developing economies, or the regions that bear the burden of China’s industrial footprint. The “China First” mentality, echoed in leadership rhetoric and policy decisions, mirrors the “America First” approach of the Trump era—prioritizing national gain and political stability above all else. This approach perpetuates global fragmentation, competition, and mistrust, hindering united action against climate destabilization and biodiversity loss.
The Parallels with Trump’s “America First” Approach
Recent years have witnessed the U.S., under Donald Trump, stepping away from international agreements and embracing a transactional, self-centered policy posture—"America First"—that disrupts the rules-based world order and global sustainability coordination. This approach is strikingly similar to China’s, as both nations now prioritize short-term national economic interests over collective well-being and shared ecological responsibilities. Trump’s intensification of tariffs, disregard for collaborative climate action, and expansionist rhetoric have mirrored China’s own competitive positioning and disregard for the casualties—social, economic, and environmental—of a divided world. Both philosophies undermine the only viable path to planetary survival: trust, principled planning, and global cooperation.
Conclusion: The Necessity of True Global Cooperation
The above evidence shows that despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Chinese government consistently fails to plan “with the end in mind” regarding planetary well-being and sustainability. Its actions stand in stark opposition to the core wisdom found in frameworks such as Don Miguel’s agreements, ACT’s psychological flexibility, and the Seven Habits’ effectiveness principles. The inward-focused, economically aggressive, and often divisive practices of both Chinese leadership and, more recently, U.S. "America First" governance, have severely impeded the trust and shared vision needed to address global existential threats. Unless the world’s largest economies recalibrate toward genuine responsibility, mutual respect, and principled cooperation, the prospects for defeating climate change and the sixth mass extinction remain grim.
