Essay: Will China democratize?

Tension between the United States and China continue to grow, and some argue tension is at the highest it has ever been. This has led to many experts debating on whether war between the current hegemon in the United States and the rising power of China will occur. As China continues to gain more power and instill their influence onto the international community, the possibility of war between China and the United States increases. The idea of war between China and the United States is not a new one, as many international relations experts have been warning us about a potential struggle for power when China was undergoing their economic rise. Many articles have been written on potential avenues to eliminating excess tensions between the two countries and in effect decrease the chances of war. One solution that gained a lot of traction during that time was the idea of influencing China to democratize. The idea was based on the democratic peace theory, and many countries like Japan as a result attempted to instill China into the international community. The theory states that two countries that have a democratic regime are far less likely to go into war with one another. According to Farnham’s article The Theory of Democratic Peace and Threat Perception, the democratic peace theory is supported by the fact that democratic regimes do not find one another hostile. Also, leaders in democratic regimes will be forced to accept accountability for wars and potentially defeats. This in effect had many analysists weighing the chances of China one day becoming a democracy, and how the United States and other western powers could influence it. During that time, the dominant belief was that China would soon undergo democratization as their economy continued to grow. An abundance of reasons like modernization and increasing standard of living spearheaded strong beliefs in the international community that China would become a democracy. However, it is now 2018 and China does not seem any closer to democratizing as it was a decade ago. To truly understand how China has been able to undergo economic development without democratizing starts with analyzing those in power: The Communist Party of China or the CCP.
The Communist Party of China has been in power since 1949, and have done an incredible job of maintaining control despite many crises like the Tiananmen Square massacre and the Great Leap Forward. However, their biggest accomplishment has been their ability to maintain power, while undergoing economic liberalization. According Mary Gallagher in her article Reform and Openness: Why China’s Economic Reforms Have Delayed Democracy, “most theories that seek to explain democratization look to changes in the economy as the precursor to significant political liberalization. Some locate the main causal factor in economic crisis while others look to the rising expectations of the domestic population during periods of rapid economic growth”. Therefore, when China was undergoing their rapid economic growth for over a decade, majority of experts believed China would soon democratized. There have been many examples of countries that have democratized due to rapid economic growth, specifically countries in East Asia in the 70s and 80s. The rapid economic growth in East Asian countries led to a large increase of members in the middle class, and that came with more social movements fighting against low wages, and government corruptions. These social movements in effect pushed authoritarian governments  out of power and established democratic leadership in order to appease the majority. Unlike their East Asian counterparts, the CCP has been able to stay in power despite China maintaining a rapid economic growth for more than a decade. This rare accomplishment was only possible due to two reasons: CCP’s use of foreign direct investments, and performance legitimacy.
Foreign direct investments or FDIs are the primary reason that the CCP has been allowed to hold onto their political power, despite China undergoing economic liberation. According to Gallagher, FDIs allowed China to integrate into the global economy in a way that heavily differed from other East Asian countries. FDIs allowed China to create more economics opportunities for Chinese firms, and also workers. FDI liberalization increased competition among Chinese regions that vied for FDIs investments. Also, FDIs created an economy where competition between foreign and domestic firms allowed for a higher demand in skilled laborers. FDIs liberation success allowed the CCP to enact other economic reform policies that would otherwise garner negative feedback. Due to that, the Chinese economy was able to undergo economic reforms, and the success of the FDIs allowed the CCP to maintain their political power. Chinese companies during this time were also forced to adopt capitalistic strategies in order to gain advantages over their competition. The presence of foreign businesses also sparked a stronger sense of nationalism, the debate was no longer public or private industries, but it was now domestic vs foreign. This sense of nationalism allowed the Chinese government to privatize, as it was now seen as a justifiable measure to combat foreign competition. While, FDIs was an economic success for China, the biggest achievement was that FDIs allowed the CCP to go through economic reforms without losing their political influence.
The second reason most experts would argue for why the CCP has been able to continue to latch onto their power is based on the theory of performance legitimacy. According to Liu, in her article Why China Will Democratize, “the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be safe as long as the economy keeps growing, or what is known as ‘‘performance legitimacy”. The CCP has been using the strategy of performance legitimacy, since China underwent economic reform after Mao’s death. Performance legitimacy strategy essentially means that the CCP will attempt to accomplish tangible goals like economic growth, or increase military capabilities in order to preserve legitimacy within China. The idea of performance legitimacy simplifies heavily on why the CCP has been able to stay in power, and why China has not democratized. If the citizens in China believe that their standard of living is improving due to the CCP’s actions, then there would not be strong motivation for change. China’s rapidly rising economy in the past decade have allowed the CCP to not only stay in power, but have also prevented China from democratizing.
Foreign direct investments, and performance legitimacy answers the question on why China have not democratized in the past decade. However, it does not answer the question of whether or not China will be a democracy in the future. The CCP have done a masterful job of staying in power, throughout the entire economic reform process. Despite those accomplishments, there are still substantial amount of evidence and theories that support the claim that China will soon become a democracy. The CCP have not prevented China from undergoing democratization, but they have successfully delayed the process. China will be a democracy within the next ten years due to: modernization and globalization, increasing income inequality, and technological advancements.
China is seen as an exception to modernization theory, however the CCP has only been successful in delaying democratization not necessarily preventing it. The relationship between democracy and modernization have been researched countless times in comparative politics. In basic terms, as a country modernizes and experiences economic growth, the chances of that country becoming a democracy is significantly higher. This is due to a growing middle class, rise in education level, and expansion of communication networks. These changes lead to a much higher demand of self-government, and participation in politics, primarily due to the fact that educated people value democracy much more.  Therefore, the modernization theory and the idea of performance legitimacy contrast and seem to directly oppose one another. Modernization theory argues that as China’s economy continues to grow, the CCP will lose their power and will democratize. While, performance legitimacy theory argues that the CCP will continue to stay in power as long as China’s economy continues to strive. But, there is an argument to be made that the performance legitimacy theory can only slow down the process of democratization, and modernization will eventually lead to democratization. Yu argued that “performance legitimacy can be problematic when economic growth is not continuous. Rapid growth followed by a significant slowdown, or macroeconomic instability, may pose a greater threat to an authoritarian regime than steady stagnation”. In recent years, while China’s economic growth is still increasing, it is no longer as rapid as past years. Therefore, the CCP might lose support as China will no longer be experiencing the rapid economic growth it was in the past. It is extremely unlikely that China maintains such a large economic growth rate for the next ten years. Also, there have been past examples of countries going through democratization despite experiencing economic success: South Korea, Taiwan, and Spain. As a result, despite the fact that both theories seem to be on the opposite side of the spectrum, in the CCP’s case they might both prove to be accurate in China’s democratization.
The modernization theory argues that democracy and modernization are directly correlated. However, there is a debate on whether modernization causes democracy, or modernization simply allows democratization to be successful. According to Przeworski in his article Modernization: Theories and Facts, he states “either democracies may be more likely to emerge as countries develop economically, or they may be established independently of economic development but may be more likely to survive in developed countries. We call the first explanation endogenous and the second exogenous”. Democratic institutions are not created when a country hits a certain economic milestone, but modernization and economic success allows democratization to be successful and more likely. This is due to the fact that modernization creates a larger middle class which happens to be the driving force for most countries to democratize. In poor countries, the biggest problems are surviving, and the participation in politics is not a priority in everyday life. However, modernization creates social and cultural change, and could potentially result in political participation. Also as countries continue to get wealthier, education level of citizens continues to increase, and educated individuals will tend to favor a government system that takes their thoughts into account. In his article, Przeworski also explains that authoritarian governments will also be incentivized to not struggle for power in wealthier countries. “Suppose that the political forces competing over the distribution of income choose between complying with the verdicts of democratic competition, in which case each can expect to get some share of total income, or risking a fight over dictatorship, which is costly but which gives the victor all of the income. Now suppose that the marginal utility of consumption is lower at higher levels of consumption. Thus the gain from winning the struggle for dictatorship is smaller” (Przeworksi). The CCP is still currently in power, and while it seems that China is not any closer to becoming a democracy, that is very far from the truth. Modernization have created all the necessary social and cultural changes in China to not only instill democracy, but embrace it.
Globalization indirectly spreads democracy and continues to be used by democratic countries on authoritarian governments. Japan and China have had a tension filled history, however when Japan noticed China’s rise it tried its best to instill China into the international community. Japan knew that having China in the international community would help their relationship, and potentially influence them to turn away from the authoritarian regime seek a democratic form of government. Globalization has been used to promote democratization in the past and have been largely successful. The most tangible evidence is the inclusion of democratic normality’s, like human rights into international institutions. For example, the European union requires countries be a democratic country before approval despite the fact that the European Union is an economic institution. So, globalization has been a tool used by western groups on authoritarian governments with indirect effects. Many authoritarian governments like China understand the economic benefits being in global institutions have, but are usually forced to accept certain political stipulations to join. Catharin Dalphino in her article Does Globalization Promote Democracy?: An Early Assessment, she argued that the United States have done something similar to China “more than a decade successive U.S. administrations have claimed that broadly maintaining trade with China, and specifically encouraging China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, would provide a back-door route to political reform. Adhering to WTO rules would require the regime in Beijing to provide more transparent and accountable government and would strengthen the concept of the rule of law, two fundamentals in modern democratic systems”. Also, globalization allows democratic countries to instill pressure, and persuade non-democratic countries to embrace democratic normality. While, globalization does not necessarily force authoritarian governments to give up their power, it does however pressure and indirectly makes authoritarian governments make changes.
While globalization indirectly persuades authoritarian countries to instill democratic norms, the primarily purpose of globalization is to promote economic development in countries. In other words, globalization promotes modernization and in effect the rise of the middle class. Once the middle class reaches the majority, there will be a demand of political influence from the people and creating democratic system becomes the front running option. Globalization goes hand in hand with modernization, and western democracies have used globalization as a way to instill democratic beliefs into countries like South Korea and Taiwan. In China’s case, western countries have tried to instill China onto the international community, and now China is in an abundance of trade treaties and organizations like ASEAN. According to Haley Hubbard, in her article The effects of Globalization on Chinese Government, “China now has a dual system in place that has historically not been cohesive. The economy is running on a slightly altered free market system, and the people are controlled by a communist government. China has experience the downsides of both. Capitalism has brought rising unemployment and increasing”. This dual system economy has caused public outrage, and Hubbard argues could potentially cause a change in government.  Globalization have had huge effects on how China currently runs their economy, and that has caused many citizens to be upset with the status quo. However, the biggest effect globalization has on China is the fact that many of China’s surrounding countries are democratic. Research shows that countries are more likely to become democratic if neighboring countries are also democratic. This combined with Globalization promoting modernization makes it very difficult for the CCP to continue to keep China from democratizing. Globalization and China’s role in the international community are both huge reasons why China will be democratized in the future.
Income inequality has become a national issue in China, and will have a huge effect on the CCP’s ability to maintain power if the issue is not solved.  Li Gan in his article Income Inequality and Consumption in China, stated “China’s Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality on a scale from complete equality (zero) to complete inequality (one), reache(d) 0.61”. During that time, the global average was 0.44, much lower than China’s Gini level. However, Gan argued that despite China’s high Gini level it was to be expected from a country that was undergoing such rapidly increasing economic growth. The true issue of income inequality lied in the income gap between rural and urban citizens in China. Gan in his article also stated that “the average disposable income in Chinese urban households was 79,000 yuan—2.2 times that of rural households”.  The income gap between rural and urban areas had characteristics that also contributed to the increasing gap: rural households’ poor health, rural households tend to not have social insurance, and lower level of education (Gan). The income inequality between the rural and urban households is starting to become a national issue. Originally China’s increasing inequality was not seen as a huge problem for the CCP because intra-urban and intra-rural inequality was relatively tame. So, it was hard to see the huge inequality between urban and rural areas, as it was not visible to outsiders then. However, there was a large influx of rural to urban migration. This allowed citizens from rural area to see how vast the wage cap was. In her article, Yu explained that “Abstract inequality is becoming more ‘real’, with increasing numbers of people from rural areas moving into cities where luxury shopping malls, apartment buildings, and restaurants are springing up, reminding the urban poor of what is beyond their reach”. Now that the income inequality is visible between rural and urban citizens, the CCP will have to find a way to amend this issue before it is too late.
In the recent years, Chinese citizens have made it obvious that the income inequality is an issue that they demand to be dealt with. While in the past, citizens noticed that income inequality was an issue but chose to ignore it as China was undergoing a rapid economic growth that gave ordinary citizens the opportunity to strive for upward mobility. However, recently there have been much more tension between the poor and the rich. There was a survey conducted in Shan xi of China, in which residents stated their wish for the New Year. The results were 35% of the citizens wanted the income gap to be narrowed (Yu). The increasing tension have split the poor and the rich, and outcries by the poor stating that the rich are privilege have started to make national headlines. According to Yu “Clear signs of resentment caused by inequality have emerged, with the phenomenon of ‘‘hating the rich’’ and ‘‘hating the cadres’’ (the two groups are often overlapping) sweeping China”. The younger demographic of China has also started to rise up and shun the CCP for the income inequality. The younger generation are much harsher, as they did not have to live through the revolutionary or Mao era. Therefore, their requirements and set of living standards are much higher and now see education, medical benefits, and etc. as rights not benefits.  The CCP have noticed the increasing tension, and have enacted reforms to hopefully attack income inequality. They have done this by investing their money into building roads and housing in the much poorer parts of the country. However, the issue in that is that those investment will most likely not bring back much return. This could spell trouble for the CCP if China’s economy would to halt in growth, leaving most of the upper class looking elsewhere to invest their assets. Combine the hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens living in poverty, and the resentment between the rich and the poor could potentially cause civil unrest in China. If the CCP is unable to appease the poor citizens of China, and income inequality continues to be an issue, there could potentially be a civil uprising against the CCP. Censorship and propaganda has been a tool the CCP have relied on since they have taken power, however with advancements in technology and social media it can all backfire. Dating back to the Mao-Era, the CCP have used a self-censorship system in order to keep their citizens in line. According to Perry Link, author of the article China: The Anaconda in the Chandelier, “Chinese Communist Party rejected these more mechanical methods in favor of an essentially psychological control system that relies primarily on self censorship. Questions of risk—how far to go, how explicit to be, with whom to ally, and so on”. The CCP primary goal was to keep everything as vague as possible, and let their citizens censor themselves. Link would go on to explain on how the CCP wanted censorship to be enforced by explaining “A vague accusation frightens more people. If I, like Gao Zhan, am a Chinese scholar working in the US, and I don’t know why she was arrested, then the reason could be virtually anything; therefore it could be what I am doing; therefore I pull back. (Result: many people begin to censor themselves.) If, on the other hand, I could know exactly why Gao Zhan was nabbed, then I could feel fairly confident that my own work was all right—or, if not, how to make it all right”. The CCPs censorship technique used at the time was extremely effective. But, times have changed, and technology has advanced and so have the CCP’s ways to implement censorship.
The CCP currently still uses many forms of self-censorship techniques, however the means to do so have changed drastically with the creation of the internet and advancement in technology. According to Beina Xu, in her article Media Censorship in China, she states that “China ranked last for the second consecutive year out of sixty-five countries that represent 88 percent of the world’s internet users. The France-based watchdog group Reporters Without Borders ranked China 176 out of 180 countries in its 2016 worldwide index of press freedom”. The CCP is still very much in control of what is seen in China, and what type of information should be accessed on the internet. There are many websites, primarily social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that are completely blocked. Also, many western news outlets that might have been critical of the CCP have also been blocked in the country. The CCP have embraced the information era, and citizens have been given access to much more information. However, it could be argued that the government has become very more repressive, in an effort to preserve its hold on Chinese society.
The CCP’s use of internet censorship will result in more harm than good, and could potentially advocate for a more democratic system. Despite heavily internet restrictions and banned websites in China, many Chinese citizens have been able to overcome the Great Firewall of China with VPNs. These VPNs allow Chinese citizens to access any blocked websites they’d like, and VPNs have become increasingly more popular and common in the past years. According to Thomas Lum, in his article China, Internet Freedom, and U.S. Policy, “Between 1% and 8% of Web users in China use proxy servers and virtual private networks to get around government-erected Internet firewalls to access censored content—both political and non-political”. While 1-8% does not seem like a large number, as years go by the percentage of Chinese citizens using VPNs will also continue to grow. This will lead to much higher degree of accountability on the CCP in terms of repressing information. Also, more VPNs are used, western social media was also being much more integrated into the everyday lives of Chinese citizens making it much easier to spread information on potential corruption or issues the CCP is trying to hide. Advancement in technology has made it nearly impossible for the CCP to continue to oppress their citizens, and the more information is being safeguarded from citizens the likelier there will be a civil uprising.
The ongoing debate of whether or not China will or will not democratize won’t be answered for the next couple of years. However, there is an abundance of evidence that show that the CCP will slowly lose control of China and Chinese citizens. The CCP will not lose political influence of China due to simply modernization, but due to a multitude of reasons. As China continues to be grow economically, and instill their presence onto the international community, Chinese citizens will demand more involvement in politics. The CCP have done a shockingly good job at maintaining power throughout their history, but it is only a matter of time before Chinese citizens are sick of the status quo and want to make their own decisions. Modernization, globalization, income inequality, and technological advancements are all hurdles that the CCP must overcome to continue their rule over China. The idea that the CCP will be able to somehow solve all these problems, and continue to repress Chinese citizens in the next ten years seem farfetched. Therefore, there is currently no real threat of war between the United States and China.  There is no doubt that China will democratize similar to other East Asian countries, the only question is whether it will be sooner or later than we anticipate.