China Bashing – From the Left and the Right

Enough is enough! Its time to stop the China bashing. Both the Left and the Right just love to pommel China.

The Left just can’t countenance the fact that China decided to modernize itself rather than live in a self-contained, hermetically sealed equalitarian dystopia. Of course they would never choose, on their own volition, to live the type of life for which they’re so nostalgic. Let all those yellow Chinese live in pristine poverty and advance by ever so slow increments through the 21st century, the better to preserve their own white privilege. They certainly shouldn't take the bull by the horns and wrestle with the West for economic superiority, oh no for heaven’s sake no. My goodness those nasty market reforms have led to a spike in inequality and a diminution of social security, while bringing 100s of millions out of abject poverty. Well, the Chinese leadership is addressing those questions of developmental imbalance and has the means to redress them.

The Right just loves to bash China for its supposed human rights abuses and support of repressive dictatorships, the better to cloak its own culpability in both cases which far exceeds anything the Chinese have ever done. No matter that for over a century China was carved up by the great powers and subject to unequal treaties, a colonial sponsored drug trade, and impoverishment brought on by the destruction of indigenous industries and commodity dumping.

Definitely China, according to western critics, cannot have its cake and eat it too. They could care less about the welfare of the Chinese people, and have nothing but scorn for their accomplishments. To them the Chinese are but ants scurrying around at the behest of their totalitarian overlords. They would love to see China dismembered a la the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the better to pick up its pieces and throttle the emerging Dragon. Well the Chinese leadership, schooled in traditional Chinese statecraft will never allow that to happen.

The Chinese people know in their guts that 1989 was a watershed year. They could have gone the way of the Soviet Union and eastern Europe and devolved into social, economic and political chaos. Luckily they had a steadfast leadership that saw the writing on the wall. Take the slings and arrows of reprobation slung by the West or succumb to their admonitions and give up the ghost of their ambitions. Well they persevered and rather than bemoan China's demise, along the lines of Putin’s lament about the destruction of the Soviet Union, they laid the groundwork for the economic and geopolitical resurgence of today's China.

As regards a political reversal a la what took place in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, don’t hold your breadth. Over a million of the best and the brightest amongst the Chinese people have studied abroad, gotten advanced degrees and have either returned to China or commute back and forth on a regular basis. This elite has seen the West and its political process and are not all that impressed. Many feel that China would not be well served by the chaos driven politics of most democratic countries. They can however see the advantages that a system of checks and balances has for restraining corruption and resolving societal conflicts. I would bet my bottom dollar that Chinese jurisprudence and the means to implement conflict resolution, be it via trade unions, environmental NGOs or other advocacy groups will develop apace over the next decade.

So I would advise the critics of the Left and the Right that China is still in the throes of a vast socio-politico-economic experiment. It will find new ways to address its developmental conflicts and imbalances. It will learn from the West as well as from its own experience and the experience of many others. It will make mistakes and there will be reverses. But I can assure you that the China of 2028 will look nothing like the China of 2008.