Democracy can’t Buy People

I have no strong doubts that America will “only” be the second or third largest economy within two to four decades. In the meantime, while the trends will be suggesting that, many people elsewhere in the world, including Westerners who are focused on economic power alone, will start placing their political bets on China, too. In the views of many, a society where human rights only rank second or third and where democracy is deemed an unnecessary luxury will appear to be more efficient than a democratic model. Many will easily forget or push aside all evidence that democracy may be an essential human right, or an important practise to avoid untenable living conditions of the “ordinary people”, and therefore, in the end, a stablilizing rather than a destabilizing factor in the life of a country. Many people won’t see either that even under an undemocratic – i. e. inefficient – form of government, peoples’ livelihoods can still hardly drop in China. Quite naturally, the only likely direction is upwards anyway, at least for some time to come, as long as most Chinese citizens are living close to the bottom of their individual potentials.

Radio Canada International QSL, 1988

I got this feeling when I looked at the German press online yesterday. An article by Niall Ferguson, first published by Britain’s Financial Times (now only accessible for registered readers) on December 27, has since been published in German by the weekly Stern, the weekly Der Spiegel, the daily Die Welt, and probably a number of regional newspapers, too.

Niall Ferguson’s article doesn’t look wrong to me, but it can encourage short-sighted views of the future when it comes to the benefits that political concepts, rather than civilizations, can offer, or the drawbacks they can cause. The main factors which play a role in Ferguson’s article are money (American current account accounts, public expenditure and revenue) and military power (Afghanistan and Iraq). Even if democracy never becomes something most Chinese people would appreciate and fight for – and among many of them, national power may be viewed as a sufficient substitute for leading a full life individually -, China won’t be an attractive model for most other nations. A country or empire may be powerful – but it won’t be attractive elsewhere unless the citizens can live their lives to their full potentials.

That said, Taiwan before all other countries will be in a difficult position, unless a majority of its people actually like the idea of being “re-united” with China. Their window of opportunity to have their sovereignty internationally recognized – if the opportunity still exists at all -, has begun to shrink. Will the Taiwanese test their opportunities and risk to codify their sovereignty internationally? And how far will the rest of the world – most crucially America – be willing to support and help to defend them?

For those of us who live in democratic countries, China’s growing weight poses questions which would have seemed unimportant only a few years ago. It is unlikely that the average Chinese citizen will enjoy our standards of living in the foreseeable future. And besides, it is unlikely that our standards of living will remain as high as they are. We will need to save more, and to spend less – not only in America. There are ecological reasons for that, and economical reasons. Rises in productivity can’t be endless, as long as we are confined to this planet. Democracy stabilizes society when its promises are sustainable. But democracy may stop doing so if the promises made by its political class – in order to secure their election or reelection – become unsustainable. This question about sustainability has always been an issue, but it must become a central issue in our societies. Democracy isn’t here because Westerners were better people than the Chinese. And the matter of sustainability isn’t at all lofty. While China’s social insurance programs are facing huge challenges, they are only promising comparatively small benefits to the Chinese people. Our welfare systems are much less challenged than theirs, but the promises of our welfare systems to their clientele have become a great burden for every regular employee. If democracy shall stay, we must ask ourselves who we want to be, rather than what we want to own. Democracy can’t buy people. Democracy is either wanted, or it will go away.

Freedom is not a matter of where we live, and it is no matter of nationality or race. But it is, of course, a question about who governs us, which economic and political system we have, and into which direction we want to develop. As China is a totalitarian country, led by a “Communist” party which wants to stay in power (no matter if that will require Communist, Socialist or Confucian colors), its growing influence will require us to be vigorous competitors in terms of political concepts, and to some extent, in terms of power.

It doesn’t really matter how powerful the West’s position will be in the future. But there need to be democratic societies which are able to defend themselves, and which can convince the global public that people only live full rights in the light of human rights.

Once China is a country with a p0litical class that works to heal, rather than to cultivate the mortifications of its people, it can – and maybe should – lead the world. Otherwise, it shouldn’t get into that position.

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Related:
How to Corrupt an Open Society, Aug. 29, 2009
The American Era isn’t over, October 30, 2008

2010: Make-or-Break Time for “Social Stability”

2009 had been the “most difficult one” for China, writes Han Yonghong (韩咏红) of Singapore’s United Morning Post (联合早报), with a deepening international financial crisis, receding export opportunities as a result, sensitive anniversaries, public anger and resulting mass incidents, and sharp political criticism on the internet. But then again, it had also been the year where China had forged ahead, becoming a great country on equal footing with the United States. All in all, 2009 had been a successful year, writes Han, but besides the rapid economic rebound, there was still a lot of unfinished business. The biggest changes for the CCP’s policies in 2010, according to the impression the statements of its leaders are leaving, would be the people’s livelihood, the people’s livelihood, the people’s livelihood (民生、民生、民生). On the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (中国人民政治协商会议全国委员会, or 政治协) New Year’s tea reception, CCP Secretary General and State Chairman Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) had emhasized that the quality and the benefits of economic growth needed to be improved, more attention needed to be paid to the improvement of the people’s livelihood, that lower [i. e., local] party officials needed to push the good trend of rural development further, that the peasants’ incomes shouldn’t remain static, and State Chief Councillor Wen Jiabao (温家宝) explained that the gap between small cities and rural areas should be reduced, that the treatment of migrant workers needed to be improved, and that the living standards of farmers needed to be improved.

The leadership hasn’t addressed the issue of the people’s livelihood for the first time, writes Han Yonghong. In 2009, Beijing provided free textbooks for primary and secondary schools, increased teachers’ incomes and pension funds, etc. The difference between then and now is that in 2009, those were emergency measures, with local governments reacting to discontentment, worried by contradictions.

Behind the concept of reducing the income gaps between small cities and rural areas there is the aim to increase incomes, to create domestic demand, thus creating sustainable growth, writes Han, which would correspond with a speech by Wen Jiabao in September, where he pointed out that “expanding China’s domestic demand is the long-term strategy of China’s economic development” (扩大内需是中国经济发展的长期战略方针).

Closely related to the people’s livelihood are the Three Big Mountains (三座大山), and among these – medical care, education, and housing -, medical reform may also be promoted. It was said that the medical insurance draft had gone through several discussions and amendments, and this new draft was certainly the main point in the government’s provision of public health and basic medical services, and it was hoped that urban workers, staff and residents plus the farmers’ participation in medical insurance (农民参保) would be at above 90 per cent. Besides, at the end of last year, the Central Economic Work Conference (中央经济工作会议) had pointed out that urbanization (城镇化) needed to be stadily advanced, and that the problem of how migrant workers should settle in urban areas needed to be resolved – which would also help to distribute public services more equally to the citizens.

To accomplish these tasks, the governments needed to become more determined, writes Han Yonghong, and the political system itself would need reform, too. In that field, the government’s approach was cautious, and could achieve the effect of relieving social contradictions, but in an environment where civil rights weren’t clearly stated, even revised public policies wouldn’t necessarily bring benefits for disadvantaged groups.

So is it all the usual talk with little action and even less local effects? [*)] Experience suggests that. Then again, even if the next generation of leaders should be even less inclined than the incumbents to care about the “countryside”, demographic data make it abundantly clear that it is make-or-breaktime, and that it is now.

And for avoiding “social contradictions”that could actually lead to the much-trumpeted big chaos (大乱), not only medical care, but the pensions systems too, need to be assured, even if only at a very low level. Chinese people may settle with very little, and old people with even less, but China is a rapidly-aging society. The window of opportunity has become extremely narrow. “China aims to gradually set up a series of networks for the aged, including social endowment assurance and a looking-after service, by 2010″, the Beijing Times wrote – in 2002.

Related:
2010: More Martyrs, more Permanent Residents, December 31, 2009
A Glimpse at China’s Social Security Programs, December 24, 2009

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*) Double-pasted text deleted. This post was heroically written on a very unstable online connection.

No Global Governance as “Old Pain” lingers

“One World” – instead of “first, second, and third world” – used to be an unalienable piece of vocabulary in every do-gooder’s wordpool, at least from Western countries. German weekly Die Zeit, not really a bunch of treehuggers, but a paper usually giving responsible opinion and unhurried advice, is re-assessing the one-world concept in an online article. Yes, in London and Pittsburgh, the governments of the world did write new rules for the financial markets. In Geneva, they held another round of  negotiations about a new trade system. They will be back in Davos again soon, to perambulate all the global problems in their totality. They tried to save global climate in Copenhagen. But they are forgetting the financial crisis, the further we seem to leave it behind us. The more remote the memory, the smaller chances are to write global rules that would be globally effective.

And they failed in Copenhagen – “Every country has its own dirty taboo”. Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Gerhard Schröder liked the idea of global governance, writes Die Zeit. In the end, they hoped, negotiated agreements and international organizations – NGO’s and corporations included – would lead to some kind of substitute for a desirable, but still unachievable global government. Liberals and left-leaning people in general seemed to support the concept.

But global emergency management has proved to be the maximum of what global governance could achieve together. There is no common concept of tomorrow’s world, writes Die Zeit. Both Europeans and Asians had gained a new self-confidence vis-à-vis America. Europe’s economic and social systems had shown a remarkable resistance against the effects of the economic crisis, and India and China put economic development before climate protection. “In India, you can’t see the climate problem eye-to-eye with Europe or the USA”, the paper quotes Shyam Saran, an advisor to India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh. On a global scale, Europe’s concept of political integration appears to be a  rather singular one.

Europe should get prepared for a world with a patchwork of powers which go it alone, like China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa, and clusters of global governance like ASEAN or the EU, Die Zeit quotes a study by the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation.

Die Zeit lists liberals and left-leaning people who actually start to like the idea of such a world – and of nationalists who had always been skeptical of any kind of global governance anyway.

The article’s author actually confuses China’s party and state chairman Hu Jintao with the country’s chief councillor Wen Jiabao. And in other ways, the author also still seems to underestimate the distance between East (arguably excluding several countries such as India, Vietnam, and possibly Japan and South Korea) on the one hand, and Western countries on the other. There isn’t really much reason to believe that a common view of the world will emerge any time soon. Jonathan Spence, in a Reith Lecture in Liverpool, broadcast by the BBC on June 10th 2009 June 10th 2008,  suggested that the issue of the Opium Wars

is now no longer a real one in any important sense and to harp on it now is not something the Chinese have to do. It’s something they can do if they wish to keep an old pain alive.

You can be pretty sure that China’s government does want to keep the old pain alive. “To remember the bitter past to cherish the happy present tense” is a tradition that either came into being or was revived by the CCP during the Chinese Communists’ early days in power – and it is still an efficient way to keep the Chinese public sufficiently afraid or distrustful of foreigners to disapprove of “foreign concepts”. Even otherwise highly open-minded Chinese people often cling to these “open accounts from history”.

At hindsight, at the end of the 20th century or at the end of the 21rst century’s first decade, one may probably say that it was naive to believe that world governance could be an option. You can’t do business with a totalitarian regime, unless you are ready to do business at its terms.

The Zeit article, as flawed as I believe it to be in one or another detail, caught me by surprise. I’m left-leaning myself, and until today, I have felt that my re-orientation towards regional solutions, rather than global ones, was something not too many others of my political color would share. But there seems to be a general trend towards regional action. Elinor Ostrom, an American economist, argues that people may actually commit to the common, rather than the individual use of resources, so long as they succeed in organizing the use and maintenance of such resources. A single system of rules for rather large international fishing zones was likely to fail, she suggests. Polycentric solutions – or regional ones – might work. Experimenting with different ideas in different places could amount to a competition of different ideas., which would either convince bystanders, or leave them unenthused.

And even steps deemed small by its actual practitioners might convince visitors from overseas.

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Related:
Mark Lynas: “How China wrecked the Copenhagen Deal”, December 24, 2009

Back in Prison – Liu Xiaobo Short Bio

Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波), president of the Chinese Independent Pen Center, once a lecturer at Beijing Normal  University,  and political commentator, has been sentenced to eleven years in  jail for “inciting subversion of state power” (煽动颠覆国家政权). Liu co-published the Charter 08 (零八宪章). He was arrested on December 8, 2008, before the charter’s formal release. The police had ended the “investigation phase” earlier this month. Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court announced the sentence today. Xinhua News Agency quoted a statement by the court that Liu’s legal rights had been fully guaranteed during the proceedings.

More than twenty years ago, shortly before the Tian An Men massacre on June 4, 1989, Liu returned from a visiting scholarship at Columbia University and took part in a hungerstrike in solidarity with the students’ movement, according to CNA. He was jailed for “counter-revolutionary crimes” (反革命罪), and released from prison in January 1991.

He refused to leave his country after his release from prison, campaigned for a re-evaluation of the official version of the “June-4 incident”, and was imprisoned again from May 18, 1995 to January 1996.

Also according to CNA, Liu was held in a labor camp in Dalian from October 8, 1996 to October 10, 1999, after authoring Anti-Corruption Proposals Addressed to the Third Plenary Session of the Eighth National People’s Congress, and Bloody Lessons from the Process of the Promotion of Democracy and the Rule of Law – an Appeal on June-4’s Sixth Anniversary (「汲取血的教訓推進民主與法治進程–「六四」6週年呼籲書」).

Now he is back in prison.

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Related:
“One day, he’ll be thought of as a very good citizen”, BBC News, Dec 25, 2009
Charter 08 Seminar held in Shandong Province, Dec 8, 2009

Copenhagen Summit: Make it, or Fuck it Up, but Stop Bitching

The UN Climate summit in Copenhagen isn’t over yet, and it’s too early to call it a failure. Then again, it’s probably also too late to turn it into a real success. That may have to wait until next year – and why not. Even no deal at all would still be better than a lousy one. Not only the poorest and the developing countries can walk out. So can the OECD countries, and in certain situations, our negotiators should. In the end, we in the so-called developed world, won’t be those to be first and worst affected if climate change should lead to a dramatic increase in natural disasters. Never join negotiations without the preparedness to walk out again. That much for the basics of negotiations. But before walking out, one has to do ones best to contribute to a success. And above all, we – negotiators or spectators – shouldn’t bitch around.

Next to the “poor countries”, there is a block of developing countries which have come a long way during the recent years or decades: Brazil, China, and India. South Africa joined their climate faction. During a preparatory meeting in Beijing on November 28, the four governments agreed on The Four Non-Negotiables.

Refusing even to discuss legally binding emission cuts or (unsupported?) international measurement isn’t a promising approach. But then, if international measurement and arbitration is wanted, who should carry it out? I haven’t heard OECD countries spelling out their suggestions yet – and I don’t believe that international arbitration will necessarily be accurate either. The UN Human Rights Council is no encouraging sample for such arbitration anyway.

Anyway, The Atlantic has words of praise for the American delegation:

At a press conference on Wednesday, I asked China’s chief climate negotiator Su Wei if it were possible for China and the United States to reach an accommodation on the verification issue. He responded with a long—a very long—answer. He started by accusing developed nations of trying to “evade their historic responsibilities with various excuses [and] the fundamental excuse is that [China and other emerging developing countries] have not taken steps to address climate change.” Su, however, contended that China’s energy efficiency efforts “have broken their lies.” He declared that China “always followed a principle of openness and transparency.” And then he asserted: “I don’t see the necessity of others to worry about the sincerity of China’s efforts to address climate change.” In other words, get lost.

In other words: bad China!

On the other hand, there is a force for good, of course. Also from The Atlantic:

Then came Hillary. On Thursday morning, moments after the African nations complained that the negotiations were going nowhere, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared in a crowded press briefing room at the summit and announced that the United States would contribute to a $100 billion international fund starting in 2020—as long as “all major nations” commit their emissions reductions to a binding agreement and submit those reductions to transparent verification. And by “all major nations,” she meant China.

Cool. The U.S. Defense Department’s base budget for 2009 alone was at US-$ 515.4 billion this year. And, mind you, Hillary Clinton’s pledge didn’t stem from funding the U.S. would contribute on its own: America would only contribute to the amount.

In my books, the Obama administration has taken a constructive approach. I don’t expect it to play Papa Christmas in Copenhagen. But I’m not exactly in awe of the U.S. negotiating line yet either. And when looking at the constraints on the American federal government – not from the global community, but from home -, it doesn’t make America look better either. It only explains why even a pretty good-willed U.S. administration can’t do better than it is doing.

But that doesn’t really disturb or anger me. Lobbying – from either side – is tough business, and to make the right arguments win takes time. What pisses me off is some of the coverage here in Europe, in the United States, or by a number of Westerners around the globe who are singling China out as the usual suspect when something is going wrong. I’m not panda-hugger. That’s exactly why I find it disturbing when some mainstream media (and blogs)  from the West become as predictable in their findings and comments as the China Global Times or other CCP mouthpieces – only from the opposite direction.

Take this piece from the Christian Science Monitor (quoted by Stuart on his blog  Found in China here):

The world will hardly know if global warming is being curbed if the largest emitter of carbon – China – isn’t releasing accurate data about its pollution.
That’s why it was correct for the United States to insist Thursday at the climate-change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, that Beijing must be transparent about any claims of success in reducing greenhouse gases.
Without outside verification of carbon cuts in big polluting nations such as China and India, the US Senate is unlikely to pass a tough bill that would force Americans to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels.
And any international pact that sets hard targets for emissions reduction will mean nothing if there are suspicions of cheating or if some countries don’t pull their own weight.
The problem in China is that the ruling Communist Party has a long history of issuing false or at least unreliable data about its economy – as do many one-party regimes driven by ideology and that are often rife with corruption. Lower-level officials often cook official reports – or “add water,” as the Chinese say – to meet quotas set by Beijing or to protect their turf.

Stupid me! It’s China’s dictatorship! And I thought it was lobbyism which kept the U.S. Senate from moving!

I have no clear-cut opinion as to how far we should wait for China or India to commit themselves before becoming more dedicated ourselves. And I don’t need to. After all, I’m only a spectator. I can form my opinion once the stuff is completed either way, and in substance, I can understand misgivings like the ones voiced by the Christian Science Monitor. But my opinion is clear on one matter: it’s too early to single China out as a saboteur. And it is too early to act like if our countries, the OECD members, were saints in this matter.

But that’s how a number of op-eds, comments, and posts, are coming across. If I were a Chinese national, I would find the case they are making about as attractive as a post-religious sunday school, which is to say, as uncool as athlete’s foot.  If we want to make a case, we should stop preaching. Dogmas are the opposites good points. Yes, China or India may add water to meet quotas set by Beijing or to protect their turf. China or India may also simply refuse to commit themselves to any goals if we insist on whatever kind of international control. And in that case we will have to think about the best strategies that would remain: continuing to negotiate closer to their terms, or walking out ourselves.

The latter doesn’t necessarily look like the worst choice to me – it would open the door for other choices: going it alone – developing technologies to do our share in carbon dioxide reduction and becoming global market leaders in that technology, for example. It will be badly needed very soon.

We may, in such a case, have to rethink not only our individual ways of life (that’s inevitable anyway), but also where we should buy from. It would make no sense to have our daily needs produced where they cause the most carbon dioxide. In many ways, the ball will simply be in our court, not in China’s or India’s.

Many of our countries can also use controlled immigration – OECD countries, as a rule, are greying societies. Many people around the globe will need a new home if the United Nations work for climate control fails, and it’s OK to be choosy in choosing the right migrants, if we should be in that position.

And if our governments then  succeed in convincing the world that China and India could have done much better than they have (or will have), so much the better. As far as that’s concerned, Mrs Clinton has shown great – and perfectly legitimate – skills in Copenhagen already.

For one, she wasn’t bitching.

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Related:

Climate Change Control: Who should Foot the Bill, December 15, 2009

Climate Change Control: Who should Foot the Bill?

The worst thing that can happen to the Copenhagen summit would be a blame game, based on different ideological concepts. I thought I wouldn’t start a discussion about it yet, but I joined one on another blog. So if you want to know JR’s temporary unconsolidated findings and those of others on who should or might foot which share of the bill for climate change control, you might take a look at the commenter thread there.

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Related
China and one of its biggest threats team up for Copenhagen, Dec 12, 2009

London: A Flurry of “Justice”

The British government will reportedly advise retailers and importers to distinguish on labels whether imported goods from the West Bank were made by settlements or by Palestinians. It looks like a good decision. After all, there should be no settlements in the West Bank. And the measure doesn’t hit an Israeli government that is reeling between attempts of moderation and domestic pressures like the one led by Kadima until March this year.

I know quite a number of people here in Germany who would like to see the same move here, and if they have any misgivings at all, it will be merely for historic reasons.

But many of the people on my mind who might like the planned British import labels and see them as a good example for Germany will at the same time oppose sanctions against Iran. Besides, the timing of the move makes me wonder. Shortly ago, a super-tax on bankers’ bonuses was announced. And on or before June 3 next year, prime minister Gordon Brown and his Labor Party will have to face general elections. Why the sudden flurry of “justice”?

If Gordon Brown is just acting as the messenger boy for the American government as the Telegraph suggests, that would be good news.

But even if so, we in Europe should remember a few things:

In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza. Then prime minister Ariel Sharon saw the withdrawal through, despite immense pressure against it from within his own country. The Gaza Strip is now controlled by Hamas.

In 2000, Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon. The move didn’t add to Israel’s security.

I’m not fundamentally opposed to labelling products from the West Bank. But before doing so, we should be sure about who it will serve, and who it will hurt. It won’t necessarily be the proverbial ordinary Palestinian farmer who has been denied access to his own land so far who will suddenly see his rights enforced.

Oversimplification within the Middle East has done a lot to fuel its conflicts. Oversimplification from our side of the Mediterranean won’t do anything to defuse them.

Looking at the sudden activity in itself, a lot would speak in its favor. But in the context of some other trends, it stinks.

Liu Xiaobo: Police end “Investigation Phase”

After keeping him under arrest for a year without formal charges, police have now presented a case against Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), after extending the investigations three times, reports the Taipei Times. Lawyer Shang Baojun (尚寶軍) said the report presented by investigators alleges Liu incited to subvert state power with several essays he posted online and by helping produce Charter 08, an appeal for more civil rights in China and an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s political dominance.