World-China Forum

Beijing's Favorite Capitalists

Today, the Communist Party has proven itself, in all but one particular, a friend to the urbanites and professionals who now prosper in China's cities -- socioeconomically, the very kinds of people it gunned down in Tiananmen Square. All it asks of them in return is that they not actively seek democratic rights. For their part, the hundreds of millions of beneficiaries of China's new prosperity have kept up their end of that bargain. Knowing that they'd face the brute wrath of the party and state if they did, they've made an understandable decision.

In the countryside, where hundreds of millions of Chinese still reside, the benefits of the nation's economic miracle are far harder to detect. For many, the backbreaking drudgery of peasant life persists as it has for centuries. Some Sinologists believe that one reason the urban Chinese haven't demanded more rights is their fear that in a democratic China, they'd be outvoted by a peasantry that would demand a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth.

According to the nostrums of Reagan Age America, the current Chinese system -- in equal measure capitalist and authoritarian -- cannot actually exist. Capitalism spread democracy, we were told ad nauseam by a steady stream of conservative hacks, free-trade apologists, government officials and American companies doing business in China. Given enough Starbuckses and McDonald's, provided with sufficient consumer choice, China would surely become a democracy.

And yet, it hasn't. And this week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has traveled there to assure its government that America won't permit China's massive investment in our government's notes to diminish in value, even if that means we have to cut back on needed public programs. In explaining China's rise and America's decline, historians may well note that capitalism -- American capitalism, anyway -- far from spreading democracy, actually has played a key role in transforming China into an authoritarian superpower. (Harold Meyerson, Washington Post)

China's Content Consumer Class

The CCP has conducted a tireless and largely successful campaign to co-opt, and in many respects create, the rising educated and economic classes. By remaining the key economic player as well as overseeing an extensive system of awards, promotions, and regulation, the government continues to control and dispense a dominant share of the most valued economic, professional, and intellectual opportunities.

This means that entrepreneurs are better off doing business as a "partner" of the state. Intellectuals and academics favored by officials are granted generous research grants, are fast tracked into senior positions, and given personal perks. Journalists have little choice but to work for media outlets that are still subsidiaries of party organs. These are the contented middle classes emerging in China today. Far from being an independent class, why would these middle classes want to move toward a more democratic system when it could lead to their own dispossession?

The CCP's hold on power remains vulnerable to a profound economic shock, such as a continued and significant downturn in economic growth. Only then will the social compact between the middle classes and the government be fatally broken. This would impede the regime's continued capacity to co-opt and appease. But while the Chinese economy grows – and all efforts have been made by the government to ensure that it does - a Chinese middle class that looks and acts the same as we do in the west might nevertheless think very differently when it comes to democracy and the future of the country. June 4 might well be another shopping mall day in Beijing. (John Lee, Real Clear World)