When Good Democracies Go Bad
Philip Pan's book is an excellent reminder that history is not a simple process of nations snowballing from authoritarianism to democracy. And furthermore, that it is dangerous to consider modern authoritarian regimes as temporary phenomena merely stalled in the inevitable transition towards democracy. Many policymakers in Washington remain afflicted with this notion, having come of age during the Cold War and America's victory in it. If Pan's book helps to debunk the closely guarded myth that economic development invariably leads to political liberalization, it will have already made a vital contribution to the debate about China's future.
But Out of Mao's Shadow also highlights, albeit indirectly, another important insight regarding the prospects for democratization in China: namely, that mass, populist movements can also be impediments to the expansion and expression of individual liberty. Rather than ending in stable, full-blown democracies, democratic transitions are often seized and reversed by political entrepreneurs who fill the societal vacuums that exist under dictatorship. This point is reinforced by Orville Schell's insightful comments regarding the underdetermined goals of Chinese development.
Recall that the Iranian Revolution, as well as the rise of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, all began as nominal efforts towards reformist, democratic governance.
This is what worries me about talk of 'democratization' in China. Putting the horrors of the 20th century aside, modern China is ripe for political entrepreneurship. Social and religious associations are few and far between. And the combination of the One-Child Policy with the dislocations (both positive and negative) of rapid economic growth has strained the backbone of Chinese society: the family. What is left is a population hungering for identity.
Events this year displayed this with great clarity. The Wenchuan earthquake in May produced an outpouring of generosity. But it also showed a darker side of Chinese nationalism. As the country rallied to support the victims in Sichuan province, it was hard not to also feel a sense of militarism. Students and workers alike were often pressured to donate money to the relief efforts, and those whose donations were deemed insufficient were criticized publicly.
French protests of the Olympic torch relay also fueled powerful nationalist sentiments. Travel to Paris (previously the top European destination for Chinese travelers) dropped significantly, and local Carrefour supermarkets were boycotted.
Having been in Beijing for the first week of the Olympics, I can safely say that these games are nothing short of an euphoric celebration of Chinese nationalism; a nationalism that in the wrong hands could be exploited for any number of unseemly ends.
This is all to say that the courageous individuals portrayed in Philip Pan's excellent book may very well lead China towards a consolidated, constitutional democracy. But when we hypothesize about the unraveling of the Communist Party and the democratization of China, we ought to be cognizant that the potential for wrong turns and u-turns out of autocracy are just as likely in modern-day China.
There are certainly arguments for democracy as for free enterprise and free trade. One argument which is not convincing is that any of these by iself or in combination with the others will necessarily result in a country being more humane or less apt to agress on its neighbors.
Starting with Democracy ,does anything we know about human nature give us confidence the groups can be relied upon to behave better than individuals? Think of lynch mobs.
Arguably Bismark's ouster set the Kaiser's Germany on its way towards WW1, enthusiastically supported by the parliament including the Socialist opposition.
As for free trade ,as Krugmann reminded us this week , Keynes memorably recalled the benefits of the free trade regime in 1912 Europe which prompted Norman Angel to declare an end to European Wars.Yet another premature End Of History.
August 20, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why does China have to be democratized? Every foreign group that has ever invaded China has become Chinese, rather than the Chinese becoming more like the foreign invaders. Even the communism practiced by the Chinese has become uniquely Chinese. I really wonder about this constant agitation for other governments to become more like us. They will become what they become and it's none of our business how the Chinese determine their future.
August 20, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . it's none of our business . . . .
Or we could say that enablers of despotism have a moral duty to notice the results of their actions (assisting the Chinese CP in retaining political power by promoting China's export trade) and when deemed harmful to the victim (the Chinese people), to adjust their policies, appropriately.
August 20, 2008 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
We could say that if we were at an Al-Anon meeting with the Chinese, but unfortunately they will not go.
August 21, 2008 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nah; in my metaphor we're still at home and just take away the keys to the car.
August 21, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Robert Reich argues in his book 'Supercapitalism' that "capitalism is a precondition for democracy. Democracy requires private centers of economic power independent of a central authority; otherwise, people can't dissent from official orthodoxy and also feed their families. Yet democracy may not be essential to capitalism (Southeast Asia, China.)"
And I have to agree with BevD. One size may fit all but it never fits any one very well. Of course the Queen of Flapdoodle, Ms Rice, not long ago told the world that all of it really wanted to be America - which would seem to include China - so what do we know.
August 20, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
The way that the United States has treated Russia after the Cold war set a bad precedent for the Chinese. The Russians introduced democracy in their country, but the Americans still regraded them as a Cold War adversary and expanded NATO. But with the Chinese, the Americans still grant the most favored nation status and barley entered a peep after the crackdown in Tibet. However with the Russian action Georgia, the Americans acted hysterically even though the Georgians started the war. So the message to the Chinese people from Washington is that if you democratize like Russia you face national humiliation.
August 20, 2008 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think everyone watching the Olympics has been impressed by China's acumen in running the Games and then in harvesting a very impressive number of medals... especially gold medals.
One thing that has been abundantly evident is how important it has been to the Chinese to show themselves to advantage at these Games and to be real contenders, not to say winners, in the medal sweepstakes. It is hard, for instance, to imagine that the British will care as much, or go to such extremes, for the London games in four years time. We'll see.
The point is, that China feels that it has had a deficit of global respect for too long, and has been very diligently been building a new edifice to gain back that respect, the absence of which has deeply troubled its leaders and filled its people with a sense that their proper place in the world has not only eluded them, but perhaps been denied them by the more developed countries.
And now, can they say - to borrow some immortal words - "Mission accomplished!"?
Well, not quite. While what has been accomplished is great and worthy of much esteem, it seems to me that there is still at least one very significant piece missing in China's efforts to gain real "great power" status. That is to match the economic, military power with a certain "moral force" which can only come from a country that seeks to be exemplary in all ways that make human beings more human. Such a menu of concerns, must include a certain respect for truthfulness, tolerance of others and the rights of their people to disagree with their government.
I fear that Chinese leaders and China's people will continue to feel a certain gnawing shortcoming - a sense that they inexplicably somehow still fall short in the quest for full global respect, until they begin to see that soon they must begin to address this crucial, but elusive, question. And, to address that question, the Government and its people must be able to freely look back and come to terms with their history: with the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, 1989, Tibet, and other very sensitive issues.
I say this about China, I in no way wishing to relieve myself of the burden of leveling the same critique and bearing the same burden for our own country's failures, especially of late. Of late, true "greatness" for America has also been an elusive quest.
So in this sense, both the US and China now find themselves confronting a common challenge: The restoration for both of our countries of an incompleteness in our quests for global trust and respect. That quest, must involve taking on directly the areas of moral failure so evident in each.
If many of those same viewers who have been impressed by China's successes in Beijing are also finding yourselves also feeling a certain disease at the idea of a stronger and more prideful China, that is understandable. For strength unalloyed by checks and balances and a certain capacity to remain reflective about the rightness and wrongness of any action, can be unnerving... As many Americans well-know.
So, one hopes China will derive a new measure of respect and self-confidence from these quite astounding Games, the better to temper itself and enable its people and government to feel strong enough to look at China, its own past and themselves more honestly and critically. That is an inescapable hallmark of true greatness.
This is not an easy thing for any country to do, as we Americans know all too well.
Orville Schell
August 21, 2008 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
An anecdote. Make of it what you will.
A friend was the son of the last Nationalist Chinese Ambassador to the UN. In his later years
the Ambassador campaigned effectively for Mao's China to be admitted to the UN-not out of approval of its policies but from patriotism, a belief that the Chinese nation deserved that , no matter what its current policies.
The Communist regime appreciated that and when the Ambassador died- in the 1970s- David was invited by the government to accompany his father's body to China where they wished to bury it with appropriate honors.
When he returned he showed some slides of his trip. One of the palatial house in which his aunt used to live.
And still lived.
Now in one room of the enormous building in which the other rooms housed whole families. She herself was a magistrate and did have one whole room to herself.
He also showed a slide of the river that forms Shanghai's port .(Yangstee ?) And remarked that in his youth when he walked along that bank in the morning there would always be dead bodies which had floated down of those who had starved to death inland .
August 22, 2008 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink