Western leaders concerned about democracy and human rights in China are barking up the wrong tree. Not even the Chinese intelligentsia is keen on democracy, says a fascinating article in Prospects magazine. Apparently, there is a new right, which brought in economic liberalisation, and a new left, which is keen on social welfare, but democracy is not high on the agenda of either. Power has become the ideal instead. The culture vultures crave soft power, the jingoes hard power, and both are getting their wishes. Chinese influence is growing in Africa and the United Nations, says the article:
In 1995 the US won 50.6 per cent of the votes in the UN general assembly; by 2006, the figure had fallen to just 23.6 per cent. On human rights, the results are even more dramatic: China’s win-rate has rocketed from 43 per cent to 82 per cent, while the US’s has tumbled from 57 per cent to 22 per cent.
China is already reshaping the world, says the article:
Scores of countries are copying Beijing’s state-driven development using public money and foreign investment to build capital-intensive industries. A rash of copycat special economic zones have been set up all over the world—the World Bank estimates that over 3,000 projects are taking place in 120 countries. Globalisation was supposed to mean the worldwide triumph of the market economy, but China is showing that state capitalism is one of its biggest beneficiaries.
Especially interesting are the author Mark Leonard’s conversations with Chinese intellectuals.
One informal adviser to President Hu Jintao favours gradual democracy, limited initially to communist party members. Even that would be a big step forward. As Leonard points out:
If the Communist party were a country, its 70 million members would make it bigger than Britain.
Colossal too are China’s think tanks. The Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences alone employs more than 4,000 full-time researchers.
Leonard writes:
China has emerged as the biggest global champion of authoritarianism.
He points out:
China’s presence is changing the rules of economic
development. The IMF and the World Bank used to drive the fear of God
into government officials and elected leaders, but today they struggle
to be listened to even by the poorest countries of Africa. The IMF
spent years negotiating a transparency agreement with the Angolan
government only to be told hours before the deal was due to be signed,
in March 2004, that the authorities in Luanda were no longer interested
in the money: they had secured a $2bn soft loan from China. This tale
has been repeated across the continent—from Chad to Nigeria, Sudan to
Algeria, Ethiopia and Uganda to Zimbabwe.
This is certainly one of the most insightful and interesting articles I have ever read on China.
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