China's future: Democratic or else?

[Zsari]

China according to the Chinese
Reviewed by Yu Bin

...
The experience of China and others already indicates that the West's capitalism-democracy twin-recipe is not indivisible. Conversely, the combination of the two may or may not lead to peace and prosperity for the West itself and for others, as were the cases of democratic-imperialism and expansionism in history. In the case of the United States, the built-in "checks and balances" mechanism can lead to a situation with neither checks nor balance, as indicated by those rogue CEOs, politicians' cherry-picking intelligence and excessive use of force in the format of unilateralism and preemption. At least the West is already asking the question by juxtaposing the so-called "Washington Consensus" and "Beijing Consensus."

The question is not one of right or wrong, but how these developmental models differ from one another. It is not argued here that China confront various Western ideologies, but transcend these narrowly defined Western concepts, which always strive for their own ideological purity and extreme end - be they liberalism, nationalism, Nazism, militarism, communism, statism - at the expense of the interests of others. For China's political and intellectual elite, the nation's democratization should be by and for itself and at its own pace, not necessarily because of or for the satisfaction of the West.

Indeed, democracy may not necessarily be the final destination for human and social development, but a mechanism for some higher goals - such as social harmony. Such a goal may be reachable through other paths, not just those of the West. From a historical perspective, there is perhaps nothing wrong with democracy as a political system that evolved from Western history and culture. It deserves both respect and serious consideration by others, including China. Indiscriminately imposing democracy anywhere and anytime, however, amounts to a witch doctor prescribing Viagra to every patient, regardless of his or her age, gender and symptoms. Ultimately, it may undermine one's own interests, as is the case of Iraq, which has become the bloodiest democratizing case ever in the world's history.

[Zsari]

Beyond the policy realm, scholars need to be open-ended in exploring China's future. While China is still far away from Western-style democracy, there are significant political changes in the areas of elite politics, succession mechanisms, elite-societal relations, development of the private space, etc. Western democracy-equals-modernization orthodoxy would not be able to explain what happens in China. Nor would the champions of Western democracy be able to reconcile the prevailing democracy-peace theory with what William Lind refers to "Western civil war," [5] which included wars of hundreds of years between European princes, merchants, mercenaries, professional soldiers, citizen-states, and ideologies.[6]

At the beginning of the 20th century, Western democracies' war with other Western nations, which was World War I and its grand settlement at Versailles, unleashed all the "evils" for Western democracies in the 20th century: Russian Bolshevikism, German Nazism, Japanese militarism and Chinese communism. "The war to end all wars," ironically and tragically became the first in a long line of wars. This "Western civil war" finally drew to an end in 1991 with Western liberalism celebrating the "end of history”, meaning Western liberalism triumphing over Western communism.[7]

Western realism, however, lost no time in declaring the coming of the clashes of civilizations between the West and "rest".[8] This mindset of perpetual war - either with itself or with others - made the 20th century the bloodiest ever in world history, with 75 percent of the death toll since the year 1000 and 89% since 1800.[9]

For all of the unpleasant consequences of China's 30-year reform and historical rise - corruption, inequality, environmental degradation, etc - China has so far escaped the Western cycle of hegemonic wars in which rising power upsets existing international system. If Napoleon rose from his grave, he would indeed be shocked by what China has NOT done during its historical rise: "discovering" the "new" worlds, seizing colonies, shipping slaves, selling drugs, fighting endlessly with others, etc.

It is time for China to reexamine, if not escape from, the conceptual and ideological capitalist-democracy "trap" enshrined by Western political and intellectual elite. At a minimum, China should avoid the excessiveness of Western ideologies. In the still deepening worldwide capitalist crisis, it is time for China, and the world, to pause, think and search for a different model of political economy beyond excessive greed, excessive consumerism and excessive laissez-faire.
The goal is to strive for a proper balance between the market and the state, between individual need and societal interests, between equality and efficiency, between materialistic growth and cultural/spiritual harmony, and between nurturing the innovative business class and protecting other vulnerable social groups.

Such an approach is also common sense, as was the choice made by the little girl Goldilocks, who preferred things not too hot, not too cold, not too hard, not too soft, but just right. China, too, should tap into its traditional Confucian "middle approach" (zhong yong) by pursuing a goal of more responsible governance for a more "harmonious" society, with or without a democratic gloss-over.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KK07Ad02.h...