Revolutionary Anniversaries
Few Westerners will take note that this week it is time to celebrate Chinese revolutions. October 1 will be the 59th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (celebrated as National Day). Ten days later, on October 10, Taiwan celebrates its National Day (also known as Double Ten Day, and on its 97th go-round). On the mainland, Double Tens is used as an opportunity to commemorate the uprising that overthrew the Qing Dynasty, though not the Republic that followed it. Of course, which one you celebrate depends on location and political leaning, but either way early October is clearly a time for revolutions.
Even so, these aren’t the Chinese revolutions that matter in the West. Never mind that the Wuchang Uprising of 1911 is China’s Boston Tea Party, nor that 1949 marked the beginning of the greatest increases in rural stability in modern Chinese history (not to overlook the violence of the Mao Era, but in the spirit of early October, we’ll focus on triumphal history for the moment). The Chinese revolution that Westerners want to talk about is a failed one—the 1989 student uprising.
POSTED COMMENTS: 4 Responses
However, increasingly it seems, even to some of us who express outrage at specific abusive practices and endemic corruption, that the choice of stability was a prescient one, and one that could lead to a steady expansion of civil rights without the devastating violence of a revolution
Amen
Uh… so the choices were that stark? The “violence of a revolution” versus “steady expansion of civil rights”? I don’t think so—not then, not now.
To recap what I wrote under the blog post itself (not sure if the moderator has approved my comments yet):
Nowadays, China has an astonishingly high rate of protests and riots—87,000 incidents the last year that the government released figures (though with less people per incident than in the late 1990s / early 2000s). And, at the same time, China has seen tentative steps toward more official accountability across a range of institutions, from the All China Federation of Trade Unions to the media to local elections.
If the 1989 student-worker movement had gone forward, it would have been a drawn-out thing, with a steady back and forth between protests and government concessions. Basically, it would have been like China is right now, just accelerated. The Party-State was not on the verge of dissolving; that was not even on the table.
I can understand worries about democracy sinking the country back into the Cultural Revolution or dividing the country or leading to mafia capitalism, as in the USSR (though China has its share of corruption). But there is also another danger, the one that Pei Minxin does a good job of describing: stagnation.
Plenty of countries have learned to live with nonstop, low-level unrest while maintaining their ruling parties (maybe one party, maybe two or three parties) and the needs of a small stratum of frightened bourgeoisie. But they haven’t gone anywhere. They’ve lost their spots as promising “developing states” and just slipped off, waiting for bailouts now and then (if this sounds like the U.S., not just PRI-era Mexico, then that’s intentional).
Dynamism is important. I don’t agree with everything about Deng Xiaoping by a long shot—least of all his response to the students and workers protesting—but at least he saw the world as in need of constant corrections and new ideas—not just a deadening stability.
Without stability there is no chance whatsoever that economy will grow It is one thing for European to debate the finer thing of policy in parliament
China with no tradition of democracy and no credible opposition party. Democracy will only result in blood on the street and chaos
Peixin Mei, Melinda Liu, Gordon Chang are arm chair politicians who has no practical experience to run 1.3 billion people And who only use their ethnicity as value added embellishment
Let compare Taiwan and Singapore They start climbing economy ladder at about the same time Now Singapore percapita income is $32000 and Taiwan still stuck at $17000 Now what democracy does to Taiwan other than decreasing living standard, fleeing bussines, and horde of unemployed young man
So certainly MeiXin Pei choose the wrong example
John,
Judging from your comments, you yourself are not an “arm chair politician” and have direct experience ruling 1.3 billion people—or, perhaps, you believe that Samuel Huntington developmental arguments are inherently reasonable and tested and therefore immune from the “arm chair” accusation.
It’s true that if any new political system dropped out of the air, it would cause chaos (though judging from Lhasa, Weng’an, etc. China already has its share of chaos). And I agree that democracy is not a panacea for all problems—it is also not the source of every problem in other places, such as Taiwan or India. It is one ingredient.
The question, though, is how do we move along the road to a more accountable and, yes, more stable political system. How do we create a meaningful opposition (you are right that there is none now)? How do we protect against the wealthy swinging even more power? Does China go with a federal system or another system? I haven’t heard enough thinking along those lines, whether from dissidents or apologists or from gradual reformers.
Finally, I wouldn’t put Pei Minxin in the same company as Gordan Chang. Gordan Chang, with all respect, is a hack.