The Economist is at it again. The oracle of occidental economy published a March 1 cover story titled “How the West got China wrong.”
Noting Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent leap from autocracy to dictatorship by abolishing constitutional term limits, the magazine details how the West’s gamble that China “would head towards democracy and a market economy has failed.” Like its other China-bashing efforts, The Economist’s cover art is more impactful than what’s printed on its pages.
The article bemoans the fact that the West welcomed China into the rules-based system set up after World War II in the hope that China would evolve into a market economy and that, as it grew wealthier, “its people would come to yearn for democratic freedoms, rights and the rule of law.”
“It was a worthy vision, which this newspaper shared, and better than shutting China out,” The Economist opined, indicating in so many words that there is indeed a Western conspiracy to “contain” China.
Smug in its moral imperium, the magazine never examines the question of what exactly gives the West the right to remake China in its own image. The West’s supposedly superior values are often cited in this regard. But there’s little consensus in increasingly dysfunctional Western societies on what these “values” consist of.
US President Donald Trump veered perilously close to implying in a July speech in Poland that those values basically have to do with being white and Christian. The Economist more sanely sees such values as embracing democracy and free markets.
Let’s consign Trump and his alt-right supporters to the rubbish heap of history and dissect The Economist’s paean to democracy and the market economy. At the end of the day, what it’s talking about has little to do with morality and everything to do with self-interest.
Remaking a nation such as China in your image, as God did with Adam, makes it a chip off the old block. It makes it much less of a threat because everyone sits down at the same Monopoly board.
When China opened its markets in the 1980s, it also created an irresistible opportunity. It rekindled that old, self-serving British maxim, “If we could add one inch to the tail of the Chinaman’s shirt, we could keep the mills of Manchester running for a year.”
But the commercial energies of more than a billion Chinese spawned a far different result. Not only does the world’s second-biggest economy make shirts, it churns out plenty of advanced tech, industrial and military products. There’s not much weaving going on in Manchester these days – and that’s the rub.
When the West crested on the economic boom that followed World War II, it was easy to tout itself as a model. However, the prosperity fueling these free-market democracies has proved fleeting
When the West crested on the economic boom that followed World War II, it was easy to tout itself as a model. However, the prosperity fueling these free-market democracies has proved fleeting. So much that a rising China is now viewed as an ideological as well as economic rival to the US and its allies. The fear is that other nations will begin voting with their feet by following China’s economic and political model.
Sadly, the West no longer offers much of a model with its stagnant growth rates, political discord, anti-immigrant racism, mass shootings, opioid addiction and other post-industrial maladies. Brexit and Catalonia may herald greater political divisions to come.
It brings to mind Mahatma Gandhi’s response when asked by a Western journalist what he thought of Western civilization. “I think it would be a good idea,” Gandhi replied.
Perhaps the West should stop blaming the Chinese and redouble its energies on resuscitating itself. Success may be the best defense. In doing so, it might also borrow a page from China’s playbook by putting its science and engineering graduates on a par with China and making massive investments in next-generation technologies.
Such government intervention might be inimical to The Economist’s free-market principles. But it’s clear that the entrepreneurial zeal of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk alone will not save Western civilization.
The West should also consider how much it has benefited from China in the last 40 years. It was the Sino-US alliance of the 1980s that squeezed Moscow on two fronts and helped trigger the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As “factory to the world,” China became a godsend for Fortune 500 companies searching for comparative advantage. It opened its huge market to joint ventures and tech tie-ups, providing a critical catalyst for global growth. It’s now a cliché that General Motors sells more cars in China than it does in the US.
And when the global economy teetered on the brink of collapse in 2009, it was Beijing that pumped billions into a US stimulus package that helped save the day.
As for Xi’s pole-vault to lifetime rule, is it so strange that a nation that has been ruled by emperors for virtually all of its 5,000-year history still views one-man rule (and not John Locke) as part of its comfort zone?
Democratic elections are also not the only way to achieve accountability. Keyu Jin, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics, perceptively made this point in a recent article about why “The West is wrong about China’s president.”
“In the West, government accountability is closely identified with democratic elections. In China, it is a function of how – and how well – the government responds to and protects the needs and interests of the people,” Jin wrote.
By this measure, Xi is doing pretty well. Jin notes that Xi’s approval rating, according to most international surveys, appears to exceed the combined approval ratings of Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Theresa May.
At the same time, it’s also clear that more than a few in China are unhappy with Xi’s constitutional changes. This is something for Chinese to sort out. The last thing China needs is sermonizing from a Western pulpit.
Foes of China now pore over every tract from Beijing hunting for signs that Xi Jinping is about to launch an ideological blitzkrieg against democratic institutions worldwide. Yet is democracy really under threat?
The Economist likewise made much ado of Xi’s observation at the Communist Party’s 19th Congress last autumn that China offered “a new option for other countries” that would involve “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.”
Xi later clarified that China would not export its model. But foes of China now pore over every tract from Beijing hunting for signs that Xi is about to launch an ideological blitzkrieg against democratic institutions worldwide.
Yet is democracy really under threat? Given China’s history, it’s unlikely to export its political model to other nations – and certainly not in the way the US has done since 1945. The US itself is yet to grasp that its own political system was forged in a confluence of unique political events. While admirable, its specific brand of democracy is hard to export and can never be imposed.
India and Japan, moreover, are two of the world’s largest democracies. Both have formidable economies, and neither is likely to adopt the Chinese system any time soon. The same can be said of South Korea and other Asian nations.
Though much has been credited to the reforms enacted by the US occupation, Japan did have a multi-party democratic political system in place before World War II.
Who is to say that democracy is a purely Western attribute? Democracy’s future and the future of free markets may well lie with Asia.
So the End of History project is still ongoing, yes? By means either insidious or outright violent? The question at the heart of the matter is whether democracy is a prerequisite for a vibrant and successful nation. That’s the underlying assumption. But then democracy did not build the wealth of western nations, many of which did not become real democracies until the 20th century. One could argue that it was the Enlightenment (the forging of knowledge & technology) together with rapacious colonialism that helped the West prosper. The colonial era probably saw the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. Try and square that with the messianic zeal for democracy.
The west model was based upon colonism, hegemony, exploitation of other nations and races, etc. It is a non sustainable and inhumane model and dismissive of real human rights and universal suffrage. Why should an ancient civilisation like China adopt such a bad model when there is a better, more humane and superior alternative like socialist meritocracy! It should be the other way around.
What the western " democracies " know but refuse to admit is that the foundations for its recent prosperity during the last 200 years are enacted on the invasion, conquest, colonisation, wars and destruction of foreign lands in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Social and industrial structures, and institutions in these conquered lands were destroyed making it very difficult for them to recover and progress. The specific examples are too numerous to explicate in detail, and the readers would be familiar with the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan.
What would have happened if the Europeans did not burst out from Europe and conquer/colonise other lands ?? They would be warring with each other. Even now some of them are threatening war against Russia.
So, what is so great about the model of " western democracy " which is so destructive. I dare say that 90% of modern wars were created by the " democracies." Would the victims regard as " democratic " unless they are thoroughly brainwashed.
Ken Nguyen, Did you allude that socialist countries, like Russia and/or China, a "meritocracy"? And they’re more "humane" and "superior" alternatives? Hilarious and pathetic!!!
Mr. Ken Nguyen, In the ancient civilization like China, there was a man who proposed a "modern" democracy to the people, and this man is Confucius. Do you believe me?
Chan Kuo-min Joe Chan …The socialist meritocracy is non-constitutional. In the constitution written by Chinses communist rulers, any Chinese citizen who is 45 years of age is allowed to be elected as the national leader of China, no merits of whatsoever nature is required. The same non-meritocracy system was started by founding fathers of the communist state when those fathers rose to be rulers of China without any merits.
I believe "the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan" will result in democratic Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan. If you don’t believe so, we just wait and watch.
Democracy was also eastern because Confucius had proposed it 2000 years ago.
Thank you for a most perceptive article. The rise of the West was not due to democracy or freedom but was a result of enslavement of the rest of the world. After all Spain did not introduce democracy to America when it enslaved and killed millions of natives. Even Britain, the birth place of Western democracy, did not introduce democracy to India. Winston Churchill infamously call Gandhi : A half naked seditious fakir. As recent as the end of WW II, not a single country in Africa was free. Western countries’ attempts to reconquer its lost colonies led to disastrous wars in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the partitioning of India and Pakistan which have left lingering problems for years to come. When the Nationalists lost its civil war, the out cry in the U.S. was: Who lost China? It was not for the West to lose China. China was not lost. As Martin Jacques said: Western values are not universal. Replacing slogans like democracy and freedom instead of the no longer accepted terms like spreading advanced Western civilization will not change the picture. The West has lost its moral compass long ago.
Wood Wu LOL Yeah, next time you are sick I’ll come over and beat you with a stick. If you eventually get better I’ll claim credit for it.
If you think those were good things to happen I’ll be simple and straight to the point, I’ll wish the same thing happen to you porportionaly on your personal level.
Probably the best short article on understanding China and repudiating the American Jihad that I have read. When I was in college for develoment studies in the 1970s, it was a basic premise that every nation had the right to determine its own development path. Somehow just the opposite is the received wisdom of the West, the US and the Western mass media. While criticizing Xi and China as autocratic (instead of a meritocracy) the West somehow fails to recognize the obvious – that is seeks the rule the world as Dictator in Chief. I am releived to see countries including China, Russia, the Phillipines, Turkey, Hungary, Cuba and Syria (and others) resisting hegemonic control by a hyper-ideological US-Western viewpoint. I call it the American Jihad – the export by economic, political and military force of an ideological cultural, political and economic system. What is really bad about it – and there is a lot – is that it seems to serve as a way of effectively distracting and manipulating the American public from the monumnetal problems of America. And the there is the extremely dangerous and disingenous game of "blame everything on Russia" – OMG – lets all go back to kindergarten!
SO SORRY! My comment below was meant for the prior article entitled "What gives the West the right to remake China in its own image?" My apologies!!
Probably the best short article on understanding China and repudiating the American Jihad that I have read. When I was in college for develoment studies in the 1970s, it was a basic premise that every nation had the right to determine its own development path. Somehow today just the opposite is the received wisdom of the West, the US and the Western mass media. While criticizing Xi and China as autocratic (instead of a meritocracy) the US somehow fails to recognize the obvious – that is seeks the rule the world as Dictator in Chief. I am releived to see countries including China, Russia, the Phillipines, Turkey, Hungary, Cuba and Syria (and others) resisting hegemonic control by a hyper-ideological US-Western viewpoint. I call it the American Jihad – the export by economic, political and military force of an ideological cultural, political and economic system. What is really bad about it – and there is a lot – is that it seems to serve as a way of effectively manipulating and distracting the American public from the monumnetal problems of America and from recognizing the dangerous aggression of US foreing policy. And then there is the extremely dangerous and disingenous game of "blame everything on Russia" – OMG – lets all go back to kindergarten!
You nailed it!
Wood Wu Which kind of democracy? the one people can choose from bad to worse in name of people? and kill the people all over the world because it is strong from sucking up the colored world for a few hundred years?
Wood Wu Hey wood, quite smoking… We have Hindustanis for that…
Interesting points here. What suits one part of the world in terms of government obviously don’t suit everywhere .
Wood Wu, If what you said of "no merits of whatsoever nature is required" is true, what kind of "meritocracy" it is?
"the constitution written by Chinses communist rulers"? Thank again.
Wood Wu, Confucius only "proposed or paid lip-service" the so-called democracy 2,000 years ago. But Greeks have "practiced" the real democracy for over 2,000 years. Don’t you ever brag that Chinese "started or invented" democracy again. Your China/Han-ethnocentrism too brazenly explicit.
Chan Kuo-min Joe Chan There are articles which points out the fact that the crop of communist leaders rsoe through the ranks and experience. In the case of Xi, he actually managed a city. On the other hand, the meritoctacy that is attributed to democracy has given rise to imbeciles leading the country. So I think meritoracy, or at least the democractic one, is more a fantasy.
Wood Wu your point actually isn’t a contradiction, simply an outcome of party politics. For example, the same is true for the U.S. and Canada but you still cannot become the leader of the country without being the leader of the dominant party in the government.
Jo Snow …Your "kill the people all over the world because it is strong from sucking up the colored world for a few hundred years?" simply was a false charge. For instance, why Americans are still fighting in Iraq? Why Americans were invited by weak countries to help defend agianst Chinese aggression? And then historically Americans had been invited by weak China to help defend against aggressor Japan, etc. Generally, in the eyes of a victim, Americans are heros, while in the eyes of the victimizer Americans are killers killing "people all over the world".
Thank you for this insightful article
KS Chin, Xi actually governed Fukien and Zhejiang provinces, which are much bigger than a city. Do you still want to preach on Communist history?