Ten years ago, comparing the reform processes in China and Russia was an intellectual fashion. Was it preferable to start with economics -- try and get rich, quick, but don't rock the boat politically -- in the manner of the Chinese? Or was it better to start with politics -- recover liberty and prosperity may follow -- which seemed to be Russia's path under former presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin?
Today, a new comparative debate has started. This time the subject is no longer Russia versus China, because Russia has long ceased to be a point of comparison. Instead, the new comparative debate involves Asia's two new economic, demographic and political giants, China and India. China's annual economic growth has been roughly 8 to 9 percent for the last 26 years; India has recorded similar rates for the last decade.
In the "flat world" of globalization -- to borrow Thomas Friedman's powerful metaphor -- it seems that Russia no longer has a place. Of course, Russia is still the second-largest nuclear power in the world, and, as one of the world's leading exporters of oil and gas, it benefits from today's high energy prices. But Russia's population is disappearing before our eyes. With average male life expectancy just 57 years, the country is losing close to 800,000 people annually. Indeed, Russia is more a fragile oil-producing state than a modernizing economic giant.
To put it bluntly, Russia is no longer in the same category as China. Whereas the "Middle Kingdom" is proudly regaining its former global status after centuries of decline, Russia is defiantly trying to resurrect its former imperial status, but in a manner that appears doomed to fail.
Russia has clearly taken giant steps in the wrong direction, at a time when China has taken steps, however small, in the right direction. When you meet today's "new Russian Nomenklatura," you experience a sudden feeling of being 20 years younger, awash as they are in nostalgia for Cold War posturing.
By contrast, seen from afar, in their new suits, you might think that Chinese economic elites are Japanese. Where Russia represents a return to the past, one sees in China an opening, however ambiguous, to the future.
Of course, some bias is involved here. As a European, I and people like me almost instinctively expect more from Russia. It is, after all, a European nation in cultural, if not political terms, whereas progress in China will not be measured by the introduction of Western-style democracy, but eventually, one hopes, by Singapore-style rule of law.
The diverse paths followed by Russia and China may be explained in part by how the two peoples perceive themselves. The Chinese are comforted in their self-image by the world's combination of admiration for their dynamism, greed for the market they constitute, and apprehension for the competition they represent. Russians, by contrast, seem to be animated by a dark form of narcissism. They do not find anything to be proud of in the eyes of others. They are respected for what they control -- the Soviet legacy of nuclear arms and "Christian energy resources," to quote Russian President Vladimir Putin's bizarre remark on his first official trip to Paris -- but not for their economic performance or their essence.
China and Russia tend to relate to their respective pasts and futures in very different ways -- with self-confidence in China's case, with self-diffidence in the case of Russia. Chinese elites are convinced that time is working in their favor, and that it is only natural that China should regain its rank amongst the world leading powers, perhaps even emerging on top one day.
Indeed, their serene patience stands in stark contrast to the anxious reticence of Russian leaders, who have yet to surmount the humiliation that Russia suffered as a result of the Soviet Union's disintegration at the end of the Cold War. Russia may be experiencing a global "restoration" phase, but in politics and economics, and also with respect to its empire, restoration is headed in the wrong direction.
With Putin's current clampdown on civil society, re-nationalization of key segments of the economy, failure to develop any political approach to resolving the conflict in Chechnya and cultivation of imperial nostalgia, Russia is killing its only chance to matter in the future.
Yet there is no reason for China to declare victory. The gap between the respective qualities of China's economic and scientific elites, on the one hand, and its ruling political elites, on the other, is simply too monumental -- and still growing -- for stability to be taken for granted. One senses in China the birth pangs of civil society, making the introduction of the rule of law increasingly urgent. Without political reforms, China's confidence in herself will quickly turn into disillusion, or even delusion. If that happens, the Russia-China debate might be revived, this time as a comparison of competitive decadence.
Dominique Moisi is a founder of and is now senior advisor at the French Institute for International Relations and is a professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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