An interesting article titled What China Threat? by Kishore Mahbubani, a professor in the practice of public policy at National University of Singapore, takes issue with the widely held view that China’s rise poses a threat to the US and rest of the Western world.
In his long article, Mahbubani disagrees with this view and propounds an alternative narrative.
“In American eyes, the contest between America’s and China’s political systems is one between a democracy, where the people freely choose their government, and enjoy freedom of speech and of religion, and an autocracy, where the people have no such freedoms,” he writes.
However, “to neutral observers,” like him, obviously, “it could just as easily be seen as a choice between a plutocracy in the United States, where majority public policy decisions end up favoring the rich over the masses, and a meritocracy in China, where major public-policy decisions made by officials chosen by [Chinese Communist] Party [CCP] elites on the basis of ability and performance have resulted in such a striking alleviation of poverty.”
All through his article, and there is more of it, Mahbubani makes no secret of his preference, which is for the Chinese model of “meritocracy.” However, he does not explain what gives CCP elites this uncanny ability to pick winners among officials who administer for “the masses” and produce the right results.
What he seems to be suggesting is that the Chinese political system of CCP control and governance is superior to the much-touted Western democracy. And to him the proof of the pudding is in the eating, which is that China is racing ahead with its economy and likely to surpass the US in about 15 years to become the largest in the world.
In other words, if the underlying assumptions of this thesis are true, China’s system is proving its superiority, and is likely to prevail and become the governing model for much of the world.
This thesis is akin to the one that US political theorist Francis Fukuyama propounded when he declared the end of history with the supposed victory of liberal democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In his book The End of History And the Last Man, Fukuyama explained how he came to this conclusion, starting with his article “The End of History” in The National Interest in 1989, which developed into his book-length study.
“I argued that a remarkable consensus concerning the legitimacy of liberal democracy as a system of government had emerged throughout the world over the past few years, as it conquered rival ideologies like hereditary monarchy, fascism, and most recently communism,” Fukuyama summarized his earlier thesis in the book.
He said he had argued that “liberal democracy may constitute the ‘end point of mankind’s ideological evolution’ and the ‘final form of human government’ and as such constituted the ‘end of history.’”
We know now, as Fukuyama learned later, that history is constantly evolving; and China’s system has too many unresolved issues arising from creating a monolithic society with very little scope for political, social, cultural and religious diversity.
Recent history shows that all such systems, with centralized control and tied to ultranationalism, as in pre-World War II Germany, Italy and Japan, only ended in disaster; even though they seemed to be producing economic results until everything came crashing down.
Even Mahbubani concedes that there are blemishes here and there in China’s system that need to be ironed out, saying: “Human rights violations — such as the detention of hundreds of thousands of Uighurs — remain a major concern.”
In a broader context, Mahbubani says that “American policymakers have to accept the undeniable reality that the return of China (and India) is unstoppable.”
India just pops in here, without any reference or analysis elsewhere in the article.
However, if China’s “meritocracy” fostered and “chosen by Party elites on the basis of ability and performance” is a prerequisite for success, then India’s democracy would hardly qualify for it with its competing political parties in a federal system seeking to manage extraordinary social, cultural and religious diversity.
However, Mahbubani argues that China’s (and India’s) march is unstoppable, because “from the year 1 to 1820, China and India had the world’s two largest economies. The past 200 years of Western domination of global commerce have been an aberration.”
In that case, China and, for that matter, India’s political systems might not be so relevant. It is just that history will be righting its wrongs to restore China and India’s central position in the world.
Sushil Seth is a commentator based in Australia.
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