In his provocative TED talk A Tale of Two Political Systems in June 2013, Eric X Li articulates how the Communsit Party of China (CPC) can achieve Adaptability, Meritorcracy, and Legitimacy.
Li stresses, rightly, that he does not mean to discredit Democracy, but merely tries to show that multi-party democracy may not be the only trick that works in a diverse world. He is also right to point out that the CPC is in continual metamorphosis to keep up with the times. The system is unique to China's circumstances and is not meant to serve as a model for other countries.
Yasheng Huang, Professor of Political Economy and International Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, however, took Eric X Li to task in a comprehensive critque on a TED Blog on 1 July 2013. Click here.
The Professor doesn't argue that democracy will necessarily lead "to a nirvana" but that "it can help prevent a living hell". He admits that he is not for democracy on "messianic" but on "pragmatic" grounds - i.e. that it works better on the whole. Throughout his arguments, he sets great store on the right to vote.
There is much in Professor Huang's robust argument to commend itself. However, China now doesn't pretend that the Communist system is the be-all-and-end-all to be emulated by the rest of the world. Indeed, the leadership has repeately refrained from this hubris.
Perhaps the debate would have been more precise if the focus was shifted to whether China for the past few decades would have fared better as a democracy. Such a hypothetical question, of course, cannot be supported by facts. However, evidence shows that gripping social and environmental costs notwithstanding, the CPC managed to channel huge national resources and productivity over a sustained period, building the solid human capital and physical infrastructure which have driven the country's dramatic rise so far.
There is ample evidence to show that the CPC has been renewing itself continuously, out of the sheer need to survive in the changing times. Moreover, it is doubtful whether, given the political, economic, social and historical bottlenecks that China inherited before the Reform Era, these herculean challenges could have been overcome better by Western democracy. Click here
For perspective, in an earlier TED Talk in July 2011, Professor Huang tried to answer the question if democracy stifles economic growth by comparing the models of development between China and India. The comparison shows that at best, the answer is nuanced. Neverthless, he omitted to point out that China's miraculous growth in recent decades owes not so much to politics as to the nation becoming the hub of a global trading and manufacturing system.
Following Professor Huang's India-China comparison, it is instructive that in Indian Foreign Policy, an Indian blog commentary dated 15 March 2014 concluded that "nuances of human rights aside and without hindsight ..... democracy does seem to slow the rate of growth in the case of India and China". Click here
Nevertheless, this does not mean that China will not embark on her own quest for a more democratic future. In face of rising aspirations of a massive middle-class, the current leadership is only too aware of the existential threat that lies ahead. Even though the dramatic reforms of the Third Plenum do not appear as revolutionary as they ought to be in some Western eyes, this does mark another clear watershed in China's continuing quest for development, unfettered by any "meta-narrative" of Western model of democracy. Click here
In conclusion, the jury is still out on whether and how China would be able to transform herself politically as the nation emerges as a well-off middle-income society. But so far, it seems unlikely that the country is about to embrace the Western model of democracy anytime soon.
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