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Kaalhauge Blog » Archive for May, 2008

One of the days when the Olympic torch was carried through San Francisco in April 2008, Grace Wang, a Chinese freshman at Duke University discovered a gathering of pro-Tibet demonstrators faced with a much larger pro-China counterdemonstration on the university campus ground. Ms. Wang who had friends on both sides tried to get the two groups to engage in a conversation with each other. However, the Chinese students she spoke with didn’t want to hear about any criticism of the Chinese government. The next day, Ms. Wang’s photo appeared on an Internet forum for Chinese students with the words “traitor to your country” written across her forehead. In addition, Ms. Wang’s Chinese name, identification number and contact information were posted, along with directions to her parents’ apartment in Qingdao, a Chinese port city. In the coming days, photographs of the young woman with demeaning text, including ugly rumours were circulated through China’s most popular Webs and for each expansion on the internet, thousands of new insults and derogatory remarks about the woman were added to the mountain of the already accumulated insults. One web-commentator even suggested that Ms. Wang should be burned in oil. Another Chinese patriot wrote to Ms. Wang, “If you return to China, your dead corpse will be chopped into 10,000 pieces.”

Oh, yes, Chinese nationalism these days are well and alive. Two things triggered the current outburst of Chinese nationalism, one was the disturbance of the Olympic torch by pro-Tibet demonstrators and the other were pictures broadcasted by CCTV and other Chinese stations featuring selected scene-shots of the Tibet uprising, which according to CCTV was nothing than “a riot” of the worst kind. Most Chinese protesters had no problem in condoning and justifying Chinese repression in Tibet; indeed, they could not conceptualize any repression at all. Tibet was according to them an indisputable part of China and it was a province that only had benefited from Chinese money, generosity and civilization. When Western media presented a different story, boundless anger was levelled toward everyone who dares to tell any other story than the true motherland story. For many weeks a campaign against CCN and other Western media boiled back and forth on the Chinese internet, where everyone showed his patriotism by introducing new and more compelling derogatory terms about the Western media; this anger was also organized abroad, hence in Atlanta in April hundreds of agitated Chinese demonstrators were waiving Placards in the air, while shouting “CNN liar.”

What was especially striking about the behavior of many of the Chinese demonstrators in foreign cities around the globe was the way by which it resembled mob-behavior during the Cultural Revolution; could it really be possible that no one had learned anything from this dark chapter of Chinese history? Another notable feature was that Beijing unscrupulously encouraged its devotees to demonstrate all-over the free world, while pro-boycott demonstrations anywhere in China would have been beaten-up and arrested. In this way, Beijing used the freedom of the Western world to its own advances but prohibited its adversaries to enjoy the same right in China. Needless to say, this is the kind of opportunism; there is build into the very nature of the Chinese autocratic system. In South Korea, the behavior of pro-Olympic torch demonstrators was particularly rude and violent, as they engaged in throwing rocks, bottled water, steel pipes and sticks against pro-Tibet demonstrators, who they heavily outnumbered.

Chinese demonstrators attack Tibetan protestors in Seoul, South Korea, April 27, 2008.

Certainly, recent events surrounding the Olympic torch and the rebellion in Tibet have potentials of becoming a turning point in history. I tend to agree with Zhengxu Wang, a scholar at the University of Nottingham, when he says that “in essence, the Beijing Olympics, along with the global controversy it has generated, mark not the beginning, but the end of an era.” Yes, there is reasons why it is plausible that we stand in the beginning of a new era in the relationship between China and the world. The rebellion in Tibet and the corresponding debate about the torch has function as a eye-opener and turned global awareness toward the political and moral consequences of China’s rise as a global power. Free trade and cheap Chinese products are nice things but people are begining to wonder whether the political costs of the benefits are not too high? What has emerged in blogs, news-media and worldwide opinion-polls, is an increased scepticism and aversion about the nature of China’s political regime. More and more observers are concerned with the political cost of allowing a harsh authoritarian dictatorship like China to grow into such an important international economic actor. Is the democratic world digging its own grave by facilitating China with FDI, markets-options and international goodwill?

This change in public awareness and concern is by no means restricted to “the Western world,” world-wide opinion polls reveal that the sentiments span the whole globe. As a matter of fact, one of the most outspoken intellectuals against Chinese politics is Ian Boyne from Jamaica and Jamaica is not normally associated with the West in any narrow sense of the term. Mr. Boyne is a prolific writer, who has written in countless international journals spanning the political spectrum from New Left Review to the Cato Journal. Mr. Boyne is particularly concerned with what he consider as Beijing repressive behavior in Sudan and Zimbabwe but he has also offered a more general analysis of the Chinese regime’s nature and politics. In the Jamaica Gleaner, in April 20, 2008, Ian Boyne analyzes the recent events surrounding Tibet and the Olympic torch. “China, he writes, is an increasingly influential Great Power whose scorn of the western human rights tradition is a deep concern to foreign policy analysts. The recent protests in Tibet and the subsequent repression by the Chinese authorities, which sparked the Olympic torch disruptions, could advance the torch of freedom in China. Human rights activists must continue the pressure on China, with the hope that that country can tame its totalitarian impulse. … While the United States has often failed to be true to its democratic rhetoric and heritage, that country has a strong philosophical and cultural commitment to human rights and civil liberties. China is philosophically committed to a set of ideas which are obnoxious to the Western liberal tradition.

By this token, the dramatic events surrounding Tibet and the Olympic Games have given birth to a new global awareness. As a signpost it reflects a new phase of China’s rise, which is moving beyond a sheer industrial exercise and into a process, where its moral and geopolitical implications become more obvious by the day. It has increasingly become clear that China’s growth is much more than an “neutral” exercise in economic development, it has crucial negative implications for the survival of democratic and human rights in the world. As Ian Boyne correct pointed out, China’s authoritarian dictatorship is inherently obnoxious vis-a-vis the fundamental principles of human rights. Indeed, China’s power to harass and obstruct democratic principles can be seen very clearly in the way the German government has avoided to met with Dalai Lama during his recent visit in Germany; it is a concrete example of how China’s economical strenght can translate into political might. Be sure that the harassement of the German government is only a prelude for things to come.

Of course, it is not the first time in modern history, where the democratic world has been faced with an aggressively expanding autocratic regime, we are naturally all aware of the historical processes by which the democratic countries of this world combatted Nazi Germany, Japan Imperialism and the Soviet Union. However, as Robert Kagan has argued in a new book called The Return of History and the End of Dream, the battle with autocratic regimes is not over and democracies in this world need to pull themselves together and actively defend their basic principles. In this way, the idea that China simply would developed into a democracy society through sheer economic development alone is no longer a plausible proposition. Thus, the prolonged hope that China through the mechanisms of a free marked would pass into the orbit of democracy is nothing but a flimsy illusion. Indeed, the nationalistic outboost and various opinon polls indicate that the Chinese population has move significantly in an authoritarian direction. In this regard it is indicative that a new TV series in 23 episodes about the young Chairman Mao, one of the biggest mass murders in World History, has become a big hit in China, especially among university students. The ghoost of totalitarian ideologies is not far away from the Chinese unconsciouss; the government is promoting a rosy, soap-opera-like fairytale about the Chinese past and too many young Chinese is too ready to swallow it. That Mao was a criminal is too hard a reality to cope with: it is easier to live in the lies of a patriotic phantasm. George Santayana, once said, “wisdom comes with disillusion,” but the young Chinese radicals is fixed like junkies on cheap, pseudo-heroic fairtales about their own past. One need to understand that the outbust of Chinese nationalism as it exploded around the Tibet event came from the roots of the young nationalists on the Cyberspace themselves. That is, its was a genuine feeling not simply a government construct. In its own peculiar form, it does indicate that some kind of civic society do exist but a civic society that has internalized the values of their own repressors. Indeed, when one study China today it becomes increasingly clear that the country’s civic-societal paralysis is not so much the effect of regime repression as it is the victim of its own self-repression. The government is feeding this self-repression through CCTV and other tools yet fundamentally, it is a flaw from within; the flaws of nationalist mythologies that paralyze the brain. All true greatness start with a humble but persistent self-criticism but when did you last met a young Chinese nationalist who was self-critical on China’s behalf? The West is different, our hero is Nietzsche but what is Nietzsche saying; he is basically ridiculing the West, telling us that Christianity is evil, that democracy is silly, patriotism is rubbish and so on. In sum, he is telling us all kind of things we do not want to hear. But that is why he is so attractive in the West because he inspires our critical thinking. Where is Nietzsche in China these days? Literally nowhere; indeed if Nietzsche was in China he would be ridiculed, called a traitor, silented and arrested. That’s why China is in a kind of intellectual limbo today, everything deeper is sapped out of the debate either because of a cloroformistic groupthink, or by CCTV and by the police. The problems is not that China doesn’t have great intellectuals; the problem is that they do not stand at chance in China these days. What is particularily noticable about young Chinese nationalists is their obsession about being proud about China, speak about the country’s glory, etc. etc. As if real greatness had anything to do with screaming and shouting about it. Think about it: a person who goes around saying “look how great I am; I am very, very great” is most likely not the most greatest person around. Another trend among young Chinese nationalists is the idea that the world is “out to get them.” For them Tibet is just a plot in a Western conspiracy which only purpose is to weaken and humilitate China; of course, it has nothing to do with human rights; no, no, it is a part of an evil plan by CNN, CIA, the French, the Japanese and who-ever is on the hitlist of evils. And so on. When one look into the current Chinese debates on the internet and elsewhere, one get a sense of a nation still living mentality in the 15th Century or at best fighting the battle of the 19th Century. The worst thing is that they are repeating the same mistakes; then and now, it is the political system, which is the problem; but young Chinese nationalists have taboorized this idea; they can’t even raise the question. Certainly, there exist few brave exceptions in China, some real substantial people but they are depressingly few. One can only wonder what has happen to the spirit of 1989? If the current political regime continues in China, and there is no sign to the contrary, then China will emerged as an authoritarian threat to the democratic way of life and especially to human rights in places such as Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Tibet.

New York Times Video about Chinese Cyber-nationalism.

It is not because democracy has bad odds in the approaching struggle. Some of the major powers who determines the socio-political order of this planet are all democracies; they include the US, the EU, India, Japan, Brazil, South Korea and South Africa. Although China is a giant, the major democratics in this world is by combined numbers far bigger; so even if China is big one should not become paralyzed by its numbers. Although the road to democracy is complex and troublesome, the general tendency in modern time has been a stepwise increase of democratic countries allover the world. Yet, with a major autocratic power as China emerging this process can’t simply be taken for granted. Unless democratic countries stand up for their principles and values, they might be in for an unpleasant surprise. Nonetheless, with the exception of China most autocratic states in the world are comparatively weak, underdeveloped or highly troubled places, so even if there should emerge an authoritarian axis under the hegemony of China, it would not be an axis that was terribly strong. Nonetheless, the new authoritarian “brotherhood” is working well already, since China, is selling its advanced censorship systems of the Internet to other repressive regimes of this world. According to Joshua Kurlantzick, “already, China, Russia and Central Asian authoritarian states have issued joint communiqués denouncing the export of democracy, and have begun to protect each other from international forums like the United Nations.” Many has speculated whether there could emerged as Russia-Chinese autocratic alliance? The recent joint statement from Russia and Chína condeming the US missile shield could be seen as an important step in such a direction. However, a strong anti-democratic Russian-Chinese alliance is not very plausible for several reasons. First, Russia is importantly tied to its obligation and trade with Europe and it will have little and no interest in seriously alienating this relationship; moreover and perhaps even more important, Russia and China stand head-to-head in the strategic game about Central Asia, where the interests of two powers are fundamentally opposite.

What Tibet has signified and what the Olympic Games in August most likely will reveal is that the naivity and goodwill regarding China have gone and that a new era of skepticism will emerged. In other words, the rule of the game will change and China’s policy in Tibet, Africa, Cental Asia and elsewhere will become submitted to intensified global attention and counter-measures. At the same time a wave of protectionalism can’t be rule out, especially in the US and such a trend will weaken China’s drive. Another scenario might be that international investment will begin to flow in other directions than China. The most important step will most likely become a new intensified skepticism and criticism of China on the grass-root level of global politics. Whatever the case might be, the relationship between the world and China after Tibet and the Olympics is ripe for profound changes. World opinon brought at least Apartheid to an end, and one can just wonder whether it has other great deads to perform.

The tremendous challenge facing the new President of the US will be to define the US relationship with
China in the years ahead. Although, the struggle against Islamist fundamentalism has been a key focus on the US agenda, there is really no more important issue for the new president than the US’s China policy. Currently, there are many signs that the Chinese-US relationship will go into a new phase. China’s explosive rise as an economic power has begun to reveal its implications in global politics. In the core of China’s rise on the global scene lies an increased discord between the values of an authoritarian regime and the values of the larger world community. China’s growing powers has not only brought enhanced trade and affordable products to the world, it is also placed many multinational corporations, industrial complexes, trade associations and governments under the influence, pressure and dominance of the Chinese government. Currently this power is demonstrated in China’s pressure on the German government to not meet with Dalai Lama. The impact of China’s political power, however, is much more sublime than the question of direct pressure on foreign governments; it is embedded in the way China’s has become structurally integrated in the global business environment. Hence, those who have built million-dollars businesses in China might be refulgent to challenge the system and might comfort it in various ways. What is especially worrying is the way some business enterprises as in the case of Yahoo, Google, Cisco systems, Juniper Network, and Intel get subjugated under the political and ideological standards of China, so they in reality are doing the dirty work for the regime in the name of business, trade and prosperity. Various reports indicate the Western firms are playing an active, hands-on role in censoring information on the Chinese internet. Indeed, China is increasingly improving its capacities to hold various governments hostage within the web of trade-relations that China command. In contrast to expectations, markets-reform has strengthened autocratic structures in China rather than function as a pathway to democratic development. In this regard, it is worth noticing that Quan Li and Rafael Reuveny have argued that openness to trade does not make a dynamic contribution to institutional reforms in autocratic types of societies; indeed, it correlates negatively with democratic institutions in a wide cross-sample of regimes. Actually, Quan Li and Rafael do maintain that FDI is positively correlated with the promotion of democracy but that its effects decline in time. Inspired by the Li and Reuveny’s thesis I will like to raise the following question. The question is whether Western corporations in China at doing more harm than good in regard to the process of promoting democracy? Has multinational corporations undermined the democratic process in China rather than promoting and helping it? Have the multinational corporations in China in reality strengthened the power of the authoritarian regime by building-up its economic foundation? Even if it true that globalization and FDI promote democracy from an overall historical point of view, we need still to explain, why it has failed so utterly in mainland China. In this and in other ways, China’s new self-assured attitude in world affairs and its power to manipulate with trade-relations has placed the question of a more assertive US response to China’s global expansionism on the top list of political priorities. It is in this context that
Tibet and the Olympics might break new ground in changing the world’s awareness and direction.  

Lhadon Tetdong, the leader of the Students for a Free Tibet delivers a message to all Tibetans.

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The new US president will enter the White House at a time, when the international perception of
China is in an important stage of change. Previously, in the last 30 years, the nature of China was seen in the light of peaceful business questions; China was an underdeveloped country struggling to alleviate poverty, attracting foreign capital and building up its industrial capacities. In other words, China was seen as a text-book case for the World Bank’s vision of economic and social development, while at the same time it was appealing as a new market of 1.3 billion consumers. This was the story that was told by scholars and the media and it was a tale about international opportunities and intercultural understanding. It all concurred with China’s own PR story of international harmony and win-win situations.  

For a long time, it was believed that the change of China’s autocratic regime simply was a matter of time and developmental maturization. After all South Korea and Taiwan, and many other Asian countries had once been authoritarian regimes but as they grew and their income-bracket went up, they all became democratic countries in their own right. China it was thought; was just an echo of the same process; it would eventually also turn democratic. The classical assumption since Seymour Martin Lipset was that the growth of an educated, middle class would harbour a democratization process. All what were needed was just a little more time and a little more dialogue. Also, the prevailed idea was that although it was clear that China’s autocratic regime was a peril to its own population, it was really not a matter for international concern. The great civilizational function of business would eventually solve this intermezzo of autocratic stubbornness, since of course everyone knows that trade is promoting democracy. However, the validity of these expectations has increasingly been questioned. The truth is that despite a growing middle class in China, the repressive nature of the authoritarian system is essentially unchanged. After 30 years of reform, there is no sign that China’s autocratic system is changing at all. If anything the governmental control of the internet has only strengthen during the reign of Hu Jintao; while the harassment of dissidents has no end in sight. The genius of the Chinese authoritarian regime is that in contrast to Orwell’s 1948 vision about a futuristic aggressive totalitarian society, the autocratic rulers in Beijing has understood that a half-measured, pseudo-openness with functional markets implications is a much stronger promoter for an authoritarian regime than a “stone-age,” full-scale Stalinist model. By this token, the hope of a “political spring” for China has so far been blatantly disappointed. On the international scene, China has increasingly been exposed by the international media and human rights activists for its political transactions with “client-states” and other actors in the world. Especially, China has pursued an obstructionist policy in the UN Security Council and effectively blocked resolutions that would deal decisively with genocide and abuses by its clients in Sudan and Burma. On the international scene, what is emerging is a China which constantly disregards, and violates human rights in its dealings with autocratic regimes of the most despicable type. Indeed, as David Blair has said, “The harsh truth is that Beijing has become the ally of choice of Africa’s worst rulers.” By this token, recent events in Tibet, Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe have increasingly showed that the nature of China’s autocratic regime is an international problem; it is not simply a matter of “internal affairs.”  When a major state like China remains autocratic, it will eventually challenge basic human rights and democratic values all-over the world.  

Although polls might vary, it is still safe to say that the American public has increasingly begun to take a critical view of China. In an opinion pull from April 2006 conducted by WPO 80% of Americans said that they had an unfavourable view of China’s system of government, while three out of four had an unfavourable view of “how China uses military power and the threat of force.” Americans also take an unfavourable view of the Chinese leader Hu Jintao who ranked even lower than their profound dislike for the Russian president Vladimir Putin. In May 1999, a Gallup opinion poll measuring Americans opinion on China’s position on human rights revealed that a strong majority of 69% declare that China did a “bad job” on the issue. When Gallup back in august 1995 asked American citizens to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 “the level of individual freedom granted to its citizens” by China, only 12% gave a response above 5. In April 2006, when the Americans were polled whether they believed that China in the future would become more democratic, only 24% said that China would become more democratic, while 49% believed it would “stay about the same” and 18% was of the opinion that China would get less democratic. In a poll conducted by CCGA (Chicago Council on Global Affairs) released in October 2006, 47% of Americans view the rise of China economic power as negative while 46% regarded it as positive. However, when it came to the question about China’s rise in military power no less than 75% of the Americans found that it was a negative thing, while only 19% regarded it as positive. In a recent poll by WPO, ten out of 15 Americans said that they did not trust China “to act responsible in the world.” On the issue whether the rise of China was positive or negative, 33% of Americans thought it was negative, will only 9% believe it was positive, while the majority of those asked took a middle position. The declining confidence in China was by no means an US phenomenon, a Pew poll in 2007 show that a favourable opinion about China had drop from 65% to 49% in Britain, from 60% to 47% in France and from 56% to 34% in Germany. According to Pew worldwide polls in the years from 2005-2007 China’s image felt significantly in most countries worldwide, in India a favourable view of China felt from 56 to 46% and in Turkey, it felt from 40 to 25%. In this regard, it is most likely that the Tibet rebellion and the Olympic torch relay have made China’s unfavourable polls even more unfavourable. In general, people all-over the world is increasingly favouring democratic values and fundamental civic rights, despite whatever rumours to the contrary. As Fareed Zakaria said in a recent interview in the Charlie Rose show, the future do not belong to China, “because no one want to live in a Chinese world.” 

No one, not even China can ignore public world opinion, if not for any other reasons, then because the people who are reflected in the world’s public opinion polls are those consumers who are establishing China’s economic might. And although major global consumer-boycotts are rare; the case of the Apartheid regime in South Africa certainly shows that such kind of boycotts (in conjunction with other types of pressures) can be very effective. Polls have shown that China is very sensitive to widespread reports about China’s unsafe food, toxic toothpaste and dangerous toys. A NBC/Wall Street Journal pool in September 2007 showed that 65% of Americans had little or no confidence that food imported from China is safe to eat. In this regard it is significant that various pools from WPO shows that China’s governments policy and the regime’s very nature is at odd with many of the basic values and ideas that are globally shared by most people. For example, an international public opinion pool shows that the majority of people in the world are against that governments limit internet access. A recent pool of Western and Asian countries show a strong public criticism of Chinese policy in Tibet. Recent polls have also show global support for freedom of the press. In these and other basic standpoints, China’s political system and its values stands in strong contrast with worldwide values shared by a clear majority of the world’s population. Indeed, the irony is that the more China increases its economic might, the more it will depend on the global consumers’ ideas and preferences. In reality, China has become more vulnerable, not less vulnerable in this regard. The efficiency of consumer-boycotts is not necessary statistically high but in a brand-obsessed world, companies are ready to go out of their ways to keep their image untarnished and this is also to a large extent true for nations.

One important question is how the American president candidates are viewing the challenge that the US faces in regard to China. In the first Democratic primary presidential debate in 2008, Obama revealed some of his key values on the China issue, when he said: “Obviously China is rising, and it is not going away. They’re neither our enemy nor our friend. They’re competitors. But we have to make sure that we have enough military-to-military contact and forge enough of a relationship with them that we can stabilize the region.” In a strong statement in the middle of March, Obama condemned Beijing’s crackdown on Tibet. “I am deeply disturbed, said Obama, by reports of a crackdown and arrests ordered by Chinese authorities in the wake of peaceful protests by Tibetan Buddhist monks.” Hillary Clinton on her part has on several occasions raised concern that US huge trade-deficit eventually might lead to an “erosion of [US] economic sovereignty.” America’s economic well-being has become too dependent on what happen in China, Ms. Clinton has maintained. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, Ms. Clinton has warned against a situation, where foreign countries owe too much of US foreign debt. About China’s role in that regard, Ms. Clinton has said, “As we have been running trade and budget deficits, they have been buying our debt and in essence becoming our banker.” Clinton has also been concerned about what she has called “the erosion of America’s defence industrial base. In her recent campaign in Indiana, she brought concrete focus on this issue by highlighting the case of a company called Magnequench, which once had two factories in Indiana. This company, which was bought by the Chinese, used to make high-performance magnets used in precision-guided weapons. As Ms. Clinton phased the problem in a speech face to face with her voters, “I’m not comfortable with the fact that we now have to buy magnets for our bombs from China.” At a recent interview on the George Stephenopoulos show on May 4, 2008, Ms. Clinton continued this frame of argument and thus stating that “manufacturing is key to the strength of an economy” and that the US government should no longer provide tax incentives and benefits to firms to move operation overseas. 

John McCain’s view on China has been featured a several occasions; his basic policy is cautious yet he tends more often to emphasize the defence of democratic values than other candidates in the race. The US should not oppose China’s emergence as an influential power but the US should maintain a strong military present in East Asia and its alliance with Japan and other Asian countries in an effort to promote American interest and values. In an essay in Foreign Affairs in November 2007, McCain declared, “Until China moves toward political liberalization, our relationship will be based on periodically shared interests rather than the bedrock of shared values.” In a March 26, 2008 speech, McCain argued that China ought “to isolate pariah states such as Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe” rather than comfort and help them. McCain has also said, “When China threatens democratic Taiwan with a massive arsenal of missiles and warlike rhetoric, the United States must take note.” In the same month, McCain denounced China’s crackdown on Tibet protesters and called on China to “ensure peaceful protest is not met with violence, to release monks and other detained for peacefully expressing their views and to allow full outside access to Tibet.” In the courtyard of the French presidential Elysee Palace, McCain added further comments on Tibet stating that the events in Tibet was harmful to “the image of China in the world.” In a statement in March 18, 2008, McCain has assessed, “The unfolding tragedy in Tibet should draw the attention of the entire world. I deplore the violent crackdown by Chinese authorities and the continuing oppression in Tibet of those merely wishing to practice their faith and preserve their culture and heritage. I have listened carefully to the Dalai Lama and am convinced he is a man of peace who reflects the hope and aspirations of Tibetans.” In addition, McCain said that he would not attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics if he was President unless China changed its objectionable policies.

It so happens that the Beijing Olympic in August will take place at a time, where the US president election will be in a very crucial phase in one of the months before the election in November 4, 2008. This mean that any major protests or Chinese crackdown in Tibet during the Beijing Olympics or any dramatic events associated with China’s special allies in Sudan, Burma and Zimbabwe will reflect directly into the mood of American voters and therefore directly into the stakes involved in the American President election. The entire world will be watching how China will react and American voters will be in the frontline of those who will take notice. In other words, the possibility that the Chinese Olympics and the US President elections will become directly related will be very high. Indeed, any major public backlash over the Beijing Olympics or events associated with Chinese policies will force both candidates of the US President elections to produce very forceful statements in order not to appear weak on issues in focal eye of nation attention. It is therefore almost inevitable that the US president election during the months of the Olympics will be closely tied to the Olympic event and to the behavior of China during that period. In this way, the Olympics game will most likely be able to shape both China and US future in ways none of the two giant had envisioned or expected.     

Washington’s attitude to China’s rise has long been an ambivalent question and the debate about the issue has been characterized by a peculiar low-key tone, where one have vaguely spoken about “constructive dialogue,” while downplaying the opportunistic sides of China’s behavior. Hence, in a recent article in The New Republic, Joshua Kurlantzick criticized the Bush administration for meagre record of combating human rights abuses in China. It is also symptomatic for the current American mood about China that people are talking about a “post-American world” as if China’s rise was some kind of quasi-fatalistic event. Despite occasional debates about “the loss of jobs” or the need for “intellectual property rights,” not much political passion was invested in the issue. What have been characteristics for US policy on China has been more signified by what has not happen than what actually has occurred. Famous in this regard what Henry Kissinger’s remark that the Tiananmen Square massacre was an “internal affair.” Most observers including Henry Kissinger has considered its rise as “evidently” or irrefutable and the main consensus among politicians in Washington has been a very cautious but still well-intentioned attempt to “engage” China as a stakeholder in the international community rather than contain or confront it. This attitude of wait and see, which has characterizes US’s China policy has been feasible not only because it has nurtured international business interests but because it to an important degree has been replicated from China’s side. China has deliberately shied away from any real confrontation with the US. With a few exceptions like the issue of Taiwan, the Chinese way is what Basil Liddell Hart has termed “the indirect approach.” So far China has attempted to do the easy things and promote its long-term goals through the mechanisms of its economic growth-processes and it has done this with considerable success. Yet, what is crucial in this regard is that the expansion of Chinese political power also implies the strengthening of autocratic and anti-democratic forces in the world.

For various reasons, the world might well be at a cross-road in regard to its interaction with China. The events taken place around Tibet and the Olympics will most likely provide a gateway to a different approach. The declining popularity of China in world opinion might be indicative for the same trend. In this context the focus on China’s human rights might be seen in the light of an increasing awareness about the dark side of China’s success story. By this token, issues like Tibet, Burma and China’s behavior in Africa will not just go away and they will remain as a dark cloud over China’s politics in the coming years. Viewed in a broader prospective this change in political behavior shall be seen in the context of new technologies, new information-approaches, and new organisational structures, which tend to empower civic society as an agency for change. As a matter of fact, there has never been so much global debate on this planet as in the last 10 years primarily thanks to the Internet. It is in this light we shall codify factors such as citizen journalism, blogs and internet videos, which increasingly define a new media reality as tool for well-organized political interest groups, like in the case of Students for a free Tibet. This change in the global communication pattern has sometimes been called “the bloggers democratic revolution” but in its essence, it is not only a change of the pattern of communication but it is also re-codifing the distributed of power in the world.

China’s Olympic Games is increasingly in the spotlight of the international attention. China’s authoritarian praxis has begun to throw a dark shadow over the Olympic events. As the Economist has commented, “Whatever hopes there were that this August Beijing Olympics would be a festival of fun and friendship … are fading fast.” The protests against the Olympic torch have triggered a worldwide debate about the China’s dictatorship, Tibet and human rights. Also China’s politics in Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Tibet has come under increased international scrutiny. It has all brought the question about politics, business and moral values into the center of global debate.    

China’s expansive development has been built on a hidden clause; it was built on the refutation of Francis Fukuyama’s basic thesis that the future belong to democracy. In this way, a central tension prevails in the way China has attempted to unlock the capacities of an open modern society while maintaining a harsh dictatorship as its political regime. China is a nation of high ambitions; it is determined to get a “place in the sun.” But in order to achieve it high goals, it will have to facilitate a process of nation-building that is in correspondence with the basic laws of societal development. It is in this regard that the prevailing institutions of Chinese society might pose a serious obstacle. In other words, a major contradiction exists between the demand of socio-technological process that China is pursuing and limitations of its political system. So far, the great economic success of China might have concealed the full implications of that issue but this will change as the developmental process in China is progressing. In this regard, China is “slowly” proceeding from a “traditional” type of standardized manufactory production-system into the orbit of a so-called knowledge based society and the logic of the latter might prove to be quite different from the momentum of the former.  

In this essay, we shall discuss both the moral, political and socio-developmental implications of the schizophrenic division between political structure and socio-economic dynamics that characterize China. On the ethical side, by maintaining a repressive political system, the Chinese are challenging the moral standards of the world, at least that part of the world who is devoted to democracy and human rights. (The postmodernist claim that these standards are particularly “western values” (or “eurocentric,” as the California clique like to call it) are insulting millions of Indians, Africans, Arabs and others who are equally and personally committed to the defence of such values). So far the world has given China the benefit of doubt, since the emerging of free, democratic institutions and factors of human rights have been regarded as a question of time. Yet, there is increasing signs that China is stocked with its harsh, repressive system and as China’s power-position is growing in the world, the conflict between the world’s democratic societies and China will eventually unfold and increase. Through the case of Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Tibet, it has become clear that the democratic world and China do not see eye to eye. More and more international commentators have asked whether China is a responsible stakeholder on the world scene. The issue has also torched the American President election. Barack Obama has said that he is deadly disturbed about the Chinese crackdown in Tibet. In this sense, the Olympics might prove to be the galvanizing moment in this process. Thus, the Chinese Olympics is likely to go down in history as a turning point for international opinion but not necessary in the way the Chinese government had imagined or would wish for. The irony in this regard is that the regime itself has set the stage for the most intensive criticism of the regime’s repressive nature in the last thirty years.    

Yet until recently China has pretended that the nature of its political system had no implication or impact on the Middle Kingdom’s socio-economical and cultural integration into the world. Like in the case of Taiwan, China seemed to have aimed of a concept of the world, in which the future of the world should be characterized by one world but two political systems. The reality, however, is that the globalization of the world is ultimately one, also from a political point of view. For example, people in Burma and Tibet cannot be both free and unfree; in the end of the day, the specific characters of political values make a real difference in people’s life. Certainly, a global world cannot operate on two radical different political principles without ultimately end in a point of disaster. There is no way such an arrangement would be able to work. Yet, so far China’s implicit assumption has been that it is possible to continue the process of globalization under a schizophrenic framework, where it utilizes the benefit of a free market system, while depriving its citizens for political rights. However, the flaws of this assumption have become increasingly explicit, especially revealed through the protests surrounding the Olympic Games and the torch relay. The trouble China is facing in this regard has only begun. Also, what is at stake is much more than Tibet and the Olympics; since, in the core of the matter lies in irreconcilable contractions between the archaic mentality of China’s political regime and the ethical standards of the modern world. Although, the Chinese Olympic slogan speaks about “one world, one dream,” the opposite is most clearly the case, China’s violation of human rights creates a divided world; a world separated by fundamentally different moral values.    

If we look at China latest national record on human rights the record is not encouraging. The claim that
China has become increasingly free needs certainly to be taken with a grant of salt. Indeed, the government’s control and crack down of dissidents has only increased since Hu Jintao took office. Especially, the control of the internet has increase ten fold since then, while, lately events in Tibet have revealed the regime’s real character. Also, Human Right Watch has just issued a 142 pages report, which in details document how the Chinese regime intimidates and harasses lawyers in China. Naturally, in order to introduce elements of a free market-system, China has allowed certain elements of freedom to emerge but they are like carefully placed pearls on a structure that is inherently unfree itself. For the naïve observer, it might seem that China has come a long way toward freedom but a careful look reveals a different picture. Things have become more “open” but openness and real freedom is not the same; a prisoner might be allowed more walks in the garden but it doesn’t change his status as a captive. A helot in Sparta had more freedoms than a real slave but it didn’t mean that he had real command over his life. The Chinese government’s attitude to freedom is characterized by a double-strategy; it allows all kinds of benign freedoms to prevail while the most central freedoms (like political freedoms rights and press-freedom) is repressed and forbidden. Also, China is a country, where there exist no real separation between the political and the juridical system. On the issues, where freedom is most essential for Man, there has been no breakthrough in China, so in the end of the day there is not terribly much to celebrate. (One can only be enthusiastic about the progress of freedom in China if one has a very low opinion about of what the Chinese people actually deserves. If the Chinese people deserve the very best, then there is no reason to be happy). A recent report from Reporter without Borders has shown that China has one of the harshest censorship of the freedom of expression of all country in the world. Reporters without Borders consider China to be one of the least free countries in the world. In the Reporters without Borders Annual World Press Freedom Index of 2005, China ranked as number 159 out of 167 places. Also, China leads the world in capital punishment. In 2004 it was estimated that roughly 90% of all executions in the world took place in China. In year 2008, BBC News announced that China had what it called “the gold record” for executions. Two of the accounts that were punished with death in China was the advocacy of separatism and to help Tibetan refugees over the border. In general, no one in China is allowed to criticize the Chinese government or call for a democratic Chinese republic without facing jail and severe punishment. Chinese people today have the freedom to choose whether they want to eat in McDonald or KFC but the real core of freedom is effectively denied. The same pattern is reproduced in China’s dealing with the outside world. Generally, China is siding with many dictatorships around the world, including that of Burma, where China backed the country’s ruling junta on its bloody crackdown on the opposition. Chinese politics in Sudan and Zimbabwe reveal the same kind of pattern; China is always on the side of dictatorship. It is hardly necessary to mention that all the regimes China is supporting, including Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe, have a terrible record on human rights. It also goes without saying that China had sold weapon to all three regimes. In 2006, Amnesty International characterized China as one of the world’s most secretive and irresponsible arms exporters. China has persistently refused to sign any multilateral agreement in order to prevent weapon to be used for serious human rights violation.  

However, China’s repression of the internet has not stood alone, Western capitalist firms like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google has participated actively (in contrast to their proclaimed values) in facilitating China with its technical tools of repression. Yahoo has provided China with private and confidential information about its users. Yahoo’s information to the Chinese government leads to the arrest of a Chinese journalist by the name of Shi Tao. Yahoo’s action cost a 10 years prison sentence for Shi Tao. In August 28, 2007, Yahoo was sued for its implications in the arrest of Shi Tao and in November the same years Yahoo settled with Shi for an undisclosed sum. The Shi Tao case is not unique; three other intellectuals have been jailed in China as a result of Yahoo’s data transferred to the Chinese authorities. Ever since this event, public perception of Yahoo has change and Yahoo has been hunted by an image-problem. Google on its part has launched a censored version of its international search machine in China. In this way, a critique of China should certainly be supplied by a critic of the ethical standards of many Western firms.  

Indeed, the events surrounding the Olympic torch is revealing for many things. First, the worldwide reaction to Chinese crackdown in Tibet should worry Chinese decision-makers, for two reasons: First, it generally shows that issues of human rights have increasingly become an object for the watchful eye of global observation and in a modern, highly integral world; “internal affairs” become easily an object of global debate. Second, it shows that China’s socio-economic interests are at stake, when political issues become focus of worldwide attention and indignation. Indeed, the Chinese approach for a boycott of Carrefour, which has been circulating among Chinese internet users revealed how fast a political issue can translate into a question of consumer-boycott. Frankly speaking, it is China that will suffer most if it eventually should be faced with world-wide consumer-boycott. Although China has grown enormously, it is ultimately conditioned on international consumer-accept. History shows that global economic tendencies and preferences can go through very drastic changes in comparatively short time. The growth miracle in China is not guaranteed by Angels or divine intervention. In the end of the day, things that are made in China can as well be made in India, the Philippines and Brazil; there is no ultimate logical reason why China should remain the darling of Multinational Corporations and global consumers. However, implausible it might appear in the current moment, such pattern could certainly change. There is really no objective necessity, which deems that China should remain the assemble hub of the world or the focal investment point in the world in the way it has been the case for the last decades.  

One can understand that many Chinese are caught in the middle; they are proud of being Chinese, proud of the country’s latest achievements and they have been looking forward to the Olympics as an occasion, there they could show the best of themselves and the best of the country under happy and joyful circumstances. Most of the Chinese has also been brought up in the belief that Tibet is a “natural” part of China and they are emotionally attracted to the idea of an unified China, in such a way, so any idea about a sovereign Tibet appears shocking and bizarre for them. Submitted to the relentless propaganda from CCTV and other media, they tend to take a narrow, patriotic view of many things. Generally, Chinese people are very refulgent to criticize their government, which might be a case of a misplaced idea of patriotism. For many of them, the Western critique of the Olympics and the rebellion in Tibet came as a blitz from nowhere; they have difficulties to comprehend and understand it. When their government tells them that the criticism of the Olympics is a “Western media smear campaign,” they find it easy to join the bandwagon of such an explanation. This is not simply because of government manipulation but rather because they are mentality inclined to be extremely “defensive” and on guard of any attack of the perceived new national dignity, which they associate with the governments (supposed or real) socio-economic achievements, which give them a football match kind of self-satisfaction. When they watch the selected screenings of the events from Tibet; they will tend instinctively to feel solidarity with those Han-Chinese who were harassed or even killed by the angry Tibet crowd. Naturally, since some of the events in Tibet had elements of ethnic-based brutality, it is clear that the Chinese can find sufficient evidence for their point of view. The Tibetan rebels are monsters and rioters of the worst kind from this version of the story. Whatever, the credit for this point of view, it tends to miss the larger picture. Most rebellions in history have often had some unpleasant sides but it doesn’t mean that they are unjustified. Because some Tibetans have acted violently and committed inhuman acts, it doesn’t justify China’s occupation of Tibet; it doesn’t justify the Chinese blindness toward their own government or justify the Chinese police murders of Tibet protesters in the Sichuan province and elsewhere.  

The Tibetans has not only suffered from Chinese occupation since 1951 but they are worried about the increased inflow of Han-Chinese in Tibet, which they see as a threat to their life-form. They has also experienced that some of the best jobs in Tibet has gone to Han-Chinese. Many Han-Chinese in Tibet function as a better educated upper class, many of whom are there in a rush to make money and the socio-cultural gap between them and the Tibetans are huge. In the socio-economic context of Tibet, the Han-Chinese is the ruling strata, who direct, order and shape the future for the Tibetan masses, who tend to become second class citizens in their own country. Also it is symbolic that most of the workers working on Chinas prestige project, the new Qinghai-Tibet railway were all Han-Chinese, there was almost no Tibetans employed. Since, the Tibetans often was poorly educated and trained, Han-Chinese was brought up to Lhasa, when positions should be filled out. Tibet is in reality a very poor, underdeveloped area characterized by subsistence agriculture and its boosting “grow” is artificially created, since the economy are heavily subsidized from the Central government in Beijing. The economic improvement in the regions is often translated into opportunities for Han-Chinese and not for the local population. Tibetans fear that with the opening of the new Qinghai-Tibet railway more Han-Chinese will flow into Tibet and the Tibetans in the end will become a minority in the own country. Ngawang Woeber, head of a group of former Tibetan political prisoners criticize the new railway the following way, “This railway will have devastating consequences for our people as Beijing tries to overwhelm our population, dilute our culture and exploit our land.” According to several sources Beijing is current trying to relocate 250.000 Tibetans (about one-ten of the population) without their consent under the disguise of a so-called “the comfortable housing program,” where people are supposed to be moved from scattered rural hamlets to new “socialist villages” where they are ordered to built new houses on their own expense (where the government provides loans that only cover one-fifth of the building price); the official explanation from the central government is that these uprooted Tibetans now better can join the benefits of modern civilization while critics highlight that it gives the Chinese police-state a better opportunity to establish a tight control of a part of the Tibetan population that eluded them before. The new “comfortable settlements” will be placed in a uniform pattern of cookie-cutter houses in regular intervals as pearls along a highway. In this and in other ways, the original population in Tibet has been witness to how Beijing is decided everything and they feel humiliated and helpless. In reality, the Tibetans have become passive bystanders to their own future. As a matter of fact, the so-called “modernization” of Tibet is going very fast. Lhasa is hit by a major building boom. Thus, the streets in downtown Lhasa are getting many new stores owned by Han-Chinese, while old historical buildings are demolished. It is all part of speedy modernist transformation designed by Beijing over the heads of the local population. The result has been a growing anger and resentment among the original people of Tibet. Indeed, it is worth recalling that one of the Chinese leaders who have the greatest responsibility for the development in Tibet is Hu Jintao. In this capacity as the former Communist Party chief of Tibet, Hu was directly responsible for the crackdown in early 1989 in Tibet. In 1989, Tibet protesters held the center of Lhasa for three days and the massacre that followed resulted in many deaths, some (unverified) reports speak about several hundreds while Amnesty International mention 60-80 people killed. These people were killed on Hu Jintao’s order, since he posed martial law on the city. The few Han-Chinese there was killed for some weeks ago during the Lhasa rebellion should at least historically be compare with the many Tibetans who was killed on the direct order of Hu Jintao in 1989. In general, the numbers of Tibetans who had died and suffer under Communist rule since 1951 are staggering. It is certainly important to keep all this in mind, when one judge the way CCTV and The People Daily have been focusing exclusively on a few Han-Chinese who was killed during the uprising in March, while proclaiming this as “the truth” of the event. Of course, independently thinking Chinese is entitled to their views of Tibet but they should also try to show human compassion for the Tibet side of the story. Why are the Tibetans so angry? Is it simply because they are monsters or manipulated by Dalai Lama or might there be other kinds of reasons? While issues of “belonging” always can be discussed, it is still safe to said that the Chinese claim to Tibet are very superficial; they have generally no more claim on Tibet than Russia have to Poland or Estonia. Russia have occupied Poland countless of times; does this really make Poland Russian?     

What is interesting is that the Olympics was supposed to become China’s biggest modern propaganda story yet it has already have turned into a major media-fiasco for China. The international community’s good feelings about the Chinese Olympic project are slowly changing from a positive mood to a sceptical and negative one. A new violent protest in Tibet in the middle of the Olympic Games will have disastrous consequences for Beijing’s global image, which already have been significantly damaged. But there is little Beijing can do to avoid new protests, so Beijing are struggling with a propaganda problem that most likely will go from bad to worse. Indeed, it is the first time since the Tiananmen massacre that the Chinese regime has been seriously challenged. The regime has answered the crisis by given free play for Chinese nationalism and to start a smear campaign against the Western press. Yet what has happen in the same time is that China has China-nized the Olympic Games. Its official news-program only show enthusiastic Chinese crowds with Communist totalitarian flags cheering the torch where-ever it goes. In this way, the Chinese Communist media are slowly turning the Olympics into a sheer Chinese, authoritarian celebration, so that even the crowds cheering the torch in Japan are Chinese. Also in Australia was a huge Chinese expatriate population mobilized and stole the center of the cheering but what is the point? Is Australia suppose to be Chinese? It is a strange way to celebrate an international event! In this way, the Olympics are turning into a sheer Chinese nationalistic manifestation, where the rest of the world is only staffage. It is quite a strange way to speak about “One world; One dream.”  Right now the Chinese government might feel the warm from a boost of nationalism from its own people but it might also open-up for strong confrontations during the Olympic Games in front of thousands of international cameras in ways that might multiple the image-damage the Chinese government already have suffered. All this raises some compelling questions. Why participate in an event that already has turned into a Chinese nationalist self-celebration? Why become applauders in a repressive regime’s propaganda-show? What if it was Hitler’s Third Reich and not China who had the Olympics in August? Would the Danish primer still participate in the event “for the sake of sport”?    

The Olympic Games in Beijing and the development in Tibet have been intensively debated in Denmark. It has especially been debated if the Danish government should boycott the opening of the Olympic Games. The Danish situation is the following, half the population is now in support of a boycott of the opening of the Olympic Games in China, while the other half want to attain the Olympics in order to use the occasion for a critical dialogue. Although there might be differences about what tactic that is the best to pursue, there exists an overall strong criticism of China’s abuse of human rights in the Danish population. Also many Danes have voiced the opinion that it was a mistake to grant China the Olympics and that only democratic countries ought to be given the Olympics in the future. In an interesting essay, Lisbeth Knudsen, the chef-editor of the Danish newspaper, Berlingske Tidende has used her blog to condemn China’s horrible human rights record but has at the same time argued that the Danish talk about an Olympic boycott is hypocritical since we are criticizing the Chinese one the one hand while buying Chinese import goods for 6-7 billion dollars annually, while at the same time Danish firms are investing billions of dollars in China. Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, a prominent member of the Danish radical-left Party “Enhedslisten” has argued that a boycott of the opening ceremony in Beijing is far from sufficient. “Denmark is in need of a much more radical showdown with Denmark’s relation to China and other states that violate the basic human rights of their citizen.” China is a one-party dictatorship, where there exists no legal opposition, she maintains and criticizes the Danish government for what she called double standards, since it let its business relations with China corrupt its moral standpoint vis-à-vis China. The Danish People’s Party, the third biggest party in the Danish parliament, has on their part condemned what they call China’s cultural genocide in Tibet and supports the Tibet people’s rebellion against Chinese repression. One of the leaders of the party, Kristian Thulesen Dahl has strongly appealed to the Danish government to boycott the Olympic Games.      

The real dilemma in the current situation for China lies not only in its increasing confrontation with world opinion on the issue on Tibet, Burma, Sudan and human rights. A fundamental dilemma lies in the inherent contradiction between China’s dream of becoming a “great power” and the socio-cognitive implications of its political regime. The Chinese dream of greatness is undermine by the structural consequences of its own system. In order to understand this issue, we should return to the argument articulated forcefully by Francis Fukuyama in this well-known work The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama’s book is based on a basic assessment of Hegel, who claim that freedom is the secret “code” of history. (Anyone interested should read: George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Cambridge University Press, 1975). Based on various empirical facts about the correlated between political democracy and advanced modern economies, Fukuyama concludes that liberal democratic systems are the natural vehicle for economic and cultural progress in the world. Fukuyama also stresses that it was liberal democratic countries that prevailed in the struggle against Nazism and Communism. It goes without saying that the structural “logarithms” between development, culture and regime forms are hideously complex, and I should be the last to claim that it is a one-dimensional, simple, correlation, yet, some basic factors of world-history and especially the numbers of democratic systems among the most advanced nations of the world certainly provide substance to the argument that there is a strong correlate between democracy (in both its political and social meaning) and the factor of socio-technological development. There might be a few cases like the Third Reich, which appears as some mind-boggling exceptions but the main trend and the key correlate are well established in this case. And on this ground, we should certainly say that Fukuyama’s general argument appear quite valid. What does this mean? This means that it is implausible and most likely impossible that China can reach its full potential under an authoritarian regime. This also raise questions about the structural prerequisites for China’s current development; although the authoritarian regime have been able to prevail by liberating certain aspects of society, it doesn’t necessary mean that an authoritarian political system can mobilize China’s societal capacities sufficiently efficient at a later point in the process. Indeed, one can already question whether the authoritarian regime has been the best platform for China’s development in the last couple of decades. Martin Wolf, the chief economic commentator of The Financial Times has presented this issue with a sharp edge, when he wrote an article, where he asked the question: “Why is China growing so slowly?” When Chinese people today are amazed about the speed by which the country has progress since 1978, they might in stead ask themselves the question: How much faster could China have developed if it had been a political democracy? Can an authoritarian regime, like the Chinese really actualize the full potentials of its people? That democracy is much more efficient to establish a balance and harmonious society is clear from one striking example from modern Chinese authoritarian rule. Hence, the regime’s one-child policy has resulted in a major disaster. The outcome of the regime’s one-child policy has resulted in a situation, where there now is 120 Chinese boys for every 100 Chinese girls and indeed, this correlate will only get worse in time. In the worst province in China in this regard there are 157 boys for each 100 girls. This is a failure of the current regime and its politics in a tremendous degree. What is specially revealing in this regard is the current regime’s lack of appropriate action and its stubbornness in regard to admitting that the policy is wrong. This perverted results of the regime’s one-child policy has been known for very long but the government has done nothing about it, they have not challenged the policy, they have not admitted their mistake; they has just continued their basic policy as if they themselves was beyond error and beyond criticism. However, this kind of societal disaster can only happen in an autocratic regime of China’s type and it reveals better than a thousand words, the flaws and the inefficiency of this kind of regime. In a democracy, this kind of disaster would never have happen because the voters would have reacted and voted the politicians of such perverted politics out of office. The Chinese one-child policy disaster clearly shows the superiority of democracy over an autocratic system because an autocratic system lacks the fundamental feedback mechanism, which can counter-act the implications of policy-disasters.  The current regime sees themselves as the guardians of “harmonious” society but how “harmonious” is a society with 120 boys for 100 girls? Indeed, before long there will be 150 million Chinese men without a girl; that is certainly extremely “harmonious.”  

Said by other words, the dynamic of industrial progress is not isolated from the development of civic society and a civic society impaired by the behavior of authoritarian regimes lead not only to less industrial efficiency but also lead to societal disasters like the one-child policy in China. Such societal disasters are not “accidental,” they are an outcome of the authoritarian mentality and it is linked to the way in which authoritarian societies pervert their civil societies. Indeed, the essence of Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis in his famous Democracy in America lies exactly in his brilliant capacity to understand the dynamics of a free civil society as he observed how the emerging American pioneer society embraced a new spirit of citizen participation with a dynamic out of the ordinary. Indeed, the remarkable development of the US, who today is the only real superpower of the world, has certainly vindicated Tocqueville’s original assessment. Indeed, what was true about the developmental potentials of America in the days of Tocqueville is equally true about the developmental logic, which characterizes the modern days’ hyper-advanced society. In the end of the days, the factors that establish the difference between the winners and losers of nation-building remain fundamentally the same. By this token, I would claim that it was the same principles that intrigued Tocqueville, which gave the “primitive” Germanic tribes the upper hand against the Romans during those processes, which eventually turned into the early Middle Ages and that the fall of Rome had a lot to do with the fact that the Roman Empire to an important extent was build on a refutation of such principles.  

From the point of view of this equation, it is rather plausible that China under the current political regime will be unable to develop the sufficient foundation of a modern society that is necessary to facilitate its high ambition about socio-economic development. China’s quest for an “innovative society” wills most likely run into frustration, since China’s civil society will lack that “critical mass” that only a critical and democratic society can provide. China want to become modern but how modern can you become if you are ruled by a police-state. A truly modern person is one with personal and political integrity, a person who can vote, you can argue freely and whose integrity is supported by a web of political and civil rights. In this regard, politically, the Chinese are still in a rudimentary stage; they have no real rights or real political integrity. The reality is that the Chinese are not free citizens in control over themselves and their own destiny; they are control by a political clique, they never have elected and to whom they have no moral or political obligations. In this way, the modern Chinese’s situation is very much like a Helot, since he is the habitant in a society where he is systematically deprived for higher citizens’ rights and prerogatives. But this is not only a social tale; it is also a tale with cognitive functions. In reality, Man is a totality of his social and political life and the political system as a participatory gestalt is an inherent and crucial part of the cognitive institutional processes of any society. If this dimension is lacking no society can function optionally or be able to reach the higher league of international competition. One cannot take the political dimension out of a man’s life without cripple him cognitively. In this way, China’s political regime becomes a stumbling block for its own aim. China’s idea that it can move into modernity while keeping the framework of an archaic autocratic system will eventually prove fatal for the future of China itself. It is highly unlikely that history has any free lunch in that regard.