SHANGHAI -- As the U.S. presidential election shifts into high gear, Washington hosts China's Vice President Xi Jinping, heir apparent of the emergent super power. The world's most powerful electoral democracy and the largest one-party state meet at a time of political transition for both. Many have characterized the competition of ideas between the two giants as one between democracy and authoritarianism. This false perspective needs to be dispelled.
The West's competition of ideas with China is not between democracy and authoritarianism, but between two fundamentally different outlooks on political systems. The former sees democracy as an end in itself; the latter sees any political system as barely means.
Democracy, as the term is understood in the modern West, occupies a small fraction in the long history of human governance. Athens lasted a century and a half - a quick failure, really. The modern experiment is even shorter. If one defines democracy as one-person-one-vote, American democracy is only 92 years old. In practice it is only 47 years old, if one begins counting at the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- far more ephemeral than even China's shortest-lived dynasties.
The foundation of modern Western democracy is faith, not empirical evidence, namely the individual is rational and the individual is endowed with God-given rights. It is precisely such absolute faith and the resulting ideological hubris that are driving modern democracy toward its demise.
The full version of this piece was published in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune under the title Why China's Political Model is Superior. It can be found here.
Eunice Hyon Min Rho: The Conspiracy to Expand Democracy
There is a crucial cultural distinction between the West and China over the individual. The West by faith or otherwise presumes absolute right of the individual, say even higher than the universe itself. China gives greater weight to the collective, the society.
From the perspective of resources, it take much more to support and sustain individualism. Thus, the China cultural bias towards giving more absolute/moral right to the collective over the individual is "right" as it take less resources to support a larger population.
A better conclusion to his article would be "why China's political model is fitting for the current stage of development".
Well, most of human history we've been wallowing in our own filth. But that doesn't mean it's always gotta be that way. And it's not a coincidence that the industrial revolution occurred in places where people had representative governments and inalienable rights.
The fact is, China can't compete, and hubris of ideas like this that is the reason. All Chinese firms can do is either a) steal innovations from other firms or b) let themselves be run by their Taiwanese betters, who end up taking the majority of what little value-added those export processors impart.
Chinese government? What a joke.
The writer needs to go to page 950 of Dr. Carrol Quigley's book; Tragedy and Hope, and read those next 20 pages where Dr. Quigley, Bill Clinton described as being his "mentor" in World Affairs, describes the "profound influence that a private group of powerful men have on World events and that history does not record that influence".
Dr. Quigley was a long time member of The Pratt House (David Rockefeller, Chairman) and received permission to study the innermost records of Pratt and its sister interlock, The Chatham House in London (both est. in 1921 for the purpose of controlling the governments of England and the U.S.).
His book had a short 7 day retail shelf life for someone at Pratt actually read the book and was shocked over the revelations of those 20 pages and it was abruptly removed from circulation.
So, that group of powerful private men are seeking the demise of the U.S. and the rise of China for the sole purpose of a singular global government.
As Putin said, The Chinese Governance model would be perfect for a Global Government!
Super article. I only had the chance to read it the other day; no time to comment. When I looked for it today I was astonished by how deep it had already been buried. Maybe you should have attached a picture of Kim Kardashian to the article so that the info police would keep it in fron of our faces for a week or so.
To be fair, Alexis de Tocqueville and Nietzsche both clearly pointed out the dumbing down, or "leveling" aspect of democracy, and it is a double-edged sword has allowed Americans to stupid themselves to death, all while waiving the flag of freedom. Sort of like holding on to a gold ingot as one sinks to the ocean floor, and in this way I think you're right; the chinese culture will outlast America. There is possibility for an American turn-around, but I don't see it as likely.
had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent
form of government.
A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can
vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the
most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has
been about 200 years.
During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage
Let's skip the psuedo-spirtual part and go right to courage to regain liberty.
It has raised several key issues fundamental to a sound understanding of relations between man and society, man and state.,
We'd rather have the messy, noisy, unsatisfying Golden Mean of Aristotle than the brutish state-imposed system of the really smart guys of any government whose daddies were the really smart guys before them. When things go wrong, the messy, noisy masses come up with a messy noisy hardly-satisfying-but-probably-optimal solution. Humans seem to rather enjoy not being suppressed.
When things go wrong in the states run by the really smart guys, they lock up the complainers they haven't shot and the messy quiet masses go back to stewing about things and dreaming about how nice a self-determined messy compromise might have been.
It's probably still a generation or two away, but China will likely have more of a messy, participative democracy one day. Life's just not perfect, but its always better when it's free and governed by laws, not the really smart guys.
Survival in what sense? Whatever happens in the next century, I'm pretty sure we aren't going to evaporate. The "ephemeral" Greeks didn't either; they were militarily conquered by the Romans, and remained one of the most prosperous portions of the Roman Empire. Incidentally the Greeks also managed to develop philosophy, mathematics, and science which are still relevant today; I would probably consider this to be a greater accomplishment than maintaining a society where 90% of the population eats shit under the same set of monarchs for 500 years. What was China doing when Democritus was proposing the atomic theory of matter, or Pythagoras was deriving the basis for trigonometry? I don't really know, but I will concede that they probably did it for much, much longer.
Democracy in the west might fail, its true, but that would only mean that the west would end up being a collection of societies that bear a striking resemblance to modern China. Societies whose only goal is to maintain the "stability" of the power and comfort of their leaders. Enjoy your stability; I'll continue to hope that we don't share it with you.
If that's the case, Athenian democracy never existed.
Interesting analysis.
There is an English word for that, it is called oppression.While it is true that America's version of Democracy is flawed and may even be in serious danger at present, there are systems in place to make the changes needed to let our experiment continue.Yes we do have faith in our democracy, you could even call it our true national religion.Liberals and conservatives, can I think, agree that limiting citizen participation in governance as the "the conditions and the needs of the nation change." is a chilling prospect.There are many of us who's belief and allegiance to the constitution would cause us to go to any lengths to ensure that it remains in force and that our nation continues to be ruled by law and not men.Your prediction of our version of democracies demise is premature and wrongheaded.
I guess this guy missed what was going on during the Bush II administration. ;)
He is also wrong when he ways American see democracy as an end in itself. I think American would be satisfied with any political system that guaranteed what Jefferson called "inalienable rights". Finally, the hubristic tone of his message reminds me a lot of what the Japanese were saying about America during the '80's, or what the Germans were saying in the '40's, or what the Russians were saying in the '50's.
Eventually the Chinese butcher's bill, for everything from lack of IP potection, to lack of manufacturing standards, to the grotesque environmental degradation, is going to become due. There are already signs that China is approaching the wall. We'll see how well they hold up when the economic growth they have enjoyed the past few years suddenly stalls.
True, but most Americans think that only democracy guarantees that. Try, as the author suggests, saying that the US should abandon it's democratic system and gauge the response. ;)
This has been the refrain for decades now. China will continue to defy the predictions of all those "brilliant" economists who DIDN'T see the wall America hit until after the fact.
"We'll see how well they hold up when the economic growth they have enjoyed the past few decades suddenly stalls."
Fixed that.
Laws protecting property, including IP, only make sense to the degree that they promote economic development. They are not some inalienable "God-given Right." If they were, then the contracts that employers in the West force their employees to sign granting the employer possession of all IP created by the employee would be indefensible. Such laws would not significantly contribute to China's economic growth at this time, so it would be wrongheaded for China to harden them much.
China has already experienced their "The Cuyahoga's burning!!" moment and has for many years already been aggressively greening its economy. It took decades for America to clean up and the job is still far from complete. China is trying to do that job while it is still industrializing. One would assume that pursuing two conflicting agendas would cripple both, yet China's economy is still growing rapidly and environmental reforms are proceeding on schedule.