Overview: How China Undermines Democracy
The Soviet Union couldn’t make local elites billionaires.
The Soviet Union made the countries of Eastern Europe demonstrably poorer than the countries of Western Europe. That’s why it failed.
Eastern Europeans were aware of what was happening on the other side of the Iron Curtain. And they knew whatever the West’s flaws according to Marxism — Western Europeans had a much better life.
Their leaders seemed to be aware of it, too. It’s the single best explanation for why Europe’s communist bloc regimes just coughed and died from 1989 to 1991, with very little bloodshed. They wanted jeans and Volvos, too.
The People’s Republic of China is not the Soviet Union.
For one, when faced with democracy protests in Tienanmen Square in 1989, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sent in the tanks and killed thousands, if not tens of thousands. It will not cough and die.
Second, the CCP has studied the demise of the Soviet Union thoroughly to make sure it does not make the same mistakes. It realized Marxism can never deliver genuine prosperity. That’s why it has embraced a model of state directed crony capitalism, that frankly looks far more like Nazi Germany’s.
The result is China offers something very different. China has 799 billionaires. America has 626.
As importantly, the growth in China is not all at the top. By 2022, more than 75 percent of China’s urban consumers will earn $9,000 to $34,000 a year.
Just four percent of urban Chinese households were middle class in 2000— but 68 percent were in 2012.
This is what makes the People’s Republic so dangerous. China can claim to offer average people a better life, and without the “chaos and disruption” of democracy.
(The United States two terrible political parties, Britain’s dismal “elite,” and the EU’s irredeemable incompetence provide a lot of fodder. More in Part 4: How Democracy Undermines Democracy.)
China’s social model makes it even more dangerous — 90 percent of those billionaires are Communist Party members.
Business and politics are inextricably linked in communist China. Having a Party membership, and friendly ties with the Party elite gets businessmen top projects and investment in China’s hugely competitive business environment. Like the mafia — if you’re not in, you’re out. All the way out.
And reciprocity is expected. The scion of party officials expect to be cut in on deals.
Relatives of Chinese President Xi Jinping were estimated by Bloomberg News in 2012 to have more than $370 million in assets. (More on China, Bloomberg and this story later). While the New York Times reported the extended family of former Premier Wen Jiabao had over $2.5 billion of assets under its control. Wen’s mother alone had a $120 million investment in a financial services company. Anyone else doubt Mama Wen’s investment genius?
This could sow the seeds of China’s demise, since it is creating the kind of disassociated permanent aristocracy that fails when it gets out of touch with people.
Though, China is building a chilling array of Orwellian totalitarian tools to help it identify dissenters, and crush them before they can form any kind of mass. And its gladly sharing those tools with its allies abroad — and making a profit while it does it.
Put it together and China has built a political model that will give Western democracy its biggest test since the fascism of Hitler’s Germany.
How China Undermines Democracy
Part 1: China built an Orwellian high-tech surveillance state to crush dissent. Now it’s exporting it.