Chinese Elections -- Just Like Democrats Versus Republicans -- NOT
The always excellent China Confidential (h/t to the brand new China Watcher blog for that phrase) just did a blog on China's decision to have local elections. Entitled, "From Competing Candidates to Competing Factions? China's Spinmeisters Say It's Just a Matter of Time," discusses how, "leading up to the 2007 National People's Congress meeting, elections will be held for officials on the provincial, county, city, and township levels" and posits that these elections will be of the one party variety.
I love this part of the post:
Pressed by an American reporter to explain the party's unwavering opposition to multiparty elections, one official spinmeister was ready with a response certain to resonate among rulers of democratically challenged developing nations.
"Gradually, the differences between our systems will become less obvious," he said. "After all, in the US today you really have only one party, the property party, except it is divided into two factions that call themselves Democrat and Republican."
I am embarrassed to admit it actually took me a couple of minutes to see the giant flaw in this argument even if one agrees there is little difference between Democrats and Republicans, effectively making the U.S. a one party state. The difference is that the United States is a "one" party state (with two subsidiaries?) by choice, not by government edict.
Comments (11)
Read through and enter the discussion by using the form at the endDoug - May 17, 2006 10:46 AM
I agree with Dan in terms of the fatal flaw. I would also add that far more meaningful than trying to simply compare the virtures/deficits of our system vis-a-vis the Chinese model (an effort which is all too often overdetermined by our respective cultural differences and thus quickly leads to sloganeering, i.e. the reflex championing of American-style democracy, human rights, etc... at the expense of rational thought), would be to use the "spinmeister's" carefully phrased apologia as the entry into a serious discussion about the meaning of democracy itself. To do that would be to at the very least question the assumption we often make, which is that American democracy is the ideal, perfect democracy in the world and cannot be improved upon. The spinmeister implies this by suggesting that Americans would be happy if China's system superficially resembled our own. We can debate each of these propositions, but that's the point: they are open to debate.
With respect to the idea that America has simply one party representing the propertied class but that we at least choose to run our country this way, back in the '70's Herbert Marcuse wrote a fairly controversial work called _One Dimensional Man_ which argued that in fact America is run by the same group of people. Marcuse felt that democracy was a sham in that the media, the capitialists, and the rulers offered the illusion of choice in order to maintain a more docile citizenry. Marcuse was of course a Marxist and we need not adhere to his view, but it does offer a counter-argument to Dan's point.
Finally, the "spinmeister's" argument is somewhat ambiguous with respect to the goals he seems to espouse. Does he mean to suggest that the goal is to propagate a capitalist-styled oppression of the masses (a la the US)? If not, what's the point of making the comparison except to suggest that Americans have no ground for criticism in that their democracy is flawed as well? I THINK that is his point, but if it is, it doesn't mean that China is, presto changeo, a democracy. To compare two systems in terms of arguably similar (very tenuous, in my view) characteristics and on that ground try to demonstrate that therefore the latter system thus shares ALL the characteristics necessary to produce the former is palpably absurd.
Joseph Wang - May 17, 2006 1:10 PM
I don't think the comment was flawed.
The speaker was making a statement about the future, and looking around me I see lots of trends that suggest that the United States may be edging toward one-party authoritarianism. I don't think it is a good thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if fifty years from now, the US was much more authoritarian than it is today. It would greatly sadden me, but it wouldn't surprise me.
As far as choice, it is scary how few competitive elections there are at the national level, and how those that are competitive are driven more by marketing and money than by anything else. The response is to say that the US is still better than China. Well it is, and therefore what?
Also, the CCP has very good reasons not to want multi-party democracy now. Areas of the world that make a sudden transition to democracy (Russia and Iraq) don't have a good track record, and the places that do have very strong democracies (Taiwan and South Korea) had gradual transitions that went through a few decades.
China Law Blog - May 17, 2006 3:19 PM
Mr. Wang/Doug --
I am always saying that one of the signs of a good and experienced lawyer is an unwillingess to take on matters beyond that which he or she is capable of handling. Discussions on the meaning of democracy are beyond me.
I will, however, note that I agree with both Mr. Berman and Mr. Wang in their cautioning against a one size fits all democracy that must be immediately enacted. A few years ago, I read the book, "The World On Fire," and though my belief in democracy as the ideal has never wavered, I do think the practicalities in bringing about such a state quickly have to be considered on a case by case basis.
Doug - May 17, 2006 7:48 PM
I respect Mr. Wang's point and in fact I think we would largely agree with the idea that trying to bring democracy to a country can backfire terribly. Amy Chua's book on the subject is quite important in this respect and I thank Dan for mentioning it.
Nevertheless, I would point out that Mr. Wang's argument is not new. As Marcuse's book suggests, such arguments about U.S. democracy have been mooted for many years. If America is an authoritarian country, we did not get that way overnight either.
I am somewhat more of an optimist than Mr. Wang. We can see by looking at Barack Obama's election and some others, that small changes are possible. I also think that rhetorically the Chinese speaker was fobbing off the real lack of democracy in China by suggesting that the U.S. and China's political systems are really, at heart, quite similar. I still believe this is a piece of casuistry that cannot stand unchecked.
China Law Blog - May 17, 2006 10:08 PM
Doug --
America's democracy has been strong for 200+ years and I am confident it will do just fine. I also don't think Barack Obama's election will have any impact on it whatsoever. Nothing against him, but come on...
Joseph Wang - May 18, 2006 8:11 AM
I don't think that the United States *is* an authoritarian country. Whether it will be one in fifty years is another question. It's a good thing that military tribunals have gone nowhere because of the opposition of many within the government. It's a bad thing that people even thought of using them. I do think it is a very bad idea to rely on a particular vote or person to maintain a constitutional system. It's important that the system be "fool-proof" so that things keep working despite bad decisions, and the US system actually works pretty well here.
I don't know of very many Chinese people who think that the political system in the United States has some good characteristics or that the Chinese political system has some major flaws, and that China can learn things from the United States. This is very different from the late-Soviet case in which it was ideologically impossible to admit that the system had problems, and hence ideologically impossible to fix them.
What I think does annoy people (and not just in China) is the notion that just because the American political system is pretty good, it gives Americans the God-given right to tell the rest of the world what do to and not to take objections to a stated policy seriously. The other annoyance is the idea that the United States has nothing (either positive or negative) to learn from China.
One other thing is that it's really important not to make the issue US versus China or even the US government versus the Chinese government. When you really start talking to people, you figure out that people really disagree over some fundamental things, and those disagreements often do not fall along national lines.
One thing that has heavily influenced my political views is the first hand observation that it is very common that people that are in favor of "democracy" actually don't react well when people disagree with them.
China Law Blog - May 18, 2006 8:36 AM
Mr. Wang --
I think it is nearly instinctive for people to compare the way things are in other countries with the way things are in their home country and to assume that the way things are in their country (so long as that way has been functioning fine) is the best. I agree this is an instinct that must be overcome as it is clouds potential improvements. I am not sure Americans are any more prone to this than people of other countries; I think it just seems that we are because we have the platform from which we can seek to enforce our views on others.
I deal with this all the time in the legal arena where our clients are often quick to think that if it is different from where they are located, it is automatically worse. Our foreign clients always complain about how long and drawn out litigation here is in the United States and our American clients complain about how little opportunity there is to gather and present evidence in cases overseas. One way is not necessarily better than the other; each has its tradeoffs and compromises.
I have overseen cases in China from start to finish in an eighth of the time such a case would take in the U.S. and at a comparably reduced cost. The liklihood of a fair result in such rapid time is less, yet, the reduced time and costs alone increase the fairness if one of the parties literally could not afford to hang on if the United States. Different systems, one not necessarily better than the other.
I hate discussions like this because I know someone is now going to complain I am wishy-washy on democracy (I'm not) or that it is ridiculous to equate the American legal system with the Chinese (please note, that I did this in only the limited areas of cost and time, not inherent fairness, etc.). All I am doing here is calling for getting away from the idea that how things are done in one's own country are necessarily the best. Sometimes they are the best, but sometimes they are not.
Dan tdaxp - May 18, 2006 6:15 PM
A larger perspective is that the US is a one-party state by government edict -- because of structural reasons. Nearly everything is decided in a series of winner-take-all elections, which strongly bias the results in favor of 2 parties. There are exceptions (The quasi-3 party system of the UK, the quasi-4 party system of Canada), but it does seem to be a trend.
A similar view can seen by applying Friedman's "golden straightjacket." Adopt globalization, and suddenly more and more becomes out of bounds for serious discussion.
Hopefully China will evolve along the same way. The Japanese NDP and Taiwanese KMT (even if the latter is temporarily out of power) appear to have constructed de facto one party states while maintaining the ability of the voters to kick out disliked governments. A CCP that is the same way in China would be an extremely good thing.
But then agin, 900m peasants is quite the roadblock
China Law Blog - May 18, 2006 6:47 PM
Dan --
Thanks for checking in.
Why do you see the 900 million peasants as a roadblock? And a roadblock to what?
Dan tdaxp - May 19, 2006 4:51 AM
Interesting way to sort comments -- I wondered why mine wasn't showing up, then checked on the top! :-)
China has up to 500m citizens who are meaningful stakeholders in the system. These working and middle class Chinese see their lives as improved because of the Deng and post-Deng reforms, and would be hestitant to substantially change the economic system. They are meaningful stakeholders, and the closest China has to a "middle class." Democracy requires such a class.
The majority of 900m, however, have no such ownership of free China. These are the same people who supported the Taiping, the Maoists, and every other revolution that swept China promising to take from the cities and give to the countries. But here it's worse, because Mao destroyed the rural middle class. The 900m have received nothing from the current system (and often next to nothing -- Deng's "family responsibility" system is suspiciously close to a "Devil take the hindmost" system) and cannot be trusted to elect an acceptable leadership.
Extending the vote to the upper 500m Chinese would have neglibible effects. This or that policy would be changed, for better or for worse, but the essential structure of China would remain intact. That would not be true in if the lower 2/3rds got the vote.
Give the upper 500m the vote, and you'd have South Korea: The Big Version. Give everyone else the vote, and you get Uganda: The Big Verson.
The best future would be gradual extension of the right to vote, similar to how the UK liberalized in the 19th century.
Doug - May 19, 2006 1:24 PM
While I appreciate the comparative spin of these posts (something I am very interested in), I actually wonder to what extent it is really constructive to focus solely on China's political system in reference to U.S.-style democracy when there are many other more relevant examples from which to choose. India is one democracy that warrants a closer comparison to China in terms of size of population, rate of development, etc... than the U.S. Because there are certain steady variables with respect to India and China (specifically size, population), we can make more meaningful comparisons about the impact of the political system. This is not to say that we can't find comparisons between the U.S. and China, but we end up at a much higher level of abstraction than may, in the end, be helpful.
We also need to be careful that we clearly look at structural similarities/contrasts.
Terms such as democracy only say so much. Different democracies act through and by institutions which vary tremendously in terms of size, function, and influence. We need to instead look closely at the incentives provided by different structures for corruption, opportunism, and cronyism, political involvement, etc...
Some of these posts appear to be more focused on where the U.S. is lacking rather than on comparing the two systems. Having lived in Taiwan for five years, I would welcome a discussion on the meaning of democratization in Taiwan for possible democracy on the mainland.