China’s Autocracy

Robert Kagan of The Washington Post has written an interesting column that challenges the notion that China is moving towards becoming a liberal society. Kagan’s piece is directed primarily towards addressing how the Western, liberal world should relate to post-communist autocracies in China and Russia in the global community. Most relevant to China watchers, though, is his recognition that the economic progress China is making is not being accompanied by democratization or social liberalization. We are still dealing with a repressive, closed society.

China was, as recently as 2002, assumed to be heading toward greater political liberalization at home and greater integration with the liberal world. Sinologists and policymakers argued that whether Beijing’s rulers liked it or not, this was the inescapable requirement for transforming China into a successful market economy.

Today these assumptions look questionable even to their authors… China continues to integrate itself in the global economic order, but few observers talk about the inevitability of its political liberalization. Its economy booms even as its leadership firmly maintains one-party rule, so people now talk of a “Chinese model” in which political autocracy and economic growth go hand in hand.

While Kagan’s analysis shouldn’t strike anyone who has paid attention to China’s actions over the last five to ten years as a surprise, it’s heartening to see it present in a mainstream media outlet. Too often any discussion of China’s economy and government is jumbled with standard boilerplate about how up and coming China is, but we do we really think about their economy and human rights abuses. The prevalent analysis is bland and uninformative, and likely to leave American policy makers and business leaders unprepared for any evolutions in China’s relationship with its citizens or the West.

Until now the liberal West’s strategy has been to try to integrate these two powers into the international liberal order, to tame them and make them safe for liberalism. But that strategy rested on an expectation of their gradual, steady transformation into liberal societies. If, instead, China and Russia are going to be sturdy pillars of autocracy over the coming decades, enduring and perhaps even prospering, then they cannot be expected to embrace the West’s vision of humanity’s inexorable evolution toward democracy and the end of autocratic rule. Rather, they can be expected to do what autocracies have always done: resist the encroachments of liberalism in the interest of their own long-term survival.

Kagan goes on to connect China and Russia’s anti-liberal tendencies to their resistance to Western policies of intervention and sanction against Sudan and Iran. Beyond this China has demonstrated its fear of liberalization by cracking down on religious freedom and free speech inside Tibet, cranked up “patriotic re-education” campaigns inside Tibetan monasteries, and massive censorship of online speech. These are not the actions of a society that is liberalizing. The CCP is resisting change with all its might and the people of Tibet, East Turkistan, and China are all suffering as a result.

Nor do Russia and China welcome the liberal West’s efforts to promote liberal politics around the globe, least of all in regions of strategic importance to them. Their reactions to the “color revolutions” in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan were hostile and suspicious, and understandably so. Western liberals see political upheaval in these countries as part of a natural if uneven evolution toward liberalism and democracy. But the Russians and Chinese see nothing natural in these occurrences, only Western-backed coups designed to advance Western influence in strategically vital parts of the world.

It’s important to recognize that the PRC isn’t just another nation at the table of global citizens. They don’t look kindly on democratic change around the world, nor do they have aspirations that the import of a Western economy will be accompanied by a move towards a liberal government.

Why is this important? Western nations need to recognize that China doesn’t have the same goals we have or share the same world view that we operate under. Western governments and corporations cannot confuse the PRC’s willingness to take our business and our money as a desire to take our values. When we operate under the illusion that China is liberalizing on its social and governmental levels, we miss the fact that China’s autocracy represses over a billion citizens, maintains strict military occupation over more than 30% of its land, and imprisons anyone with the courage to practice Tibetan Buddhism as they please (by which I mean possessing a picture of the Dalai Lama). Lost in the exchange of money is China’s true nature as an autocratic, repressive regime.

The absence of an understanding and analysis, like Kagan’s, of China at the governmental level, amongst the business community, and within the media/pundit class belies the false assumptions so many people have adopted. Those who do not realize the true nature of the PRC government may well be suddenly disabused of their ignorance at a time when they most wish they were better informed.



One Responseto “China’s Autocracy”

1. Ken Kemerling says:

   May 3, 2006 at 8:23 am

   This is a very good article. Thank you for acquiring it and your work. Ken.