The most important stop that President Barack Obama made on his recent diplomatic tour of the Asian Pacific Rim was in China. America’s relationship with China is it’s most important one by far. How China and the U.S. treat each other will define the state of the world in the 21st century.
From an economic perspective, America and China might as well be blood brothers.
Principally, China is a major financier of America’s massive federal deficit. This worries some pundits who see the excellent growth of the Chinese economy while ours is mired in recession. The main reason that China is blessed with 8 to 10 percent annual increases in GDP is that they are producing things that America and the European Union want to buy. Raw materials and investment money flow easily into China, finding entrepreneurs who want to further expand trans-Pacific trade.
Politically, though, the two great powers are much more distant. The President was most criticized for not saying more about this difference. China’s government is no longer pure communism, but their authoritarian tendencies show no signs of abating. Their suppression of dissent and control of information is legendary, as evidenced by the tight restrictions they placed on Obama and the media during the trip. As the Chinese military grows and modernizes in leaps and bounds, this authoritarianism disheartens Taiwan and those in repressed areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang. Most people would also like to see the average Chinese citizen have more influence in their country’s future.
Obama was very right not to press these issues publicly during his visit, especially now when global economic cooperation is of the utmost importance. Time, instead, will be the ultimate judge of the current Chinese regime. Right now, democracy is a dirty word in the Chinese political lexicon. The ruling party thinks, perhaps legitimately, that democratization of China done too quickly will destabilize the nation, halting that flow of investment and commerce that binds China to the rest of the world.
Stability and growth at any cost is a policy with its downsides. It creates the troubling authoritarian state of Chinese politics, as well as encouraging crime and corruption.
Economic growth, meanwhile, has exposed Chinese citizens to a wider world of freedom as the country modernizes. The more opportunity that citizens have to succeed, the more difficult it is for their government to control them.
China’s workforce is almost three times the total population of the U.S., and their wages and standards of living are on the rise. Right now, they are starting to demand products.
Consumption is making up a much larger part of Chinese GDP as the onventional one-way trade system is being rethought.
I think that it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that in the future, as Chinese dissatisfaction with crime, corruption and authoritarianism grows, that newly empowered Chinese citizens are going to demand a wider democratization of their government as well. The government’s authoritarianism eventually won’t be desirable or even feasible. America doesn’t really need to force democracy on China. History shows that it’s only a matter of time before they force it on themselves.
