Ely Ratner's Blog

Why Philip Pan's Book Really Matters

2008-08-22T14:40:30Z

Out of Mao's Shadow is a must read. Not for Human Rights Watchers and Congressional hawks who make a career out of hectoring China. But instead for those of us who have lived, worked, and studied in the Middle Kingdom, and have come away from that experience with a far more complicated relationship with the place.

Here's the rub: it's hard not to get the sense sometimes that a huge portion of the Chinese population tacitly accepts the current mode of governance. How else can you explain the recent Pew Global Attitudes Poll that indicated that more than eight-in-ten Chinese are satisfied with their country's overall direction? It would be a grave mistake to simply explain this away as a result of a veil of ignorance blanketing the Chinese people; Philip's book could easily have been a profile of ten ordinary Chinese whose lives, and those of their families, have improved enormously over the past thirty years--through honest means, hard work, and ingenuity.

]]> Americans like to point out that there are still many Chinese who long for life in the United States, some even risking death to achieve it. But there are two points worth noting here.

First, this is increasingly less true. Many high school students still dream of attending Princeton, but mostly because it will provide them with the best possible job upon their return to China, not because they view it as a gateway to life in the United States. More and more top students are also choosing to stay home and attend college in China, seeking the relationships and in-country experience necessary to succeed.

Second, it is important to be clear about what many Chinese are talking about when they say they want to live like Americans. Without a doubt, most would prefer a freer press and more formalized legal system. But the United States--first and foremost--represents wealth and economic opportunity; three-car garages, not the right to organize unions and stage protests. Furthermore, there are unseemly aspects of American society that scare the heck out of most Chinese.

Consider the tradeoff between order/stability and freedom/liberty. As compared to China, the problems of violent crime and drug abuse in America are astronomical. Last night I had dinner with a handful of first-year students at Wharton business school in Philadelphia. They were lamenting about the fact that it was unsafe to ride the subway after 6pm; about how--even during the day--there were areas only blocks from their apartments where it would be dangerous to set foot. They debated about the difference between pepper spray and mace, wondering if either were available for purchase online.

Contrast that with the fact that anyone, of any age or sex, at any time of day, can safely walk through any neighborhood of Beijing. Ask yourself what is more important: the right to cast a ballot every four years for your president or the right to walk down the street without fear of being violently assaulted? If you chose the former, you can rest assured that there are many people in parts of Philadelphia and Los Angeles--not to mention the favelas in Rio de Janeiro or the shantytowns of Johannesburg--who might disagree with you.

In the eyes of many Chinese, individualism has its limits. In the wake of the remarkable countrywide mobilization that occurred after the Wenchuan earthquake, Chinese commentators were quick to contrast China's collectivist response with the almost Darwinian turn-a-blind-eye reaction of Americans to Hurricane Katrina. For many, it was the best of Chinese collectivism versus the worst of American individualism.

But at the end of the day, I think Philip's book is most important because it brings us back to the individuals, and reminds us that for all the collective success of modern China, we cannot be dulled into shrugging our shoulders at injustice. It is vitally important that we more deeply understand non-Western values that place 'society' above 'the individual.' But that does not mean we should accept them. In fact, in my opinion we should not.

I am encouraging my friends in China to read this book, as a reminder that no matter how high China's annual GDP growth, no matter how resilient the Community Party's rule, the stories of those fighting for freedom are always worth telling.

When Good Democracies Go Bad

2008-08-20T14:44:00Z

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.

When Good Democracy Goes Bad

2008-08-20T01:30:44Z

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 an inevitable transition towards democracy. Many policymakers in

Keeping a Balanced Eye on China's Rise

2007-06-29T11:54:20Z

It’s Friday night in Beijing and I’ve just returned from a stroll through Tiananmen Square. I thought I’d take a few moments to reflect on what things look like from this side of the Pacific.

Principally, I’d like to echo Naazneen’s comments that China could be a force for good in the world, and caution against analyses that dismiss this possibility outright.

]]> I will begin by noting that the vast majority of Chinese graduate students I have spoken with are extremely proud of their country; many of them have come from poor areas, are the first in their family to attend university, and are living the ‘Chinese Dream.’ These kids are not the products of corruption. Looking out my window now I can see otherwise empty classrooms jam-packed with studying students, at 10:30pm on a Friday night.

Young professionals here will tell you that the apartment they live in now is twice the size of the one their family of ten lived in when they were growing up. Meanwhile, life in China is increasingly free to a degree that would astonish most Americans. Of course there are losers in this society, and grave injustices that ought to be corrected, but it is simply wrong, in my opinion, to think of the ruling regime as insatiably predatory, or the population as totally victimized.

The same could be said for international politics. Say what you will, but China is offering a different set of norms in which they are privileging development and cooperation over domestic interference and political reform. We can argue back and forth (as we have) about whether or not this represents a “model of governance,” but there is absolutely no debate as to whether or not the Chinese are bringing a distinct set of cultural values to the table.

The American reaction to this alternative approach has generally been one of extreme suspicion. And though a healthy dose of skepticism is never a bad thing, foreign policymaking in the United States does not benefit from the notion that the ruling regime in China in demonically controlling an either unwilling or naïve population, or that it is only out for itself in the world, leaving a wake of destruction in its path.

Building on Naazneen’s last post, it is worth imagining for a moment how our policies would change if we believed that most of what we heard from Beijing regarding their policies in Africa and elsewhere was more or less genuine, rather than, as Rachel suggests, a smokescreen blasted out by a “an unfair, unaccountable, cronyist system” that is peddling international “projects that allow for grand corruption of the elites, and further solidify the gap between poor and rich.”

Should the United States make a genuine effort to up the ‘soft power’ ante, it ought to do so with a degree of respect and understanding, rather than unwavering disdain and distrust, for its rising neighbor. And this, of course, is an excellent reason to read Josh’s book.

We ought to be paying a great deal of attention to what China is doing well on the international stage. And though none of that will likely occur in the realm of political rights, they may very well be having a positive influence in parts of the world that have languished due to a lack of international concern. Perceiving the Chinese as nothing more than a wrecking ball will not make for good American foreign policy.

When China's Charm Wears Off

2007-06-27T05:36:02Z

Several of the preceding posts have made the important point that, rather that being wooed by China’s ‘charm’, a number of countries in the developing world will begin, if they have not already begun, to backlash against China’s foreign policies. The argument goes that as China becomes increasingly entangled overseas, it will use its growing power to push, prod, and coerce foreign governments. And to the extent that those governments are relatively oppressive and their people deprived, affected populations will blowback against the Chinese.

It is worth thinking a little further about the consequences of an erosion of China’s ‘soft power’.

]]> Let me make the simple point that international intervention can take on a number of faces. To date, China’s policy of noninterference is largely a reaction to the very particular brand of liberal internationalism that the United States has advocated for decades, which posits that states have the right and responsibility to protect the political and economic freedoms of individuals around the world. Given the combination of China’s natural resource needs, its own domestic authoritarianism, and the singular importance of its claims to Taiwan and Tibet, it is extremely unlikely that it will begin to brandish this form of internationalism any time soon.

That being said, this does not mean that China will not become an interventionist state. In fact, it may very well use its power and influence to affect domestic political environments, but it will do so in a way that privileges the state, emboldens incumbent regimes, and favors stability over freedom. The end result will be to solidify even widely unpopular regimes. US relationships with friendly governments in the Muslim world give a flavor of what this type of intervention would look like: A combination of economic and security assistance that perpetuates grossly illiberal regimes.

So yes, China’s rise may very well lead towards increasing interference in the affairs of other states, and that interference may lead to the deterioration of public attitudes towards China. But, given the statist nature of that intervention, growing unpopularity may not affect China’s ability to achieve its foreign policy goals. Dan cites a “rebel-turned-pastor” who was dispirited by China’s influence and behavior in the Sudan, but you’d be hard pressed to find similar complaints from the halls of Khartoum.

An important question of course is if, when, and how China will begin to face the long-term consequences of supporting authoritarian regimes, including terrorism and the occasional Iranian-style blowback. In the short-term, however, a precipitous drop in China’s ‘soft power’, particularly in non-democratic countries, may do little to alter the exigencies of domestic and international politics that are supporting China’s foreign policies in Africa and elsewhere.

A World Without the West

2007-06-25T19:40:42Z

As evidenced by the discussion so far, perhaps the most pressing question in contemporary international politics is how the rise of China will affect the current US-led international order. Both political science theory and traditional American foreign policy thought offer the same two alternatives: China can either assimilate to the liberal international system, as exemplified by Robert Zoellick’s notion of being a “responsible stakeholder”, or it can "balance" against the United States, by challenging and seeking to overthrow the prevailing norms and institutions embedded in the Bretton Woods architecture. This is a strongly held, but deeply misleading, dichotomy.

]]> As part of an ongoing research project at the University of California, Berkeley, Naazneen Barma (a current TPM contributor), Professor Steven Weber, and I argue in the upcoming edition of The National Interest that, instead of assimilating to or challenging the current US-led order, China is “routing around” the West. The result is what Josh referred to at the end of his first post as a "worst case scenario", in which developing countries are gravitating towards China and away from the United States. Far from being an improbable prediction, this world is already very much upon us.

By preferentially deepening their own ties amongst themselves, and in so doing, loosening relatively the ties that bind them to international systems centered in the West, rising powers in the developing world are building an alternative system of international politics whose endpoint is neither conflict nor assimilation with the West. It is to make the West, and American power in particular, increasingly irrelevant.

What is emerging is a “World Without the West.” This world, led by China, rests on a rapid deepening of interconnectivity within the developing world—in flows of goods, money, people and ideas—that is surprisingly autonomous from Western control, resulting in the development of a new, parallel international system, with its own distinctive set of rules, institutions, and currencies of power.

There is both political and economic evidence for this phenomenon. Though global trade has been increasing as a whole, the twenty largest and wealthiest countries in the developing world are, as a group, preferentially trading with China and the other rising powers that lead the pack—India, Russia and Brazil. And the rate at which they are doing so is rising every year. The critical fact here is that this deepening of interconnectivity in the World Without the West is well in excess of what standard economic models of trade (the gravity model) would predict.

Underlying this phenomenon is also a simple neo-Westphalian bargain: Sovereign states are empowered to set the terms of the relationship inside their borders between the government and the governed. They then deal with each other externally in a market setting and recognize no real rights or obligations other than to fulfill agreed contracts. International institutions have no legitimate business other than to serve and facilitate these ends.

The challenge then for American foreign policymakers is to attract developing countries to participate in the US-led system. This will require some very creative thinking, well beyond notions of simply restrengthening existing multilateral institutions or forming a Concert of Democracies. Though such policies would be pleasing normatively, they will do little to stop the pace at which countries in the developing world are opting out of the liberal democratic order as defined by the United States.