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Good Governance and Positive Competition
John Feffer raises some of the questions that Chinese officials themselves raise when asked about their influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America - and China's response often is legitimate. Why, they ask, as John does, should China promote good governance, or the rule of law, in Africa, when the US has a close relationship with a nation like Equatorial Guinea?
However, I must disagree with John's point that China has no incentive to compete in a positive way with the US.
John correctly notes the US's litany of abuses, but he fails to note some of the changes in the post-Cold War era - changes that could allow China to learn from some of the US's mistakes in the past, and become a positive regional and global force. Unlike before 1989, today there are significant movements to promote good governance and political reform across Africa, for example - like NEPAD. India has already suggested it will become a major donor to NEPAD, probably to promote the idea that it supports indigenous movements for better governance. China could too - but if it does not, African leaders are far more likely to call China out for its misdeeds than they would have been in the 1980s, irregardless of the US role in Africa. In addition, unlike before 1989, the globalization of civil society means that, whatever America's abuses in the past, Chinese abuses today will come to light much more quickly, and China will face more rapid blowback than the US once did. Already, African and Chinese civil society have begun to collaborate on issues like governance and environmental destruction.
In other words, no matter what the US does, developing nations are more able, and more likely to hold China to account today than they ever were. This alone provides incentives for China.
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