China’s capital, Beijing, looks like any big city, full of tall office buildings, large shopping malls, squat government offices, political monuments, luxury retailers and horrid traffic jams.
The casual summer uniform is the same: shorts, athletic shoes, skirts, T-shirts, sandals and blouses. Even an occasional baseball cap.
China is a nation which the Communist revolutionaries who ruled only four decades ago would not recognize. As I sat in a German restaurant featuring steins full of beer and platters covered with sausages, listening to a Chinese band cover US pop songs, I had to remind myself that I was only a short drive from Tiananmen Square and former Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) mausoleum.
True believers still exist. One yesterday spoke to me reverently of Mao’s rise to power and service to Chinese. However, she is the exception, at least among China’s younger professionals.
Indeed, younger educated Chinese could not be further from Communist cadres once determined to create a revolution. The former are socially active, desire the newest technologies, and worry about going to good schools and getting good jobs. Cynicism about corrupt and unelected leaders is pervasive.
If there is one common belief, it is hostility toward government Internet controls. Students have complained to me in class about their inability to get to many Web sites and readily shared virtual private networks to circumvent state barriers.
However, such opinions are not held only by the young. A high-school student told me that his father urged him to study in the US because of Beijing’s restrictions on freedom.
While Chinese from all walks of life are comfortable telling foreigners what they think about their lives, leaders and nation, sharing those beliefs with other Chinese is problematic. The media, of course, is closely controlled. Internet sites are blocked, deleted and revamped. Unofficial intimidation, legal restrictions and even prison time await those who take to social media and blogs to criticize the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
However, increasingly globalized Chinese are aware of their online disadvantage compared with their peers in the West. Google, YouTube and Twitter are verboten. Today Bloomberg and the New York Times are beyond reach.
Even news sources considered generally acceptable face censorship for specific reporting which hits too close to home. A couple of days ago, as BBC television began to detail official abuses, my TV went black. A couple of minutes later BBC was back, after the China report had finished.
While Internet and media restrictions have not prevented rapid economic growth, barring the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) best and brightest to a world of information is likely to dampen innovation and entrepreneurship. Moreover, those denied their full freedoms are more likely to leave home. Since 2000, about 91,000 wealthy individuals have resettled elsewhere, at least some to escape an authoritarian system unbounded by the rule of law.
Repression also stultifies China’s political evolution to a more mature and stable political order. Democracy provides an important safety valve for popular dissent. Frustrated Chinese have little opportunity to legally demand peaceful change.
The CCP’s control might not be as firm as often presumed. The oppressive establishment which most Chinese have faced for most of their lives is Communist.
Indeed, for many if not most party members, Communism is a means of personal advancement, even enrichment. With corruption seen as pervasive, public cynicism about political morals is equally ubiquitous. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) anti-corruption campaign, including targeting top “tigers,” is popular, but is widely seen as politically motivated.
Moreover, Xi has abrogated the well-understood “deal” of the past four decades, that rulers can retire and be immune from future prosecution. Will incumbents so readily yield power in the future?
Perhaps even more threatening for the CCP is the potential for an economic slowdown and consequent political unrest. Already demonstrations and protests are common against local governments, which tend to be the most ostentatiously rapacious. What if that antagonism shifts against the center?
An unstable China is in no one’s interest. Certainly not for Chinese, rulers or ruled, and not for the rest of the world.
A poorer PRC means a poorer world: China is a major supplier and increasingly important source of global demand. Moreover, a politically unstable Beijing would have unpredictable effects on its neighbors.
Since Mao’s death in 1976, the PRC has changed dramatically — and dramatically for the better. However, this second revolution has stalled. Economic liberalization remains incomplete. Political reform never started and individual liberty has regressed.
Chinese deserve to be free. China would benefit from its people’s freedom and the rest of the world would gain from a freer nation. Everyone desiring a peaceful and prosperous 21st century should hope for the successful conclusion of China’s second revolution.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to former US president Ronald Reagan.
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