The Key to Bringing Democracy to China
At Foreign Policy, MIT’s Yasheng Huang suggests that the best way to promote democracy in China would be to stress elite self-interest over moral values. Huang also challenges the argument that asking China to democratise after thirty years of massive economic growth under Party rule is, in Eri ...
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Yasheng Huang makes some important points–the main reason there has been such a high level of economic improvement over the past 30 years is that the PRC economy had been stagnating or growing very slowly during much of the Mao Era, and thus starting from a very low baseline around 1980. By loosening the old Maoist economic straitjacket, the post-Mao party-state under Deng and his successors was not doing anything so remarkable or inspirational. Look at how much poverty and devastation there was in Europe after the war ended in 1945 and how much economic improvement there was by 1975.
It’s in political leaders’ interest to declare their assets and publicize their tax returns in a system that affords them legal protections and security. Politicians like Romney with Swiss bank accounts and who refused to reveal more than two years of tax returns were ultimately repudiated–CCP leaders with their overseas bank accounts and property should take note.
As the disaster that is the Arab Spring should make clear, there are conditions for the successful implementation of democracy. To be successful it has to be introduced into a stable polity with the guaranteed rule of law. The Chinese have a way to go yet before they are ready for democracy.