China
The Chinese response to unrest by Tibetans in the last two weeks has once again revealed how unlikely Tibetan self-determination is for the foreseeable future.
China is still willing to use force, and seems ready to escalate the level of force far beyond what has so far been employed.
And the Chinese seem ready to shrug off international condemnation: the sacred unity of China is far more important to them.
Tellingly, the government’s depiction of events — with the Tibetans as violent “splittists” manipulated by outside forces — seems to find widespread support among ordinary Chinese. So even a substantially democratized China might still keep a tight rein on Tibet, because the electorate would favor this.
(Image usable with credit and link to FutureAtlas.com)
ChangeWaves last week noted that the landscape of the world economy has changed overnight.
With a recalculation by the World Bank, China’s and India’s economies are now much smaller, at least as measured by purchasing power.
This is how things used to look (click on the graphic to activate):
With the recalculation, the developing Asian economies are rather less imposing:
The upshot that the age of American (and Western) economic dominance may persist longer than people thought.
A Newsweek article last week places a date on potential political change in China: 2022.
The driver? A generation of Communist Party leaders now in their 40s could come to power around that time, and bring with them a “worldlier, more traveled and less doctrinaire” perspective than their predecessors. “These younger officials will have liberal thinking and open minds. They’ll see an era of change,” Renmin University professor Mao Shoulong told Newsweek.
The so-called Sixth Generation has a broader educational background as well — all nine of the current Politburo Standing Committee’s members are engineers by training, while this new generation studied diverse subjects.
They have negative baggage as well: they are said to be “nationalistic, even arrogant.”
The Sixth Generation’s accession to power is not inevitable: the article notes that the “formalized system of generational politics” within the party “may be headed for a breakdown,” making old patterns less probable.
Earlier this month Lee Kuan Yew, who effectively created the nation of Singapore based on his personal vision, suggested to the New York Times that the United States–unlike China–was not effectively preparing for the future in Asia:
One of his concerns now, Mr. Lee said, is that the United States has become so preoccupied with the Middle East that it is failing to look ahead and plan in this part of the world. “I think it’s a real drag slowing down adjusting to the new situation,” he said, describing what he called a lapse that worries Southeast Asian countries that count on Washington to balance the rising economic and diplomatic power of China. “Without this draining of energy, attention and resources for Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, there would have been deep thinking about the long-term trends — working out possible options that the U.S. could exercise to change the direction of long-term trends more in its favor,” Mr. Lee said. As the United States focuses on the Middle East, Mr. Lee said, the Chinese are busy refining their policies and building the foundations of more cooperative long-term relationships in Asia. “They are making strategic decisions on their relations with the region,” he said.
Mr. Lee also notes a pattern that suggests Singaporean cultural power vastly disproportionate to its small size: China’s ministers meet with Singapore’s twice a year “to learn from their experience,” and “50 mayors of Chinese cities visit every three months for courses in city management.”
Last week Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post wrote that he would “bet on America” when forecasting the dominant world power of 50 years from now.
He recites the “declinist” case, but argues that
The evidence for our nation’s downward spiral isn’t sufficient to rule out the very opposite possibility: that the United States will become, in purely geopolitical terms, even stronger in coming decades. The mistake we make is not so much overestimating our problems, but underestimating the problems of our potential rivals.
Achenbach notes the weaknesses of potential rivals:
- China’s economy is currently much smaller than that of the US, and the country is beset by environmental problems. It’s population is aging rapidly, and it “will be the first country to get old before it gets rich.”
- Russia, Japan, and Germany also all face demographic decline; Russia is already shrinking.
- The European Union lacks a level of unity basic to an effective nation-state.
The US, meanwhile, has completely unrivaled military power.
Achenbach does suggest these caveats:
- The American “machine for wealth creation has also been a machine for income inequality;” “geopolitical dominance doesn’t guarantee that we’ll have a country we can be proud of.”
- “Globalization may make the nation-state increasingly irrelevant.”
- As Joseph Nye Jr. puts it, “by traditional measures of hard power …. the United States will remain number one, but being number one ain’t going be what it used to be.”
Achenbach is correct the the US has the strongest shot at remaining number one for decades.
European nations and Japan are under fundamental constraints. China–and India too, though it is unmentioned in this article–are both more likely to stumble or even melt down than is the United States.
But 50 years is a long time. By 2050, some models project the Chinese economy to be considerably larger than that of the United States. India may have caught up by then as well.
Power follows economics. For those sure of America’s perpetual ascendancy, consider a statement at the start of the 20th century by the First Lord of the Admiralty of a then-dominant Britain, as he observed economic trends: “The United Kingdom by itself will not be strong enough to hold its proper place alongside of the U.S., or Russia, and probably not Germany. We shall be thrust aside by sheer weight.” (Quoted in Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, p. 229.)
Foreign Policy offers the odds on six new states achieving independence:
1. Kosovo
Odds — “strong”: driven by US and EU support, it has a good shot at full independence from Serbia
2. South Sudan
Odds — “not great”: a 2011 “referendum will probably happen; and it will probably come out in favor of independence; and Khartoum will almost certainly find a way around the results.”
3. Somaliland
Odds — “very good”: effectively independent from Somalia since 1991, it already has its own government, army, and currency; international organizations will attend to the disastrous state of the rest of Somalia first, however
4. Iraqi Kurdistan
Odds — “fair”: Turkey’s strong opposition may be overruled by facts on the ground if Iraq disintegrates
5. Palestine
Odds — “good”: “details” in the way of a two-state solution will eventually overcome the objections of “the extreme radical wings” on both sides
6. Taiwan
Odds — “poor”: China is getting stronger and stronger, and Taiwan “will accept autonomous status” under China
Writing in the Post, James Mann argues that China is increasingly a political model for the world, combining an authoritarian system with successful wealth creation.
He notes that the Chinese middle class is content with or at least acquiescent to the current system, indicating “that a nation’s elite can be bought off with comfortable apartments, the chance to make money, and significant advances in personal, non-political freedoms (clothes, entertainment, sex, travel abroad).”
It is not clear that the China offers a long-term model for authoritarianism, however.
- Political freedom has increased too — the “non-political freedoms” that Mann lists all used to be within the realm of politics and thereby restricted. This pattern continues, and even allows for thousands of protests a year, and — spottily — discussion of issues that fall clearly in the realm of politics.
- Mann suggests that the “business community is hardly independent of the party; in effect, it is the party, linked to China’s power structure through financial connections or family ties.” That in itself is a route to political change: Chinese business interests may be at odds with authoritarianism. For instance, to participate in global stock markets effectively, ever more Chinese will have to have unfettered access to global news flows. Business will have an interest in predictability that militates against arbitrary Party / bureaucratic interferences.
- China’s engagement with the world does constrain the Chinese political system. Consider the current scandal about tainted products. Part of the outcome is likely to be increased transparency to the outside world, and additional limits on the power of connection and money in the economy, replaced by objective criteria partially imposed by the outside world.
- The middle class continues to be trained for a more democratic system, making more decisions for themselves in more spheres, gaining access to ever-broader information streams, and glimpsing more and more alternatives to the present Chinese political model.
A new poll illustrates the challenge of reconciling the Taiwanese and Chinese views of the island.
Three-fourths of Taiwanese (76.1%) say that Taiwan’s sovereignty belongs solely to the people of the island, while only 15% essentially agree with China’s position that sovereignty is held by both Taiwan and the mainland.
Given that China explicitly rejects Taiwan’s right to self-determination, the continuing threat of future conflict is plain.
Another indication from China of the population’s rising sense that they have rights, and that the government’s power should be constrained: a public shaming of prostitutes drew “a hail of criticism for violating the right to privacy.”
Says a Chinese sociologist,
Twenty years ago, this kind of parade would have been greeted with unanimous applause. But now it gets more criticism than support because more people realize their rights should be protected. And of course, they have more channels to voice their criticism, like the Internet.
While most Chinese appear content with the overall bargain the Communist Party offers — stability and rising wealth for lack of democracy — the public continues to move the line, claiming more rights for themselves, and envisioning more constraints on the government.
It is a trajectory that leads naturally, though not inevitably, to democracy.
A recent LAT article illustrates two interwoven trends:
- China is expanding its presence in diverse ways in Africa and the rest of the Third World.
- This new presence and the power behind it are generating backlash.
In this instance, Zambian workers are feeling abused by Chinese mine owners.
The Chinese model will encounter this kind of difficulty abroad: the lack of human rights and worker rights that makes some aspects of development easier at home will create resentment when implemented elsewhere, further limiting China’s soft power.