Paper tigers

The superior man cannot be known in little matters, but he may
be entrusted with great concerns. The small man may not be entrusted with great
concerns, but he may be known in little matters. – Confucius

Liberalism …is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines
cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks
of compact organization and strict discipline, and prevents policies from being
carried through. It is an extremely bad tendency. – Mao
Zedong

* * *

Modern China is an incredible contradiction. On one hand, the country has maintained a rapid pace of economic growth for over twenty years; on the other, only the slightest bit of political liberalisation has occurred. One pictures hordes of modernisation theorists sitting round a table scratching their heads and letting their coffee go cold: what the heck is the deal? Lipset wasn’t God after all? Sure, everybody knows that economic change has historically been the precursor to democratic transition – whether they explain this via the rising expectations of the domestic population or economic crisis, the theoretical base is the same. Open up your economy, and the political sphere follows by default. China, however, is bucking the trend.

The leadership of the CCP must be amongst the luckiest men in the world: they’ve managed to weather the death of socialism and its associated contract with the urban working class whilst retaining a death-grip on political power and civil liberties. As liberals, it’s necessary that we understand why the country has been so resistant to political democratisation; as more and more regimes approach the threshold of democracy, we need to understand the stumbling blocks these fledgling states may face as they undergo transition.

People have written books about this; I can’t hope to examine the phenomenon in the depth that it perhaps deserves, but I can certainly highlight some of the principle causes.

Firstly, let’s get the economics out of the way, because otherwise it’ll give me a headache. I’d support Mary Gallagher’s extremely astute observation that the nature of foreign direct liberalisation (FDI if you’re lazy, like me) in China contributed hugely to the CCP’s ability to retain that vice grip on political power.

FDI liberalisation has typically taken place after the privatisation of nationalised industries and the development of a domestic private sector in other reforming socialist economies; in China it preceded both. Instead of encouraging further spillover from the foreign-invested sector, a “laboratory” is formed – a sort of testing ground where you can make all the tricky little reforms before marketising the economy as a whole. Much less controversial, and much less chance of pissing your citizens off (not that they’d rebel anyway, but that’s coming up soon). It also provided the CCP with a way of justifying the end of state ownership: by scrapping nationalisation and replacing it with nationalism, the Chinese minzu hangye can become competitive in the global economy and the Communists don’t have to look like such sell-outs.

Secondly, China’s integration into the global economy was fuelled predominantly by FDI: the success of Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and openness” (yeah, nice try…) meant that China became a WTO member with astonishing rapidity and the legitimacy of the CCP as a ruling elite was reinforced.

Compelling as Gallagher’s argument is, I can’t help but feel that it’s a rather clinical economic analysis which neglects to consider the power of collective ideology. Now you see why I put the quotes at the beginning! Ever since the much loved Confucius started spewing forth quote-worthy philosophies about Life, the Universe and Everything, the Chinese worldview has been tinged with a love of order, obedience; each man in his place. This may go some way to explain why Chinese attitudes towards their authoritarian leaderships have rarely been subversive; a vague sense of duty means that citizens have been reluctant to challenge the presumed legitimacy of those governing them. One hopes that future administrations won’t be as quick to abuse this as Mao – has faceless unity ever been a good thing?

As I went to put Mary Gallagher back in her rightful place in the library stacks after writing the bulk of this, someone further down the shelving system started to open one of the aisles (our library has a rather frightening system with high possibility of squishage). Alarmed, I watched the shelves slide towards me in a Star Wars-esque manner, complete with every possible book one could ever want about Mao and China’s troubled political history, and wondered, Is this what it feels like to be suffocated to death by your country’s politics? Do people still wake up each day with a vice crushing their individuality out of them?

Of course, I used my freedom of speech to (loudly) tell the person cranking the aisle open to bloody well stop before he crushed me to death, but I’m not sure that the Chinese are prepared to take that option. And who would blame them? After such atrocities as Tiananmen – still recent in historical terms – reluctance is understandable. But I do not believe obedience is innate – it’s something conditioned, something you learn. And hell, is it convenient for the Communist Party.
Still, no people will pay lip service forever, especially not in a country that is already so exposed to the global community and the prevalence of liberal democracy. Change cannot happen without the commitment of the domestic and international community, nor can the changes be entrenched without the necessary democratic institutions. China does not need to endure decades more of Communism, but democracy will not build itself in this case. And I think it’s high time that the modernisation theorists finally bite the bullet and admit that.