China vs America: The end of the end of history
Jan 18th 2011, 21:52 by M.S. The Economist.
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA'S 1990 article "The End of History" profoundly shaped my political identity: I thought it was so completely wrong-headed that I spent weeks working out the many ways in which I disagreed. I found it extremely implausible that Friedrich Hegel had simply figured out the direction of human political evolution in the early 19th century, and that everything else had been a matter of slow progress towards that goal, culminating in the Reagan-Mitterand-era spectrum of Western welfare-state capitalist democracies (with a preference for the Reagan end). Worse, Mr Fukuyama's thesis seemed like a strange right-wing version of the complacency of Soviet ideologues:the arc of history has already been mapped, and we are its apotheosis.It seemed a recipe for intellectual stagnation and a likely excuse for all sorts of foolishness and misconduct. After all, if we're the goal of history, how can we do wrong?
I never would have imagined that I would read a Francis Fukuyama essay 20 years later about the current direction of world history, and agree vehemently with every single word of it. Mr Fukuyama's Financial Times piece yesterday, headlined "US democracy has little to teach China", is brilliant. It's not the first time anyone has expressed these ideas,but Mr Fukuyama puts it all together in a fashion that's close to perfect. As he writes, America "managed to fritter away" the immense moral capital it held in 2000 "in remarkably short order", due to foreign-policy missteps such as the invasion of Iraq and, later, the American-centred global financial crisis. (It didn't help that American treasury and central-bank officials, who months earlier had been lecturing China on the need to decrease state involvement in the financial sector, found themselves feverishly doing just what Chinese officials were doing—funneling money to state-champion companies, hectoring large banks to cut profits and lend more—but with less success.) Meanwhile, China is "riding high", increasingly confident that it has nothing to learn from America. Here's the catch:
But what is the Chinese model? Many observers casually put it in an“authoritarian capitalist” box, along with Russia, Iran and Singapore.But China’s model is sui generis; its specific mode of governance is difficult to describe, much less emulate, which is why it is not up for export.
The most important strength of the Chinese political system is its ability to make large, complex decisions quickly, and to make them relatively well, at least in economic policy. This is most evident in the area of infrastructure, where China has put into place airports,dams, high-speed rail, water and electricity systems to feed its growing industrial base. Contrast this with [democratic] India, where every new investment is subject to blockage by trade unions, lobby groups, peasant associations and courts...
Nonetheless, the quality of Chinese government is higher than in Russia, Iran, or the other authoritarian regimes with which it is often lumped—precisely because Chinese rulers feel some degree of accountability towards their population. That accountability is not, of course, procedural; the authority of the Chinese Communist party is limited neither by a rule of law nor by democratic elections. But while its leaders limit public criticism, they do try to stay on top of popular discontents, and shift policy in response.
Mr Fukuyama thinks American hopes that China's economic modernisation will require a shift to multi-party democracy are misplaced.
Americans have long hoped China might undergo a democratic transition as it got wealthier, and before it became powerful enough to become a strategic and political threat. This seems unlikely, however.The government knows how to cater to the interests of Chinese elites and the emerging middle classes, and builds on their fear of populism.This is why there is little support for genuine multi-party democracy.The elites worry about the example of democracy in Thailand—where the election of a populist premier led to violent conflict between his supporters and the establishment—as a warning of what could happen to them
Ultimately, Mr Fukuyama's sympathies are clearly with a less statist economic policy and democratic governance. But he doesn't think this model is assured of triumph on its own.
[I]f the democratic, market-oriented model is to prevail, Americans need to own up to their own mistakes and misconceptions. Washington’s foreign policy during the past decade was too militarised and unilateral, succeeding only in generating a self-defeating anti-Americanism. In economic policy, Reaganism long outlived its initial successes, producing only budget deficits, thought less tax-cutting and inadequate financial regulation.
These problems are to some extent being acknowledged and addressed.But there is a deeper problem with the American model that is nowhere close to being solved. China adapts quickly, making difficult decisions and implementing them effectively. Americans pride themselves on constitutional checks and balances, based on a political culture that distrusts centralised government. This system has ensured individual liberty and a vibrant private sector, but it has now become polarised and ideologically rigid. At present it shows little appetite for dealing with the long-term fiscal challenges the US faces. Democracy in America may have an inherent legitimacy that the Chinese system lacks,but it will not be much of a model to anyone if the government is divided against itself and cannot govern.
I really have nothing to add to this. What Mr Fukuyama understands,and what so many Americans can't seem to accept, is that the Chinese mode of governance seems to be quite stable. There is no plausible threat to the political monopoly of the Chinese Communist Party.Eastern Europeans abandoned belief in Soviet Communism because its economic model was a pathetic shambles, and even so, it took decades to collapse. The Chinese economic model, meanwhile, is a productive powerhouse. As long as it maintains the confidence of its citizens,there's little reason to think that China's political system is going to change on any timescale subject to punditry.
More broadly, what Mr Fukuyama is doing here (and he's been on this track for years now) really retracts the thesis to which he subscribed in the early 1990s. History, he's saying, isn't closed. It's by no means clear that the United States or any other welfare-state capitalist liberal democracy is the goal. It's not clear where we're heading, and we should keep our wits about us and adapt; we can be left behind, just as others were before us.
Posted 星期日, 01/30/2011 - 23:01 by Fishville
Information provided by:
HYP Pathway (雅美途)
St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
An Expert on College Admission in the United States.
E-mail: hypathway@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.tongjiyiren.com/blogs/fishville
