In the International Herald Tribune, Howard French asks a series of “What Ifs” about China as a model for the rest of the world:
What if popular consent in the form of real democratic participation by the citizenry had no bearing on a state’s ability to conducts its affairs with success? In myriad ways in today’s China, the government all but commands people to keep their minds off of politics, and consultation with the people is all but nonexistent…
What if personality were rendered irrelevant to the public practice of politics? Since China’s leaders are not chosen in any meaningful way by the people, there is almost no pandering to the base of the kind that often seems to keep American politics welded at election time to issues that arguably have little to do with the nation’s real destiny.
…What if politics with a capital “P” could be eliminated altogether, or very nearly so, at least, and a secretly selected circle of wise men (and infrequently, women) could proceed straight to policy formation and execution based purely on their own – and this is Hu’s own favorite description – “scientific” assessment of the nation’s needs and priorities?
…What if a country could become great and powerful without ever becoming a “great power,” or at least not with any of the connotations that we have come to expect with such a label? [Full text]
