oyaguy said:
...
I personally think the greatest challenge facing the Chinese {mainlanders}, is there will come a day of reckoning of how the country should be governed. The Chinese aren't blind to democracy. It will be a delicate balancing act for China's leaders, as they want to liberalize the economy, without giving up their powers. Generally the liberalizing of the economy, will lead to the liberalizing of the politics. ...
I agree.
Sometimes the full trappings of democracy - elections, representative and responsible legislatures, etc - are the
last things to arrive on the scene. (Witness Canada: we still have an appointed legislative chamber ... there to exercise
sober second thought lest elected representatives of the
hoi polloi* get too uppity and decide, for themselves, how to govern themselves.)
It seems to me that the preconditions for democracy are the ones on which the Chinese are, now, working, including, especially:
The rule of law - this is the toughest nut to crack because, like all long lasting, stable oligarchies, the Chinese Communist Party members
believe that they, alone,
know what is 'best' for the Chinese people.
(This view is not unique to oligarchies; most social democratic
movements or parties believe much the same thing. Broadly, only liberals (of whom there are precious few in the Liberal Party of Canada and, probably, none at all in the ever so morally certain Young Liberals
and the Liberal Women's Commission
) believe that the people
are wise enough, en masse
to govern themselves.) In
conservative democracies (Singapore) and
illiberal democracies** (followers of the French model) the rule of law obtains, despite the wishes of the governing classes and the
natural governing party.
Equality at law - this is also tough because it means that all, governed and governors alike must be fully and equally accountable - even Jean Chrétien, in Canada, maybe ...
Regulatory independence - all but the most unrepentant of the Austrian School economists admit (even if they don't quite believe) that some degrees of regulation are required to establish and maintain some degrees of fairness and openness in public institutions, including governments and the marketplace. This one is, also, giving some Chinese some heartburn - especially the most senior officials of the Ministry of Defence which is a big and largely unregulated actor in the markets, through its ownership of the biggest players in several industrial sectors and its responsibility for the prison system which, in turn, operates factories (using what some regard as slave labour or, at least, unfairly (maybe unlawfully) subsidized labour) in many sectors.
It seems to me that the much celebrated spread of democracy in about 75% of the UN's 200+/- members states is grossly overstated because all it means that someone or other got elected, once; but, since none of the other conditions are operative, democracy can hardly be said to have taken root;
elections ≠democracy.
I think that the growth of market capitalism will spur the growth of the institutions and attitudes (above) which are, in my view,
essential preconditions for democracy. Investors
need the rule of law, equality at law and regulatory independence to protect their investments (those who eschew such protections are gamblers, not investors) and the Chinese need investors (including domestic investors), for the long term, rather than gamblers. Once capitalism has done its work then democratic reforms will, likely, follow along rather naturally.
It is not clear to me that China will
morph into an Anglo-American style
liberal democracy or even into a rather illiberal
social democracy; I suspect that it, like Singapore will become a
conservative democracy, which may be more in tune with China's
conservative culture. I do believe that China will become a democracy and, as I have written elsewhere, one of our foreign policy goals must be to
contain Chinese ambitions while it makes that (long - 35+ years) transition. (I do not mean Kennan style
containment, rather I mean engaging China as a competitor and avoiding turning it into an enemy.) It seems to me that democracies, including
conservative democracies are less inclined to see war as a solution to political problems - even though, sometimes, wars are quite necessary and are the only acceptable solutions to some political problems.
----------
* I know
hoi means 'the' but
the hoi polloi has been accepted for centuries.
** This is Fareed Zakaria's idea; see:
http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/other/democracy.html
....still, it makes you realize how vulnerable Canada could be despite our isolation if it decides to stay small militarily after the U.S. Navy and Air Force cease dominating the seven seas. Of course the Liberals wouldn't see it coming.
