Drezner: Jury's still out on China's democratic potential

Daniel Drezner:

China's been opening to the world for two decades now and Beijing's Freedom House score on accountability and public voice hasn't really budged.... So anyone who thinks that economic liberalization will lead to political liberalization in the short-term is fooling themselves.

That said, this isn't a short-term game that's being played. Freedom House also acknowledges that, "Even though political institutions in China have not undergone major change, the degree to which Chinese can manage their own lives has increased substantially in the reform era." Furthermore, as someone watching their foreign economic policy, I think it's safe to say that the current Chinese leadership is far more sensitive to domestic political pressures than was the case a decade ago....

China might be one of the toughest tests imaginable on the relationship between economic and political liberalization. The country has a strong civilizational identity, but the leadership is acutely aware of the rebellious tendencies of some of its ethnic minorities. The population is so huge that even after decades of double-digit economic growth, a lot of Chinese citizens are dirt poor. It will likely take another decade for China's GDP per capita figure to rise to the level when most political science models would predict some push towards democratization.

Time awasting. Most nations living under dictators are poor. Trouble is, if we have to wait for them to get rich before they turn democratic, the tyrants have too much time to do too much damage.

Where in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does it say only the affluent may have their right to be free?

Frank Warner

Comments

[jj mollo]

We'll all be speaking Chinese one day. The main question is whether we have a choice about it. Was Nixon right? Perhaps if not for him China would be like North Korea, but a lot more dangerous.

China may be authoritarian today, but it's not like other places. The one thing certain is that it will change. Who knows how it will play out.

[Frank Warner]

The bad part is that we allowed it to accumulate trillions of dollars while we sank deep into debt.

Some call that blissful interdependence, but it's no blessing that tyrants have all the world's mad money.

[jj mollo]

It's not the debt that makes them dangerous. It's the growing economic power, the productivity, the massive pool of educated, innovative workers, the sheer capability. Coupled with benign intentions, that's a huge win-win for us both. Otherwise it's a huge problem.

[George]

You forgot to mention the massive pool of slave laborers.

[jj mollo]

However bad it is for them now, it's been worse in the past.

It is true, though. Low cost labor is a market advantage, but that's not what makes them dangerous. Their huge population gives them more than a numerical advantage, more than just a labor pool. It also gives them a tremendous talent pool to draw upon. You can already see it in their hacking talents. The only question is whether they use this resource to build better cars or bigger guns.