Why China´s Political Model is Superior

 

Why China’s Political Model Is Superior

 By ERIC X. LI

 Published: February 16, 2012

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Shanghai,

THIS week the Obama administration is playing host to Xi Jinping, China’s vice president and heir apparent. The world’s most powerful electoral democracy and its largest one-party state are meeting at a time of political transition for both.

Many have characterized the competition between these two giants as a clash between democracy and authoritarianism. But this is false. America and China view their political systems in fundamentally different ways: whereas America sees democratic government as an end in itself, China sees its current form of government, or any political system for that matter, merely as a means to achieving larger national ends.

In the history of human governance, spanning thousands of years, there have been two major experiments in democracy. The first was Athens, which lasted a century and a half; the second is the modern West. If one defines democracy as one citizen one vote, American democracy is only 92 years old. In practice it is only 47 years old, if one begins counting after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — far more ephemeral than all but a handful of China’s dynasties.

Why, then, do so many boldly claim they have discovered the ideal political system for all mankind and that its success is forever assured?

The answer lies in the source of the current democratic experiment. It began with the European Enlightenment. Two fundamental ideas were at its core: the individual is rational, and the individual is endowed with inalienable rights. These two beliefs formed the basis of a secular faith in modernity, of which the ultimate political manifestation is democracy.

In its early days, democratic ideas in political governance facilitated the industrial revolution and ushered in a period of unprecedented economic prosperity and military power in the Western world. Yet at the very beginning, some of those who led this drive were aware of the fatal flaw embedded in this experiment and sought to contain it.

The American Federalists made it clear they were establishing a republic, not a democracy, and designed myriad means to constrain the popular will. But as in any religion, faith would prove stronger than rules.

The political franchise expanded, resulting in a greater number of people participating in more and more decisions. As they say in America, “California is the future.” And the future means endless referendums, paralysis and insolvency.

In Athens, ever-increasing popular participation in politics led to rule by demagogy. And in today’s America, money is now the great enabler of demagogy. As the Nobel-winning economist A. Michael Spence has put it, America has gone from “one propertied man, one vote; to one man, one vote; to one person, one vote; trending to one dollar, one vote.”

By any measure, the United States is a constitutional republic in name only. Elected representatives have no minds of their own and respond only to the whims of public opinion as they seek re-election; special interests manipulate the people into voting for ever-lower taxes and higher government spending, sometimes even supporting self-destructive wars.

The West’s current competition with China is therefore not a face-off between democracy and authoritarianism, but rather the clash of two fundamentally different political outlooks. The modern West sees democracy and human rights as the pinnacle of human development. It is a belief premised on an absolute faith.

China is on a different path. Its leaders are prepared to allow greater popular participation in political decisions if and when it is conducive to economic development and favorable to the country’s national interests, as they have done in the past 10 years.

However, China’s leaders would not hesitate to curtail those freedoms if the conditions and the needs of the nation changed. The 1980s were a time of expanding popular participation in the country’s politics that helped loosen the ideological shackles of the destructive Cultural Revolution. But it went too far and led to a vast rebellion at Tiananmen Square.

That uprising was decisively put down on June 4, 1989. The Chinese nation paid a heavy price for that violent event, but the alternatives would have been far worse.

The resulting stability ushered in a generation of growth and prosperity that propelled China’s economy to its position as the second largest in the world.

The fundamental difference between Washington’s view and Beijing’s is whether political rights are considered God-given and therefore absolute or whether they should be seen as privileges to be negotiated based on the needs and conditions of the nation.

The West seems incapable of becoming less democratic even when its survival may depend on such a shift. In this sense, America today is similar to the old Soviet Union, which also viewed its political system as the ultimate end.

History does not bode well for the American way. Indeed, faith-based ideological hubris may soon drive democracy over the cliff.

Eric X. Li is a venture capitalist.

*comentario:    WHY CHINA´S POLITICAL MODEL IS SUPERIOR  es un escrito muy interesante.  Apasionante, por mejor decir.  Es un comparativo que realiza un inversionista chino entre los modelos políticos de los EUA y China.  Simplemente este personaje justifica la dictadura política de una manera tal que invita a pensar en ella como una solución para los males de las repúblicas.  Justifica inclusive la matanza de Tian Anmen,  que fuera un evento criticado globalmente,  diciendo que fue dolorosa pero necesaria y que en última instancia trajo beneficios innegables cuando la gente entendió que el libertinaje conduce a la anarquía.

El señor Li se mofa de la democracia norteamericana y la parodia.  Tiene razón cuando la impugna,  señalando que en los EUA los votos que cuentan son los votos del dinero:  no es una persona igual a un voto,  sino un dólar es un voto y mientras más dólares tienes más influyente eres en esa sociedad.

¿Se puede negar esa acusación de Li cuando los “representantes populares” norteamericanos,  sean Diputados,  Senadores o gobernantes,  son millonarios todos?  ¿Cómo pueden velar estos ricos por los intereses de la mayoría cuando ellos son la antítesis de ella?  Ellos son la elite que se siente amenazada por la mayoría,  la chusma,  la prole.  ¿Cómo podrían proponer medidas para el desarrollo de la mayoría,  que no reste privilegio a la elite,  esa minoría aristocrática que ellos encarnan? ¿Cómo podrían dictar medidas en pro de los trabajadores que no vayan en contra del capital?.

La lectura del documento nos pasea por los tiempos de la Grecia “democrática”  que daba el voto a los ciudadanos,  a los habitantes de las polis, siempre y cuando  no fuesen esclavos,  mujeres,  menores de edad o foráneos.  Nos trae luego a las épocas fundacionales de los EUA para recordar que el propósito fue fundar una república y no una Democracia.  Nos lleva a las intenciones de desarrollo de un gobierno dictatorial chino en que,  sostiene el señor Li,  los intereses generales se sobreponen a los intereses del individuo y el gobierno no se tienta el corazón para someter o conculcar los Derechos Humanos si ello es congruente con sus propósitos de lograr una mejora general.

En suma, el escrito es muy digno de una lectura profunda y de una discusión  abierta en que debe primar la tolerancia sobre la pasión,  porque sin duda este tema es espinoso.  Todo podría resumirse en la siguiente pregunta:  ¿convendría a México una dictadura,  con todas las consecuencias y rigideces que implica,  si con ello nos garantizan genuina prosperidad y auténtico bienestar compartido?.