"I just came back from America."

In an office of the Academy of Social Sciences, Professor Gao Lei said to the two foreign journalists in front of him.

The 60-year-old Gao Lei is strong in spirit, well-dressed, and the oily hair is mixed with some silver wire, but it is showing a pie of academic elite.

In the mid-1980s, Gao Lei was famous for putting forward the theory of international cooperation, and later this theory was unanimously questioned by academia and the business community, that the complete grafting of the economy of a large country with more than a billion people in the world economic chain is not only not conducive to the country's economic security, but also the world economy cannot bear it.Later, some central leaders criticized this theory in internal conversations, and Gao Lei fell into a period of nearly ten years of silence.

During this period, Gao Lei's position in the Academy of Social Sciences was not affected, and his academic research and international exchanges were still able to proceed smoothly.In view of the difficulty of finding a voice in the country, Gao Lei began to seek to publish opinions in international journals and international conferences, and gradually received attention, achieving the effect of "flowering wall outside the wall".

By the late 1990s, Gao Lei had made a great name in the international academic community, and various foreign institutions awarded him a series of titles, such as what was "the most influential economist in the developing country of the 20th century", "the 100-person nomination of the development economics", "the University of Chicago's annual top 10 thinkers", "Crydon University tenure honorary professor" and so on.

The title is there, and research funding comes with it.Several academic foundations in Europe and the United States rushed to provide him with research funds to help him carry out academic research in China.When other scholars are struggling to make the domestic social science fund poor, the dollars on Gao Lei's account have reached the point where they can't spend it.

In Chinese academic institutions, titles and funds are hard currency, especially if the title you get is still granted abroad, which is much higher than what the domestic honor is.Many research institutions hope that Gao Lei can go to them and hang up their names so that they can claim what level of scholars they have in their institutions.Dozens of domestic colleges and universities to Gao Lei issued a letter of appointment, hired him as a visiting professor, only need to go to a lecture every year, you can get tens of thousands of kilometers of visiting professor allowance.

Gao Lei's doctoral degree has also become a fragrant, because the doctor who reads Gao Lei can get a high subsidy from the funds of his subject, and can have the opportunity to go abroad to participate in academic conferences, and the tickets are all sponsored by foreign foundations.Attend more academic conferences, you can get to know foreign academic coffee, then want to apply to go abroad to do a visiting scholar or postdoctoral fellow, it will be more easy.

All in all, today's high reai is far from comparable to yesterday.20 years ago, although Gao Lei was also regarded as a person in China, he could not get out of a breath of earth, and he had to be careful to talk and do things to avoid being contrary to national policies.Today, Gao Lei has been reborn in Nirvana, evolved into an international scholar, open his mouth is a universal value of neoliberalism, everything in China is slag, need to be treacherous...

“I attended the annual conference on New Institutional Economics hosted by the University of California in the United States and presented my latest research.I believe that the main reason for China's economic backwardness is the system, although China has put forward the slogan of building a market economy more than more than a decade ago, but today, our country's system is still a regulatory economic system, the government plays an important role in the economy, restraining economic development.Many government officials, including some highly located, mistakenly believe that technology can determine everything, and ignore that institutions are the basic conditions for technological development and innovation.”

Gao Lei spoke fluent English and spoke to two European journalists.

"Professor Gao, you said that China's system is still a regulatory economic system, can you give us a few more recent examples?"A reporter named Constance asked.

“There are many examples of this.”Gao Lei said, “This is the product of a down-to-earth plan for a planned economy, in terms of the first set of major equipment promotion policies recently launched by the China Development and Reform Commission.”

“We’ve also heard about the policy, but we don’t know the details of the policy.Professor Gao, have you personally participated in the formulation of this policy?”Another reporter named Bernstein asked.

Gao Lei said: "I am not directly involved in the formulation of this policy, because I have been negative about such a policy from the beginning.In order to show that the decision-making democracy, the national financial insurance company sent someone to ask my opinion, I put forward ten questions, that this policy is completely contrary to the principles of the market economy, but also contrary to China's commitment to join the WTO agreement, such a policy once introduced, will make China's reform and opening up back more than ten years, and the results of China's accession to the WTO to nothing.

Can we not exaggerate so much?The two reporters can't stand it, and the alarm is clear that our reporter's family watch is good, you talk like this, it is a good thing.

Constance and Bernstein were an ordinary interview in nominal terms through a European foundation, but in fact they wanted Gao Lei to criticize the first set of policies so that the European media could use the Chinese people's own views to question the Chinese government's policies, so as to achieve the effect of exerting pressure on the Chinese government.Regarding the purpose of this interview, the Foundation has clearly said when it is in contact with Gao Lei, and now Gao Lei's question and answer with reporters is to a certain extent in accordance with the script.

Gao Lei claims to be a "public intellectual" and a so-called "independent scholar" in countless academic occasions, and his academic views will not be influenced by the government.This label has made him widely praised in the emerging Internet world, and countless Internet users with the word "citizen" as his face become his fans, and if he sends a blog, he can win hundreds of thousands of clicks and thousands of retweets.

But since his family knows his own affairs, Gao Lei is very clear that his "independence" is only relative to the Chinese government, for foreign gold owners, he absolutely dare not be independent, but must follow the instructions of the gold master to speak and do things, otherwise people can give him everything, but also can take back everything.

The thinking of scholars around the International Foundation is not, of course, the method of executive order, but cleverly giving a certain hint when the fund is applied.For example, if your academic opinion is that the sun is round, then the foundation will shut you out, and conversely, if you think the sun is square, you can easily win the favor of the foundation.With money, you can collect disciples, participate in various academic seminars, and repeat the idea that the sun is square.

When more and more people in academic circles say that the sun is square, then the "Yen cherries" will be ridiculed as outdated, and excellent students will not fall under his door.The "Japanese faction" will flourish until the scholars themselves believe that the sun is indeed square, and what their eyes see is just an illusion.

Gao Lei's undergraduate and graduate education was completed in China, and in the early 1980s, he studied very orthodox Soviet political economy, so he initially believed in planned economic theory.He put forward the theory of international cooperation, and did not deviate from the thinking mode of the planned economy, emphasizing that the state-guided industry and international integration, the formation of international cooperation chain, in this process, the role of the government is very important, this point Gao Lei did not deny.

After criticism of his theory, Gao Lei tried to turn to Western doctrine.This comes at a time when the Western economic community has put forward the slogan of "return to Smith", that is, to return to the completely free market economy model advocated by Adam Smith, and to reject all government intervention.Gao Lei wrote some articles in this regard, which was well received by Western scholars.In this case, he was out of control and devoted himself to the study of neoliberal theory.Of course, it is research, in fact, it is mainly to pick up the teeth of Western scholars, and then combine some Chinese things to play.

Western scholars do not understand the things of developing countries, so articles studying developing countries are often easily concerned.You said in the article that only 300,000 people in China can afford to drink Coke, and Westerners feel that they have finally found a scholar with a conscience who actually revealed such a truth, if it is not revealed by him, everyone thinks that Chinese people can really eat enough.

Gao Lei became famous by writing such articles, gained benefits, and slowly regarded the articles he wrote as true, and played tricks on various occasions.Some of his speeches are recorded and published on the Internet, and every time they are titled "Somebody Has the Truth", "You Must Know the Chinese Secret", "It's Chinese to Turn", and his status as a professor can always make some people believe it.

Some scholars have carefully studied the secret of Gao Lei's success and found that as long as they dare to talk nonsense, they can make a name for themselves in today's world, so they have followed suit, one more evil than the other.Gao Lei sometimes looked at the articles published by these scholars, and when he found that the opinions of other scholars were also consistent with him, he believed that what he said was true.

This is called Zhuang Zhou dream butterfly, dream to dream, he has no idea whether he is a Zhou, or a butterfly.

Just now, Gao Lei told two Western journalists that the introduction of the first set of policies is a huge setback to reform, and he really did not deliberately exaggerate, but he thought so in his heart.Over the years, he has been accustomed to “seeing” signs of reform regression from any trace, and each time it must be a huge setback, and a little careless will collapse.He wrote many articles predicting the coming crisis, and while it failed to be fulfilled every time, it did not prevent countless people from calling him “the most sober economist.”

This is a wonderful time, there are too many fools, liars are not enough.