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Russia and China still authoritarian: analysts

Russia and China, regional powers trying to restore Cold War-size importance to their roles in the world, are having a difficult time leaving the path of authoritarian government, a Freedom House analysis says.

The study, released yesterday, describes Russia's procedures as "a model of governance that denies basic political rights and shuns democratic accountability."

China, it says, has so far had a harder time mollifying a Chinese populace eager for more of the good things their open economy has brought.

The "delicate balancing act is becoming increasingly tenuous," the analysis says.

The findings are in the annual Countries at the Crossroads report, Freedom House's analysis and comparative data on 60 "critical, policy-relevant countries."

Russian President Vladimir Putin's governing concept, called sovereign democracy, "contains little in the way of genuine democratic governance [and] is also held out as a model for hybrid regimes and autocracies on the Russian Federation's periphery. In other words, several of the former Soviet republics.

HIV/AIDS, a rapidly shrinking population and runaway corruption that touches virtually every sector and eats at the fabric of society also put a drag into the Russian system, the analysis said.

In China, "authorities have executed a finely calibrated balancing act, seeking to offset emerging calls for political accountability with accelerated economic expansion," the report said.

Too-small improvements in the system "appear inadequate for meeting the unyielding demands that accompany integration in the global economic system," Freedom House says in an overview essay written by Christopher Walker and Sanja Tatic.

In both Russia and China, "it is unclear whether a system whose leadership operates on an impulse to husband power and to control _ politics, policy and information -- can identify a reform course swiftly enough to address simmering societal grievances."
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