As an American living in Taiwan, I have to confess how impressed I have been over the years by the Chinese Communist Party’s wholehearted embrace of high-speed rail and electric vehicles, and this at a time when my own democratic country has chosen a leader openly committed to doing everything in his power to put obstacles in the way of sustainable energy across the board — and democracy to boot. It really does make me wonder: “Are those of us right who hold that democracy is the right way to go?” Has Taiwan made the wrong choice?
Many in China obviously think so, and what better time for them to set Taiwan straight and bring it back into the fold than now, as the US comes apart at the seams and promises to continue doing so for the next four years, perhaps indefinitely? Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and tier after tier of his underlings would justify the military takeover of Taiwan with their worn-out old lie that self-determination and individual freedoms are an objectionable foreign intrusion into the several-thousand-year-old Chinese culture.
It is undeniably proper for China to evolve whatever unique mode of government reflects its history and aspirations, and not those of some North American or European countries. Yet, to the extent China’s aspirations include global leadership — and Xi makes it abundantly clear that they definitely do — that government had best be allowed to evolve itself into a democracy, as Taiwan has. That is because of the kind of exceptional individuals China will need, not just in politics, but in all areas, as it sets out on this course — individuals of the highest caliber such as those Taiwan is generating on its own.
The late psychologist Abraham H. Maslow, who studied such exceptional individuals, reached the conclusion that to those nations most successful in producing them belongs the future. Maslow’s research showed in no uncertain terms that the fullest development of human potential requires a good society, which he said is anti-authoritarian and anti-controlling. It places greater emphasis on spontaneity and autonomy than on stability and external control.
Maslow found that healthy and superior people do not like to be controlled. They can make their own choices and need to be free to do so in order to bring out their full potential.
For China to be a global leader, it must lead the way in solving tough problems that face all nations — the erosion of human trust, the destruction of the environment, the persistence of poverty, exploitation and inequality. Problems of such magnitude only stand a chance of being resolved when people mobilize all individuals and their collective inner resources, to bring out in societies, communities, families and individuals more of the whole human capability that we all have within us as a latent potential.
Maslow goes into great detail to make it abundantly clear that these further reaches of higher human nature, which I have tried as best I can to illustrate in my own research into the dreams and lives of young Taiwanese, await the right environment in which to emerge and express themselves. That environment, as Taiwan illustrates, is an open and free democratic society, where corruption, mismanagement, greed, dishonesty and waste can be challenged, and in which ordinary people can organize in ways of their own choosing and disseminate whatever truthful ideas they want.
The tyranny in China can argue that democracy is not for China and it is not for the Chinese, and in the strict sense it is true, because it is for every country, every people — China and the Chinese included. To lead, the Chinese empire will have to become its champion, because democracy is more urgently needed at this challenging time in history than ever — not just for outer reasons, but for inner ones — to call up the human intelligence, creativity, sensitivity, compassion and integrity required to solve the really big problems that plague us today, and the even bigger ones that lie ahead.
What is happening right now in Taiwan is important — not just for Chinese everywhere, but for everyone. The US had best be paying attention, and, if China wants to do good, it had best hold back and let the world-class development continue to evolve unimpeded in Taiwan. Unless, that is, China really does care to make a positive impact on its own people and the world. In that case, it had best follow Taiwan’s lead.
William R. Stimson is an American writer living in Taiwan who has taught an adjunct course at several universities in the country.
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