Chinese Democracy
Daniel Strauss asked via twitter what I think of this idea from Sidney Rittenburg:
If you had a second party alternative in China now, I think it would be an anti-foreign party. What else could you see as a platform to challenge the Communist Party, but to oppose the foreigners who are “buying up Chinese resources”?… There has to be a period of generally unfolding democracy. Not bang, all at once. And I think that will happen. I think it’s happening much too slowly.
I think it’s hard to know how exactly to evaluate that claim without specifying the counterfactual in more detail. What I do think is true is that people are sorely mistaken if they think a more democratic China would also be a China that’s less inclined to challenge US hegemony. The present Chinese leadership is almost entirely focused on economic growth and full employment as a way to stay in office. Some alternative version of Chinese politics would have more time for other projects.
Mansfield & Snyder argue persuasively in Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War that countries experiencing a transition to democracy are unusually likely to start wars. Basically it’s a good way for leaders in emerging democracies to corral public support.
20 Responses to “Chinese Democracy”
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October 12th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
“What I do think is true is that people are sorely mistaken if they think a more democratic China would also be a China that’s less inclined to challenge US hegemony.”
I think they should already learned this in the Cold War – just change “China” to Guatemala/Chile/South Vietnam/Italy/Iran/India or any number of other countries that I’ve forgotten. We had it pretty clearly demonstrated that just because the US is democratic that pro-democracy automatically equals pro-America.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
There is not a single democracy in the world.
Switzerland probably comes closest, and it has (thankfully) no leaders, nor does it start any wars.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
“Mansfield & Snyder argue persuasively in Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War that countries experiencing a transition to democracy are unusually likely to start wars. Basically it’s a good way for leaders in emerging democracies to corral public support.”
Interesting. I wonder what our excuse is?
October 12th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
On the other hand, historically, before communism arose in China, the US and China had pretty friendly relations (US opposition to Spheres of Influence pursued by British/Germans/Japanese/Russians etc, partial rebate of Boxer Rebellion indemnity to Tsinghua U, opposition to Japanese expansionism), the U.S. continues to have good relations with the remnant of the Republic of China (which has become democratic), and within the “communist world,” the U.S. had friendlier relations with China (since 1972) than with most other countries like the USSR. (Sadly, this meant partially aligning ourselves with a group of tyrants (Mao, the Khmer Rouge, Ceausescu) who were generally even more vicious than their counterparts in the Soviet block like Brezhnev.)
If the US scaled back its foreign commitments a bit, and acted a bit more like it did in the late 19th/early 20th century with respect to foreign policy, maybe anti-Americanism wouldn’t have much populist appeal (in China or elsewhere).
October 12th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
“On the other hand, historically, before communism arose in China, the US and China had pretty friendly relations (US opposition to Spheres of Influence pursued by British/Germans/Japanese/Russians etc, partial rebate of Boxer Rebellion indemnity to Tsinghua U, opposition to Japanese expansionism),”
I don’t know if Chiang and various individual Americans being close allies translates very well to China and the US being friendly. After all, hundreds of millions of Chinese fought to get rid of Chiang. It’s not that different from claiming that because Yeltsin and Clinton were reasonably close that Russia and the US are likely to be friendly.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
[...] are informed writers out there who are kind enough to answer my humble questions. Here’s Matthew Yglesias filling a hole in my knowledge. Posted by Daniel Filed in China, The New Yorker, blogs Leave a Comment [...]
October 12th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
countries experiencing a transition to democracy are unusually likely to start wars. Basically it’s a good way for leaders in emerging democracies to corral public support.
This works almost as well (at least for a while) for countries that have been democratic for a long time, if the leader is sufficiently ruthless, and sufficiently in need of a diversion from domestic unpopularity/failures, and sufficiently able to control the media so that it doesn’t expose his dog-wagging ways. Ruthlessness and failure are pretty common among politicians but it’s the last factor that is unusual — in a stable democracy a politician wouldn’t normally be able to get away with this strategy so they’re usually smart enough not to try it. Emerging democracies often have state-controlled medias, but a corporate state works just as well if you have enough of the media corporations on your side.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I think that the Communist Party already has a pretty good handle on being “anti-foreigner’ when it suits their purposes.
If there was to be a second party in the PRC, my money would be on a GREEN party – but I’m not sure how visible something like that would be on someone like Rittenburg’s radar
October 12th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I don’t know if Chiang and various individual Americans being close allies translates very well to China and the US being friendly.
It was more than just individuals – China was an official ally during WWII and was considered one of the “Big Four”
October 12th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Re: China was an official ally during WWII and was considered one of the “Big Four”
Well, for that matter, so was Stalinist Russia.
Chiang would have allied with anyone who was willing to help him stay in power.
October 12th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
I think that China would have a populist second party for a couple of reasons. First, the populist party would be able to claim that it was seeking to reaffirm Mao’s vision, which could fit into the framework of communism.
October 12th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
China’s essentially testing a hypothesis that an authoritarian state can remain in power indefinitely by buying the support of its subjects, and the outcome of this experiment will have worldwide ramifications.
In the best case scenario, China endures until Peak Everything and proves the ‘bread and circuses’ theory of government, in which case governments worldwide will realize they can do as they please to troublesome groups as long as the majority are too comfortable to challenge the authorities.
In the worst case scenario, China collapses and proves that prosperity gives people the luxury of thinking about pesky things like freedom and human rights, and therefore a ruling class that wants to last must never under any circumstances allow its subjects to become prosperous.
October 12th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Re: China was an official ally during WWII and was considered one of the “Big Four”
Well, for that matter, so was Stalinist Russia.
Chiang would have allied with anyone who was willing to help him stay in power.
Jeeze, what is it with you guys. The point was made that because there was some close ties among individuals that that didn’t necessarily translate into anything else. The fact of the matter, though, is that from 1937 when we started giving aid to Chaing against the Japanese, and especially throughout WWII – and after – the US and the Republic of China were friends and allies at the STATE (i.e. national government) level.
Now do wish to state something that refutes that point, Hector? Do you have something to add to burritoboy’s point that “I don’t know if Chiang and various individual Americans being close allies translates very well to China and the US being friendly” – or do you just want to pontificate on tangentials and muck up this conversation too?
October 12th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
This is misleading. The current extreme nationalism in China is largely based on prophaganda by the current communist party. If you start a just election “democracy” right now, that might lead to a big right of the communist nationalist party, but a true democracy without oppression system would certainly lead to less nationalism.
October 12th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
This is misleading. The current extreme nationalism in China is largely based on prophaganda by the current communist party. If you start a just election “democracy” right now, that might lead to a big right of the communist nationalist party, but a true democracy without oppression system would certainly lead to less nationalism.
What kind of shit are you smoking, Urgs?
The US is proudly the most nationalist country on the planet.
October 12th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
MY “What I do think is true is that people are sorely mistaken if they think a more democratic China would also be a China that’s less inclined to challenge US hegemony.”
Totally agree.
MY “The present Chinese leadership is almost entirely focused on economic growth and full employment as a way to stay in office”
Personally, Matt, I think economic growth and full employment are just the necessary -major- subset of the true goal of China and its leaders, greatness. Not greatness in the traditional sense of “great” nation-states -territorial acquisitions or military hegemony or having the power and the compulsion to strut your stuff on the international stage. I don’t think a future China will pursue a policy where they actively seek to bully other nations around economically, or otherwise -certainly there will be some of that as an aftereffect of their enormous size and raw material needs, but it won’t be policy. I truly believe that China, if allowed, will tread as lightly as a Nation of their size, stature, and wealth can possibly tread.
They are after something else, the Chinese, less tangible to us, born out of the knowledge that over last 3,000 years of world history there were many stages along the the way where their land contained the most advanced people on earth. And despite the incredible brutally and devastation it wrought, Mao and the Revolution for the first time truly unified China and its people, and Communism brought the novel idea that theoretically, at least, all citizens are equal, and the highest purpose of being a citizen is to think, almost exclusively, in terms of a greater national purpose. This concept has been burned into the DNA of China and citizens, and will remain, I suspect, for generations, if not longer. What a wellspring of power for nation to draw on, eh? Going forward?
Sometime go around the web and find pictures of 30 major Chinese skylines and compare and contrast them with pictures of 30 US skylines. I did. It blew me away. China’s major focus is on building, building the greatest nation in history. They know it may take decades, and there will be many missteps, but that is their major focus, and not just the focus of the tight oligarchy that currently leads China, but of all of China and its citizens. Sadly, I don’t think we in America can fully grasp this fairly unique notion of national greatness. It is simply too alien a concept -to us, to our way of thinking.
October 12th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
“Re: China was an official ally during WWII and was considered one of the “Big Four”
Well, for that matter, so was Stalinist Russia.
Chiang would have allied with anyone who was willing to help him stay in power.”
Well, I think it does matter that Chiang lost the civil war and was driven out of the country. At minimum, that shows that the KMT’s alliance with the Americans wasn’t enough of a positive factor (assuming that it even was a positive factor at all) to prevent China from giving the KMT the boot. That the succeeding government was quite strongly anti-American (much more so than many other Communist nations – even Stalin didn’t send Russian ground troops to fight Americans as Mao did) would tend to indicate that the Chinese – American alliance wasn’t something everyone in China naturally prizes.
The American policy in China wasn’t a monolith either. And I would support my statement about how limited the support for China was in America by the following example – once the San Francisco Republicans (one of the main pillars of the Republican party nationally) who dominated the China trade faded in political and economic importance in the 1950s, there was much less support for China (besides that China was then being run by Mao, of course). The “who lost China?” debate by then had done the work Bob Taft needed it to do (emasculate the unions and create a new image for the Republican party), anyway.
October 12th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Matt, how can you give us that headline, then write a whole post without one crummy Guns ‘n Roses joke? For shame!
October 12th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
No, Urgs has it right (and Matt has it wrong) that the current Chinese regime is also propped up through nationalism. With the collapse of communism as an ideological force, Jiang Zemin turned to nationalism as a unifying ideology instead. It’s true that the current leadership is focusing on economic growth and employment to justify their current existence. However, current Chinese nationalism (and, to some degree, anti-foreignism) is a beast of the CCP’s own creation. They’ve lost control of it, but nationalism is nevertheless at the heart of fairly recent government propaganda.
This is why the official line is always so firm on Tibet, Taiwan, and Xinjiang: the government is being responsive to the people’s opinion! But they also shaped that opinion 15 years ago.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:51 am
With the collapse of communism as an ideological force, Jiang Zemin turned to nationalism as a unifying ideology instead.
Thus: executing a few Uighurs to placate the masses. And as you hint, ethnic (i.e. Han) nationalism combined with a industrial policy that relies upon bringing populations in the hinterland in to man factory megacities is a powderkeg.