By Minxin Pei
In an important sense, the Communist Party’s own populist rhetoric has fuelled the expectations of Chinese society and, ironically, de-legitimized many of Beijing’s post-1989 policies that contributed to China’s rapid economic growth, such as courting foreign businesses, reducing social spending to boost investment and forcing tens of millions of ordinary Chinese to make enormous personal sacrifices (accepting low wages and losing their land and apartments for the sake of rapid economic growth). Now the Chinese government faces a dilemma: it has raised the people’s expectations, but meeting those expectations would be economically costly (more redistribution and social welfare) and politically risky (greater popular political participation).
The delayed political awakening of China’s civil society will have profound consequences. Economically, it will make it much harder for the government to continue to pursue its post-Tiananmen strategy of promoting economic growth at all cost. Politically, it may lead to greater disunity within the elites since some of them may be tempted to exploit rising populism for personal political advantage.
For a one-party regime for which elite unity is critical, any deep schisms within its top leadership could trigger a chain of de-stabilizing events. In addition, if the Chinese authorities fail to end the current labour unrest in foreign-invested firms, disgruntlement will likely spread to workers in other sectors (most likely in construction and mining, where working conditions are dangerous and pay extremely low).
Still, while the political awakening comes as a pleasant confirmation of the theory that economic progress will bring about political change, it can’t be assumed this emerging phenomenon will fundamentally change China’s autocratic political order. As a result of the post-Tiananmen repression, China’s civil society lacks independent centres of public morality, organizational networks and effective leadership. Most activities that challenge government authority are uncoordinated, disorganized and short-lived.
But if the Party thinks that it can continue to rule China in the same old way, it would be mistaken. If anything, the on-going labour unrest and the seismic shift in values in Chinese society show that the Party is governing a different country, where the old rules no longer apply.
Minxin Pei is an Adjunct Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College
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CHARTER 08
1.. farms… age
2. Industrial age.
3. Information Age Internet Age… computer age…..
4. One computer chip Now has 2-billion transistor……. and still growing…
china has now 1-billion cell phones…. 500 million on internet..
Moore’s law: double computing power in 2-years… computing power double in 2-years….
All humans on Earth can Now publish a Newspaper/Magazine/Journals/Radio/TV show/Webpages/Blogs/Email from a $200 computers.
Computers/Internet/Blogs Allow Universal communications.. Matter of time china will free free free.
Free China at about 2015/2020
mandrewsf
I remembered that Deng Xiaoping once made a comment that China should become democratic only after its GDP per capita has reached $10,000. The current Chinese GDP per capita is only 40% of that number.
Do not forget that China is still a poor country. What China need the most right now are stability and economic growth, and China will be needing them above all else for the foreseeable future. China has always been heavily divided upon regional and urban-rural lines: it is nothing new and the CCP did not create it. Only a centralized government is capable of holding China together.
And do not presume the Chinese are fans of democracy. Their impression of Western democracy is more often than not similar to Liberum-Veto Poland. They would usually prefer a centralized state that gets the job done rather than a legislature that waste time bickering along partisan lines. Prominently, even the Tian’anmen Square protesters did not demand the overthrow of the government, but instead called for more citizen participation within the existing framework and a crackdown on widespread corruption.
Meanwhile China is becoming freer, albeit slowly. But progress is being made. Modern-day developed Asian democracies all had dark and despotic pasts. South Korea had Gwangju. Taiwan had “2.28.” And I do not even need to mention Japan’s militant past. What the West should exercise right now is patience. China is moving in the right direction. Criticizing China would only make it sensitive and provoke a backlash. The West should also keep in mind that China is inherently different culturally from the West. Even if China does become free, the result might not be something that the West will sigh at with relief.
IllinoisJoe
Won’t be easy. Chicomms won’t just roll over. Gonna cost a few million liters of blood. Of course, we have our problems with tyranny here as well. I’ll be praying for you, China.
Alex
Your name is Illinois Joe so I’m assuming you’re American. Last I checked, we’ve got the most free society of any major country, so what are you smoking that made you say we live under tyranny?
mandrewsf
Kent state and bonus marchers wasn’t that long ago. And don’t forget the governor of Illinois tried to sell Obama’s senate seat.
Alex
You could make the argument that there was a degree of tyranny here under GW Bush, what with all the wiretapping and tyrannically conquering Iraq after lying about WMDs, which resulted in 100s of thousands of deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians. But even back then, we had full freedom of press, assembly, etc. Tyranny is political structures in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Myanmar, etc. So to say that the US falls into the category of aforementioned dictatorships is naive at best and insane at worst
purple
China’s government probably over estimates their power (as does the American public, for that matter). The US treads gingerly on many China concerns because its companies want access to the China market, not because of fear of China’s innate power. If China continues to shut off its markets then we will probably see a rapid shift in the US attitude toward China. After all, Indonesia and India both offer massive untapped markets as well.
Mike
Looks like a Chinese Tea Party! Godspeed to our brothers in China, let them overthrow their Communist oppressors.
Magnus T.M.
China needs a democracy revolution to overthrow the Chincoms. They will never voluntarily release their grip on power. Tens of millions may die but it’s better die for democracy than to live under slavery!
Tibet and East Turkestan must be liberated from the control of racist Chinese control. Excessive Chinese population should be removed Tibet and East Turkestan to allow those people to keep their culture pure and teach the Chinese a lesson for their racist arrogance.