Mao Yushi, the elder statesman of the Chinese think tank Unirule Economic Research Institute (known as Tianze in Mandarin) may not hear as well as he used to, but his intellect is as sharp as ever. Mao, 80, worked as an apprentice locomotive operator and thermodynamics engineer for three decades before getting involved with mathematics and economics. In 1984, he accepted a position at the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences, the government’s premier academic research institute, and went on to serve as visiting scholar at Harvard and the University of Queensland.
In 1993, Mao established Unirule Institute of Economics along with economists Hong Sheng, Shuguang Zhang, Gang Fan and Shouning Tang. The name “unirule” comes from “universal rules that govern all fields.” Unirule is dedicated to conducting high-quality research focusing on its founding principle; economic liberalism. It has remained open, transparent, and autonomous in its operations and has become the most well-known and respected independent economic think tank in China, despite attempts by the government to suppress its work.
According to the US Chamber of Commerce, In November 2004 the International Business Review named Mao one of China’s ten most influential economists. That same month, the CCP Propaganda Department named him one of six blacklisted intellectuals, which meant his work would not be reported by the official media. In response, Unirule bravely developed new online content to reach more Chinese audiences. Like many independent Chinese think tanks, Unirule has had trouble operating due to changing rules and red tape for non-profits, hence it has had to change its approaches and methods of incorporation to keep up with the law.
Mao’s more recent work promoting market-based solutions to food shortages has made Unirule the Politburo’s bête noire once again. On July 5, News China, the English edition of China Newsweek (no connection to America’s news magazine) ran an article, featuring Mao, on the difficulty non-governmental think tanks have operating in an environment intolerant to dissent. On July 21, Jude Blanchette, my colleague in Beijing, reported on a human rights group who has been shut down for “tax and licensing” issues. This is not uncommon. The murky definition of non-governmental organization allows the CCP to arbitrarily close up policy shops and advocacy groups. Because Unirule often offers an alternative to government policy and promotes freer markets, private Chinese enterprises limit their contributions out of fear of political retribution. This is why Unirule and free market think tanks in other hostile regions strongly rely on support from Atlas.
Atlas awarded Unirule with a 2008 Templeton Freedom Award for the category Free Market Solutions to Poverty.
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Nice post Luke!! It really seems like folks in the West don’t recognize, let alone appreciate, the free-market activities of other nations and political structures until it’s big news to their big surprise (hello Berlin Wall?). People like Mao Yushi ought to receive more press where freedom and liberty is abundant, as well as in developing freedom markets like China. I hope Atlas keeps tabs and lets us all know how he’s doing in China!