How democracy in China could be possible
'What we're looking for is for democracy to emerge from the ashes of a collapsed regime,' says professor
Half a century ago, China was one of the poorest countries globally. Now it has the second-largest economy in the world. The country is a global superpower with influence far beyond its borders.
But many people in the West, including in the news media, are looking for signs of any cracks in the Communist Party regime — making it possible for democratic reform to inch in.
"The stakes couldn't be higher because what we're looking for is for democracy to emerge from the ashes of a collapsed regime, which would be calamitous to humanity and of course, to the 1.4 billion people living in China," said Joseph Wong, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto.
Wong is the co-author of From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia. The book explains how China got to where it is today, and explores a theory about how this vast and important country might indeed become a democracy.
Earlier this year, Wong spoke at an event presented by the Toronto Reference Library and the Toronto Metropolitan University. After his talk, he sat down with IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed to discuss China's pathway to what Wong calls "democracy through strength."
This is an excerpt from their conversation.
You've just co-authored with Dan Slater, a book titled From Development to Democracy The Transformations of Modern Asia. So starting sort of at the bottom floor, what is it that makes China loom so large on the international stage today — and to be a more important consideration than a country, say, like India, which is also large and populous?
There are several things I think we need to consider first and foremost. China, just a half-century ago was one of the poorer countries in the world. And so what we've seen there is one of the most remarkable transformations of an economy, of society and of a polity. Right? China is now the second-largest economy in the world. I think also importantly, it's not just an economic powerhouse that's exporting to the rest of the world, but it's also a huge domestic market. And this is something I think that we need to really consider in the sense that when you have 1.4 billion consumers, that only increases your economic power because now you are able to set consumer standards.
Secondly, this is a regime and an economy that we actually refer to in the book as a developmental socialist economy. And so it adheres to a set of different principles and ideologies that pits the regime in many ways against the West. And so in this growing competition between autocracy versus democracy, China and the West find themselves on opposite sides of that debate. So you have a regime that's very powerful economically and militarily and diplomatically, and one that is on the other side as it relates to things like ideology and geopolitics.
So very broadly speaking, how would you situate China in the context of Asian countries? What is it that sets China apart or maybe makes it more part of the club?
China is huge, right? And so whereas a few generations ago, the Asian regional economy was centred around Japan. Today, the Asian economy and by extension, the global economy is increasingly centred around China. So you have a very powerful economy that, again, is determining where investments are flowing, determining in many ways what industry standards are, consumer standards are, and so forth. And so, you know, it looms large and other economies around it, even very powerful ones like the South Korean economy or the Taiwanese economy or Singapore as an entrepot economy — and of course, even Japan. They're all sort of caught within the shadow of this really large, looming, powerful economy that is China's.
You mentioned Japan. If we go back all the way to 1937 when Japan — a relatively small country then —declared war not just for the first time, but for the second time against a much bigger China. What does that tell us about the perception of China at the time?
In the 1930s, China was very weak. And this is a country that had become increasingly embroiled in a civil war. And so you had essentially a country that was ungoverned or ungovernable. It was also one that was still largely agricultural. In fact, it stays that way well into the 1970s and into the 1980s.
This was a very weak country. Now, that being said, it was a very — and rightly so — proud country, very prideful. And so the Japanese occupation and invasion of China was seen as yet another example of where China had been wronged by imperialist powers from around the world. This anti-imperialist narrative is deeply entrenched in not only modern Chinese history, but really in the origins of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party was as much a regime about how China ought to develop in terms of its economy and socially... as it was about being an anti-imperialist party and one that really looked to set China on a path of self-reliance. So the Japanese occupation of China was extremely impactful. And the conflict between the two countries endures even today.
You lead off in your book by saying that, quote: "Economic development is strongly associated with democracy, but economic development does not necessarily lead to democracy." Just briefly, why not?
Well, economic development is absolutely critical to democratic prospects, and indeed, economic development is critical to democratic resilience. We finish the book by saying the greatest threat to democracy as we look around the world now, is the inability of democracies to continue to deliver development. It's not a question of cultural predispositions. It's not a question of geopolitics. It's really a question of — do democracies deliver development?
We could see the kind of democratic decay around the world as really being a function of just democracies not delivering development to everyone in a way that's fair and inclusive. But going back to the original argument that economic development is critical to democracy. This is a classic argument that's made in social science, what's called modernization theory, the presumption that as societies and economies modernize, they are more likely to become democratic. And we don't necessarily disagree with that argument, but these kinds of socio-economic transformations that arise out of modernization set the stage for a possible democratic transition.
Ultimately, it's human beings that make the choice, right? Structures don't make decisions. Structures create the incentives. They create the context in which decisions can be made. But it's ultimately the champions of democracy on the streets, it's ultimately the autocrats who also have to make concessions that will determine whether a country becomes democratic or not. So our theory takes us to a starting point, the necessity of development.
You write that "Democracy may very well be a universal value, but nowhere in the world is democracy the ultimate value." Can you explain what you meant by that? What are the ultimate values and how do they apply to China?
The reason why we say that is we just want to be sure that the reader understands that democracy, at least as we've conceptualized in this book, is not just simply a Western phenomenon. This is something that has appeal to everyone potentially around the world. In all our travels and in all our research I've not found much evidence of anyone saying that they like to be repressed.
I don't mean to be flip about it, but I mean, I think that we need to be very clear that actually people, human beings, seek the kinds of freedoms that democracy brings. So we're very comfortable in saying that democracy is a universal value, but it may not be the ultimate one in the sense that, again, democracy needs to be able to deliver development. And the ultimate value for people is that they live a dignified life, that they live a life where they are able to be healthy, where they're able to generate income, and wealth that they're able to share in their societies.
Hence, we argue that democracy's future depends as much on the decisions of elite leaders as it depends on democracy to deliver development. And so the greatest threat moving forward is the betrayal or the fulfillment, if you will, of that ultimate value, of prosperity and peace and stability. If we can't bring that democracy is under threat. And I think we are seeing that around the world.
*Q&A edited for clarity and length.This episode was produced by Philip Coulter.
