The following is a contributed post from my friend in Taiwan Bill Stimson. I do not necessarily agree with all of Bill’s points and I offer some commentary of my own at the end.
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“Democracy Is Not For China”
by William R. Stimson

Out from China comes the repeated argument that it can handle its own internal affairs without meddling advice from foreigners about democratization. True, China will likely evolve a unique mode of government that fits its needs and aspirations. But, to the extent those aspirations include global leadership, that government better be a democracy.

This is because of the kind of exceptional individuals China will need, not just in politics, but in all areas, if it sets out on this course. As regards exceptional individuals, we turn naturally to the work of psychologist Abraham H. Maslow, who made a study of these, and who believed that to those nations most successful in producing them belongs the future.

Maslow tells us that the fullest development of human potential requires a good society, which he defines as one that is anti-authoritarian and anti-controlling. It places a greater stress on spontaneity and autonomy than on stability and external control. Healthy and superior people, Maslow found, do not like to be controlled. They can make their own choices and need to be free to do so in order to bring out their full potential.

For China to be global leader it must lead the way in solving some tough problems that face all nations – the erosion of human trust, the destruction of the environment, the persistence of poverty, exploitation, and inequality of opportunity. Problems of such magnitude only stand a chance of being solved to the extent we mobilize all of our individual and collective inner resources, and bring out in our societies, our communities, our families, our individuals – and our approach to problems – more of the whole human capability that we all have within as a latent potential. These farther reaches of our human nature await the right environment to emerge and to express themselves. That environment is an open and free democratic society; where corruption, mismanagement, greed, and waste can be challenged; and where ordinary people can organize in ways of their own choosing and disseminate whatever ideas they want.

Democracy is not for China. It’s not for the Chinese. It’s for every country, every people. To lead, China will have to become its champion because democracy is more urgently needed at this time in history than ever – not for outer reasons, but for inner ones: to call up the human intelligence, creativeness and sensitivity required to solve the
really big problems ahead.

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William R. Stimson is an American writer who lives in Taiwan.
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All I want to add is this: I am no believer in a rush to Western-style democracy for China. However, I do get frustrated by arguments that “China isn’t ready for democracy,” made by some of my best and smartest friends here. I would agree that China’s system is not ready for democracy. After more than half a century of near-totalitarian rule, there is no other entity aside from the CCP that has the infrastructure and organization to rule China. This power vacuum was created by the CCP’s intolerance and it speaks to the inherent badness of the system. But the vacuum is real, and it means for now there is simply no alternative. The CCP stays.

But I agree with Bill that democracy is necessary for China, at least at some point in the future. Maybe not democracy as we in the West practice it, but there has to be representation for those who are taxed, and the people must be given an opportunity to have their voices heard. Today’s top-down system, where local officials answer only to the central party and not to those they ostensibly represent is a formula for exploitation, brutality and lawlessness.

This begs the question, Is anyone “ready for democracy”? Looking at America’s last two presidential elections, it can be argued Americans aren’t ready for it, either. Wedge issues, attack ads and litmus tests (abortion, taxation, etc.) manipulate the populace to vote against their better interests. And look at Iraq: we gave them democracy, and they voted for a theocracy.

Democracy can suck big time. Yet it’s still the best system we have. In the case of America at least, it tends to self-correct, as we saw in last year’s elections. Meanwhile, democracy at the village level in China has shown promising success, and I have to wonder why some very smart people stick to the mantra of China not being “ready.” At what point are people ready? Again, if people are forced to pay taxes to support their government, they should have at least some say in what that government does, no matter how educated they are. Those voting in the village elections are at the very bottom, yet many took the time to vote and saw it as a privilege. When the local officials can take away the people’s homes and brutalize them with taxes and cheat them on a regular basis, and when the people have no choice because those officials answer only to a bureaucrat in distant Beijing, we know the system is utterly rotten. And democracy is the only solution. Maybe if the CCP were ruled by a Lee Kuan Yew-type “benevolent dictator” who could do what was best for his people while tightly controlling corruption and abuse – maybe then China wouldn’t need democracy. But considering the sheer size of China and its population, such a solution seems unlikely, to say the least. Lots of people had high hopes Hu Jintao would be such a leader, and we were all mightily disappointed.

So bottom line: Yes, China needs some form of democracy. How and when it can achieve this remains unclear. And yet, many things in recent memory seemed impossible, but happened anyway: Apartheid was ended, the Berlin Wall fell, the USSR was dismembered. China’s chances of becoming a democracy within our lifetimes seems highly unlikely, but stranger things have happened. It will have to be a slow, grinding process; you can’t fill China’s power vacuum overnight. Still, the more the Chinese people demand it, the more likely it is to happen. Let’s hope the cause continues to move forward, no matter how impossible it may seem at the moment.

Bill, sorry for hijacking your post, but my comments are directly related.

Sounds bad,

Consumers were advised yesterday to discard all toothpaste made in China after federal health officials said they found Chinese-made toothpaste containing a poison used in some antifreeze in three locations: Miami, the Port of Los Angeles and Puerto Rico.

Although there are no reports of anyone being harmed by the toothpaste, the Food and Drug Administration warned that the Chinese products had a ‘low but meaningful risk of toxicity and injury’ to children and people with kidney or liver disease.

The United States is the seventh country to find tainted Chinese toothpaste within its borders in recent weeks.

I just bought a tube of Chinese toothpaste (Shu Shuang is the brand) a couple of weeks ago. A shame, that I have to throw it out. “Made in China” was becoming a positive phrase, a sign of good workmanship – at least for me. A pity that a few greedy gold diggers seeking fast profits irrespective of the health of their customers had to fuck it all up. When I read about the infamous infant formula scandal a couple for years ago I never imagined they could be so careless as to allow such dangers to seep outside China’s borders. After all, exports are China’s lifeblood. I hope we don’t see a backlash against all things China-made, but if we do, greedy Chinese businesses, spurred on by a lack of regulation, have only themselves to blame.

Update: For some balance, China offers a rebuttal.

Also, here’s an interesting piece on how nearly all the vitamin C we take is made in China. The post also notes China’s charges that the US exports lots of salmonella-infected salmon into China. Is it true, and is intentional? I don’t know.

Congressional Quarterly has a bombshell of a story. I’m just going to offer a sample and suggest you check it out. (Still recovering from serious jet lag after my ill-fated trip to Germany.)

The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington’s foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations – creating the potential of a nuclear war over Taiwan, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell says.

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the U.S. Army colonel who was Powell’s chief of staff through two administrations, said in little-noted remarks early last month that ‘neocons’ in the top rungs of the administration quietly encouraged Taiwanese politicians to move toward a declaration of independence from mainland China – an act that the communist regime has repeatedly warned would provoke a military strike.

The top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan at the time, Douglas Paal, backs up Wilkerson’s account, which is being hotly disputed by key former defense officials.

Considering the source and considering the ongoing shenanigans of the Cheney neocon cabal led by Doug Feith, I find this story all too easy to believe. Bush himself actually emerges as one of the saner players in this little melodrama. It’s the Cheney neocon nuts we all need to be scared of. Let’s hope Bush clears lots of brush to stay in good health; the only thing more terrifying than our current president is his vice president.

You know you aren’t in China anymore when you see all the bicyclists stop at a red light at a virtually empty intersection, patiently waiting for the light to change to green before they head on. You know it when at breakfast you see German men sipping from huge glasses of weissbier as they eat their bratwurst. You know it when you enter a relatively upscale restaurant and see unleashed dogs lying on the floor by their owners’ feet. It was refreshing; I was glad to be back in Munich, where I spent my junior year of college studying classical music and German. This attitude was soon tempered, however, as my weekend progressed.

I arrived in Germany on Saturday afternoon around 5 p.m. and was surprised to see just about every business shut down for the day. I had forgotten to bring the recharging cable for my iPod and was certain I could easily find one in downtown Munich and set out for a little walk to do so. My hotel is by Gaertner Platz, right off of Schwannthaler Strasse, a street lined with one electronics shop after another. Whatever kind of electronics item you can think of – mobile phones, computers, disc drives, digital cameras – there’s a store that sells them on Schwannthalerstr.

The only problem was, every single one of them was closed.

In vain I walked from shop to shop. Each had the little sign on its door saying they close at 4 p.m. on Saturday and are closed all day Sunday. Okay. I used to live in Germany, and I had forgotten how seriously they take their weekends. And that’s not a bad thing. But then, when I was back in my hotel lobby, I heard the concierge telling a guest that Monday was a national holiday and that the entire city would be for all intents and purposes shut down. I was not going to get my cable.

I didn’t give up hope, and this morning (Monday) I resumed my quest despite the sudden drop in temperature and an icy rainfall. This time I walked much farther, crossing into Marienplatz (the Munich version of Wangfujing, except it’s incredibly beautiful and bursting with centuries-old culture) and scouring its outer limits. Nothing. Today, not even the restaurants and Internet cafes were open. I had to walk nearly half an hour to find a place where I could get a cup on coffee, and the Internet cafe I’m using now took me even longer to find.

Think about it: For two and a half days, a customer with needs, ready and willing to spend money, cannot find an open shop. I compared this with Hong Kong and with China, where the entrepreneurial spirit, annoying as it can be at times, is always on fire. With six years in Asia, I had never seen anything like this even once. The one exception is perhaps Chinese New Year’s day, when things in Greater China do shut down, but only for a day – and still you can find places that are open. Same in America, where on Christmas and Thanksgiving day most businesses shut down, but again only for a single day.

So basically, the thousands of tourists here and people here on business like me are shit out of luck. Two and a half days – that is a long time to lock down an entire country and bring all commerce to a grinding halt. (The Internet cafe in which I am working now is packed, by the way, because its owner apparently bucked the system and opened its doors. There is so much money to be made for those who really want to compete.)

I like the idea of lots of holidays and a relaxed work week. I think the average American workers gets a wretched deal with their measly 10 vacation days and precious few paid holidays.

However, what I have seen in Germany over the past three days drove home to me the point made in a book I am now reading about China, namely that the old European welfare state, with its promise of a 35-hour work week and lots of state-provided benefits simply cannot survive in today’s globalized world. Not when China is heading straight at them, shaking the foundations of their existence and driving them increasingly into irrelevance.

I love Germany and lived here for more than a year. I speak German (though on this trip the German kept coming out with lots of Chinese) and relate to this country on a deeply personal level. And maybe it was just bad luck that I landed in Munich on the eve of a two-day holiday. But that book I am reading (I’ll write it up over the next few days, and don’t want to give away the title yet) kept comparing Germany and China, and I couldn’t help doing so myself. It talked of the 25-hour workweek for teachers, and the attitude (since disproven at a painful cost) that Germany’s artisans were untouchable and invulnerable to global competition. It talked of a socialized medical system that was literally breaking the back of a nation weighted down already with an unemployment rate above 12 percent.

And yes, I’m conflicted as I write this. I believe in universal healthcare and unions and workers’ rights. But I also believe in competitiveness and pragmatism. As I walked the streets of Munich for two and a half days unable to buy a pen or a simple computer cable, I kept thinking, China is going to crush this country, which is too in love with its own comforts, too unwilling to face the realities of today’s globalized business world.

I know, it’s not that simple. Competition from China is unique in that it is not fair (more about that when I review the book I’m reading), and there is little that countries like Germany can do to defend themselves. Even if they added hours to their workweek and trimmed social spending, China would continue to undercut them and force their great companies to outsource all manufacturing, leaving countless workers in dire straits. But I saw my search for an open shop as a metaphor for what’s wrong with “Old Europe,” stuck in the past and believing it can weather the storm while keeping its ineffective and outdated welfare system intact. China is hungry. Its competitors had better be hungry, too.

I am sure many here see the long holiday and the relaxed working hours as great things, as signs of Germany’s strength, as proof of the efficacy of Germany’s liberal policies. But this comfort and complacency seems to me a trap, especially at a time when Germany’s population is aging, with nowhere near the number of young people to keep financing the strained welfare system.

And meanwhile, China is shaking the world, and places like Germany had better recognize the challenge. Even on CNY day in Beijing, I would have found a place to buy a pen and a cable. Someone’s always out there hustling to close the sale. Those who don’t play with equal determination and agility will be crushed under the behemoth that is Chinese competition.

A most interesting read. I’ve always praised Hu’s shrewd approach to foreign relations, especially his courting of developing countries whose resources will prove vital to China’s continued growth. This tells me China’s leadership does indeed know what it’s doing, at least outside its own borders.

When Greenspan talks, markets listen. Still.

Chinese shares have fallen after former US Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan said its stock market was overvalued and due for a “dramatic contraction”. His remarks had an impact on markets in the US , Europe and Asia, fanning already prevalent fears of a slowdown in China ‘s booming economy.

Signs that Beijing was trying to rein in its startling growth earlier this year led to a temporary fall in shares. But markets have since risen to levels Mr Greenspan said were “unsustainable”.

Market bubble?

The Shanghai Composite Index dropped as much as 1.5% following Mr Greenspan’s comments before closing down 22.58 points, or 0.5%, at 4151.13. He said Chinese markets had risen by 50% since the start of the year and that this trend could not continue for much longer.

Can the irrational exuberance continue indefinitely? If you think the answer is yes, drop me an email – I have some tulips I’d like to sell you.

Our Man at Xinhua (Beijing Newspeak) posts about the internal struggle to put the mysterious illness gutting Guangdong’s pig population into the proper perspective. Xinhua reports 300 swine down but AP in Hong Kong and other sources have the number much higher. Sadly, we’ve seen this before.

BNS notes that recent media reports on the rise of pork in China–including one YJ and I saw on CCTV one this week–all mention a “rise in prices in Guangdong” but fail to mention any connection to the illness. At this time, nobody seems to know just how serious the problem is, but the post by Beijing Newspeak is not particularly encouraging.

(I strongly encourage everyone to read the linked post before commenting.)

I’ve just been told I need to go to Germany for several days on business so this blog is going to be mighty quiet for the next 10 days or so. Hopefully a guest blogger will jump in and keep things moving (please?).

Richard

Another Times column, directly related to China. (Word file.)

I stopped posting NYT columns a long time ago, but today’s piece by Paul Krugman is directly relevant to our recent conversations. Krugman says this disaster is in part the fault of a free-market, no-regulation mentality fostered by Milton Friedman and taken to dizzying new heights by the Bush administration. Yes, China and others may be exporting bad food, but in the past there was a far greater likelihood of it not reaching your supermarket shelf. You can read the entire piece here. (Word file.)